Multi-Millionaire Brian Williams Lectures Viewers on Income Inequality

NewsBusters.org ^ | January 21, 2014 | Kyle Drennan

[Kaslin]

On Monday's NBC Nightly News, anchor Brian Williams – who reportedly earned $13 million a year in 2012 – quoted Karl Marx while hyping a new report on global income disparity: "...the staggering news out today about the growing gap between the haves and the have nots." [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump]

Williams melodramatically recited the findings: "Some new figures came out today....And they are so shocking, it takes a while for them to sink in. A study commissioned by Oxfam says the world's richest 85 individuals have the same wealth as 3.5 billion people around the world. Once again, 85 people on this planet have the same amount of wealth as the poorest 3.5 billion people on this planet."

Multi-Millionaire Brian Williams Lectures Viewers on Income Inequality

As NewsBusters' Tim Graham reported in 2008, this is the same Brian Williams who "lives in one of New York's swankiest addresses in Manhattan with the chic restaurant Le Cirque on the ground floor, which offers high priced cuisine like an appetizer of terrine of foie gras with Gewurtztraminer gelee for $38. 'It's better than having an Applebee's in the lobby,' he joked to the New York Observer in 2006."

Williams has a history of hypocrisy when it comes to scolding others for their wealth or spending habits. In January of 2012, he actually had the nerve to hit then-Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney over his "unimaginable wealth." In August of 2012, he wrung his hands over the amount of money spent in that year's presidential race:

...spending on 2012 presidential radio and TV ads has now surpassed the half-billion-dollar mark....$500 million could feed 9.2 million malnourished children for 50 days. It could immunize 29 million children for life. It could provide clean water for 500 million children for 40 days. And it could buy 166 million antimalarial mosquito bed nets, two for every person in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

On Monday, after noting that "the top 1% of families own 46% of our total global wealth," Williams added that the annual World Economic Forum would "be focused in large part on this growing and dangerous income disparity."

Here is a full transcript of the January 20 news brief by Williams:

7:17PM ET TEASE:

BRIAN WILLIAMS: We're back in a moment with the staggering news out today about the growing gap between the haves and the have nots.

7:22PM ET SEGMENT:

WILLIAMS: Some new figures came out today, as we mentioned, on global wealth and income disparity. And they are so shocking, it takes a while for them to sink in. A study commissioned by Oxfam says the world's richest 85 individuals have the same wealth as 3.5 billion people around the world. Once again, 85 people on this planet have the same amount of wealth as the poorest 3.5 billion people on this planet. The top 1% of families own 46% of our total global wealth. Their share equals $110 trillion.

These numbers have come out on the eve of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, which, while attended by the rich and powerful, is this year going to be focused in large part on this growing and dangerous income disparity.

[DLfromthedesert]

Typical Marxist: 4 legs good; 2 legs better!

[BookmanTheJanitor]

he's just serving his master

[PieterCasparzen]

Serves his new world order masters.

If you want to hear new world order’s daily propaganda, tune in to Brian.

Well, and any other TV news.

[ArcadeQuarters]

Strange. Income inequality is the theme of Obama’s current propaganda campaign. It must just be a coincidence that NBC is pushing this.

[Ray76]

All income should be equal? Phhffft! Laugh these fools off the stage.

[loveliberty2]

Thanks, Kaslin, for another great post.

Americans should hold fast to the Founders' ideas of liberty instead of allowing its current leader and media moguls and spokespersons to convince them to plunge themselves and their nation into European-style socialism.

So-called "Progressives," who first described themselves as "liberals," thought not in the classical sense, have been attempting to "transform" America for well over a hundred years now.

From the Liberty Fund Library is "A Plea for Liberty: An Argument Against Socialism and Socialistic Legislation," edited by Thomas Mackay (1849 - 1912), Chapter 1, excerpted final paragraphs from Edward Stanley Robertson's essay:

"I have suggested that the scheme of Socialism is wholly incomplete unless it includes a power of restraining the increase of population, which power is so unwelcome to Englishmen that the very mention of it seems to require an apology. I have showed that in France, where restraints on multiplication have been adopted into the popular code of morals, there is discontent on the one hand at the slow rate of increase, while on the other, there is still a 'proletariat,' and Socialism is still a power in politics.
I.44
"I have put the question, how Socialism would treat the residuum of the working class and of all classes—the class, not specially vicious, nor even necessarily idle, but below the average in power of will and in steadiness of purpose. I have intimated that such persons, if they belong to the upper or middle classes, are kept straight by the fear of falling out of class, and in the working class by positive fear of want. But since Socialism purposes to eliminate the fear of want, and since under Socialism the hierarchy of classes will either not exist at all or be wholly transformed, there remains for such persons no motive at all except physical coercion. Are we to imprison or flog all the 'ne'er-do-wells'?
I.45
"I began this paper by pointing out that there are inequalities and anomalies in the material world, some of which, like the obliquity of the ecliptic and the consequent inequality of the day's length, cannot be redressed at all. Others, like the caprices of sunshine and rainfall in different climates, can be mitigated, but must on the whole be endured. I am very far from asserting that the inequalities and anomalies of human society are strictly parallel with those of material nature. I fully admit that we are under an obligation to control nature so far as we can. But I think I have shown that the Socialist scheme cannot be relied upon to control nature, because it refuses to obey her. Socialism attempts to vanquish nature by a front attack. Individualism, on the contrary, is the recognition, in social politics, that nature has a beneficent as well as a malignant side. The struggle for life provides for the various wants of the human race, in somewhat the same way as the climatic struggle of the elements provides for vegetable and animal life—imperfectly, that is, and in a manner strongly marked by inequalities and anomalies. By taking advantage of prevalent tendencies, it is possible to mitigate these anomalies and inequalities, but all experience shows that it is impossible to do away with them. All history, moreover, is the record of the triumph of Individualism over something which was virtually Socialism or Collectivism, though not called by that name. In early days, and even at this day under archaic civilisations, the note of social life is the absence of freedom. But under every progressive civilisation, freedom has made decisive strides—broadened down, as the poet says, from precedent to precedent. And it has been rightly and naturally so.
I.46
"Freedom is the most valuable of all human possessions, next after life itself. It is more valuable, in a manner, than even health. No human agency can secure health; but good laws, justly administered, can and do secure freedom. Freedom, indeed, is almost the only thing that law can secure. Law cannot secure equality, nor can it secure prosperity. In the direction of equality, all that law can do is to secure fair play, which is equality of rights but is not equality of conditions. In the direction of prosperity, all that law can do is to keep the road open. That is the Quintessence of Individualism, and it may fairly challenge comparison with that Quintessence of Socialism we have been discussing. Socialism, disguise it how we may, is the negation of Freedom. That it is so, and that it is also a scheme not capable of producing even material comfort in exchange for the abnegations of Freedom, I think the foregoing considerations amply prove." EDWARD STANLEY ROBERTSON

[andyk]

Tell us, Brian, what is the correct wage distribution?

[MrB]

Arrogant bastards think they are smart and moral enough to decide who and what is “equal enough”.

[GeronL]

There are no trillionaires, so how can 85 people have $110 trillion??

[loveliberty2]

Oooops!

Should have read: "So-called "Progressives," who first described themselves as "liberals," though not in the classical sense, have been attempting to "transform" America for well over a hundred years now."

[hosepipe]

Some enterprising comic could make a lot of money on this hilarity..

If not a lot of money then a lot of laughs.. what a set up..

Brian stepped in a puddle of BULL Sperm..
In a just world he would never live this down..

[Born to Conserve]

Why do you think they call it ‘wealth’?

[GeronL]

Some kid mopping the floor at McDonalds is worth how much Brian? The same as the guy who started a company, invented a new widget and built a large corporation out of it?

[Made In The USA]

“...the world’s richest 85 individuals have the same wealth as 3.5 billion people around the world.”

I’d guessing that those 85 individuals own businesses or make investments that employ tens of thousands of people, or provide capital for other firms that do.

I would also guess that among those 85 persons are people who routinely donate to charitable organizations, churches, and schools...

[Sarah Barracuda]

Liberals like Brian Williams actually consider themselves middle class, they don’t consider themselves rich, that way they can get away with wanting to “spread the wealth” as long as its not their wealth since they dont consider themselves rich at all

[hosepipe]

There are no trillionaires, so how can 85 people have $110 trillion??

---

One word... ZIMBABWE!...

[AU72]

If the new DNC talking point was that green bananas causes racism, NBC will have a special about it.

[barefoot_hiker]

I think some douche who reads the “news” off a teleprompter should earn about $20,000 per year. Sounds fair to me.

[Ray76]

That last paragraph is killer. It’s the absolute truth.