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Billionaires get a bad rap. Misunderstood and unfairly treated. The Earth has 2,781 billionaires, 141 more than last year. The club is getting bigger, but it’s still very exclusive.

When we think of billionaires, the words robber-barons, feudal lords, plutocrats, oligarchs, toplofty, grandisonant, supercilious, or from comic books, big-shots and fat-cats, come to find. Sometimes, the word philanthropist can be used to describe certain billionaires, when the giving is heartfelt and significant enough to make a difference.

Billionaires are usually cursed, and that’s a darn shame. They worked hard for their money, or family money, buying politicians, spreading money to the right places, funding think-tanks to change public opinion, and pushing theories of trickle-down economics, flat tax rates and tax breaks for targeted development. It’s exhausting and expensive to get the proper form of government and convincing the working class that it they just work harder and share more of the burden, life will be better. Amen.

Often we see billionaires as the enemy, instead of as the protectors of the true American spirit. Think back to the frontier days, it was every man (white men, and not women) for himself. Law and order had not yet been rewritten creating two justice systems, one for the wealthy and creative, and the other for everyone not wealthy. Yes, frontiersmen had to be tricky, sometimes underhanded, swindlers when necessary, hire gunmen to threaten or kill, and put into office, men who would look favorably on the rights of the wealthy. Coloring outside the lines was how motivated and resourceful men got ahead. Industry was built, railroads established, banks funded, states made part of the country, lands stolen and blood spilled for the greater good. America was built on cunning opportunists who knew the power of money. Thank God, that spirit is still alive today in boardrooms, on Wall Street and the showrooms of luxury yacht dealers.

If Hurston Howell III was alive today (or then), he would be a good spokesman for the wealthy, the owners of most of the world’s resources and financial assets. He might even be elected President. Wait, we had one of those already.