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Hello everybody, welcome back to Daily Easy English Expressions.
The Budgels.
This is number 1,051.
We're going to learn ivory tower.
The way we usually use it is he is in his ivory tower.
She lives in an ivory tower.
They are up in an ivory tower and ivory tower, you have to think back to a castle, a European
castle from a long, long time ago.
And of course, a castle is made of stone, right?
But this castle is so valuable, so expensive, so they have so much money that it's made
of ivory.
Do you know what ivory is?
I-V-O-R-Y.
Ivory is actually from, usually from an elephant, but it could be from other animals too.
But the ivory tower, it's not necessarily made of ivory, but it's a place for rich people,
for rich and powerful people.
If you go into a rich or powerful person's home, you will see maybe ivory decorations.
There will be ivory somewhere in the house.
Ivory is very expensive now in 2022.
Ivory is even more expensive because it's illegal, you can't create new ivory as far as
I know, I'm not exactly sure.
But anyway, ivory from elephants, oh yeah, that's a dangerous issue.
But anyway, the old rich people had it.
And where did they keep it in their houses?
And we call their really rich, opulent houses, so different from the poor people, we call
them ivory towers.
So this expression has come to mean, people who are rich, who have lots of money, who are
very distant from regular people, especially from poor people, but even middle class people.
So right now in America, we have an example of someone who lives in an ivory tower.
We have our Department of Transportation Secretary, Pete Buttigieg, or Buttigieg, or Buddy
Geek, I don't know how you pronounce his name.
Anyway, this guy, he is the Secretary of the Department of Transportation.
So he's like right below President Biden in the US government.
So he's very powerful person and he's the boss of transportation, all transportation
stuff and gasoline and highways and things like that.
And of course in March of 2022, the world is suffering from inflation, not only COVID,
the war in Ukraine, there's many, many, many problems.
And all of these problems together are making things very expensive.
The US government has spent so much money, so we have inflation.
So in the United States, we have gas prices going up super fast.
I mean, really, tremendously fast.
And Pete Buttigieg, or Buddy Geek, whatever his name is, this is what he said, if you cannot
afford gasoline, then buy an electric car.
And he wasn't joking, he was serious.
And yes, it's a nice idea.
That's right gasoline is expensive.
It might be nice to have an electric car.
The problem is the vast majority of Americans do not have 30, 40, 50, 60 thousand dollars
to spend on an electric car.
Yeah, that's a problem.
Now he does, because he's rich.
He's always had lots of money.
He lives in an ivory tower.
People were having a hard time with $5 per gallon, $4.
Right now where I live, it's $4.40 per gallon of gas.
And where I live, if you see 100 cars on the road, probably 80 of those cars, 80 of
those people are middle class to lower class.
And believe me, that $4.40 per gallon of gas is very expensive to them.
It's cutting up their food.
And food prices are already going up.
So this is a really, really difficult time for those people.
They all drive used cars, old cars, cars that need servicing, cars that need new tires.
But you know what?
Having an electric car is impossible for those people.
And they have to go to work.
You know, you have to drive to work.
You have to take your kids to school.
You have things like that.
There are responsibilities that you do need a car and where we live.
There's no public transportation.
There isn't any.
Taxis are more expensive.
The only alternative is to drive.
And an electric car is impossible.
Let them eat cake.
This kind of a similar expression.
Do you know that expression?
Do you know who said that?
Let them eat cake.
Pete Buddha, judge your buddy geek, whatever his name is.
Why an electric car is America's version of Let Them Eat Cake?
These people are so disconnected with the regular person they live in an ivory tower.
Check out the dialogue.
She controls everything from her ivory tower.
The people are getting angry.
When's the next election?
Not soon enough.
What about in your country?
Is the government of the government people controlling things from their ivory tower?
Or are they actually really good?
And do they try to really help the average common person in America more and more and more
people are realizing that the government absolutely is sitting in an ivory tower.
Lots of people join or start out in the government really trying to help.
They have a vision.
They really want to help.
But soon, not all of them, but most of them realize that being in the ivory tower is
actually very comfortable and very nice.
And soon they want to protect themselves in the ivory tower.
And the masses of people let them eat cake.
If you don't want to be poor, make more money.
If gas is expensive, buy an electric car.
Words from the ivory tower.
We don't typical people do not like ivory towers.
Some people do.
Especially if you live there.
Alright, that is today's expression.
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And I'll log two more times and together, let's master English.
She controls everything from her ivory tower.
The people are getting angry.
When's the next election?
Not soon enough.
She controls everything from her ivory tower.
The people are getting angry.
When's the next election?
Soon enough.
