Us vs. Them: The Idle Rich vs. the Working Rich
Don’t you hate those rich people who inherited all their wealth? They were just born into privileged circumstances and did absolutely no work to earn it. And still, that’s never enough for such greedy individuals, and they constantly seek more and demand to have everything they want handed to them.
It’s a bitter, craven existence, and that sense of entitlement and wanting to just take from others does nothing but hurt this country. And if anyone deserves to be taxed heavily in this country, it’s these idle wealthy who don’t deserve their riches in the first place. Lucky for the taxman, then, there are a few hundred million of them to go after.
Let’s get one thing straight: We label people in the U.S. as poor, middle class, and rich, but that is all utter bull. I mean, look at what we call poor in this country. Poor people have cars, cell phones, TV with hundreds of channels, the internet, electricity, running water — these are riches even the wealthiest of a hundred years or so ago couldn’t even dream of having. And look at our poor compared to actual poor people in other countries — not poor in the sense that they have to buy store brand soda but poor in that they could easily starve to death in the streets.
When you look at other countries and the history of the world in general, we are all just amazingly, unbelievably wealthy in this country. We have technology and opportunities that are insane; we can’t even comprehend how well off we are compared to people who used to have to live in huts and fight for every meal. When you look at it objectively, every one of us in this country is a billionaire. And what did we do to earn all this incredible wealth? For most of us, the answer is: absolutely nothing. We were just born with it. So we take it for granted. And we demand even more.
There is another type of rich person, though — the working rich. The people who create. These are the people who made all the benefits we enjoy in society today. Thanks to their creativity and initiative, we have all the technological marvels we enjoy today. Because of their hard work, we have all these companies that give us cushy 9-to-5 jobs where we earn sums of money most of the world couldn’t even imagine possessing. And are we thankful? Do we say, “Thank you, rich people, for making all these things so we can benefit from them. I can’t even believe how simple and easy my life is because of you”? No, we demand more from them, because we’re the idle rich, and we think the working rich owe us everything.
I call them “mistletoe people” because they suck the life out of their productive hosts.
Just as a healthy oak tree can fight back and survive, people who have solid roots, patience and a work ethic will prevail.
Mistletoe blooms bright green for a while but it is so easy to knock off a branch because it has no strength of its own.
The idle mistletoe people will collapse. They have no strength of their own.
Yes dear, but the problem is, these “Mistletoe” people are all in the government.
And their root system runs deeper than we imagine. They’ve infiltrated all the school systems, and universities through the Teachers Unions, and the Police, Fire, sanitation workers, and every layer of local state and federal governments through AFSCME and others.
They have, through bribary with our own money, gotten “laws” enacted specifying the irreversable growth of their salaries. And not the simple anual pay raises we commoners get, mind you.
No, no, no, they also get automatic “steps” in addition to their anuals, for time in service, and “additional education” like obtaining a Masters Degree while still teaching the same 4th grade math curriculum….a phenomenon in the Business World known as being OVER-QUALIFIED, a situation that requires an INCREASED IN RESPONSIBILITIES or CHANGE OF EMPLOYMENT in order to realize a higher salary….
Not so with Government Workers….and dont forget their their golden, “zero input from themselves” level retirement plans, so that we end up paying 60 years worth of salary for 20 years worth of “service”.
Those “Mistletoe” parasites sure know where to settle in…
Question is, can we undo the damage, before we’re too weak to fight the disease?
Why not just restrict voting rights to those who pay personal taxes? Or, alternatively, disenfranchise entitlement recipients?
Completely agreee. Almost half the people don’t pay federal income taxes. They should not be allowed to vote in federal elections. No representation without taxation.
You seem to forget that the instance of the top 10% of income earners paying 40% of income taxes only began two years ago. If you have trouble with that math, I’m referring to when Bush and the Retardicans caused the great recession. Also payroll taxes account for a greater percentage of federal revenue. 99% of those taxes are paid by the bottom 90% of income earners.
Are you stupid or something? Maybe a troll? Go back to your leaders and tell them they messed up some numbers and now, nobody will believe you. Don’t come back either.
Jim Baker,
I’m sorry to have to make you look stupid but I wouldn’t living up to my name if I didn’t.
Below is a link detailing the tax info. that was reported to the IRS; which supports my comment about income taxation:
http://www.irs.gov/taxstats/indtaxstats/article/0,,id=133521,00.html
The link below details what Americans reported to the Census Dept. concerning what their income percentages are; that info. supports my comment about payroll taxation.
http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/STTable?_bm=y&-geo_id=01000US&-qr_name=ACS_2009_5YR_G00_S2001&-ds_name=ACS_2009_5YR_G00_&-_lang=en&-redoLog=false&-format=&-CONTEXT=st
Nice try. Perhaps instead of going back to your leaders, you should instead go back to school.
Good solution but in a era when the election plan is to import and vote enough illegal aliens to counterbalance the Roe effect each Election Cycle whn’t we have to go to war?
I saw that fewer people have income under Obama than since they started records in 1929. I believe it.
Forget about comparing our lives to the lives of people in very poor nations. Simply look how far we’ve come between now and the Great Depression. During this major Recession, did anybody die in the streets from hunger? Did anybody die from lack of medical care? Have “Hooverville” types of shantytowns sprung up all over the country with millions of homeless people living in them because they don’t have a place to stay? No, not at all. Although the American public is struggling, there is no comparison between the pain the American public endured during the Great Depression and today.
Once we get a Republican back in the White House in 2012, the economy will pick up again and all of this socialist tinkering with our economy could start to go away. That is, of course, unless it’s too late. Our economy is still headed into the ground and Obamacare kicks in soon, unless we repeal it. If Obamacare really does kick in, it will cost this government a fortune to maintain, just like in Britain, and then we really will be sunk because most of our budget will be used simply to pay for it. We will be no better than any of the bankrupt social-welfare states in Europe, if that’s what we really want. If not, we have a lot of work to do to stop that, and the first step to fiscal salvation is to vote Obama out of office. It may not be too late, but the clock to fiscal destruction IS ticking.
Did people die in the first four years of the Great Depression? “Brother Can you spare a dime” is asking for seven dollars purchasing power today.
The dust bowl came later and the great flood of 1937 was in 1937. FDR did not confiscate the gold until 1933.
The starvation followed after people exhausted their resources and emergencies occurred that they needed the resources and no longer had them. Look for hunger and death in 2014 and beyond. In the great depression it took a few years longer but Americans were richer in 1929 than they were in 2007.
True — we’re worse than the guy who was born on third base and thinks he hit a triple. We’re the guy who was born on third base and thinks he was cheated out of our home run.
Just a great column. Great points.
There is two-way redistribution in statist America. The redistribution we know about is from people who work to people who prefer not to, in the form of tax credits, welfare, medicare, food stamps, and a gazillion other programs designed to buy the votes of people who have better things to do with their time than work.
But the other way redistribution may be even larger and more pernicious. That’s the redistribuion to crony capitalists, trust fund babies, slip and fall lawyers, union thugs and other liberal sychophants. Basically, the tax code is written for the idle rich. Do you work? Do you make a few hundred thou a year? Add up all the taxes you pay and the rate will be around 50-60%, depending in the state you live in. Do you think John Kerry pays 50% on the “income” he pulls out of his estate his wife spread her legs to earn. It’s to laugh. If he pays 5% it would be a shock.
The crony captitalists get theirs in other ways: kickbacks, government contracts, inflated profits, uneconomic compensation packages, tax shelters, political favors.
And we know about slip and fall lawyers and union thugs. About a trillion goes to those criminals annually.
You’re not just supporting deadbeats who don’t work, you’re supporting deadbeats who can buy and sell you out of their pocket change…because they have already bought their politicians.
Make that medicaid not medicare. People pay for medicare though a lifetime of confiscatory taxes.
Medicaid is welfare…you know, what you thought was “reformed” in the 90′s. Now it’s back to the tune of about half a trill a year.
> Make that medicaid not medicare. People pay for medicare though a lifetime of confiscatory taxes.
No, they didn’t. There’s no “medicare trust fund” because, unlike SS, medicare has always cost more than is collected via medicare taxes.
Medicare taxes are a con designed to make folks think that Medicare is as solvent as SS (which I’ll admit is a very low bar).
I wouldn’t be so quick with that response.
Give back the hundreds of billions annually in fraud, the untold billions wasted because of government incompetance, and the medicare spending that goes to grifters who go on disability when the are 30 because they overeat, and medicare might have very well been solvent for the last 45 years.
The “lockbox” point, in my opinion, doesn’t apply either. The fact that criminal politicians stole the money to buy votes is hardly a reason to say that honest people haven’t paid for what they receive from medicare.
I am tired of seniors getting a pass on SS and Medicare because they “paid in” for all those years. They are also the ones that elected the idiots that spent everything and more for all those years. Seems to even out to me and they aren’t “owed” anything by me or my children.
Bet you wouldn’t feel the same way if the “free pass” that was confiscated from you amounted to many hundreds of thousands of dollars, or counting roi and cola, as any half-intelligent person would, far over a million dollars.
But of course, I understand why you want it, beause I understand the mentality of a thief. We’re surrounded by people who want what others have worked for. That’s what liberalism is all about, after all.
Two words: Atlas Shrugged.
Lots of people in the US who are creative, driven, work hard and who are good people don’t end up accumulate wealth for a variety of reasons. In addition, many of the most prominent Americans who are advocating to increase taxes on the wealthy are wealthy. This is an interesting article; I think it’s a good argument, but it’s naive. Try again…
this is due to the fact that the wealthy dont pay taxes
they shelter their money and are able to hire the lawyers and lobbyists to advocate for them
the “taxing the rich” means taxing families that make $250k and if/when inflation gets some momentum then $250k will affect the entire middle class
therefore,
we are witnessing the mechanism that will destroy the middle class; or, those individuals that dare try to make a life for themselves; too poor to ever be respected by the bluebloods but too nimble to be bogged down in the webs of welfare and government reliance
destruction of the middle class is necessary for totalitarians and free market economies are the only system that empowers the poor
Somebody gets it – inflation is a feature, not a bug in Obama’s system.
Republicans won’t raise taxes? No problem, we’ll print money and inflate everyone into higher tax brackets!
..and lower value on their savings.
What do you mean WE?
I think your definition of “rich” shows some confusion. A truly rich person as plentiful income from invested wealth which pays him automatically, like, for example, the rentier families which provide the U.S. with some of its politicians, notably the Bushes and the Kennedys. People who depend on high incomes from jobs, like that blogger a few months back who complained about the hardships of living on a salary $250,000 a year or so, don’t qualify as “rich.” Your wealth, unlike your boss, can’t fire you; and that fact separates the rich person from the “well paid” person. According to that criterion, the U.S. has relatively few truly rich people even if they make many multiples of the median U.S. household income but have inadequate net worth. We’ve seen a number of celebrities and athletes who wind up poor after making millions of dollars because they squandered their incomes instead of saving and investing them.
The popular view of wealth also shows “Richie Rich” thinking. People focus on the allegedly superior goods, services and experiences money can buy. But that misses the point of what wealth really can accomplish for you. One, it can give you a lot more control over the use of your time. With wealth, you don’t have to go to a job you hate every day; instead you could sleep in and go to Fight Club every night, if you wish.
Two, with wealth you don’t have to worry about affording health care or disability care for you and your loved ones.
Three, with wealth you can live more in tune with your natural cycles: You can eat when you feel hungry, sleep when you feel sleepy, wake up when your natural sleep cycle ends; etc. You don’t have to force your body into an artificial pattern set up for the convenience of your employers, in other words.
And four, wealth gives you the ability to get yourself and your loved ones out of harm’s way. We saw the complete absence of this power in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina.
This is correct and not widely understood.
It takes quite a fortune to be self-sustaining financially. This results from a number of factors. First to be self-sustaining, a person really can’t take big financial risks. Going for those occassional big market gains sounds great, but there is also massive downside. Self-sustaining rich don’t do that much, preferring bonds and rental income. Second, inflation cuts, even for the rich. What this means is that a self-sustaining rich family can’t really extract more than a percent or two from their assets annually, because if they do, they will inevitably fail (I’m talking “honest” rich, here. Liberal thugs are basically crime capos, so this doesn’t apply to them). The third factor is that it isn’t any fun to be rich unless you spend a lot. Somebody with millions in assets, simply isn’t going to live a 50K annual lifestyle. 500K is more like it.
Do the math, and it takes assets of about 50M and up to be genuinely self sustaining. Very very few families get there.
Most of the so-called rich are people that make a good income for a few years, set some aside and then bore through it in less than a generation. Their kids are probably not going to live as well as they were able unless they pass on some genius and entrepreneurship skills…or contribute to Spike’s campaigns.
proreason…putting aside all politics and social ideologies, lets consider a couple of issues.
1. Our political governance is corrupted.
2. Our capitalist system is corrupted.
The two element combine to form a circular continuum that in turn creates arbitraty division.
Just as labor unions corrupted the capitalist system, special interests of the capitalist system corrupted the government system….and the government corruption perpetuates a circular continuum of corruption for both. They each now feed off of each other. Ignorant of the mechanics and a feeling of helplessness comes the arbitraty social division.
Take for example the division of society over Wall Street and the investment banking industry. There was a time when real book values generated investments and good profits. Today, it is the opposite. Real book values are inflated by gross multiples. This is pure criminal manipulation by fraud and allows the insiders to become very wealthy at the expense of the nations people and economy. It is classic Russian Roulette with not only their own monies but the monies of millions of working class folks and will have great consequneces to the nation at some point in time if continued. Look how many hard working folks had their entire investment savings virtually wiped out by the housing fraud perpetuated by government and capitalist corruption. The Wall Street kinds protect their investment losses by covering them with the working folks investments….the speculators who have the skills to suck in those investments by prospecting high returns on high risk investments….or covering them by manipulating the high demand, high volume commodities which in turn inflates the cost of goods to the American people….again a component of that circular corruption in America and globally.
The same corruption and consequences happens within the confines of labor and capitalist business and manufacturing…labor and investors demanding more and more and more and more is never enough. Somebody has to pay for the more and more is never enough….and that is the working folks. Then add to that matrix the millions of folks who demand more and more handouts for doing nothing that contributes to the nations economy. These are all ingredients for a nations demise.
Social justice corruption in all sectors and levels are destroying this nation economically and by social divide.
I agree that our politics and capitalism are corrupt, but of the two, politics is far more corrupt and many times more dangerous.
Left alone, capitalism corrects itself because the markets are the ultimate judge. If the product is bad, you won’t be able to make money. If you can’t make money, you go out of business.
But politicians never go out of business. If you are willing to lie cheat and steal, as 90-95% of them are, then the risk is effectively nil. That’s why the really big time criminals are professional politicians. You don’t even have to get your fingernails dirty. The only requirement is utter contempt for the law. For examples, go down the list of democrats in congress. It’s unanimous.
But combine corrupt business and corrupt politicians, and the problem is multiplied. Throw in a corrupt media, and the brew is toxic.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094291/quotes?qt=qt0393943
too bad the video is blocked
I disagree with you, or at least in part.
Your wealth CAN indeed fire you. It requires work to maintain one’s wealth. You have to develop skills to know what is a good investment or not. You have to develop networks with other rich people. You have to socialize, go to really boring affairs. If you do not have these skills, then you have to rely on the judgment of others. A fool and his money are soon parted.
There is also a difference between riches and wealth. A rich man who has no one who truly loves him is not wealthy. Loneliness is not wealth.
Your description of rich is more correctly the description of uber-rich. These are the ones who can buy politicians, influence law-making.
Of course, not all uber-rich are created equal either. Many are decent, hard-working, church-going individuals. It is dangerous to lump people into groups. When you do, they become the Other. They get vilified by the demagogues. We get pogroms. If we are discussing rich vs. poor, then the demagogues have already won.
The title is trying to make a point, and okay, I get it, but putting rich into the title, except as a question, is self-defeating. It should be about producers versus non-producers. It should be about those who work versus those who work the system.
Try this title: “Rich versus Poor? Really?” Or, “Aren’t we in America ALL rich?” Something like that.
We have to defeat the demagogues at their own game. They only have words, so take away their tools, their false words. Challenge their narrative in every case. Never give them any authenticity. Do not adopt their words and the meanings they assign to their false words.
“Challenge their narrative in every case. Never give them any authenticity. Do not adopt their words and the meanings they assign to their false words.”
You fail to follow your own advice when you frame your point in the vocabulary of leftist postmodernist claptrap: “It is dangerous to lump people into groups. When you do, they become the Other.” Nonsense.
“Your wealth CAN indeed fire you. It requires work to maintain one’s wealth.”
It depends how rich you are. If you have $100 million, you can invest it in completely stupid things, like bank CDs. Of course, you have then have to learn how to live on $3 million a year (okay, only about $1.3 million after paying state and federal income taxes). If you have $10 million, you invest it things that require only slightly more sense, such as Treasury bonds, and you earn about $450,000 a year–after taxes, more like $250,000 a year. But most people can learn to live on $250,000 a year net, I think, without too much suffering.
Taxing the rich upscale of equal, class warfare, wealth redistribution, dissing corporations, and inciting the evilness of Wall Street and the bankers, and supporting ‘workers of the world unite’ are old tricks to get votes. The public can be influenced to vote by media propaganda, slogans, and promises. They vote for good looks, oration skills, name recognition, and popularity.
There is a subliminal message, however, in attacking the wealthy. That is, ‘stay in the herd, and thwart your ambitions of great achievement, or else the mob will come for you. If by your own efforts of genius or extraordinary labor you acquire great assets, the government will come to take them away.’
It is one thing to give a charity your coat, it is quite another for the government to take your coat away from you to give to a charity.
Thank you Frank J. Fleming! Thank you for reminding so many that they are not the poor souls they like to portray themselves to be. But of course we do have to consider the social justice indocrinations our society has become comfortable with….whats yours is mine and whats mine is mine mentality for so many.
I have come to truly believe that it would be in the best interest of America’s survial for the future for the population to experience another deep depression surpassing the former event of the 30′s. American’s today, have zero appreciation for how great they have it compared to much of the worlds populations. They have zero appreciation for those who provide the jobs and issue them paychecks that they only complain about. They have zero appreciation for the quantity and quality of food they have to eat. They have zero appreciation for all they have while demanding more and more often in excesses.
A truly sad representation of the nations population in these times!
As near as I can tell there are about 4 people in America who understand that WE (USA) did not invent the corporation, but we certainly did perfect it.
I don’t mean BIG BIG corporations, I mean the corporation models sub’S', ‘C’, not to mention LLC, Partnerships, Propreitorhips, etc.
The perfection of the corporation MADE THIS COUNTRY what it is. And now THEY bitch endlessly about corporations and the rich.
No country on earth does it as well as we do. I can go to Legal Zoom this afternoon and have a corporation in no time and have done so. Before Legal Zoom I formed at least 7 corporations quickly through attorneys. Some of my companies were successful, some weren’t. I never saw Uncle Sam with his hand out when I failed, only when I succeeded.
Unfortunately the liberal class avengers attack corporations, which usually means they aim their rifle at the Truly Mega Rich and inevitably hit guys like me with a shotgun. Guys like me that have busted their ass for 40 years, done well, created ALL KIND of jobs, taken damned good care of their employees and are The ENEMY of America and the poor in the eyes of the left.
The left would do well to learn one word “INCENTIVE”, the world revolves around that word. The so-called rich guys like me (grew up on a poor farm in Nebraska) that they hate understand that word whether it is used when we are taking risks in opening a business or for a welfare recipient who knows what the incentive of more than enough to live on entitlements mean (not a great life but it will do). I live a good life to my standard and that’s pretty middle class. I see many welfare folks living a not great, but decent life, to their standard.
When the incentive is gone I will be looking for the not great life but liveable welfare category and you can pay for it cause I won’t be in the game anymore.
EUtopia isn’t working so well from what I have seen and we are headed that way.
Get a grip America in 2012 or watch guys like me lie down.
It doesn’t matter whether you worked your A$$ off for your money or whether it was left to you by a rich father. It’s your money. You can do with it what you will and it’s no one else’s business not the government, not your neighbor not anyone.This is where Americans have been conditioned. We’ve been conditioned to think it’s alright for the Federal government to tax who ever they want for as much as they want,at will. While we’re paying attention and the all to present danger of an all powerful government breathing down our neck is fresh we need to rid ourselves of the IRS and the governments ability to tax whomever they please for how much they please. Now is the time or rather 2012 is the time to change the tax laws in this country in a way that they can’t keep the income tax and add another one on top of it but have just an alternative. Think of how great it would be if the government didn’t know how much you made or how you spent it. Think how great it would be to kiss the IRS goodbye forever. I think we’re all ready for a change and not the kind we received in 2008.
Either we are a very generous nation, going beyond what God commanded Israel in Deuteronomy 15:11, or people who are not poor are counted as poor.
What does a person like me do? I genuinely want to work, have a 25-year work history, went back to school and got a degree. What if I honestly can’t find a job and am looking diligently? I don’t want to be a drain on the economy. I love this country and want it to succeed. Do others feel the same guilt and fear and dread and shame that I feel?
I suppose you have reason to blast me; if you do I guess I would understand why.
I, too, know how degrading it feels to be unemployed. I eventually found a job as an instructor, and the pay, while meager is enough to live on. As for you, perhaps you need to start your own business. If you can’t find a job, maybe you can make one.
And where will the capital for the new business come from?
Do you realize how often new businesses fail?
You will NEVER know if you don’t try. Don’t take a risk? You could start from your basement/garage and build a billion dollar empire….Bill Cook did it. You don’t have to have tons of money plus there are lots of helps for small businessmen. If everyone thought that most businesses fail, no one would ever try anything. Think of the things that wouldn’t be available if everyone thought that way.
People can still make their dreams come true. Most don’t want to have to work that hard.
Bob…with all due respect..and I mean that!
Back in my childhood, the men jumped trains to follow seasonal work from shore to shore and border to border and thus the term ‘hobo’s’ was born. The term is not very flatterning nor the conditions of the hobo camps where most would reside from job to job….but they stayed employed with an income for their families back home suffering the depression and the dust bowl.
I’m not suggesting the same exact conditions but the same principle and opportunities remain today. During my childhood and after retiring 32 years from the service I have done the most meanial forms of hard labor nearly on a daily basis from knee deep in cow sheet, blood and guts, blowing freezing rain and snow, scorching heat to you name it, right along side the hired hands running our many farm and ranch operations. We’re not billionaires but we’re certainly not middle class and such meanial work has not been above me one time in my life when it was required. Work or the lack of work, I find, is simply a matter of choice. There are a few million paying jobs out there today though they may not be very flattering or easy…if one really wants and needs to be employed with an income.
A little story of one of my kids college friends. An aerospace electrical engineer by trade with Boeing and a couple of NASA contractors. Due to uncontrollable circumstances he found himself being layed off all to frequently with a wife and four small children. His last layoff in the 80′s was all to much for his family situation. When he exhausted his finances and loan sources he went to washing dishes at a popular restaurant. Today, he is a multi restaurant franchisee nearing retirement by choice and letting his eldest son take over. I can relate several such stories of personal knowledge.
Bravo Mr. Fleming! The Leftist idea that the rich are the enemies of the people is just plain nuts. We owe them everything for what we have in this great and fortunate country. There should be statues around DC’s reflecting pools honoring the great entrepreneurs who built our fabulous standard of living and who pay for most of the infrastructure and services that our governments take credit for “providing” us. Big changes are needed, and soon!
Whoo! $90,000 per year average is poor?
Unlike so many people in the United States all of my ancestors lived here 100 years ago. And family members have retained many of their books.
Thoe books tell us that though poorly documented (it was considered nobody’s business how much you made until the income tax.)much of America had a per capita average yearly income of over $1200 except in the still recovering south. But twenty-one of those docllars would buy an ounce of Gold. That $1200 had equal perchasing power to $90,000 today and no income taxes. No wonder so many people had big families, a hundred years ago we were rich enough to afford them.
I don’t buy the premise that our poor are wealthy compared to the poor living elsewhere. There is also a need to examine the actual wealth of the poor. Our poor have very high rates of broken homes, unwanted children, drug addictions, obesity, and violent death at an early age. These are not conditions that indicate someone with a rich life. That said, I don’t have a problem with who is rich and who is poor. How does the wealth of a rich person and/or the poverty of a poor person affect my circumstances? My problem is with this cotton picking completely unnatural collectivist mentality, being taught in our schools, which pervades our national psyche. When did a member of another species ever consciously decide to redistribute wealth because they thought they would be creating a more just society? The collective wants us to be arguing about taxing the “wealthy”, because they don’t want us to see the inevitable economic destruction their house of cards has created. Obama and his entourage are communists, the worst form of the collective that I know of. Enough said for me.
“Our poor have very high rates of broken homes, unwanted children, drug addictions, obesity, and violent death at an early age”
Gee, why might that be?
A few possibilities come quickly to mind:
- the poor are exploited
- the poor are inferior and must be given things for them to succeed
- the things you list are features of life, not problems
- the country spends too little on people who lead troubled lives
- the poor are not educated enough
- what you describe is an exaggeration
- the people who do the stuff you list make bad choices
- government intervention makes things worse not better
The list is more or less in the order of liberal viewpoints to conservative viewpoints.
I’m going with the last two. I agree with the first one too, but the people doing the exploiting are liberals, not conservatives.
I am not concerned with why poor people in the US are usually living a squalid life in unsafe conditions, only that they do. My point was that there is more involved with the determination of relative wealth than to compare the number of possessions that people have. This is the only why I think the first premise of this article is flawed.
Nice list, though.
The poor generally are on the left side of the IQ bell curve, and the rich, the right side. There’s a reason they’re poor; they make decisions that the other side of the bell curve would not make. As a rule money favours the rich; certainly the higher IQ types are the obvious beneficiaries of a meritocracy.
Part of the *obligation* we on the right side of the curve all have is to make sure there are jobs etc for the left side — we can’t all be engineers and stockbrokers; somebody has to flip the burgers and change the hotel sheets. The problem we have in modern society is that burger flipping and sheet changing don’t pay anyone well enough to consider a career rather than a job. The poor simply don’t have the mental horsepower to have the $150k/yr jobs. Instead they work the more menial jobs.
OF COURSE the result of generations of low IQ people dealing with conditions they can’t escape leads to broken homes and so on. What a revelation it must be to some folks here that vending crack at $100k a year is more than the crack dealer is going to make at the job s/he is actually qualified to do. What inner city kid with poor mental ability and few prospects is thrilled at the opportunity to mop floors? None of them.
Unlike the democrats I don’t think the answer to the obligation we share involves your tax money. Unlike the far right tea party republicans I’m not going to pretend that the poor are poor because they’re morally inferior.
“I’m not going to pretend that the poor are poor because they’re morally inferior.”
What a strange comment.
Personally, I spend a fair amount of time reading right-wing conservative tea-party-oriented blogs, and I’ve never heard that argument made. The dominant argument is that the poor live in a libwit no-responsibility world, willingly sell their votes for insignificant short-term monetary gain or promises of such, listen to pied pipers who promise something for nothing…and pay the price. Nothing is ever said about immorality as a direct cause of poverty.
At the same time, you make the argument that the poor are intellectually inferior.
Strange.
This is all very silly since the objective of the Rich vs. Poor demagogue/Community organizer is to make both the poor and the rich poorer so that he can be on the top of the heap directing us all to build him a pyramid/green enrgy power. This has been the nature of barbarian economics for six thousand years.
It maps the high end of Arthur Laffer’s Curve that the Community organizer raises taxes until society collapses and he can no longer afford more tax collectors.
It is so easy to be Jeullous of someone with more then myself. If I confiscate it back to the government how does that improve my life? It does nothing for me, and infact will slow the economy.
Some rice ladies in Los Angeles are in the news with their disfunktional life problems, and seems like such a mess to let these women toss grand amounts of money at shiney things and showie parties. They destroy wealth by spending huge amounts on wims. However, for every dallor tossed away, there is another person working to provide what these money desposials are willing to toss away.
Los Angeles is full of more rich people that provide a place for these woman to flant their wealth. This next tier is successful in providing place and things for the supper rich consumer. This next teir needs more people to build, wait, cook, serve, drive, cater, and glitz so to earn their money from the rich, rich.
These people spend on their family homes, cars, gas, education for their kids, and also pay taxes on that same dallor as it is now spent for a 5th, 6th. and so on times.
Each time that origional dallor is spent again from one consumer to the next, it is taxed. The secret here is as long as it is out there, someone is making money on ti as well as paying taxes on it time and time agin.
As much of a fool the super rich women are with their money the more people make a great living all the way down to the person that cuts a yard, it provides thousnds of prople with lots of money providing a party time for them.
Take away the super rich will only take away all the industry of tens of thousnads of people who make honest money catering to these rich.
Give it to the government is so foolish it defies understanding. How much is the Post Office in debt? Every peogram is going down the tubes because government does not make wealth. Government controls! The only viable thing the government does well is the military, and provide for the comon defense which is mandated in Article I, Sec. 8 or the Constitution.
Perhaps sticking to what is mandated in the constitution LITERALLY<
Sorry, about the first form hit wrong thing before proof reading and spell check. Please forgive.
It is so easy to be Jealous of someone with more than myself. If I confiscate it back to the government how does that improve my life? It does nothing for me, and in fact will slow the economy.
Some rice ladies in Los Angeles are in the news with their dysfunctional life problems, and seem like such a mess to let these women toss grand amounts of money at shiny things and showy parties. They destroy wealth by spending huge amounts on whims. However, for every dollar tossed away, there is another person working to provide what these money disposals are willing to toss away.
Los Angeles is full of more rich people that provide a place for these women to flaunt their wealth. This next tier is successful in providing place and things for the supper rich consumer. This next tier needs more people to build, wait, cook, serve, drive, cater, and glitz so to earn their money from the rich, rich.
These people spend on their family homes, cars, gas, education for their kids, and also pay taxes on that same dollar as it is now spent for a 5th, 6th. And so on times.
Each time that original dollar is spent again from one consumer to the next, it is taxed. The secret here is as long as it is out there; someone is making money on it as well as paying taxes on it time and time again.
As much of fool the super rich women are with their money the more people make a great living all the way down to the person that cuts a yard, it provides thousands of people with lots of money providing a party time for them.
Take away the super rich will only take away all the industry of tens of thousands of people who make honest money catering to these rich.
Give it to the government is so foolish it defies understanding. How much is the Post Office in debt? Every program is going down the tubes because government does not make wealth. Government controls! The only viable thing the government does well is the military, and provide for the common defense which is mandated in Article I, Sec. 8 or the Constitution.
Perhaps sticking to what is mandated in the constitution LITERALLY…
I only made it to the first paragraph.
Utter nonsense so far. The rich didn’t have all of those things because they didn’t exist. The fact that “some” poor people have a cell phone is silliness. There are utter poor in our country that have nothing, and that is the fact.
Why are arguments always made that compare the worst case scenerio vs the best case scenerio.
Watch out what you wish for lefties. I found some news that just might want to make you run and hide.
It would appear that Rep. Charlie Rangel is starting to reveal his true intentions. He keeps attempting this action all of the time, but you will not hear about this in the LSM. Why is that? These are just some of the dates of those attempts. How is that CHANGE working for you now?
On Jan 7 2003, Feb 14 2006, Aug 3, 2010, Mar 18, 2011
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/rang…
Congress May Bring Back The Draft Rangel has been trying to bring back the draft for a long time. You get what you vote for!
“Guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism.” George Washington