The belief that the wealthy are worthy is waning

[kpete]

Source: Los Angeles Times

Michael Hiltzik:
The belief that the wealthy are worthy is waning
With financial crisis and scandal as backdrop, Americans are questioning whether plutocrats are either indispensable or deserving.
Michael Hiltzik
March 19, 2009

The notion that the poor always will be with us has been ingrained in our culture ever since the sermons of Moses were set down by the anonymous author of Deuteronomy.

That the point is even open for discussion suggests that a sea change is taking place on the American political scene. For decades, the wealthy have been held up as people to be admired, victors in the Darwinian economic struggle by virtue of their personal ingenuity and hard work.

Americans consistently supported fiscal policies that undermined middle- and working-class interests partially because they saw themselves as rich-people-in-waiting: Given time, toil and the magic of compound interest, anyone could retire a millionaire.

That mind-set has all but been eradicated by the damage sustained by the average worker's nest egg, combined with the spectacle of bankers and financial engineers maintaining their lifestyles with multimillion-dollar bonuses while the submerged 99% struggle for oxygen.

Read more: http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-hiltzik19-2009mar19,0,351773.column

[Captain Hilts]

1. Fingers crossed people figure this out.

ER: Let's hope so - luck counts!
FDR: I tried to explain that, but did anybody listen? Nooooooo...

[No Elephants]

9. Meh. I think Eleanor did a way better job with that issue, but maybe I'm biased.

[Captain Hilts]

44. Yeah, she did, but...

FDR had to accommodate folks that she didn't have to.

But, I generally agree her heart was in it to a degree his was not.

[napoleon_in_rags]

98. Unrelated to your comment, but...

I just had to post this old gem at the top of the responses to this post: ;)

[Captain Hilts]

101. Eeeeeewwwww!

[Name removed]

2. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Grinchie]

3. Doesn't mean we can't torment them with it every day for the rest of their stinking lives

And refuse to work for them, utilize their money making schemes, and avoiding any indication of debt.

It's kind of like Gandhi, casting off the consumption and getting back to basics. These rich guys hate that.

Why do you think the Repugs hate Hippies so much. They have time to enjoy live, live a truly free life, while the repugs toild away for their fair share, which somehow the Hippies are taking away from them.

The Fiat currency and fractional Reserve System have outlived their usefulness. We are entering a time on Earth where 7% growth is killing us.

[SpiralHawk]

22. Repugs toild for their 'fair share' - Bwaaa ha ha ha ha

Good one. Just hilarious. Bwaa ha ha ha

[northernlights]

36. hey, stealing is hard work

it's not easy being rich....:sarcasm:

[EnviroBat]

31. Wow! I never thought of it that way...

But you are right. The "establishment" has always despised the hippie culture for it's freedom from the restraints of indebtedness. People that don't fed from the great trough are seen as useless to them. I have this dream in which the whole of our society just "wakes" up one day and realizes collectively, "Hey, we have but one fucking life here..." We all suddenly default of our home mortgages, and credit cards. Quit our corporate jobs. Give up the bullshit possessions we enslave ourselves to. We take care of each other. Train each other to do constructive things like build, and farm. Grow our own food, and live together.

[northernlights]

38. if you default on your home mortgage

where do you plan to grow your food? All the land is owned by somebody.

Mark my words, starting a productive garden is *very* labor intensive, so you don't want to try starting it on bank-owned land, only to have it bulldozed up once they catch on to you. The initial work of rototilling, rock picking, testing and amending the soil, mulching the paths of a small garden is the hardest part...

Otherwise, though, I'm there. When my hi-tech career crashed, I specifically went through a master gardener's program and spent 2 summers volunteering at a small, commercial organic farm. This summer if I'm able, I'll spend some time volunteering at a local, commercial medicinal herb grower and maker. Chickens and ducks are easy to care for -- I've babysat them for a friend. I may also learn to keep honeybees, although that's a little scary...

[southerncrone]

95. Keep that dream alive, Envirobat. & we might be able to "create" our paradise on Earth.

[Cary]

35. You give them too much credit

The article speaks of "dumb luck". The kind of thing you describe requires intelligence, organization, competence, and skill. I am not a psychiatrist, but I would have guess that these qualities are possessed by rightists only in their delusions.

Dumb luck describes any of their successes much better, I think. Dumb luck and our own missteps, perhaps.

[valerief]

97. Hippies undermined their military fodder. nt

[acmavm]

4. They can fix the 'news' but they can't stop people from realizing

that they are suffering and doing without while a class of people have set themselves up to prey on the majority of the population.

And this has happened throughout history i.e. the French and Bolshevik revolutions not to mention the most obvious, the one that gained us our independence from England.

[No Elephants]

11. Apparently they can stop people from realizing gobs of things, including this. Have

you ever read Pub posts from people who don't have much, just furious about how something "unfairly" takes from the rich, who are responsible for creating jobs, paying the most taxes, etc., etc., ad nauseum?

Don't misunderestimate the Pub propaganda machine and don't misoverestimate the stupidity of some people, especially the 22%, give or take, who supported Bushco to the bitter end.


I've seen Jay Leno's Jaywalking segments cited. Only recently did I hear Jay explain that they choose only college graduates for that segment.

No child left behind--until after college graduation apparently.

[acmavm]

15. Nope, I haven't seen anything like that. And if the corporate

media could control minds like you say, then that bonus money would have been given out and that would have been the end of it.

[No Elephants]

16. Except that the media has been pushing "outrage" against the AIG

bonuses bc they were distributed on Obama's watch, even though it was Paulson who did not want the conditions.

Sorry you haven't seen that type of post. I certainly have.

Besides, I did not say the media controlled minds, although I think there is no serious doubt that it influences minds.

Maybe you should have read my post a bit more carefully.

[acmavm]

19. Yeah, the 'control' part was a response to upthread, they guy we

were all responding to.

And I read your post. You used the word 'influence' and were pitching a fit about poor people sticking up for AIG and the bonuses. (What is influence if not a way to control?) But like I said, that part of the remark wasn't for you.

I told you I've never seen anything like that and now I'll tell you that I highly doubt that there's a lot of that crap even happening. The public is fed up and pissed off. Democrats and Repubics.


And since you've such this ridiculous claim, I want to see these articles, these quotes. Prove that there are such articles. I being polite by not pointing out that your claim about outraged poor people sounds like some really bad drama.

[No Elephants]

56. Um, I think I am going to let the posts speak for themselves, including who posted what to

whom.

the only one here creating bad drama so far seems to be you. Not only that, but you've gone out of your way to do so. I think I'll just leave you to it.

[Hannah Bell]

74. I don't think so, because there are too many counterparties on Wall Street who

lost in the debacle, know what's going on, & would make a stink. I don't mean Pa Kettle in podunksville, I mean WS players with various degrees of pull & various political affiliations & connections.

The media is controlled, but not by a single monolithic interest.

[AllentownJake]

33. Kid Rock is a college graduate?

Really because before he was famous he was on Jay Walking

[Tyler Generation]

5. I'd like to see an overhaul in American values

People will support the rich as long as they have jerk-off fantasies about winning the lottery or some other nonsense. They all think they're gonna hit it big, and then they worry they're going to be taxed too much. I don't know why a roof and food and education aren't enough for people, when that's all 99% get. What's it matter how much money you have after you die anyway?

[Butch350]

54. 5. I'd like to see an overhaul in American values

...roof, food, education and HEALTH CARE?

[Two Americas]

70. not so

There is no sort of progressive or even vaguely left wing politics that would lead us to this sort of contempt for the everyday people. It is an aristocratic and gentrified stance, and that stance is the main problem with the Democratic party and the Left - such as it is - and the biggest cause of the right wing nightmare we have been enduring.

So long as the people thought the game was fair, they were willing to live and let live. It is not as though there was any strong counter-narrative coming from any Left, for people to hear in any case. That isn't their fault. To this very day, there are many Democrats right here still spouting the fundamental assumptions and premises of libertarianism and Reaganomics on trade, on public education, on unions, on foreign policy, on the financial industry and on and on. The people on the other hand have now rejected all of that.


...

[truedelphi]

85. Doesn't it seem like both the Dems and the Repugs

accepted the "Supply Side Economic Theory" that outsourced our jobs and led to so much of this. In a way, you have to blame the repugs less - they masterminded it to take control over the society - while the Dems who had money just bought into it because it seemed like the thing to do.

Reading Howard Zinn lately and I start to wish that we had some of the populist leaders that popped up in the "good ol' days." Where are our Mother Jones, our Edward Bryant Jennings, etc.

[Two Americas]

92. yes

Politics is about economics and power. The Democrats have repeatedly aided and abetted the Republican program of transferring more and more wealth and power into the hands of the few. Every day right here people aggressively defend that program, and claim that any and all alternatives are not to be considered - they, or those speaking of alternatives are to be seen as crazy or dangerous or impractical and unrealistic.

The Republicans are doing what they always do - representing and advancing the interests and desires of the upper 1%, the wealthy and powerful few. Nothing new there. Blaming them is like blaming the rain when your roof leaks. The Democrats are in charge of fixing the roof - they keep promising that they will do this, and keep telling us that they are the only choice and that we must not and cannot call another roofer. Worse, many here now are demanding that we not criticize, or even talk about the job the Democrats are doing fixing the roof. we are to be "against" the rain, and praise and adore the roofers.

...

[Optical.Catalyst]

100. Using your analogy of the roof

We Democrats are having trouble fixing the roof; some people who put a D by their names want to be in that 1% of rich people too.

On the other hand, the Republicans want the roof to leak and are actively engaged in preventing any repairs. It is hard to fix things when the people who are there to help keep stealing the tools for their own jobs and only fix things only for their friends.

[truedelphi]

103. Gosh I love your proclamations. And analogies.

I am still so smitten with your thoughts on training those who have ethics to do the jobs, whiel ignoring those without anyethics or morals but know the jobs - those crooks should be led away. (Badly paraphrasing -- I am )

It scares me to find someone whom I agree with on so many levels - just ain't used to it, I guess.

[florida08]

6. great article

"roughly one-quarter of the names on the Forbes list of the 400 richest Americans got there by inheritance"

"The craze for financial deregulation in Washington was fomented in part by Wall Street plutocrats brandishing lavish political donations, gifts, offers of employment and other trappings of economic power. Would Wall Street have gotten so far out of control if it had had less power to wield?"

Yet we're told with hard work everyone can be independently wealthy..think that has been proven false now. It is about power and keeping the flow of profits going up. They do this with the help of the GOP. Selling paper products does not make an economy..it destroys it as we're seeing now. But it keeps everyone reaching for the magic ring that really isn't there.

[Baby Snooks]

40. And the other three-quarters?

One-quarter inherited it and the other three-quarters stole it although in most cases they stole it legally. There is such a thing as legal fraud. The wealthy, after all, buy the legislators to write the legislation in order to protect their "right" to wealth. By hook or by crook. Clare Booth Luce once said the rich are smarter. Looking around at some of the schemes they've come up with I would say she was right.

No offense to anyone in particular but I do wonder if wealthy Democrats are Democrats because they have a guilty conscience.

If so at least they have a conscience. Which is more than you can say about wealthy Republicans.

"I have, therefore I am." The more you have, the more you are. That sums up life in America. And sums up why we have two Americas.

[Hannah Bell]

66. the "1/4" is by forbes' strange view of inheritance, too. you have to have

inherited it, period. not inherited part of it & made it bigger, or inherited top tier connections - every other kind of inheritance = "self-made".

i went through the list & most of the peeps there inherited more than 80% of the us population ever will.

[Two Americas]

102. exactly

Forbes is drastically understating this.

[tonysam]

72. Horatio Alger is a Lie, a Filthy Lie.

The myth is you work hard enough, you will move up the ladder or get rich. The fact is, hard work or "merit" has little to do with "success." Connections have everything to do with it.

It's really a hard thing to grasp, but once one works a few years in the labor force, reality sets in. It's really unpleasant.

[tclambert]

7. That belief, that rich people must be rich because of some special virtue, has always amazed me.

Doubly so for those born into wealth. The self-made who rose from humble beginnings may have had a remarkable idea somewhere along the way. Even then, there's an old saying, "Every great fortune began with a great crime."

Oddly, it seems like an un-Christian belief. Financial reward coming from virtue sounds more karmic or Old Testament than New Testament Christian. Christians should be suspicious of great wealth. Jesus said, "It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven." In Christianity, great wealth is a sign that someone has sold his soul, put gold above righteousness.

[tbyg52]

12. Some preach it, do they not? I don't pay much attention to religion, but

I think Lakewood Church is one of those "prosperity churches"?

[Baby Snooks]

49. The reality of Christianity

The philosophy of Christianity is not a philosophy of capitalism and yet we are told and have been told for some time that god blesses the righteous with wealth and so was born the maxim of "I have, therefore I am." In other words, god loves the rich and hates the poor. The poor obviously just aren't "righteous" enough.

The irony is that for the most part it is the "faith-based" organizations that help the poor and yet it is a "faith-based" philosophy that keeps people in poverty.

And man created god in his image. For the past two thousand years man has done so with a checkbook.

[tclambert]

63. Liberals should re-take Christianity. The "religious right" stole it and perverted it,

turning it upside down and inside out in order to make it conform to their political philosophy. Can anyone really picture Jesus Christ as a Republican? Ludicrous! Jesus Christ threw the Republicans out of the Temple!

(BTW, I don't think checkbooks existed 2,000 years ago. The pop-up toaster wasn't invented until 1919, and how can you open a checking account without getting a free toaster? Your point, as I understand it, that the wealthy have been buying off the churches, like they buy off all institutions, is still quite valid.)

[Irish Girl]

87. If I remember my Bible studies correctly, Jesus lost his temper with the money changers

I believe it was the only time, when apparently he overturned the money changers' table in disgust for robbing his people in the Temple. The money changers were the gold smiths who evolved into bankers.

[JerseygirlCT]

105. That idea is not carried through a great deal of Christianity

It's an idea that gained ground with a particular strain of Christianity. And it is a twisted view of the faith.

[Patchuli]

71. Jesus on How the Rich Get to Heaven (Mark 10:17-25)

17 And when he was gone forth into the way, there came one running, and kneeled to him, and asked him, Good Master, what shall I do that I may inherit eternal life? 18 And Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God.

19 Thou knowest the commandments, Do not commit adultery, Do not kill, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Defraud not, Honour thy father and mother. 20 And he answered and said unto him, Master, all these have I observed from my youth. 21 Then Jesus beholding him loved him, and said unto him, One thing thou lackest: go thy way, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, take up the cross, and follow me.

22 And he was sad at that saying, and went away grieved: for he had great possessions.

23 And Jesus looked round about, and saith unto his disciples, How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God! 24 And the disciples were astonished at his words. But Jesus answereth again, and saith unto them, Children, how hard is it for them that trust in riches to enter into the kingdom of God! 25 It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.

http://atheism.about.com/od/biblegospelofmark/a/mark10c.htm Interesting page here...

[Joe Bacon]

82. I still remember a story from my Grandma

I sure do miss her. She had so many stories about the Depression. I wish I had kept a tape recorder going and just let her talk.

Once in the 1930s when she and Grandpa Bacon were organizing the Steelworkers union in Ambridge and Aliquippa PA, she and Ernest De Maio were handing out union organizing literature at the steps of the Aliquippa post office. Grandma had a "distasteful encounter" with an union opponent who told her that God made his faithful rich. Grandma reminded him of the needle bit and his response...

"God gave enough money to the rich so they could make a needle big enough for a camel to pass thru"...

Well, stupid is as stupid does...

[tonysam]

73. It's a Perverted Twist of Calvinism.

It really dies hard, this notion of "merit," an idea which really doesn't exist, for it is a subjective concept, just like "beauty." The bitter truth is hard to swallow that who you know or who you blow is what really counts for achieving riches, i.e., "success," in the vast majority of cases.

[JerseygirlCT]

104. It's always seemed quite "un Christian" to me, too

But I think it got deeply intertwined with some strains of Christianity with the rise of Calvinism. The idea of the elect, and that if you were rewarded in this life, it must be because you were among the elect... Seems quite perverse to me.

[Two Americas]

106. the "special virtue"

The assumption that "rich people must be rich because of some special virtue" has led people to see the qualities that it now takes to get rich - rapaciousness, selfishness, greed, amorality, and bullying - as virtues, and this is having a corrosive and demoralizing effect all through the society as some people emulate the worst behavior of the "winners" and defend and excuse it, while the rest of us reel and can't get our bearings.

[No Elephants]

8. Sermons of Moses in Deuteronomy said the poor will alway be with us? That's funny.

[Mari333]

10. thats odd..I never thought they were more or less worthy in the first place

I guess it was because of my dad, a union railroad engineer. he used to tell us 'you can have all the money in the world, but that doesnt buy you an ounce of class...'
this from a man who worked 3 jobs sometimes to feed 6 kids and house us, and wouldnt accept a management job with the railroad because he said 'i cant sell my soul to management...my kids dont need to see me sell out'.

[Irish Girl]

91. Your Pappa sounds like one heck of a man

Thank you for the smile.

:thumbsup:

[IsItJustMe]

13. All I can say regarding this subject is that it is about fricken time the people of this country

started to wake up and smell the coffee.

[Wizard777]

14. The rewards of labor are often referred to as "fruits."

Let just say that fruit isn't the only thing that can spoil and bear the stench of putrescence. What we are smelling now is the putrification of old money trying to bring forth new trees from bad seeds.

[UpInArms]

17. more from that well worth reading article:

A bit of history will be useful here. The original case for a progressive income tax -- that is, one levied disproportionately on larger incomes -- was based less on raising revenue for the state than breaking up concentrations of wealth, inherited and otherwise. The nation's Founding Fathers considered these to be undemocratic -- markers of "an aristocratic society, not a free and virtuous republic," as the tax-law expert Dennis Ventry has written.

Recent events validate the Founders' instincts. The craze for financial deregulation in Washington was fomented in part by Wall Street plutocrats brandishing lavish political donations, gifts, offers of employment and other trappings of economic power. Would Wall Street have gotten so far out of control if it had had less power to wield? No one can know for sure, but it's a question worth pondering.

There's also a social value in suppressing income inequality. In a country with only a slightly less ingrained tradition of civility than the United States, the AIG affair would provoke rioting in the streets.

[Hugin]

18. I for one have never believed in 'divine providence'.

But, I'm a heathen.

Wealth can be gaged in many ways, tho.

If one has many people they care about and/or many who care for them. A life full of experience and some wisdom. That is a worthy life and it can't be bought with the fruits of Mammon.

After I wrote that... I realized I'm pretty wealthy. :)

So is our Current President.

Edit: divine providence

[SpiralHawk]

20. "Oh shit, the jig is up." - Overpaid Republicon propagandist leader Rush Limbaugh

"I suppose the public is fed up with all of us draft-dodging Republicon chickenhawks, too." - Rush

[primavera]

21. This is huge

I'm a firm believer that it's the misguided faith that Americans have that they live in a meritocracy that sustains the status quo. Americans believe that if people are rich, it's because they deserve to be rich, and, conversely, if they're poor, it's because they deserve to be poor. Yet we have income inequality which rivals feudal times and socioeconomic mobility that is actually less than it was during the Roman Empire. Our system is far closer to aristocracy than meritocracy. But there's been no way to change that so long as people labor under the misapprehension that our system is fair and equitable.

[Hugin]

23. Well said.

:)

[Terry in Austin]

45. Meritocracy

"Merit" is kind of tricky business.

Arguably, those who receive merit -- "earn" it, whatever -- have it bestowed upon them by others who have the power to bestow it. It's not some objective, fall-out-of-the-sky kind of thing, this "merit."

So those with the power to bestow merit get to say what is meritorious and what isn't, according to their own interests and position.

"Merit," I would argue, is profoundly political.

[Two Americas]

69. it has been turned backward

Rather than seeing merit leading to wealth - "work hard and get ahead" - there has been a gradual switch to seeing wealth as the measure of merit - "he must be doing something right. Look at how rich he is." That sooner or later will blow up, and the people will resist and fight back.

We no longer reward people for accomplishment, the amassing of wealth is itself now seen as the accomplishment - the only measure of accomplishment, the very definition of it, the only goal.

When the people see through that and reject it - and they now have - all Hell then breaks loose - and it now will.

The defenders of the status quo here, under various guises such as "working with both sides" and "giving him a chance" are getting more and more frantic and irrational, which is another sign that we are right on the verge of massive social upheaval. The more that people resist it, the worse it will be.

We are too close to things to see clearly, but there is a massive shift going on right now. We will look back in a couple of years and wonder what the Hell happened.

The public just overwhelmingly rejected Reaganomics and the religious right, and is moving dramatically to the Left. meanwhile, the most dominant voices in the Democratic party at all levels are going the opposite direction, trying to stop the shift. That is going to cause a blow up. The tension is growing every day. You can't turn back the tide, no matter how wonderful you may think the captain of the shop may be, and there is a big storm brewing. Sitting around on the deck gazing at the captain and admiring him, and demanding that everyone does that, is part of the mix.


...

[Baby Snooks]

81. Maybe because they're not really Democrats?

"...meanwhile, the most dominant voices in the Democratic party at all levels are going the opposite direction, trying to stop the shift."

People need to finally accept that both parties have been hijacked - the leaders in both parties no longer represent the people of their party.

Conservatives no longer identitfy with the Republican Party. Liberals no longer identify with the Democratic Party.

The reason? Wall Street is the priority instead of Main Street.

There was no change in 2006 - the "label" changed but the majority party in Congresss remained the same. The Republicrat Party.

[Two Americas]

89. it is the haves versus the have-nots

The political battles are not about Democrat versus Republican. The parties are controlled by two factions of the aristocracy who have a relatively minor dispute going on about who can best manage the same system and pursue the same goals, about who has the better style and the better vision of how the rest of us should be forced to live.

The agenda for the Democratic party is defined by and benefits people from the upper 10% income bracket, roughly $70,000 annual income and up. Gentrified and aristocratic, the professional white collar people who control the Democratic party are openly contemptuous of the everyday working people - a day doesn't go by here that we don't see the venom toward the people expressed - condescendingly patronizing to people of color, GLBTQ people, poor people, and homeless people, and violently opposed to the political Left. They are one of the most conservative groups in the country, and are fighting a desperate rear guard action today to stamp out any hints of a rise in left wing political power.

The "liberal" haves are fighting with the "conservative" haves, and the rest of us do not figure into their thinking. We are merely extras in their grand drama - invisible and unwanted and in the way.

The Democratic party has become a party of "winners" - a different group of winners than the Republicans represent, but still promoting a variation of the same program the Republicans are promoting.

This is not hidden or obscure. What is reliably offered up as rebuttal to what I just said always illustrates rather than refutes what I am saying here.


...

[Hannah Bell]

99. i agree, & you're one of the few people i've ever heard make the argument.

[MountainLaurel]

48. IMHO

It goes back to the religious poisoning that teaches that if you're poor, you must have done something really bad to piss God off and thus deserve poverty. (Or, the alternative view that their poverty is a trial from God to test their faith and that all their rewards will come in there hereafter.) Meanwhile, the rich are obviously very righteous to be shown God's love in such massive quantities.

[rolltideroll]

24. A specter is haunting Europe

Here you go fabulously wealthy, here is how this story ends.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Romanov

[Baby Snooks]

79. And our Romanovs....

We don't haul our "royals" into the woods and shoot them as they did in Russia or haul them off to the guillotine as they did in France but we do tax them. And it's time to tax them again. That will end the oligarchy. Punitive taxation. That will also end the economic disparity that has literally wiped out the middle-class in this country. Which some intended to. You cannot have a middle-class in an oligarchy. It must become the worker class.

One of the priorities of John F Kennedy was to change the punitive tax law and when it was changed most believed it would create a new America and that was when "trickle down" theory began. Most of the new wealth created by lower taxation did not "trickle down" and in reality most of it merely "trickled up" and we not only saw more millionaires we saw the first of the billionaires. And we saw a growing disparity between rich and poor. We were told we would have "one" America but in fact we saw the beginning of the two Americas.

The two Americans. One for the rich. One for the poor. Both supported by the middle class which is now the worker class.

The Kennedys of course are one of our "royal families" and as we just saw they, too, believe the rich are different from you and me.

The richest of the Kennedys, with a fortune estimated at $400 million, didn't believe she should be required to make financial disclosure but did believe that as a "royal" she had the "right" to be a US Senator.

And like a growing number of the rich, as reflected by a number of nominees and appointees in Obama Administration, she apparently believed she didn't have to pay taxes everyone else paid.

We not only saw the rise of the "military-industrial complex" in the 1960s but the beginning of a new political party called the Republicrat Party which serves only the wealthy and it is a party that is comprised of both Democrats and Republicans.

Despite the ideological differences it is interesting that the Kennedys have honored the Bushes and the Bushes have honored the Kennedys.

Interesting. And very revealing.

[Blue_Tires]

25. ttt

[YOY]

26. A reading from the Book of YOY

"Most of you are not rich and never will be.

Those of you who are "rich" are not wealthy and never will be.

Those of you who are wealthy, you are not higher lifeforms than the rest of us."

Amen

[Hugin]

27. Amen.

This "Book of YOY" has it straight.

[Eric J in MN]

28. I never believed that CEOs deserved millions/year.

I always thought that the corporation could find someone willing to do the job for $100,000/year who would do as good a job.

[redqueen]

29. Executives who were overpaid *whether they succeeded or failed*.

... corporate executives who were ridiculously overpaid whether they succeeded or failed at their jobs.

Does this mean what I want it to mean?

Is he saying that they were overpaid even when they failed... or that they were overpaid either way you look at it?

I really hope it's the latter.

[TygrBright]

30. About. Effing. Time. n/t

[EnviroBat]

32. My God... I there actually going to be a revolution in this country?

I've been waiting for this since I was a young boy. When I thought somewhere in the back of my young, impressionable mind, that something was fundamentally wrong with the way things "were". I saw how my parents struggled, and wondered to myself, "Is this what life is ultimately all about"? I've always seen it as the haves and the have-nots. Those that are oppressed, and those that are the oppressors. I pray the tide is finally turning.

[AllentownJake]

34. Even if there is one we'll just replace the old elites with new elites

:shrug:

[EnviroBat]

37. Yep, you're probably right...

[northernlights]

42. true, except

with a real revolution, it will take a while to get there.

[Two Americas]

68. 80 year cycles

Periods of massive social upheaval run in 80 year cycles, with smaller upheavals in between at the 40 year mark. Something to do with social amnesia, and the generations.

1690's, 1770's, 1850's, 1930's.... 2010.

We are right up against it now, and the likelihood of massive social unrest grows stronger every day. The signs are everywhere. We are sitting on a powder keg.


...

[Terry in Austin]

39. Easy: the poor are poor because the rich are rich

We know for damned sure that the rich will always be with us.

Ergo, the poor will always be with us.

QED

}(

[Dumak]

41. There is nothing more sickening than listening to people

who believe that one's worth is measured by their wealth. I'd say it's inversely related - these people are leeches on society. I just about threw up the first time I heard someone use the term "money smart" - used by the mother to describe her son who'd inherited many millions of dollars, and became a "builder" - often a euphemism for a rich person who hires someone to build houses, but who really just sits on their ass all day. Another job I've heard rich-people use is "investor".

Our society would be much better off without these family empires. There seems to be a ridiculous myth that we need them to create jobs. People are moving from formerly-stable manufacturing jobs to service jobs, which more and more are serving mainly the wealthier citizens, to the detriment of everyone else. We need wealthy people to do actual work, not sit around playing with their money.

[BrklynLiberal]

47. Your description immediately brought to mind Donald Trump, that Oedipal egomaniac.

[Cary]

43. The economy works best when wealth is more compressed.

I don't understand why rightists refuse to see this. Ironically if they truly were capitalists, they would understand this basic concept.

[BrklynLiberal]

46. The repukes are not capitalists, they actually are plutocrats.

Their ideal world is what the country had at the turn of the century with the robber barons in charge, and with no income tax!!
Their heaven is the world that the muckrakers brought down.

[AlbertCat]

58. The idea of "capitalism"

is that you make as much money as you HONESTLY can. There's the difference....especally if "honestly" includes "ethically".

Of course pure capitalism doesn't work as much as pure communism is impossible. Or Democracy, or socialism.... Anything too draconian will always fail. Flexibility is what survives. Flexibility and symbiosis.

[Wapsie B]

50. "rich-people-in-waiting" so true!

That's the belief the gop has exploited for years. You could see people stocking shelves at Wally World at 2am or working the counter at the neighborhood Mini-Mart espouse gop talking points under the misguided belief they were just a break or two from their financial windfall.

[mr_smith007]

51. Outstanding article...

Thanks for posting. There is indeed something very wrong with our system when someone like Rush Limbaugh who has neither the brains nor the fortitude to finish one semester of college is able to get where he is and have zero humility about the luck of getting there. Yeah, just happening to hit the scene as the fairness doctrine goes away had nothing to do with his fortunre. Being born into a country with 1/3 of the population being self repressed and ignorant puritans had nothing to do with his fortune. It was just his giant intelligence and hard work spouting venom from a comfortable seat without any actual intellectual work to verify the validity of his claims. It is now time to fix this problem and we have 85% of the American people behind us as is evidenced by the Gallup poll in the AIG bonus fiasco.

This is a great political time to be alive, I just hope our reps in Washington have the guts to go through with these changes. Living in the insane trickle down Reagan era, the Gingrich world of the 90s and the Bush/Tom Delay world of the 2000s has created a burning desire to see economic justice...please let it be so!

[Hugin]

53. Great!

Welcome to DU!

There's some fantastic replies in this thread. :)

[mr_smith007]

55. Thank you for the welcome...

I have been lurking since 2006 and the posts and articles by members here have given me hope. Believe it or not I was a hard core freeper and dittohead from 1996 to 2004. From 04 to 06 I went through a transition as I fell victim to life circumstances and was awakened to the justness and compassion of progressive ideals. My conversion was complete by Nov 2006 when I voted straight ticket Democrat for the first time in my life. It is painful to realize that I voted against my own interests for 12 years but I try to leave that as it was and I am hopeful going forward.

Thanks again.

[Hugin]

57. Congratulations on your awakening.

It gives me hope to hear stories such as yours. :)

[florida08]

62. gives me hope too

Sorry you've fallen on some hard times. But glad you used it in a positive way. I think that just might be happening all over the country with the Madoff scandal and Wall Street derivative debacle. Have watched as our 401K went south but we count our blessings to still have jobs and remain in our house. Great reponse to the post.

[lonestarnot]

52. About fucking time! Hope he's right!

K & R

[jwirr]

59. Finally the truth that all of us have within us the ability to do good or

bad is being proved by the people who have the least excuse for hoarding the wealth.

I kind of laugh because I think they may be the ones most surprised by this revelation. They - the rw purveyors of this theory - have convinced themselves that somehow they were better than others - more able to resist temptation. Ha! This breakthrough can only make the world a better place.

No more once saved always saved. No more Lazarus at the rich man's table without consequences for the rich man. No more walking past the man beaten by thieves on the side of the road. The rich are accountable for their actions just like the rest of us.

[scytherius]

60. I have NO problem with people making scads of money, however

stop buying the rest of us tubes of KY.

[primavera]

65. You don't get one without the other

The economy only grows at a very modest rate, which means that genuinely new wealth is being generated at an equally slow rate. Making scads of money therefore means not that someone is producing scads of new wealth, but rather that scads of old wealth is being shifted. For one person to make scads of money, a whole bunch of other people somewhere need to lose scads of money for the books to balance out.

[emald]

61. Worthy???? They are the damned. e/t

[Javaman]

64. Soylent Green is Rich People!!!!

meh, a little stringy.

[ThoughtCriminal]

67. Many of them earned their wealth the old fashion way...

They Inherited It.

It's really gotten tiresome to hear these guys with roman numerals after their names brag about their success. W is the poster child of these under-achieving know-nothings who inherit great wealth and think it proves they're entitled to be treated as royalty.

This is why the GOP made such a big deal out of getting rid of the so-called "Death Tax". When you fail at every business venture, that fortune grandpa made through bribery and 25-cent an hour serfs becomes really important.

[MisterP]

75. hm, isn't the LAT's editorial-page editor a Randroid?

could explain the screaming, hysterical, hair-tearing stories on Russia and Latin America

[DissedByBush]

76. For decades, the wealthy have been held up as people to be admired

"For decades, the wealthy have been held up as people to be admired, victors in the Darwinian economic struggle by virtue of their personal ingenuity and hard work."

Well, some of them. I won't begrudge Steve Jobs a penny of his money, or Richard Branson. But those getting fat on TARP rather than creating value should be in the poorhouse instead of the penthouse.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

77. the rich = enemies of the working class (America has finally seen the light)

[trthnd4jstc]

78. Some of the Wealthy are worthless. They contribute nothing to society. They are parasites. Some

are sedentary. Some excercise and are agressive. Some, like George Bush think the poor are poor because they are lazy. And some want to see a dramatic increase in the death of billions of other people, whom they sometimes call the masses. These people are not too particular who they want dead, but their sensibility is that the earth needs to have a dramatic decrease in the human population because of vast amount of consumption of resources.

I do not believe in necessary evil, nor acceptable losses. Many of the wealthy do. Many of the wealthy believed in outsourcing, downsizing, usary, exploitation, GATT, WTO, IMF, and the CIA. Many of the wealthy are traitors because they have actively worked to weaken the people of the US. The methods of these people brought us into another depression. It happened because of their outsourcing, their foreign policy, their, domestic policy, their monetary policy, their rules. Many of The Wealthy had their way with our nation's destiny and they have hurt us tremendously.

[leftofthedial]

80. As a class (there are always exceptions),

the wealthy are the worst people on earth.

[gulliver]

83. Man. That is some alliteration!

Too bad it is on W.

Calvinism was in TNR in the last issue.

[Skittles]

84. it has been exposed for all to see that the game has been rigged

it's about fucking time, too

[valerief]

86. Say what? When the hell did it wax in anything other than the media? nt

[dysfunctional press]

88. after "wealthy", can we move on to 'worship'...?

it's in the same neighborhood of the dictionary, after all.

[Norquist Nemesis]

90. Most people don't realize how many get hired for their gold-plated

Rolodex file. The average American would get out real pitchforks and torches if they really knew the amount of deals (in both number AND dollars) that are made at golf outings and charity balls.

It's about time people started waking up to the piss on their boots trickle down that they've been told was rain.

[earcandle]

94. I am awake already. What do I do?

[earcandle]

93. You are so right on! Man, how are they getting away with this?

[Name removed]

96. Deleted message

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