Monday, September 20, 2010

Angry Rich White Folk.

Found this interesting.

Anger is sweeping America. True, this white-hot rage is a minority phenomenon, not something that characterizes most of our fellow citizens. But the angry minority is angry indeed, consisting of people who feel that things to which they are entitled are being taken away. And they’re out for revenge.

No, I’m not talking about the Tea Partiers. I’m talking about the rich.

These are terrible times for many people in this country. Poverty, especially acute poverty, has soared in the economic slump; millions of people have lost their homes. Young people can’t find jobs; laid-off 50-somethings fear that they’ll never work again.

Yet if you want to find real political rage — the kind of rage that makes people compare President Obama to Hitler, or accuse him of treason — you won’t find it among these suffering Americans. You’ll find it instead among the very privileged, people who don’t have to worry about losing their jobs, their homes, or their health insurance, but who are outraged, outraged, at the thought of paying modestly higher taxes.

The rage of the rich has been building ever since Mr. Obama took office. At first, however, it was largely confined to Wall Street. Thus when New York magazine published an article titled “The Wail Of the 1%,” it was talking about financial wheeler-dealers whose firms had been bailed out with taxpayer funds, but were furious at suggestions that the price of these bailouts should include temporary limits on bonuses. When the billionaire Stephen Schwarzman compared an Obama proposal to the Nazi invasion of Poland, the proposal in question would have closed a tax loophole that specifically benefits fund managers like him.

Now, however, as decision time looms for the fate of the Bush tax cuts — will top tax rates go back to Clinton-era levels? — the rage of the rich has broadened, and also in some ways changed its character.

Here is the link to the original article. What do you all think?

26 comments:

  1. Anger is so terrible, I hate how much it is spreading :(

    Needs to be more love <3

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  2. Anger is just to overrated :) Spp

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  3. yes man someday we will live in castes and clans again

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  4. Meh, America's always been a giant bloody mess. What angers me though, is Americans bitching over gas prices. Honestly, it costs next to nothing over there.

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  5. where is the love guys? :( why cant we all just get along

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  7. If I were operating on more than 3 hours sleep, I would have enjoyed this article :(

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  8. The poor are paying more percentage taxes than the rich? Or am I totally lost?

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  9. America is way too capitalist. Helping the less fortunate doesnt make you a communist

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  10. Yeah, USA is still very racist. Nothing can be done about it, it's just the way things are meant. By that I mean that people are genetically encoded to think people from any other race than their own are inferior.

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  12. I think he should raise the taxes of the top 10% every time someone bitches. Not much. Maybe a quarter of a percent.

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  13. The top 10% already pay most of the taxes. If you increase taxes on them, they're going to cut money out of other things. If they're running a business, people would get laid off. Lower the taxes on a rich by a little bit, they get to keep more money, and they can use that to expand their business and hire more people, which would ultimately result in more tax revenue overall. If I recall, the bottom 50% actually get more from the government than they pay to.

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  14. It's not that it's not fair, it's that James is right. Unfortunately, even if you strip them of some of their money-making venues, the greed is still their. They'll find new ways around the law, including laying off those very less fortunate people.

    It's a very despicable conundrum. Good article, though.

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  16. Nice read, I agree with most of it. Here in New Zealand things are getting a bit out of control.

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