America's Idiot Rich

[Scuba]

From Salon.com.

The 1 percent is complaining louder than ever. There can be no reasoning with people this irrational

Here’s a brief list of insane things that are apparently common knowledge among the billionaire class:

That President Obama and the Democratic Party have treated wealthy finance industry titans maliciously and unfairly.

...

That poor people, and not the finance industry, are responsible for the financial crisis and subsequent recession.

...

That the ultra-wealthy in general, and finance industry executives in particular, are the victims of widespread prejudice akin to that faced by ethnic minorities.

There can be no reasoning with people this irrational. Any attempt to do so will fail, as Barack Obama, whose main goal is to maintain, not upend, the system that made these people so disgustingly wealthy, is learning. It’s growing harder and harder to pretend that the fantastically wealthy have a sophisticated understanding of politics — or math, or economics, or cause-and-effect.

[gordianot]

1. Spokesman for the one percent Ebeneezer Scrooge was unfairly picked on by Christmas Spirits.

Just proves Christmas giving fired the first shot in the war on Christmas.

[nxylas]

8. Pretty sure they've already done that one

One of their talking heads wrote an op-ed column on how Scrooge was just misunderstood, but I can't remember who and where, and can't be bothered to go searching for it.

[freshwest]

37. Scrooge is known for turning back on his evil ways. Not expecting these psychos to repent...

[gordianot]

44. It took radical intervention ultimately fear of death and horror to convince Scrooge.

He also figured out you cannot take it with you "No pockets in a shroud". Faced with a few facts he converted to charity out of guilt but his motives appear to me to continue to be somewhat self serving. But this being fiction I doubt the real Koch brothers would make the connection of fictional Scrooge.

It does make one wonder if another work of fiction Pinocchio is known to that great paragon of 1% virtue Romney?

[freshwest]

46. Sure, he's got a script writer.

Last edited Wed May 9, 2012, 10:50 AM - Edit history (1)

[muriel_volestrangler]

61. Different Koch

Koch Entertainment was a music, film and television distribution company. It was purchased by E1 Entertainment in 2005 and now operates under the name E1 Entertainment.
History

The company began in 1975 as Koch International. Founded by Franz Koch, Koch International was an independent Austrian record label and music distribution company that specialized in German and classical music recordings. For over 20 years, the company operated under the name Koch Entertainment, a music, film, and television distribution company that was started in 1987 by Franz's son Michael.

By 1991, Koch had become one of the first national independent distributors of domestic labels in the U.S. by offering an alternative to the traditional system of regional independent distribution or national major label distribution.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koch_Entertainment

[freshwest]

62. Thanks for the information. I'll edit. I can't stand the Koch brothers...

[xchrom]

2. du rec. nt

[siligut]

3. It sure would seem this is the case sometimes. nt

[leveymg]

4. The Koch are actually a minority view, even among the 1%.

Last edited Mon May 7, 2012, 10:15 AM - Edit history (1)

Obama has been a God-send to the wealthy elite. His economic views and policies are completely and utterly conventional, and as the article points out, "Barack Obama, whose main goal is to maintain, not upend, the system that made these people so disgustingly wealthy."

He may not be perfect, but he is their savior. Most of them are intelligent enough to recognize that.

[bvar22]

25. ...and THAT is WHY he has been granted a 2nd Term.

The Republicans haven't fielded a serious candidate,
but they can't just concede the election.
If they did, donations to BOTH Parties would dry up,
and we are talking BIG BUSINESS worth several BILLIONS to both the Parties, and The Media.
They have a vested interest in making this spectacle appear to be a Horse Race.

What we are observing would more appropriately be called "Milking the Rubes" than an election.
The Republicans aren't scheduled to re-take the White House until 2016.




You will know them by their WORKS,
not by their excuses.
[font size=5 color=green]Solidarity99![/font][font size=2 color=green]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------[/center]

[ProSense]

5. They believe

But Conrad is wrong. The rich are not intrinsically more virtuous or hardworking than the masses. They are also, decidedly, not any smarter. And they receive their news, and their political opinions, from the exact same organs as everyone else. They may be more likely to read the Wall Street Journal than the New York Post, but both of those Murdoch-owned newspapers carry similar lies on their editorial pages. In other words, they actually believe their bullshit. They honestly believe that mean Democrats invented “Occupy Wall Street” in order to make them scapegoats for a crisis that they feel no responsibility for. People who are in the business of extracting fees and interest from consumers, or moving rich people’s money around, unironically think of themselves as “job creators.”

...it's smart to prey upon others, just like the believe cheating, lying, suppressing the vote and stealing elections is "genius."

[KurtNYC]

6. An article titled "America's Idiot Rich" calls the idea that there is prejudice against wealthy

an irrational idea ?!

[n2doc]

9. Well, mittens, Obama didn't say that

But you knew that already, didn't you? Idiot.

[KurtNYC]

17. What?

I honestly have no idea what your post means or how it responds to my earlier post.

[hfojvt]

22. translation

mittens, of course, is Mitt Romney, or you, since you seem to be a defender of Mitt Romney, or Mitt Romney's ideas, you may as well be Mitt Romney.

Second, it is the idea that there is prejudice against the rich (from Obama) that is irrational, and Obama was not the one who said "America's idiot rich"

But, in your favor, the article said "there is widespread prejudice against the rich" and did not single out Obama. Still, for every one person who says "KNR" to an article titled "America's idiot rich" there are probably 100 people saying "I love rich people. I love the way they live. I love the way I live when I am with them." (quoted from The Sound of Music) or "If you're so smart, why ain't you rich?"

Further though, widespread prejudice against, say a black person, impacts their daily life in a huge way, when they cannot get a good job (because of discimination) when they get stopped for DWB (driving while black) when they get trapped in ghettos filled with violence and decay and inadequate schools and no way out except for prison or the grave. The prejudice, such as it exists against the rich, does not really impact them. If one or two of the canaille give them the finger as their private jet flies a mile overhead...Well, it is not very nice, but it doesn't exactly ruin the rich person's day, much less their life. Anymore than their life would be ruined if some evil liberal like me "punished" them by making them pay taxes at pre-Bush rates. Yes, omigosh, I would demand that they collectively pay another 70.35 billion in taxes. That's a lot of money, but I do not believe their lives will be ruined if that happened. They would still have, collectively, $754 billion to live on, an average of $5.5 million each. I think they will probably be okay living on $5.5 million. I'm pretty sure people don't face real privation until their income gets below $2 million.

[KurtNYC]

24. I was going to guess something like that

but I didn't want to assume you were calling me an idiot. Apparently you were.

Prejudice and racism are two different things. What you describe is racism. Asserting that all wealthy people are "idiots" is prejudice. Sun Tzu did NOT say 'under-estimate and disrespect your enemy' but that is what we do when entertain the idea that wealthy people are idiots.

[DaveJ]

26. "Welfare recipients" might be a better term than "idiots"

I would like to say that n2doc came off as very rude, imo, to your reasonable observation.

If the 1% are indeed idiots, it is prejudice to make light of their mental challenges, and probably better that we take care of them, as we are, through corporate welfare. We should calm their concerns though somehow.

[AlbertCat]

34. I would like to say that n2doc came off as very rude, imo, to your reasonable observation.

Me too.

Being rich does not make one an idiot. There are plenty of fair-minded, exceptional rich people. We don't hear about them too much though. And of course, how many of these "Ooooo. the rich are all awful!" would turn down their winning lottery ticket?

Let's face it.... there are plenty of idiots, rich and poor and in between, to go around.

Y'know, if CORPORATIONS and the CHURCH, which are not persons, would just pay their fair share, we could all probably get a personal tax cut.

[HiPointDem]

39. corporations = the rich. if they paid more their stockholders would get less.

[hfojvt]

36. I was calling you nothing in post #9

since I didn't write it. I merely translated it as I understood it.

But on the matter of racism and prejudice. The OP said

"the wealthy ... are the victims of widespread prejudice akin to that faced by ethnic minorities."

well, the "widespread prejudice akin to that faced by minorites" sounds like racism to me. Thus, your citing this OP and the applause it generated as evidence that the wealthy really do face "widespread prejudice akin to that faced by ethnic minorities." Seems to fall flat since the damage from this OP is nowhere near the damage to the lives of ethnic minorities due to discrimination.

However, it is also clear that a post which was titled "America's idiot black people" would not be tolerate, would not be considered mostly harmless by a jury of DUers. But that is likely because, as a group they experience real harm due to the prejudice of others and contributing to that, even in a small way, should not be tolerated. Whereas the rich do not experience real harm due to the prejudice of some of the canaille and this OP has about the same impact on them as a dandylion seed hitting the side of a battleship in a 10 mph wind.

[patrice]

42. The article's title does not specify "all". You're adding that. Logical inference would allow us to

assume that since "idiot" is a modifier on "rich" it qualifies it somehow. It's not "America's rich" which would denote all of America's rich. The class reference is modified by the word "idiot", ergo, those of America's rich who are idiots.

The mistake in logic that you make is not one that I bet you'd make with other statements of the same form, but different content. You would not tell us that a phrase such as "America's conifer trees" refers to ALL of America's trees, would you; no, you would know that "America's conifer trees" is not the same reference as "America's trees". That would be stupid, so why do you make this rather obvious error in logic about this title?

[tclambert]

52. The title doesn't necessarily imply all rich Americans are idiots. A sub-class of idiots exists

amongst the rich. This is what differs with those same idiots' belief that they must be extra smart because they're rich. Some, I say some, rich people confuse being born into a wealthy family with being inherently smarter and more virtuous than people foolish enough to choose poor parents.

Many of America's rich see the idiocy in the various myths mentioned, like that nefarious poor people engineered the financial crisis, tricking and victimizing the unwary lenders who offered sup-prime mortgages to any warm body who walked in. That's why many rich people have called for raising their own taxes, supporting the Buffett rule (named after a rich guy), and calling for stronger regulation of the giant financial corporations.

The title is ambiguous. The article is a little more nuanced. I'd kinda like to see a discussion about "Smart Rich" vs. "Idiot Rich."

[FailureToCommunicate]

7. AND that the Rich are jobs creators...

"Don't make me fall off the branch!"

[lunasun]

16. and this is a land of opportunity which to them means

it's OK to be an opportunistic predator of working people
and ethics is not part of the formula for sure

[obxhead]

10. The 1% may be saying these things, but they don't mean it one bit.

It's simply the noise they have to make to keep us divided.

If the 1% actually feel these statements are true they would have fielded a Republican candidate that had a real shot at winning. Instead they made a circus of this election because 4 more years will be just fine for them.

[HiPointDem]

40. +1. Though I think some do believe it, just like the local bigshot businessman believes it.

They think they work harder than everybody else, support the community more than anyone else (because they have more money, even though they may spend less of it on charity as a percent of income & get way bigger tax-writeoffs too).

But yeah, hard to believe Romney was the best they could do for a candidate. It's like he's a sacrificial lamb. Felt the same way about McCain & the nutbag.

Felt the same way about Mondale and Dukakis, actually.

[obxhead]

47. It's not even about Romney....

Look at the entire field from day one. They didn't have a realistic candidate from day one.

The 1% is more than happy with the current setup. They get what they want and they can blame us for it.

[HiPointDem]

50. agreed. it's not a new pattern, either. and they're doing the same thing in europe -- "left"

governments have been putting neoliberalism in place there.

[lastlib]

11. "poor people, and not the finance industry, are responsible for the financial crisis..."

They're right!! I've seen thousands of poor people writing credit default swaps to cover their food stamps!!

[hue]

12. The corporate greedy have, over the last > 40 yrs., infiltrated our democracy...

actively creating a labyrinth of control that benefits the top 1 %. The goal is an oligarchy where politicians are mere
chess pieces controlled by their corporate "think tanks", for example ALEC. They proceed without any regard for those
beneath them--one example, literally & figuratively is our earth/planet. Take a look at their environmental record!
Common workers are disposable like worker ants. There is a definite lack of empathy, and IMHO as suggested above,
a lack of intelligence or ability to see the whole picture.

[socialist_n_TN]

19. And every one of those things you've mentioned has ALWAYS.........

been among the aims and goals of capitalism. The ONLY reason that there was any "regulated" capitalism that softened any of these goals for a while was the threat of revolution in the 30s and a competing system that, no matter how degenerated, offered an alternative.

Now that the threat of both has subsided, we see the true face of capitalism.

[Egalitarian Thug]

30. +1. But, I think you meant denigrated. n/t

[socialist_n_TN]

55. Nope. I said what I meant..........

Although denigrated would also be true. I'm a Trotskyist and, under the bureaucracy led by Stalin, I believe that the original worker's state set up in October '17 had degenerated to a shadow of itself by the 30s.

Yes the USSR was denigrated too, but Stalin gave the capitalists a lot of ammunition for the denigration. HOWEVER, even paying lip service to a worker's state was a check on the natural excesses of capitalism. Which is why Trotsky, even though he condemned the bureaucracy in the USSR, never condemned the state itself.

[Blue_Tires]

54. +1

[whathehell]

33. +10..n/t

[Seedersandleechers]

13. You would think that it really

doesn't matter if they are irrational or complaining. There are so many more of "us" then "them". Whatever happened to strength in numbers?

[hue]

14. Some one I know wrote this re Freedom:

"Freedom comes from equality of power, not absence of government. Because governing doesn't disappear when government shrinks...instead, in its absence, large corporations and moneyed interests come to govern your life, with the goal of profit maximization,not public needs. The same can be said for governments that do not answer to their people (and instead have their own political agenda), however. So the answer to the question of more or less freedom is not more or less government per se, it is how well that government responds to the needs of every equal citizen."

[HiPointDem]

41. "Freedom comes from equality of power, not absence of government" +1.

and there can't be an equality of power where a small fraction of the population controls the reins of production, communication, information, law, and legislation, and where the great mass of the population only gets the information that the 1%-ers want them to.

[dotymed]

15. I received an e-mail

from an ex-pat site today. They were hyping a book by a r/w Senator claiming that Americans are currently paying the largest amount of taxes in our history. That the wealthy are really having it "stuck to them" with taxes...etc. The book was only $179.00...
People cannot think? They cannot remember or read history?
Yes, there are A LOT of reasons to leave America, taxes on the wealthy is not on my list. Empire, police state, the wealthiest citizens being royalty, corporatism.....
Wow.

[Courtesy Flush]

18. Victimize me! Victimize me!

If they're victims, I want some of that abuse!

[fasttense]

20. Wow, I was just thinking of posting something very similar.

I just had to drive around one of their spoiled brats for free because I happened to be there when they realized they were short one car and driver. No offer to pay for the gas, no offer to reduce my hours in exchange. Just do this for me and be glad you have a crappy job. And the kid couldn't have been more arrogant and rude if she had tried.

The 1% are vile predators that survive by devouring the working people. They get ahead by sheer luck or thievery and think they are such geniuses. Yet, if you would talk to any of them, you soon find out how ignorant and just plain stupid they really are. If you took their wealth away, especially those who inherited their money, they could not survive. To really see their ignorance ask one of them how to open a car window with no electrical controls, or how to do laundry, or boil an egg, hell they even get other people to lie and cheat for them.

The rich 1% are parasites that feed off the working class.

[HiPointDem]

43. Even the best of those people think of ordinary people in the same way the ordinary American

thinks of the masses in the developing world.

Bad things happen to them, but it's far away and not very relevant to "our" lives.

We know how to do things, "they" don't.

We can teach them how to do things right, we can send them charity, we can convert them, we can give them some jobs in our colonizing businesses -- and if they try to go their own way & interfere with our power and resource supply lines, we can kill them with impunity.

[DaveJ]

21. They do not see the big picture, only one thing

All they care about is the return on their investments and how much they are being taxed. They feel a Republican will tax them less and cause the stock market to go up a few points higher. This makes no difference to most of us, but to someone who has, say $5 million in the market, a few points makes a big difference.

I am a little concerned for those who are living off investments of around $1-4 million. They are viewed as the 1%, but they are not the Ferrari driving, champaign drinking 1% that can afford it. They are living good lives, but if they were to give much of it away, to help the less fortunate, they feel they'd end up in the same situation the poor are in, which won't help anyone.

So if Obama could convince those people they'll be ok, it would improve his chances.

As far as the rich being idiots, I totally agree, and actually think we are better off if they continue to sip champaign and continue to live on corporate welfare rather than having real jobs and screwing things up even more.

[raouldukelives]

23. Luckily it's easy to make them happy.

Just start investing in Wall St. All that extra money to play with makes them positively giddy.

[Blue Owl]

27. Rich Christians: the #1 most persecuted group of humans in history

How do they go on living day after day?

[jimlup]

28. I agree strongly! Attempting to reason with these insane people will...

Only cause us to fall to their level.

I'm pretty sure the Obama campaign is already well aware and putting this idea into practice. We should follow suit and stop trying to argue with the irrational.

Instead let's work to address those who still can reason as we move into this critical election season.

[Lamm]

29. The local spokesrat says that any counterarguments will be met with this:

[ErikJ]

31. Bring back "Idol Rich", "Leisure Class" and "Investor class"

It seems these labels have been scrubbed from America. Now its the "Hardworking rich" The Job creators" etc.

The average middle class Republicon Foxbot now worships this class as much or more than they do Jesus.

Romney is a good example. He has been unemployed for years yet makes $30 million a year in dividends and cap gains. ANd he pays HALF the tax rate the average working American does.

[hue]

32. "There can be no reasoning with people this irrational " So true!

Look at the Repukes in WI: Everyone knows Wanker has a Criminal Defense Fund in which he recently deposited $60,000.00, yet do they care??? Not a bit: it doesn't phase them. Wanker has been under a John Doe investigation for approx. 2 years now. Do they care?? There is no reasoning with Repukes. This is a prime example.

[AynRandCollectedSS]

35. So obtuse it hurts...

We spend $59 billion on social welfare programs and $92 billion--almost twice as much--on CORPORATE tax subsidies so they CAN CREATE JOBS! Yet, somehow it's all those lazy losers that are bleeding the government dry. Maybe if you'd stop hoarding cash and create jobs, Americans wouldn't need to rely on social welfare programs--you IDIOTS!!!!!

[patrice]

38. "Welfare queens" of another order: being tax-dodging trust-fund babies degenerates the stock.

[HiPointDem]

45. That's the myth. "Rags to rags in three generations." That's what we're supposed to believe.

Last edited Tue May 8, 2012, 06:06 AM - Edit history (1)

But there are families which have been trust-fund babies for 6 generations or more. And they're still on top.

To wit:

Joseph Morgan, b. 1780, founded AETNA insurance
\
Junius Morgan, b. 1813, founded JS Morgan & Co.
\
Mary Lyman Morgan, b. 1844 (sister of JP Morgan) married WH Burns, a Morgan partner
\
Mary Burns, b. 1873, married a Viscount Harcourt (a brit)
\
Doris Harcourt, b. 1900, married Sir Alex Francis St. Vincent Baring, 6th Baron Ashburton (of the Barings Bank family)
\
John Francis Harcourt Baring, 7th Baron Ashburton, born 1928, is still living. He's a British merchant banker and former chairman of British Petroleum (BP). Baring also sat on the boards of Jaguar Cars, Dunlop Rubber and Royal Insurance.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Baring,_7th_Baron_Ashburton


Most junius morgan descendants similarly situated. Doris Harcourt's brother William (b. 1908) was an Executive Director of the IMF.


Their heirs can be drug addicts and complete wastrels. Doesn't matter in the least because the money's so big.

Billy Mellon Hitchcock had weekly trust fund disbursements of $15,000 in his 20s, plus a cushy job in the financial industry. That's 3/4 of a million from the trust fund money alone.

They can live on their TF cash their entire lives, or they can sober up & step back into their privileged positions -- unlike poor/middle class drug addicts and wastrels, who find that even a short stint at that kind of them has far-reaching consequences. Even more true today in the era of the total surveillance state, credit checks, etc.

I once met an almost complete wastrel who was about 3 generations removed from big money, though not top tier. His father had been a wastrel too. Even at that remove he lived for about 30 years without having a job, and before that the jobs he had were spotty and pedestrian.

[patrice]

56. And when so many in that culture, and supporting it, assume at so many levels that

what they don't know about what they don't know about what they don't know doesn't matter, the incestuous pathoogies of all systems aggregate until they achieve different kinds of regressive critical mass, two good examples of which are the Invasion and Occupation of a sovereign nation known as Iraq, which resulted in the deaths of about 250K INNOCENT people; and the 2008 Derivatives Crash, which critically wounded a possibly terminally ill economic system, though there are many other examples at micro levels.

[The Wizard]

48. own or rent?

The top 1% wants to restore slavery. Renting slaves by the hour is cheaper than owning them.

[Zalatix]

49. The time for talk is over. It's time to storm the Bastille.

Where's the bat signal for Anonymous? We could do this revolution digitally.

[NoMoreWarNow]

51. I believe this is what the Occupy protests are about

you should join in

[TatonkaJames]

53. That poor people, and not the finance industry, are responsible for the financial crisis

I may be wrong but do the wealthy corporate owners let the poor run their companies ?

[yurbud]

57. and they own our government lock, stock, and barrel--Obama really was doing them a favor

when he said he was all that stood between them and the pitchforks.

Otherwise, he would have brought enough cops and handcuffs to the meeting to arrest the lot of them and held them without bail the way we have done with far less lethal terrorists.

[Sparkly]

58. If it were just them, it'd be easier.

But it's a whole lot of lower- and middle-class people who think this way -- thanks to the rightwing propaganda.

My favorite is the idea that they are "Job Creators." Just a few more billions, and they'll create jobs. It makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.

[WillyT]

59. HUGE K & R !!! - Thank You !!!

[Scurrilous]

60. K & R

[yurbud]

63. they can fix their tarnished reputation: demand prosecutions, tougher regs, and no more

captive regulators.

They could also demand a small transaction tax on Wall Street which won't hurt legitimate investors and will barely be felt even by high volume day traders, but could repair some of the damage their sociopathic brethren have done.

They could also ask to be taxed the same as everyone else and say they will direct their lobbyists and wholly owned politicians to vote for more taxes for them.

They could apologize for the damage their profession has done to America and the world, and pledge that henceforth, they will only make money by making businesses that make goods and provide services successful, not by cannibalizing them or taking them over and doing three card monte with their bookkeeping.

They could also demand that when financial sector fraud reaches a certain magnitude of damage, it be dealt with in the same shoot first, check the Constitution later manner that we use on less dangerous terrorists who just blow things up.

Until they are willing to say and do all of that, they should shut the fuck up, and figure out which emirate they are going to flee to when 99% of America comes to get them.