It’s Basically Just Immoral To Be Rich

Current Affairs ^ | March 30, 2017 | A.Q. Smith

[Nifster]

What in the heck are you doing at FR?...

[kanawa]

The author is no better than a common thief.

[GOPJ]

It’s the crap Venezuela bought into... AND the Cubans... and soon Nicaragua... always ends the same. Thuggy control freaks and populations starving.

[Buttons12]

I buy real estate at sheriff sales and people often tell me it’s immoral because I’m taking advantage of someone’s poverty — someone who “couldn’t” pay the mortgage and “lost” their house (”home”).
There’s no arguing with these people, so I simply tell them I only buy property that was foreclosed on due to tax evasion or criminal activity, and I only flip it to poor people who can’t catch a break from the eeeevil banks.
This works very well. I sound like a Robin Hood instead of a Dirty Capitalist Flip Artist. Motive, sheer benevolence rather than profit.
Because to some imbeciles, the profit motive will always be wicked, as it tends to result in profit.

[sphinx]

A.Q. Smith is "a progressive journalist in Baltimore."

One might think he would be aware of the U.S. welfare system and the damage it has done to the poor. Or that he might have heard of the poverty trap. Or have some understanding of moral hazard. If he were competent, he would question whether further increases in income transfers would do more harm than good. That, in fact, is what the debate is about.

But if he were competent, he wouldn't be a progressive journalist in Baltimore.

[Political Junkie Too]

To take a U.S. example: white families in America have 16 times as much wealth on average as black families. This is indisputably because of slavery, which was very recent...

Start by reading this wikiepedia entry, The Great Migration. Then read the companion links at the bottom, the Second Great Migration, and then the final New Great Migration.

There are many causes of black poverty in the United States, as well as cyclical periods of gains and losses.

-PJ

[jazzlite]

I am sorry that I posted the wrong link to the USF Neuro story. For anyone interested, here is the best link. http://health.wusf.usf.edu/post/neurological-diseases-costing-americans-nearly-800b-annually#stream/0

[major-pelham]

I kept waiting for the punch lines that never came...

[DocRock]

Every time I hear this I reply "America is the only country where the poor people are fat".

[ctdonath2]

“Unfortunately this thinking is very common on the left.”

Unfortunately this thinking is very common through much of the world.
One reason unrestricted immigration without assimilation is a problem.

[PAR35]

You can live very comfortably on $100,000 or so and have luxury and indulgence,

You can't live in luxury on $100k a year. You can live in luxury on $100k a year and a pile of debt. For a while.

[BitWielder1]

How come dictators, top clerics, sports, music and movie stars are never targeted by lamentations like this?

[BitWielder1]

If you really care about the poor and downtrodden of the world, the first thing you should do is to make sure you don't become one yourself.
Whenever you take a handout, someone else does not get one.

[IronJack]

Even if we concede (for the sake of argument) that it is “immoral” to be rich, who decides what is “rich” and what is “poor?” Who decides how much money is enough? Who decides to take money from someone who has worked hard and earned it only to give it away to a parasite who does nothing, contributes nothing, and earns nothing?

The only thing more “immoral” than being rich is playing economic God.

[I want the USA back]

So Ellison’s money should be seized and given to people whose lack of ambition, low IQ and reluctance to get up in the morning caused them to be poor?
Ellison, who I despise, worked very hard to make his money. Rastus don’ do nuffin all day.

The rich person didn’t “Cause” poverty. If all the money belonging to rich people were grabbed and given to lazy slobs, we all would be poor, because no one would ever bother working hard and building up a company through his inventiveness.

[Maverick68]

My favorite thing is when people who spend $8 for a cup of coffee try to lecture me about the evils of wealth.

[Maverick68]

My other favorite thing is when people who support millionaire candidates and their Party of fellow millionaires lecture me about the evils of wealth.

[norwaypinesavage]

The author clearly doesn't have even a clue how wealth is created and sustained. He has the childlike view of the wealthy as Scrooge McDuck, driving a bulldozer around his vault of gold, arranging it in neat piles.

So where is their wealth? They generally have little more cash on hand than you or I do. Their wealth is generally invested in places that generate even more wealth, and along with it, JOBS. Wealth is created from nothing, by producing things that are worth more than they cost to make. There is not a fixed amount of wealth in the world that needs to be spread around equitably.

The rich generally become rich by generating wealth, not by having it handed to them (unless their name is Kennedy). If their wealth is confiscated by the progressives, they will stop creating it, and all will suffer. The solution to poverty is jobs, not redistribution of someone else's wealth. As Margaret Thatcher so correctly said: "The problem with Socialism is that you soon run out of someone else's money.

[eyeamok]

We are Socialists, we are enemies of today’s
capitalistic economic system for the exploitation
of the economically weak, with it’s unfair salaries,
with it’s unseemly evaluation of a human being
according to wealth and property instead of
responsibility and performance, and we are all
determined to destroy this system under all conditions.

Chancellor of Germany

[Political Junkie Too]

...regardless of whether you have earned it, to what degree are you morally permitted to retain it... Of course, wealthy people do give away money, but so often in piecemeal and self-interested and foolish ways.

These two quotes from the article sum up the liberal mindset that they are smarter than everyone else, and they should decide who gets to do and keep what.

-PJ