Posted on 09/27/2010 7:52:55 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
The other day, in response to a hedge fund manager who asked him when he would stop whacking Wall Street like a piñata, President Obama said, "If you are making $1 billion a year after a very bad financial crisis where 8 million people lost their jobs and small businesses can't get loans, then I think that you shouldn't be feeling put upon."
The same day, the New York Times published a column by Nobel laureate economist Paul Krugman under the headline "The Angry Rich and Taxes," referring to what Krugman called "belligerent sense of entitlement" among "high-income Americans, the world's luckiest people."
Let me try to explain why the "rich" are angry, or feeling put upon, and what that means for the rest of us. First, and related, a few words about where I am coming from. I'm not rich using Obama's definition of making $1 billion a year, but I know people who are. Nor am I rich using Obama's definition of the top 2%/3% of the American population - the group he wants to raise taxes on, households earning more than $250,000 a year. I've had a year when I met that definition, but I've also had years, including this past one, when I was not even close.
Labeling as "rich" individuals whose income may vary widely over time, and even from one year to the next, is one of the things that gets the "rich" angry. One commenter on the FutureOfCapitalism Web site I edit, Mary L. of Houston, Tex., put it this way: "We weren't born with a silver spoon in our mouths. We have lived like so many people; buying macaroni and cheese at 4 boxes for $1.00 and then splitting it each night with our next door neighbor - for 2 years!
(Excerpt) Read more at nydailynews.com ...
Do I hear a mixture of Cuban and North Korean music playing in the background?
O well, I always liked the sound of: “O Canada”
“Rich” is any person with a job who isn’t a slave of the commie vermin.
Good article. Elaborates on the idea of “From those according to their ability, to those according to their need.”
I still can’t figure on how the marxists settled on this figure of $250,000 yearly income as the boundry of rich.
clinton used that number. Algore made the claim that if a person made 250K each year for 4 years running, then they were a millionaire. The dims in power, no matter who and their media have set this number in stone. A person living in east or west coast cities making 250K lives a much reduced lifestyle than someone in Lufkin, Texas. So why the 250 number? Any ideas?
They probably ran their statistics and decided that 250K+ people make up a sufficiently small percentage of the electorate that the Dem core supporters mostly won't care.
This MF has the nerve to get down on anyone who’s wealthy, when he takes his wife on a $150,000 date at tax payer expense. When his wife goes to Spain spending over $500,000, a large part which was tax payer expense. What does he understand about footing a bill when he sucks off the Government Teat, only in a much larger way than the poor. When will someone with cojones tell him straight to his face what a GD POS hypocrite he is?
Might make good advertisement material.
I suppose I would be in the cross-hairs of the Democrats to squeeze more taxes out of me. BUT what I have earned has nothing to do with luck. Yes, I took some calculated risks but the bottom line is that my wife and I worked our butts off to have what we have and get where we are. In 1979 we had $4, 2 old cars, a goal and a plan. We both worked regular jobs and worked nights to build a our own business. It was not luck but gut busting hard work. Little did I know, is that all along I had a partner looking over my shoulder that has now decided he wants his cut. Angry? You betcha'.
Bingo! The over $250K part of the population is less than the percentage error in a political poll. They don't matter in terms of raw votes on election day. They do matter with respect to employing the actual tax payers in the 50% of the population that does pay taxes. The number of actual tax payers will drop further as punitive tax rates force layoffs to keep budgets in the black.
We should not allow the left to hijack the English language and then use neutral terms as if they are now pejoratives.
When they cast aspersions at the “rich”, we should counter by correcting them by using the more descriptive term — “EMPLOYERS”.
See how that would resonate in an age when jobs are scarce.
When they cast aspersions on either, we should counter that without either there could be no economy and that we don't go for class warfare.
President Obama said, “If you are PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES DURING a very bad financial crisis where 8 million people lost their jobs and small businesses can’t get loans, then I think that you shouldn’t be feeling put upon.”
Hope he remembers it in 2012.
“...high-income Americans, the world’s luckiest people.”
Sounds more like lottery winners to me.
Let’s fix that:
“...high income Americans, the world’s most productive people.”
Or on “Flip This House” when they don’t count realtor commission or sales expenses in flip profits.
I have often wondered if Dems hope to strip the “rich” Americans leaving overseas of their citizenship if they don’t pay 100% of their taxes to the IRS.
That’s why the Bolsheviks just solved that little problem by killing the rich.
RE: strip the “rich” Americans leaving overseas of their citizenship
I’d like to see them try. MANY COUNTRIES would be willing to welcome them as permanent residents.
Australia and New Zealand are just two of them. Both these countries by the way, have unemployment rates much less than 7% ( Australia has close to full employment at this time ).
And if that happens, let’s just see how much more tax revenues the USA is going to get...
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