Posted on 05/10/2011 9:39:46 AM PDT by Kaslin
Compared to 100 years ago, we are all fabulously rich. And we owe it all to the working rich who created it.
Don’t you hate those rich people who inherited all their wealth? They were just born into privileged circumstances and did absolutely no work to earn it. And still, that’s never enough for such greedy individuals, and they constantly seek more and demand to have everything they want handed to them.
It’s a bitter, craven existence, and that sense of entitlement and wanting to just take from others does nothing but hurt this country. And if anyone deserves to be taxed heavily in this country, it’s these idle wealthy who don’t deserve their riches in the first place. Lucky for the taxman, then, there are a few hundred million of them to go after.
Let’s get one thing straight: We label people in the U.S. as poor, middle class, and rich, but that is all utter bull. I mean, look at what we call poor in this country. Poor people have cars, cell phones, TV with hundreds of channels, the internet, electricity, running water — these are riches even the wealthiest of a hundred years or so ago couldn’t even dream of having. And look at our poor compared to actual poor people in other countries — not poor in the sense that they have to buy store brand soda but poor in that they could easily starve to death in the streets.
When you look at other countries and the history of the world in general, we are all just amazingly, unbelievably wealthy in this country. We have technology and opportunities that are insane; we can’t even comprehend how well off we are compared to people who used to have to live in huts and fight for every meal. When you look at it objectively, every one of us in this country is a billionaire. And what did we do to earn all this incredible wealth? For most of us, the answer is: absolutely nothing. We were just born with it. So we take it for granted. And we demand even more.
There is another type of rich person, though — the working rich. The people who create. These are the people who made all the benefits we enjoy in society today. Thanks to their creativity and initiative, we have all the technological marvels we enjoy today. Because of their hard work, we have all these companies that give us cushy 9-to-5 jobs where we earn sums of money most of the world couldn’t even imagine possessing. And are we thankful? Do we say, “Thank you, rich people, for making all these things so we can benefit from them. I can’t even believe how simple and easy my life is because of you”? No, we demand more from them, because we’re the idle rich, and we think the working rich owe us everything.
Like when the federal deficit is mentioned, so many people suggest we pay for it by raising taxes on the working rich. How perverse is that? Look at how we got the huge deficit in the first place — entitlements like Social Security and Medicare. Were these instituted for the benefit of the working rich? Of course not, so why should the people who already benefited this country by producing jobs and our awesome consumer goods have to pay for it? In what bizarro, bearded-Spock universe is that fair?
And all these idiotic ideas are endorsed by the worst kind of rich people of all — the kind that spends other people’s money — politicians. These are rich people who are not only useless but tend to get in the way of anyone trying to create anything in this country. They want to spend all the wealth themselves, and they achieve that by playing off the greed of the idle rich, telling them they all deserve more and just need to let the politicians take it from others. If any rich people need to be punished to get our country on the right track, it’s the politicians. Go ahead and confiscate everything they have and throw them out on the streets, and I’m sure we’ll all be better off.
The next step would be to change the attitudes of all the idle wealthy in this country. Everyone born in this country owes a huge debt to those who went before and built it up for us, and if you’re not going to try and be one who adds to the wealth of this country, at least be grateful for what you have and don’t think you’re owed any more or have a right to the wealth of anyone else.
If you want my one part economic plan, it’s this: A new amendment to the Constitution that makes whining no longer a protected form of speech. And the punishment for whining will be that you lose your inheritance, i.e., you’ll be deported. So these will now be your three choices: Be another creator who adds to this nation, coast by and just be grateful for the privileges you were born with, or learn the hard way not to take the wealth of this country for granted.
I get the point, but I have to take exception to this statement. I took advantage of opportunities and have worked my ass off since the age of 14. 40 years. But the author is spot on for the rest of the article.
Fun read.
I take some issue with the author’s definitions (such as the “working rich” vs the “idle rich”) but I agree with the general tone.
The biggest issue I have with liberalism is the unrelenting class warfare. The reason it irritates me, is that they don’t see themselves.
I walked in on two co-workers recently, and they were railing on how too much wealth is concentrated in too few people, and that people who are well off should pay more of “their fair share”.
I was dumbfounded and appalled. These were two people making great money, one of which just came into a sizeable inheritance. I looked at them and pointed to each in turn and said “The problem I have is that once you decide that rich people aren’t paying enough, someone has to decide what “rich” is. We live in the wealthiest most comfortable country on earth, and as long as there are people, there will always be someone who will look at YOU and YOU, and determine that YOU have too much and have to give it up for the greater good!”
I do feel like I want to occasionally grab people by the lapels and shout at them “YOU ARE WEALTHIER THAN 99% OF THE PEOPLE WHO EVER LIVED ON THIS PLANET!”
Exactly. I took umbrage with that same characterization. I have worked my tail off to ADD to the value of my employer (and thus, my country) at every step of the way since I began working.
But I agree, the general tenor is right on.
THANK YOU, for the guts to teach, and to say something! YOU spoke up. We are all too quiet when we run only with the like minded and never meet a street challenge. We are getting soft and out of shape when we need to muscle up and SPEAK. (I am certainly making a pact to myself, here.)
Questio: The box we are put in has two walls, that say keep quiet and hold fire until the ballot box. The other two walls say if you come out and organize with some noise, you call down just what the marxists want. So, which do you believe is true, or smart, or dumb, or wrong?
IMO, if more people studied enough history to understand the improvements in creature comforts, medicine, communications, transportation, and technology since, say, 1894, there would be far less complaining about class inequities.
I use 1894 as a baseline as that was near to the `belle epoque’ of the super rich of that era, the Rockfellers, Vanderbilts, Astors & others. They had access to the very best the world had to offer. And what did that consist of?
1. Medical science of a primitive nature, helpless to epidemics and nearly all debilitating diseases.
2. Communication by post, messenger, telegraph or by telephones in their infancy. Ships at sea sailed at their peril, cut off from the rest of the world.
3. Home sanitation which may or may not have included running water (this in the best homes). The flush commode was a novelty when chamberpots were still in use.
4. Food distribution only just beginning to reach all geographic sectors thanks to railroads and refrigeration which relied on stored winter ice. Large kitchens required larger staffs.
5. Sound entertainment in the form of the best Edison or Victrola gramophones which gave out but a tinny, scratchy approximation of recorded music (true, if one were rich enough entire orchestras could be brought into one’s abode for an evening of music).
Could go on, but I wouldn’t trade places with old John D. Rockfeller Sr. at the zenith of his power and wealth, not for all the tea in China. 2011 beats the living daylights out of 1911.
I think the biggest disconnect is that a lot of people define work based upon physical exertion. This is why they generalize that office workers are lazy in comparison to manual laborers.
The truth, I believe, is that the value of work is based on supply and demand of people willing and capable enough of successfully completing a task. This is why hard workers in construction move up while others do not and people who acquire knowledge and skill in office positions do as well.
That is very true.
One of the key elements of Marxism is that wealth is only produced by a worker’s hand.
It is why they demonize the middleman as a leech and bloodsucker.
But as Thomas Sowell eloquently explains, middlemen serve a critical function in an economy. They are the ones who ensure that goods get to where they are wanted and needed, and take their cut for doing so.
When the Soviets (or any other brand of centrally controlled economy) tries to make the economy more efficient and goods more affordable by cutting out the bloodsucking middlemen, they always, Always, ALWAYS find out after the fact that an economy suffers without middlemen.
They never learn, though.
But to your point, the value in a given work is not inherent in the work itself, but what a customer or employer needs. If you have a skill writing computer code, that skill may be far more valuable than someone who can run a mill and create something from a block of solid steel.
It all depends on what is needed.
LOL, to be honest, I am not one of those people, but this conversation just hit a spot. I try not to discuss this type of thing at work, that is true.
On a funny note, of these two guys, on a different day, one of them was commiserating to me how unfair life was that the OTHER guy had a big inheritance!
Now, he is a young guy in his mid-late twenties, and I had to tell him to let that go. Envying people on stuff like that is a formula for unhappiness. There is no fair or unfair there, it just is. I told him if he gets upset about that, he is going to be constantly miserable in life.
Not sure I understand, but I think that I have always been inclined to fight at the ballot box. But I also recognize there may come a time when the ballot box is not true, smart or viable. I hope not in my lifetime, but one can never tell.
In fact, I really hate those people who save all that money on that Extreme Coupon show too.
When I'm driving down the street, I really hate those people who are driving those exotic cars.
When I'm at the Grocery Store, I really hate those people that are able to buy those name brand products while I'm buying those cheap store brands.
I remember my Father telling me “Nobody owes you a living”.
I remember my Mother telling me “There is always somebody better off than you and there is always somebody worse off than you”. Those two truths of life have served me well.
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