The Top 1% Are Not Causing the USA's Problems

American Thinker ^ | 15 Mar, 2021 | E. Jeffrey Ludwig

[MtnClimber]

The left continually claims that the rich are the key agents for undermining the progress of society. But it's not true at all.

This writer knows a leftwing corporate lawyer who sees our society as top-heavy with a rich, exploitative class drinking glasses of champagne while there are millions of starving children in America, millions of homeless in the streets, degradation and hopelessness everywhere based on economic deprivation as well as racist, sexist, and moral rigidity.... To him, there are too many Marie Antoinette types laughing in their palaces saying to the miserable masses, "Let them eat cake...." In his mind, most of those laughing are Republicans with a few Democrats thrown into this heartless, capitalist mix. He is obsessed with the “heartless” top 1% or .1% (the exact number is of small importance to this hater of “the system”) who are venal, smirking, self-satisfied individuals while the other 99% consists of miserable starving children and cast aside adults who, whatever their faults, deserve a better deal from life than they are getting.

This writer had a ministry to the homeless for a few years. As many neglected and hurting persons as I encountered at various locations in New York City, I did not find the streets teeming with homeless and starving children as for example I know exists in India, Africa, or parts of Latin America. This maudlin crowd of poverty chasers are looking at today’s poor the same way as Jacob Riis at the turn of the 20th century when he studied the hordes of immigrants living in six floor walk-up tenements in New York City.

Now there are food stamps for the indigent; yet, this writer knows from having taught in the public schools that there are hundreds of thousands of people

[Alcibiades]

Most of the 1% (Gates, Bezos, Buffett, Turner) are outright democrats and even those that aren’t (Koch, Murdoch) tend to be in the open borders crowd. Unchecked immigration of both low skill and H1-B keeps American wages low and more profits flowing back into their businesses. This in turn causes the wealth gap keep growing wider as the 1% reap ever higher returns.

Of course most of these immigrants vote Dem and are keeping their own cultures vs integrating into ours.

So yes, the 1% are absolutely to blame for a number of our problems.

[Mr. Jeeves]

The author is making the same mistake liberals make - failing to notice that railing against the top 1% inevitably leads to policy “solutions” that punish the 2% down through 50% brutally but do nothing but increase the wealth of the top 1%.

[Vaduz]

BINGO

[Sam Gamgee]

Oh I would say the rich techs in Big Tech and Zukerberg are a big part of the problem.