Posted on 02/07/2012 12:08:27 PM PST by mojito
The Pew Foundation discovered in a recent poll that tensions over inequality in wealth now outrank tensions over race and immigration. But income inequality isn’t really the problem. A new upper class is the problem. And their wealth isn’t what sets them apart or creates so much animosity toward them.
Let’s take a guy — call him Hank — who built a successful auto-repair business and expanded it to 30 locations, and now his stake in the business is worth $100 million. He is not just in the 1%; he’s in the top fraction of the 1% — but he’s not part of the new upper class. He went to a second-tier state university, or maybe he didn’t complete college at all. He grew up in a working-class or middle-class home and married a woman who didn’t complete college. He now lives in a neighborhood with other rich people, but they’re mostly other people who got rich the same way he did. (The new upper class considers the glitzy mansions in his suburb to be déclassé.) He has a lot of money, but he doesn’t have power or influence over national culture, politics or economy, nor does he even have any particular influence over the culture, politics or economy of the city where he lives. He’s just rich.
The new upper class is different. It consists of the people who run the country....
What makes the new upper class new is that its members not only have power and influence but also increasingly share a common culture that separates them from the rest of the country.
(Excerpt) Read more at ideas.time.com ...
Please read the article before posting and just assuming that this is another OWS-type article. It isn't.
It’s not about the wealth,
it’s about the elitism (snobbery).
Feudal caste systems are hardly new.
And, overwhelmingly, they will think, "How did I get here? I don't really deserve this."
And that's how guilty Liberals are created. They are just powerful schlubs who think that they are secretly unworthy to exercise power. They don't understand the world, but they will rush around and try to "fix" everything to prove their own worth.
But more insidious I think, is the fact that these people are products of elite institutions that have only disdain and contempt for America's history and values.
How long can a nation survive if its elites despise their country and its people? Has history ever produced a country whose elites despised the very country that gave them everything? I can't think of one.
And Look at Obama: He's the poster child of our new America-hating elites. And look at how many of those elites support Obama and what he stands for.
It’s about amorality.
In short, the elite are trying to hold back those who worked hard and have been successful by controlling them. This new class of weathy are a threat to their control, and they don’t like it. And us folks down here looking up have figured out their game.
We don’t resent their money, we resent their attempts to control us. We also resent them because sometimes they are stealing our freedoms, and sometimes they are stealing our money. You can keep what you have, but don’t take mine.
This is more class-warfare bull****. It’s just packaged with a little twist of lemon to try to appeal to the repressed envy of a few more idiots. Here’s a hint: If it’s in TIME, it ain’t so.
"and you may tell yourself this is not my house, this is not my beautiful wife...."
I guess he should send his kids to elite schools that he can now afford, where his rich son or daughter will learn a little about being upper class and (hopefully) marry one of the poorer members of the upper class to gain entrance and the scion of the poor family will avoid the embarassment of a failed family line.
Been that way for 3000 years.
The message was pretty clear: all rich people are lucky. Hard work has nothing to do with it. Mitt Romney? Donald Trump? Just luck. You know, I could be a billionaire too, if a billion dollars fell into my lap. But, sadly, the billion dollars didn't fall into my lap, it fell into someone else's lap.
Much Liberal thinking is that "no one deserves to be rich", and the other component is "My family is better than your family, I attended better schools than you did, I have super cool friends -- that's why I should be the boss of you."
I know someone who was denied entry into a specific sorority in college because, as she told me, her father didn’t earn enough money, and that was 45 years ago. I was so pissed off that I wouldn’t “go Greek” either. Then, there was the little (actual, bloody) bear head left on a sorority’s steps, which was a prank by a fraternity at about the same time as my decision. I was just disgusted by the whole thing and swore off “going Greek”
You are making a mistake buying into the class warfare seen frequently on FR.
Many of these same “products of elite insitutions” are your Drs, Engineers and scientists. And entrepreneurs (trying to make jobs).
The real target of your scorn should be the products of these institutions fromthe “liberal” degrees - humanities etc.
Mke a list of those you have trouble with - and then write down their majors. it is not for nuthin they wil lmostly be “pre-law”.
Heck - few will even be “business”.
The VAST majority of Drs, Engineers, and scientists from these institutions are on your side. Some may be a bit squishy - but not “leftards”.
"Once in a lifetime (water flowing underground)..."
“My mother was a secretary.
What money I have is about _ years old.
So, yes, I am...
...nouveau riche.
But then it’s the riche that counts.
There’s only things that interest me...
...work...
...and those trappings of aristocracy that I find worthwhile.
The very things they’re forced to sell when the money runs out.
And it always runs out.
And then all they’re left with...
...is their lovely manners.”
“Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil”
The guy who wrote this is Charles Murray, a conservative/liberterian...His point is that Rich and poor no longer have anything in common, like they did 50 years ago and we are in a alot trouble because of it.. He wasn’t inciting class warfare with this article or his new book but that we All used to share a common culture...
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