Posted on 12/01/2008 7:39:26 AM PST by Turret Gunner A20
I know what you're thinking right now. You would like to take a trip into the mind of someone who just can't stand the fact that there are people out there who have worked smarter, harder and longer and in the process have become very successful. Yeah .. how dare these people work that hard and earn that much money? Don't they realize they're making me look bad?
Have you ever tried to noodle out the thought processes behind wealth envy? Here, let me help you. Nobody likes to be told that they just haven't worked smart enough or hard enough to become wealthy. People don't want to accept the fact that they've made some pathetic decision in their lives that stood in the way of success and wealth. They don't want to be told they didn't pay attention to their education. They don't want to hear that they took a dead-end job and hung with it for years. They don't want to hear that they were too eager to punch out and head home after their required eight hours every day .. eschewing a bit of extra work that might have moved them ahead a few squares. People don't want to hear that all of the money they spent on booze, partying, bass boats, vacations, car payments and lifestyle might have been better invested for future returns.
In short .. so many people just can't bring themselves to accept the fact that it is they who have held themselves back. No. No way. It's not their fault they aren't rich. You can hear the thought process: "I'm a good person. I work hard. I put in my 40 hours a week. I pay my taxes. I coach little league. It's not my fault I'm not rich. Those rich people cheated. They have crooked lawyers. They cheat on their taxes. They've exploited people like me. They're may be poor but at least I'm honest. Those rich people are all crooks and they're holding the rest of us down.
Now ... an object lesson. Here is an excerpt from delightful little email I got from some lady named Joy of Bradenton, Florida. She is more than a little upset about a conversation last week with a caller. The caller and I were wondering where the good investment bargains might be right now ... a question that many are asking. Here you go:
"Don't you think that the fact that people like you with in your words " lots of money to invest" need to actually pay the taxes that they owe? My daughter is a CPA, so I know that most wealthy people use so many loopholes that they end up paying less tax percentage than the working poor. (BTW, she will not let her clients take questionable deductions although the most wealthy of them are always trying to find new ways to cheat. It is her license on the line if they lie on a tax return so she tells them to find another CPA if they insist on shady accounting practices.)
"Isn't it time for the people who use the system against the interests of the country by cheating on their taxes pay their actual tax liability? Isn't that the real Patriotic thing to do? You profess to be a Patriot, don't you?
"The auto unions are not the enemy, the illegals are not the enemy, the greedy are the enemy.
"Sell your private jet and pay someone's mortgage that is being thrown into the street because their minimum wage job (that they were forced to take after they were laid off as the stockholders and CEOs steal their pension money) won't let them hold on to their home. Lose your cushy transportation and save your soul."
Yeah, that's it. People earning minimum wage are being foreclosed on because of corporate stockholders and CEOs. It couldn't possibly have anything to do with the fact that they just aren't worth more to an employer than a few bucks an hour.
Oh well ... forget it. To Joy and to people like her the rich are evil, and there's no changing that. The poor are only poor because rich people made them that way. Joy will remain poor .. she's programmed that way. Sad.
She could change, but I don't see it.
...I guess she didn’t get the official email about her new car and house, courtesy of ‘the One’?
She’s hopeless...........
GREAT POST! Would that more of our people could grasp this principle of turning passion into a business! I’m in similiar sich, but look for ways to beat the notion to “go with the flow”. Please let me know how you’re doing with that! saltnlemons
So that’s where the phrase “just a Joy to work with” comes from... /sarc
I’ve run into “Joys” from time to time in the workplace. When they complain about how the more productive people get all the “perks” (i.e. coming in late after working extra time over the weekend) I politely suggest that the “Joy” take over the responsibility for getting the job done. Amazing how fast the “Joy” backpedals.
Hate to say it, but I’m beginning to believe that the only way “Joys” will get it is by letting them run things into the ground - and making sure they have no one other than themselves to blame.
They realize that. The primary goal of leftists is to take the rich down several notches, not enrich the poor. Leftists exploit the poor as cover, using them as a socially acceptable excuse to pillage the rich. Their interest in the poor is mainly as a source of nourishment for their narcissistic egos. They don't care that government takes a 50% shave of any wealth transfer. If they can't have the wealth for themselves they will settle for wanton wealth destruction.
Warren Buffett spoke at Capitol Hill on November 14th, to get his taxes raised. Yep, he admits that the rich don’t need a tax break; the working class needs the break. The rich pay less percentage than the middle class tax payer. Buffett pays around 18 percent of his income in taxes while his staff pays around 33 percent.
Buffett is speaking up for us lesser off folks and is saying that the rich should pay the same percentage of taxes as the rest of the working class.
Buffett asked the Senate Finance Committee not to repeal the estate tax which is due to come up for vote very soon.
“Frankly, an economy where my receptionist pays a lot higher tax rate than, than I do does not strike me as a just economy,” Buffett explained to the lawmakers.
Buffett told ABC news that he had three of his wealthy friends calculates their tax rate and they also came up with the 18 percent tax rate.
Buffett offered a $1 million dollar donation to the charity of his choosing if any billionaire could prove him wrong about the tax rate.
The matador is Buffet, the red cape is leftist hot air, the bull is you. Limousine liberalism is a strategy to keep their wealth by deflecting envy. Buffet has no intention of paying any tax he can avoid. Just look at his estate planning and the small size of his political donations to leftists. It's a trick and it works wonderfully. Although the beast of envy is vicious, it is also stupid and never learns.
My sister-in-law is like Joy. Back in the late 60s I was changing careers and was going to school eight hours a day and working full time at night. We had just moved in to our new house when she paid us a visit. She looked around, took in the view, and snidely remarked “Well, SOME people are just lucky.” God, I was so PO’d, but for once kept my wits and, paraphrasing an old adage, told her “Yeah, I’m lucky. And you know what? The harder I work, the “luckier” I get.” She clammed up and left a few days later - to our relief as she was one sour woman.
To this date, she still isn’t “lucky”.
Well, who would? The more wealth you have the more avenues become available to avoid income taxes. Everyone knows it (except you). Sheesh the first thing large lottery winners do before collecting winnings is hire a financial expert to avoid massive taxation. I have no envy for the rich or what other people have, if I want something bad enough I'll find a way as I always do.
In the end I really hate the income tax system, its very lopsided and should be reworked into a national and state consumption tax.
And they don’t even have to be working to get the earned income tax credit in Wisconsin. That really burns my backside.
What the liberal mind is passionate about is a world filled with pity, sorrow, neediness, misfortune, poverty, suspicion, mistrust, anger, exploitation, discrimination, victimization, alienation and injustice.
They are poor, weak, sick, wronged, cheated, oppressed, disenfranchised, exploited and victimized. They bear no responsibility for their problems. None of their agonies are attributable to faults or failings of their own: not to poor choices, bad habits, faulty judgment, wishful thinking, lack of ambition, low frustration tolerance, mental illness or defects in character.
None of the victims’ plight is caused by failure to plan for the future or learn from experience. Instead, the “root causes” of all this pain lie in faulty social conditions: poverty, disease, war, ignorance, unemployment, racial prejudice, ethnic and gender discrimination, modern technology, capitalism, globalization and imperialism.
In the radical liberal mind, this suffering is inflicted on the innocent by various predators and persecutors: “Big Business,” “Big Corporations,” “greedy capitalists,” U.S. Imperialists,” “the oppressors,” “the rich,” “the wealthy,” “the powerful” and “the selfish.”
The Europeans have VAT which is a large consumption tax, and in addition they pay income taxes. The only thing that will come from supporting a consumption tax is you'll get both. Won't a tax on spending induce the economy to shrink?
Our military costs about 2% per year to protect our wealth from invaders. Many of the ultra-rich effectively pay less than 2% per year on their wealth. That's a bigger problem.
“Joy in Florida”, huh? Have you been pulling his chain?
I have both now.
Won't a tax on spending induce the economy to shrink?
Does a tax on income stop people from working?
They can always, always, find someone else to blame. The only solution I see is to let them starve, but I don't find that acceptable even in the light of "if a man will not work, neither shall he eat."
It does when it progresses to a high percentage. And if the working class has to give a 30% gift to the socialists to buy a new fishing boat many will just forgo it. We're better off with stability for the game rules we have. Historically major overhauls to the tax laws have resulted in more government and richer CPAs, and failure to achieve the original intent.
“Does a tax on income stop people from working?”
Was that a rhetorical question, because the answer for many of us small business owners is YES, IT DOES. If I got to keep more of my money, I would work more. At the point where about 50% goes to state, fed, and local taxes, I stop.
That would seem to vitiate the concept of "earned income," but what do I know.
It worked for Lenin; it works for the Democrats and their supporters.
A roof over my head, food on the table, my family around me on the holidays, how much more do I need?
I wouldn't mind being independently wealthy but it's not one of my major goals.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.