Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous

Don’t vote for Mitt Romney. He’s a rich bastard. That seems to be the totality of Obama/Biden 2012.
 



 

"Let them eat cake."

 



In Hannah Arendt’s long-winded “The Origins of Totalitarianism”, she dissected the roots of anti-semitism. Her big conclusion? People hate the rich. While most Jews were poor, the monarchs in Medieval and Rennaissance Europe were often supported by Jewish bankers. Arendt believed that people have trouble understanding wealth not connected to power. A wealthy king? Not a problem. A rich person without a title? “We should look into that”. In “The Believer”, loosely based on a true story, Ryan Gosling’s character, a Jewish neo-nazi, asked, “Why do we question anti-semitism? Do we ask why we step on a cockroach?” And so, hatred for the rich, maybe like hatred for the Jews, is so ubiquitous because to many, it just feels right.

 

Do the rich deserve our contempt? I, for one, don’t care for them. Frankly, I’m jealous of their cool cars. But shockingly, the rich are like most of us, flawed but not evil.

 

First, let us dispense with one persistent and asinine belief. When the rich get richer, the poor do not get poorer. The economic pie expands and contracts. The supply of wealth is not finite and unchanging. When one person gets rich, they help their neighbor by creating jobs or introducing efficiencies into the economy. If you question this assertion: 1. Stop reading. 2. Slap yourself in the face. 3. Repeat #2.

 

The Robber Barons so denigrated a century ago donated enormous sums of money. Andrew Carnegie gave away 4.8 billion dollars (adjusted for inflation). The Carnegie Foundation currently has assets of 1.5 billion. J. Rockefeller was an ardently religious man who tithed and helped found Spellman, the first all black female college. His wealth has spawned 14 billion (a.f.i.) in donations since 1913 and his foundation gives about 137 million annually. Bill Gates recently challenged the world’s billionaires to pledge the majority of their wealth. About 40 of them have signed the pledge, including Obama supporter Warren Buffett, who pledged 99% of his wealth. Even if many of the rich aren’t particularly generous, most are actually confused taxophile Democrats. On average, the wealthy donate quite a lot. The top 7% contribute half of all America’s charitable giving. Those making over $300,000/yr. give an average of 4.3% of their income. Those under? 2.3%. Interestingly, the poor are actually more generous than everybody but the very wealthiest, giving 30% more of their income than the majority of the rich. Perhaps it is because they know what it means to need and to suffer.

 

 

Occupy Wall Street, a group of people allergic to soap and sense, has rightly called attention to the sins of Wall Street. But only 14% of the wealthiest 1%--about $300,000/yr.--work in finance. The rest of the top five are non-finance executives (31%), doctors (15%), lawyers (8%), and engineering and science types (4%). These are people who actually work. A lot. Complaints about astronomical CEO pay do seem justified, especially when some tank their companies and float away with a golden parachute. Yet, according to former Clinton Treasury Secretary, Robert Reich, the CEO market is highly competitive. CEO’s are not gods but they are usually uber-talented, hold advanced degrees, and work an average of 60 hours/week, sometimes 80-100. The stockholders and boards apparently think they’re worth it.

 

Do the rich commit crimes? Sure, usually white collar crimes. Violent crime is largely a phenomenon of the poor, however. The actual crime rate of the wealthy is difficult to come by as convictions are not tracked by income. What is clear is that nobody fears getting mugged in La Jolla and most of us feel relatively safe from getting defrauded when we invest our money with a financial expert.

 

I saw a bumper sticker recently that said, “If you are not a rich, white, male and you vote Republican, you’re an idiot!” Subtle. So why are many of the middle class conservative? Most don’t focus every bit and tittle of life through the lens of money and class. “You’re rich? Good for you”. We also recognize that targeting the wealthy can actually hurt us. The rich do not hide their money in goose down mattresses. They spend and invest. When they gold plate their toilet seats, they pay a small business to do it and hire a guy who lives across the tracks to install it. When investing is riskier because of higher taxes, they’re pumping less into the economy. Their focus becomes how to keep what they have through tax shelters and other avoidance schemes. How does that help the middle class?

 

Obama is staking his reelection on raising the top income tax rate. The Heritage Foundation estimates it would cost 800,000 jobs. It would bring in a paltry $460 billion over ten years when this year’s deficit alone was $1.5 trillion. He has remarked before that it isn’t all about the numbers; it’s about fairness. But it seems to me that the left doesn’t love the poor nearly as much as they hate the rich. Why? Maybe it’s because they value things like knowledge and art. It is unconscionable to them that an artist would starve or that a professor should have to drive a Chevy while those whose only skill is making money (how crass) have lots of it. Oh, and power. And therein lies the rubber duck. The combatants of class warfare won’t call it what it is: envy. It never really was about helping the poor. If it was, they would actually…..wait for it…..help the poor. This whole thing is just a good, old-fashioned power struggle.

 

One last thing: if you still hate the rich, hate yourself. If you make $34,000/yr., you’re in the top 1% globally. Rich bastard.