Subject:
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Re: How many things need to stack up before we throw this jerk out?
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Wed, 16 Jul 2003 16:58:51 GMT
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Viewed:
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584 times
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I wasn’t overly impressed with the nature of the rhetoric or information at
those links either. And while I can’t speak for the specifics of what Mr. P was
referring to, something similar to it can be found here:
We Have Met the Wealthy, and They Are Us
http://www.spectator.org/util/print.asp?art_id=2002_12_9_23_38_17
Who are these people? Who are “the wealthy,” that group so often derided by the
Democrats and liberals? If you try to get a Democrat or a liberal to define “the
wealthy,” you’re in for a frustrating experience. Because as soon as you define
wealth in America, a certain uncomfortable something becomes clear. The wealthy
are not Bill Gates and Jack Welch and Leona Helmsley and Oprah Winfrey. You
could round up those people in one good-sized train. No, the wealthy are us,
ordinary Americans.
snip!
Second thing: While the most common route to wealth involves owning and
developing your own business, regular wage earners can get rich, too, by
following the example of the millionaires next door. The two most important
factors in getting rich are (1) living cheap and (2) investing 15 percent or
more of your net income. A cop and a nurse can do it. Starting with nothing,
saving $1,000 a month, presuming an average yearly return of 8 percent and
inflation at 2 percent, that policeman and nurse will be millionaires in 26
years. In reality, given raises and the ability to invest more as the years go
by, they’ll reach their goal a lot quicker.
My problem with my source is that the link between what the Democrats or
liberals define as the “wealthy” is never actually made, it is merely assumed --
somewhat blithely, I might add. There’s no quote, no source, no nuthin!
Just for the record, a million just doesn’t go as far as it once did. So no
arguments from me about households with a total worth of $1 million being
exceptionally favored -- heck, you could get that with just one well chosen real
estate deal (given enough time). But the reality is that worrying about what the
Dems or liberals define as the wealthy is to ignore the far bigger problem of
the super-wealthy. That’s where everyone’s money is getting sucked into as if it
were a black hole. Extreme wealth is like heavy gravity, you cannot stand
against it just as you cannot stand against another player in a game of monopoly
if he has multiple “grand” hotels on several properties and you have none.
Eventually you will go bankrupt.
In the real world this plays out as the tension between being a renter and a
home owner -- getting over the hump where you have enough to both rent and still
make that whopping down payment for a home is a very difficult gap for many to
negotiate. Most people come to the big city to make their moolah, but once
gotten they have to get out of Dodge to spend it because Dodge is already
largely owned and for far more than the average person can afford to buy into --
the buy out price is just too steep. This is why people like me consider doing
stupid things like buying swampland in Florida -- hey, at least it’s affordable!
And as you so well pointed out, Dave! -- the other and closely related issue is
the pork and etc. for the multinational corporatocracy.
http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporatocracy
I honestly do not believe that most americans understand how little their votes
matter to the average politician. The federal and state governments are
absolutely for sale.
Hmmm, maybe we should measure the distance from D.C. to the Cayman Islands...
-- Hop-Frog (I might have more to add later -- the issues, as further refined,
are ethically worthy of closer scrutiny)
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