When will the working-class conservatives show up to defend the superwealthy?

Boo farkin hoo.

ComicBookGuy: When will the working-class conservatives show up to defend the superwealthy?

This. It's amazing how the "conservative" movement has gotten people to so vigorously fight for policies and programs that are meant to destroy them utterly.

They don't want a "middle class". They want peasants.

It's not [SAD], it just is what it is.

If you want more money go find a way to make it.


/some people are better at it than you.

To me, there are those who have to work for a living and those who don't, and that's all that really matters. Most of us will never be "super-wealthy" no matter how hard we work and save, but we still have a shot at someday no longer being wage-slaves.

I would love to have a lot more money and, in turn, the financial freedom to make whatever decision I'd like regarding housing, travel, etc.

But no amount would get me out of the middle class if I had to do it without my family. I'm fine socking away for the future as long as I'm surrounded by Mrs. Lampwick and two little goofballs who make my fall down laughing at least two times a day.

Phil Herup: It's not [SAD], it just is what it is.

If you want more money go find a way to make it.


/some people are better at it than you.


So to hell with the American way? If someone really really does like being a janitor, and they are really good at it--better than anyone else in the world, they should get paid less than the CEO who loses half his/her company's wealth in a short period?

Arseholes, everywhere!

I'm working class. I have no problem with people becoming "rich" if they do it in the confines of the law and free market entrepeneurism. It's a relative term. We have the richest "poor" in the world as well with all gov. hand outs.

So what should we do? Put an arbitrary ceiling on wealth and have the goverment confiscate anything that goes over that? If you like that idea, feel free to move to Venezuela.

/ahh the putrid smell of class envy.

Bring back the witch trials, that's how New England dealt with the wealthy. This time it could be co-ed.

I am baffled why anyone who has a million bucks would give a rats ass about people wealthier than they are.

But then I underestimate the shallow greedy competitive nature of the rich.

I'd like the cash, but they seem to be really awful people overall.

Oooo, popcorn time.

ComicBookGuy: When will the working-class conservatives show up to defend the superwealthy?

When will working-class liberals show up to complain how unfair it is that others have more money? Or that the mega-rich 'have too much'?

Phil Herup: It's not [SAD], it just is what it is.

If you want more money go find a way to make it.


/some people are better at it than you.

THIS.

So.....everyone who isn't rich or "super rich" is renting an apartment. Hold on, that's not it. I mean we all own condos. Or was that 2000 sq. ft. houses? Oh, this is it. We all have a McMansion and a cabin in the mountains. Or wait. Actually we all live in boxes behind Wal Mart because, you know, you're either rich or poor. No middle ground at all.
(because over simplification = good critical thinking skills)

Epistax: Phil Herup: It's not [SAD], it just is what it is.

If you want more money go find a way to make it.


/some people are better at it than you.


So to hell with the American way? If someone really really does like being a janitor, and they are really good at it--better than anyone else in the world, they should get paid less than the CEO who loses half his/her company's wealth in a short period?

Arseholes, everywhere!

Supply and demand. There are a whole lot more people capable of being janitors than prople capable of being CEOs. For every CEO that loses halh his company's value, there are ten more who create millions in new wealth for shareholders and new jobs for hanitors, too.

Want to destroy the super rich? Make them unionize, worked on the middle class

/Thanks for NAFTA & the Chinese, Billy
//Pine for Perot? He was super rich and for the middle class, but he was wacko, right?

NEWSFLASH- The poor in the US are alot better off that most of the world's poor.

/have been poor
/may be again one day

Coronach: NEWSFLASH- The poor in the US are alot better off that most of the world's poor "rich".

/have been poor
/may be again one day

FTFY.

"Families with $50 million think they are poor because they're not big enough to be in the hundreds of millions," WHAAAAAAAAAA!!!

All my clients are of the wealthy variety. The ones that went out and made it themselves tend to be the most down to earth. Now when it comes to the people who inherited their money.....complete Aerseholes.

Confabulat: I am baffled why anyone who has a million bucks would give a rats ass about people wealthier than they are.

This. Give me enough for a place near the beach and enough for good wine and whiskey, golf et al....and I won't worry about anyone else.

These people clearly need another tax break.

THKS

Jesus wants people to be rich, because Jesus was rich.

Jesus was rich because he was brought gold by one of the wiseman.



//That's what a Mega-Church preacher said during an interview on NPR

clancifer: ComicBookGuy: When will the working-class conservatives show up to defend the superwealthy?

When will working-class liberals show up to complain how unfair it is that others have more money? Or that the mega-rich 'have too much'?

It never ceases to amaze me how many people still think that our system of currency is some sort of a fixed pie by which one more dollar for me necessarily means one less dollar for everyone else.

I love how some of them biatched about the still richer, and then spent money on flying to Italy for the handbag no one else has. Ever heard of saving?

This is an interesting phenomenon. We are also experiencing a "two tier" America, where there is a whole set of resources and services for the uber-rich, a whole world apart, where they never have to encounter the "rest of us" in their daily routine.

I have taught part time at two very expensive colleges and I can tell you that there is a kind of wealth out there that is unrecognizable to regular folk. I have seen 18 year old girls driving $100K automobiles without any sense that it is abnormal, rather, they are jealous of more expensive, more extravagant lifestyles.

I thought Jagodzinski was the new Boston College football coach?

/How much are they payin' that guy?

Furthermore, college is a moot point b/c there is simply no skill-set whatsoever that could improve their financial status. So, in a sense, college is completely moot in the traditional boot-strapping sense.

trancemission: To me, there are those who have to work for a living and those who don't, and that's all that really matters. Most of us will never be "super-wealthy" no matter how hard we work and save, but we still have a shot at someday no longer being wage-slaves.

It's called "death"

Phil Herup: It's not [SAD], it just is what it is.

If you want more money go find a way to make it.


/some people are better at it than you.

THIS
People are where they are, due to the choices they've made in life.
Get over it or do something about it. Simple

Before everyone starts foaming at the mouth, take note of this line from the article:

There is one key difference between the concentration of wealth before the Great Depression and that of today, researchers say: Most of our era's super-rich weren't born that way. Only 8 percent inherited their wealth, according to the Harrison Group, a Connecticut-based marketing research firm. The majority, the firm's survey found, made their money by starting a business or growing someone else's.

So what do we do? Tell people that they are only entitled to work so hard, and earn so much before they " have enough? " And who's to make the determination of what "' enough " is? Isn't that all relative?

I mean, I've been to many a foreign country where people think that an American family of four, with a modest apartment with running water, inside toilets, electricity, windows with glass ( as opposed to a hole with a sheet covering it ), a couple of used cars, a cell phone ( or 3-4 )a couple of computers with internet and a TV or 2 ( or 3-4 ) ARE RICH!

Now, I am a capitalist and as such, the Ken Lay's of the world who abuse the system should be punished severely because they threaten the economic system that has made America one of the most prosperous nations on earth and one where even Americans who think they're poor are rich by the majority of the world's standards.

That said, crooks are crooks and even if we went Socialist, the Ken Lay's of the world would simply make their way into Govt. positions and steal that way. The problem is, Socialism by it's nature squelches productivy, ingenuity and entrepreneurship. So I go back to my first question: if a person is told that they can only do so much, or be so successful, what's the incentive?

trancemission: Coronach: NEWSFLASH- The poor in the US are alot better off that most of the world's poor "rich".

/have been poor
/may be again one day

FTFY.

FTW!

There's rich, there's untouchable, there's me: MIDDLE CLASS, and then there are jerkoffs that get drunk all day and don't work.

clancifer: ComicBookGuy: When will the working-class conservatives show up to defend the superwealthy?

When will working-class liberals show up to complain how unfair it is that others have more money? Or that the mega-rich 'have too much'?

When will the libertarians show up to complain about how the super-rich want to destroy the middle class by rigging the tax code to ease taxation on typical wealthy modes of income and have large scale subsidization of their interests while the poor want to destroy the middle class by raising taxes on everyone and increasing government spending on their welfare programs?

"It's all relative," she said. "If you pull up to a dock and yours is the smallest yacht...."

But I thought it was the "motion of the ocean" that counted.

LIES!

King Something: trancemission: To me, there are those who have to work for a living and those who don't, and that's all that really matters. Most of us will never be "super-wealthy" no matter how hard we work and save, but we still have a shot at someday no longer being wage-slaves.

It's called "death"

I like to think that if I haven't saved enough over the course of my working life to retire on the proceeds, than I have failed at managing money and have no one to blame but myself.

jerkoffs that get drunk all day and don't work.

you already listed "the rich"

I used to just be bad but now I'm superbad!!

Ultimately, the problem (in the US at least) is that many of the uber-wealthy did not get that way through hard work or innovation but, rather, by reducing the income/benifits/jobs of the middle class or working class.

"Greed" as Gordon Gekko might have put it is the default position/mindset amongst the corporate class these days.

How many stories have you read about some company where the CEO slashes jobs, sends them over seas, etc and then gets some HUGE payout as a result.

If somebody blew up a factory that cost 10,000 workers their jobs that would be seen as terrorism.

How is outsourcing or sending jobs overseas any different.

It's economic terrorism.

The thing I've never been able to understand is this:

If some poor kid steals your purse or whatnot -though still wrong - I can understand where he's coming from in that he's poor.

However, all these corporate bigwigs who have utterly destroyed the lives of so many American middle class families by slashing jobs or embezzeling or other nefarious deeds are already millionaires many times over.

What informs/fuels their desire for _MORE MORE ^MORE!!!

Isn't that kind of abject greed a pathology of some sort?

I used to be a proponent of stricter gun contol but if - if this trend continues - and in 40-50 years there really is a patrician class and the rest of us are mere worker bees I'd be 100% behind a French revolution style re-booting, re-distribution of wealth in this country.

We're on our way there already but, like frogs in a pot of water on the stove, it's happening too slowly for most of us to notice.

Gerardo Capo, 65, comes from a successful family in Cuba, but his father lost everything in the revolution. After they came to the United States, Capo sold garbage cans door-to-door; his mother and sister picked tomatoes.

The experience fueled Capo's drive, and he entered the real estate development business. Today, he said, he owns a Learjet and four homes, including one that takes up an entire floor in a Miami Beach oceanfront condo he developed and named after his family, Capobella.

That is a great story. I know a woman who was put on a plane to the US at four years old during Operation Peter Pan (look it up) when Castro took power with nothing but a note pinned to her shirt asking for someone to please take care of her. She now owns a successful Cuban restaurant and runs an animal charity.

Red Shirt Blues 2008-01-20 10:07:15 AM

It's called "keeping up with the joneses".

This illness afflicts many people and it doesn't matter if your swanky abode is a Kentwood double wide or an upper east side townhouse in Manhattan

zipdog: clancifer: ComicBookGuy: When will the working-class conservatives show up to defend the superwealthy?

When will working-class liberals show up to complain how unfair it is that others have more money? Or that the mega-rich 'have too much'?

When will the libertarians show up to complain about how the super-rich want to destroy the middle class by rigging the tax code to ease taxation on typical wealthy modes of income and have large scale subsidization of their interests while the poor want to destroy the middle class by raising taxes on everyone and increasing government spending on their welfare programs?

I think it's fallacious to think that anyone really WANTS to destroy the middle class. A healthy middle class is pretty much the one thing that has kept this country from active revolt and class warfare since it was founded.

libbynomore2

I mean, I've been to many a foreign country where people think that an American family of four, with a modest apartment with running water, inside toilets, electricity, windows with glass ( as opposed to a hole with a sheet covering it ), a couple of used cars, a cell phone ( or 3-4 )a couple of computers with internet and a TV or 2 ( or 3-4 ) ARE RICH!

That can't have been any industrialized country. Compared to the third world, we are all insanely rich, Americans or not. For one thing, we have access to fresh water. That's something a billion people don't.

trancemission: There are a whole lot more people capable of being janitors than prople capable of being CEOs.

Did you mean "people capable of being CEOs" or "prole capable of being CEOs"? Freudian slip?

BillyBob_The_Magnificent: Red Shirt Blues 2008-01-20 10:07:15 AM

It's called "keeping up with the joneses".

This illness afflicts many people and it doesn't matter if your swanky abode is a Kentwood double wide or an upper east side townhouse in Manhattan

What can I say.....I am a man of simple tastes.

medius 2008-01-20 10:16:21 AM
jerkoffs that get drunk all day and don't work.

you already listed "the rich"

There enlies the problem. When you have people like this who don't even know what it takes to become rich in the first place how can we even have this discussion. Understanding that there are crooks from alll walks of life, if someone like this assumes that everyone with even one dollar more than him either stole it or inherited it as opposed to busting hump to earn it, there's absolutely no way in hell that he'll make it into the class of wealth he's so ignorant of and therefore envious of.

Sad

You want a capitalist solution to too many super-rich? - try a 90 percent estate tax. America does not need a landed gentry. If going to a private school, a good college, and a trust fund isn't enough for you then you add nothing to society. I simply do not believe anyone has a right to an inheritance, and the wishes of the deceased are just that - the dead have no rights.

Chester J. Lampwick: I would love to have a lot more money and, in turn, the financial freedom to make whatever decision I'd like regarding housing, travel, etc.

What happened to your solid gold house and your rocket car?

I don't care about people making a lot of money, but they've gamed the system where they pay less in taxes, percentage-wise, than the people that work for them. And they hire bozos like Limbaugh to cry crocodile tears for them to convince the sponge-heads that that's the way it should be.

ComicBookGuy: When will the working-class conservatives show up to defend the superwealthy?

Defend them from what? The jealousy and the envy of so many idiots? You're right. That's a daunting task.