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Posted on 10/18/2011 6:12:56 PM PDT by Kaslin
Inequality: President Obama's class-envy strategy is built on a false premise — that the rich get richer at the expense of the poor. Amazingly, such zero-sum thinking is influencing public opinion.
Twice as many Americans support the anti-Wall Street protesters as oppose them. And even Rasmussen is polling that nearly half of Americans support proposals to soak the rich.
This is an emotional response to both the hard economic times and dishonest political rhetoric. People are buying into the notion peddled by the left that the rich steal from people. It's a pernicious myth left over from preindustrial Marxism.
The left says current levels of income inequality echo the late 1920s and the Gilded Age. They've zeroed in on the richest 1%, citing Census Bureau data showing these top earners "grabbing" more income than the bottom 90%.
But the census stats are misleading.
For one, they are a snapshot of income distribution at a single point in time. Yet income is not static. It changes over time. Low-paying jobs from early adulthood give way to better-paying jobs later in life.
And income groups in America are not fixed. There's no caste system here, really no such thing even as a middle "class." The poor aren't stuck in poverty. And the rich don't enjoy lifetime membership in an exclusive club.
A 2007 Treasury Department study bears this out. Nearly 58% of U.S. households in the lowest-income quintile in 1996 moved to a higher level by 2005. The reverse also held true. Of those households that were in the top 1% in income in 1996, more than 57% dropped to a lower-income group by 2005.
(Excerpt) Read more at investors.com ...
I don’t know if my boss is a “1%er” or not, but I’m awful appreciative of the signature on my check come pay day!
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I almost gag when I hear those “useful idiots” harping about the banks, or the 1% “taking our money”. They don’t “take” it, they earn it, they invest it and they create it. No one hands it to them, unless it is by choice. Parents choose to give children money. Audiences choose to give atheletes and performers money. Consumers choose to pay for goods and services. The flea-baggers are the ones who want to TAKE money. What’s worse, if a “rich” person is taxed more, it does NOTHING to help the poor flea-bagger.
The Bush bailout of Wall Street in 2008 set the stage for Obama and the media to sell the concept of class warfare. Overwhelmingly the American people opposed the bailout. In fact the Republican House of Representatives first voted it down and then after being scared by Paulson and Bernanke, went along to avoid being blamed for a crash. As a result the crash fell on the American middle class instead of the banks.
The Fed and the US Treasury then rigged the treasury securities market to allow the Wall Street banks to return to profitability borrowing from the Fed at 1% and lending to the US Treasury at 3%. The 2% difference was no risk pure profit to the banks on billions of dollars of transactions. The banks went back to reporting billions of dollars in profits during a severe economic depression and paying tens of millions in bonuses. No shame here.
The middle class paid the price in high unemployment, huge losses in their retirement savings, a collapse in the housing market. No one went to jail except Bernie Madoff who made the mistake of stealing from wealthy people instead of the poor and middle class.
Obama is just taking advantage of a situation created by greed on Wall Street and government collusion in protecting the wealthy at the expense of the American public. The American people sympathize with the Wall Street protestors because they have zero respect for the executives on Wall Street and rightly so.
Certainly Obama’s use of class warfare is shameful. However, the behavior of the banks and their government protectors including Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, Bernanke, Greenspan, Paulson, and yes George W. Bush was just as shameful if not criminal. Bush must share the blame because his Treasury Secretary allowed the banks to raid the Treasury and the entire concept of TARP was developed on his watch. He also could have taken administrative action to reign in Freddie and Fannie when Congress wouldn’t act or he could have taken the case against Fannie and Freddie to the American people. He did not.
The American people will not support a “free enterprise” system where the wealthy protect themselves and exploit the middle class. The American sense of fair play and accountability has been violated. It will take a long time for business to regain respect. Based on the behavior of Immelt, Buffett, and the bank CEO’s this won’t happen anytime soon.
My ass.
It's documented.
Most business's in America are honest and up and up. Don't paint with a broad brush....
Of course people support this - if you don’t think it through, having some rich guy pay for your stuff sounds like a good thing. People don’t think it through when they answer poll questions - they react to the words of the question. Judging policy by poll questions is really a worthless exercise.
The Democrats support the rioters. The Republicans do not support the rioters.
This is just like 1968.
#OccupyWallSt Poster Boy A Trust Fund Baby, Attempted Stowaway At JFK
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2793756/posts
The only ones who are doing the stealing are the deadbeats who sit on their backsides all day doing nothing but watching TV while they collect that monthly government check.
Never before in the history of this country has there been such a disparity in the number of deadbeats who have to be supported by a dwindling working class.
bflr
If we can’t turn this around (and I mean right now), we are SCREWED.
bttt
Unfortunately, despite a lot of ridicule, virtually no one is educating the public why this premise is flawed. Our side seems to have forgotten the primary lesson that Gingrich and others who floundered their majority’s popularity in the 90s. They must continue to educate the public every day in every appearance on the facts. Yes, there is always time for politics and fighting with the other side, but they are not also educating. Paul Ryan and Rubio are among the few who have gone out and used these interviews to demonstrate facts. I haven’t seen either much lately. Not sure if Ryan has somehow been tied down by the leadership team he serves or what.
Rubio, Lee, Johnson, and the many freshman need to learn how to not just interview and respond to tough questions, but to turn those questions into opportunities to share the facts. Newt is doing it in the debates...as is Bachmann from time to time. This needs to be an across the board mission of the conservative movement.
TARP was signed into law on October 3, 2008 by President George W. Bush. Read the book “Too Big to Fail” about the fall 2008 financial crash.
Bush may have warned about Fannie and Freddie in 2003-2004 but what did he do about it? Did he have the Republicans in Congress introduce legislation? Did he have the Justice Department investigate? Did he veto their budgets? Did he use the bully pulpit to pound the message home over weeks and months? Did he use his administrative powers?
TARP was signed into law on October 3, 2008 by President George W. Bush. Read the book “Too Big to Fail” about the fall 2008 financial crash.
Bush may have warned about Fannie and Freddie in 2003-2004 but what did he do about it? Did he have the Republicans in Congress introduce legislation? Did he have the Justice Department investigate? Did he veto their budgets? Did he use the bully pulpit to pound the message home over weeks and months? Did he use his administrative powers?
2008
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