The Rising Backlash Against the Rich (Woe to the rich today. You are now considered "undeserving")

Real Clear Markets ^ | 10/10/2011 | Robert Samuelson

[SeekAndFind]

The context for Occupy Wall Street and proposals to tax the rich - "rich" being constantly redefined - is the broader issue of economic inequality. For years, liberal politicians, academics and pundits have complained about growing inequality, but their protests barely resonated with the public. When most people are doing okay, the fact that some people are doing better does not arouse much anger. No more. When many people do worse, or fear they might, the rich inspire resentment and envy. Glaring inequalities that once seemed tolerable become offensive.

By and large, Americans regard the rich the way they do the poor. There are the "deserving" and the "undeserving." The deserving pioneer technologies, manage vibrant businesses or excel at something (law, entertainment, sports).

Few resent the wealth of Bill Gates or Oprah Winfrey. By contrast, the "undeserving" rich succeed through self-dealing or activities lacking broad social value.

What's happening now is that more rich are being disparaged as "undeserving." Blamed for the financial crisis, Wall Street types top the list. During the 1990s stock market boom, about half of Americans agreed that "people on Wall Street are as honest and moral as other people," reports the Harris Poll. This year, only 26 percent think so. Two-thirds believe Wall Street's most successful people are overpaid.

Corporate chief executives stir similar ire. With 9 percent unemployment, languishing stock prices and stagnant wages, CEO pay raises smack of cronyism with compliant directors. When Hewlett-Packard recently fired chief executive Leo Apotheker after 11 months with a $13 million severance package, the disconnect between pay and performance was especially astonishing.

Beyond these familiar scapegoats, what can we say about growing economic inequality? Here are three generalizations.

[SaraJohnson]

Wealth and power without loyality, morals and honor is what we have too much of in business leadership today. We also have a disgusting fad of royality level elitism going too.

There was a day when it would have been totally dishonorable for banksters to make a deal to drop loan qualification requirements because they would not cheat the middle class who has their wealth in property, their savers and investors with unethical games like that just so they could make more money and a socialist President could look successful in quotas.

American banks and politicans brought down the whole global economy with combining socialist lies and raw greed. They are deserving the distain they are under. The Left will now try to spread that valid anger at banksters to the middle class and anyone who is sucessful. No one mentions that the idea to kill the real estate market orginated with Clinton and Ruben.

[SeekAndFind]

RE: A guy who inherited a fortune and lives off it doesn’t actually do work or produce goods, but he stills buys Maseratis and Picassos. About 35% of your productivity ends up going to guys like him.

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Source : WALL STREET JOURNAL

http://blogs.wsj.com/wealth/2008/01/14/the-decline-of-inherited-money/

1. According to a study of Federal Reserve data conducted by NYU professor Edward Wolff, for the nation’s richest 1%, inherited wealth accounted for only 9% of their net worth in 2001, down from 23% in 1989. (The 2001 number was the latest available.)

2. According to a study by Prince & Associates, less than 10% of today’s multi-millionaires cited “inheritance” as their source of wealth.

3. A study by Spectrem Group found that among today’s millionaires, inherited wealth accounted for just 2% of their total sources of wealth.

Each of these stats measures slightly different things, yet they all come to the same basic conclusion: Inheritance is not the main driver of today’s wealth. The reason we’ve had a doubling in the number of millionaires and billionaires over the past decade (even adjusted for inflation) is that more of the non-wealthy have become wealthy.

So it’s not just that the same old rich folks are getting richer. The more-important shift is that the rich are getting more numerous.