Posted on 02/07/2012 12:08:27 PM PST by mojito
The Pew Foundation discovered in a recent poll that tensions over inequality in wealth now outrank tensions over race and immigration. But income inequality isn’t really the problem. A new upper class is the problem. And their wealth isn’t what sets them apart or creates so much animosity toward them.
Let’s take a guy — call him Hank — who built a successful auto-repair business and expanded it to 30 locations, and now his stake in the business is worth $100 million. He is not just in the 1%; he’s in the top fraction of the 1% — but he’s not part of the new upper class. He went to a second-tier state university, or maybe he didn’t complete college at all. He grew up in a working-class or middle-class home and married a woman who didn’t complete college. He now lives in a neighborhood with other rich people, but they’re mostly other people who got rich the same way he did. (The new upper class considers the glitzy mansions in his suburb to be déclassé.) He has a lot of money, but he doesn’t have power or influence over national culture, politics or economy, nor does he even have any particular influence over the culture, politics or economy of the city where he lives. He’s just rich.
The new upper class is different. It consists of the people who run the country....
What makes the new upper class new is that its members not only have power and influence but also increasingly share a common culture that separates them from the rest of the country.
(Excerpt) Read more at ideas.time.com ...
..... same as it ever was....... same as it ever was.
*bfl*
Would you indulge me? I've come across this term, a lot, and I have a hard time understanding it. Who is seeing rent from whom, and for what? I sense it is some sort of term with a wide inclusion, but it keeps eluding me.
Guilt can be a powerful factor in politics. See the French and Russian Revolutions and America's own SDS.
But the people you're talking about seem to me to have a very weak case of the disorder. A very few may become revolutionaries or radicals. Some join "Occupy" until their money runs out. Others just vote Democrat or give money to the United Way.
It's not people who are unsure of themselves and feel uncertain about their advantages that are a serious problem. Rather it's people who are supremely confident in their own ideas and abilities, virtue and competence that make the most trouble.
The elitists today are not simply “rich.” There are rich people who are not elitists. Elitists are internationalists, disloyal to the Nation, and look down on Americans. They are in-bred and have rejected the Nation and it’s culture and values. They called those who supported their internationalist ideology in the last election as “smart people.” They refer to Americans who cling to the constitution and American way of life as “stupid people.” They have taken on the attitudes of global rulers; royalty. They are treasonous.
If we wanted to defeat them, we would undo their treaty governed and controlled global market. Also, they are treasonous and we should hang a few who undermine our constitution just so they all know that, wish as they might, there is still an American Nation and we don’t suffer traitors well.
Buy his book.
Your guess is wrong.
I am reminded by this article to do so myself.
Would you indulge me? I've come across this term, a lot, and I have a hard time understanding it. Who is seeing rent from whom, and for what? I sense it is some sort of term with a wide inclusion, but it keeps eluding me.
Rent seeking behavior is a technical term from economics and political science. It refers to using government power to increase your income beyond what your products or services would command in a free market. Examples include:
Rent-seeking is what crony capitalists are after, and granting such as the above is how politicians buy their support.
The word rent here refers to economic rent, as opposed to ordinary rent (contract rent). Economic rent is defined as a payment to a factor of production in excess of that which is needed to keep it employed in its current use
.
Some people feel very strongly that Zuckerberg stole it.
That would fit right in with the class envy that is ubiquitous here. However, there are a bunch of guys who wrote the code that Zuckerburg used to launch facebook.
Not familiar with Charles Murray, I gather.
IMO, there’s the elite and there’s the rich; sometimes the twain meet. Those who are merely rich aren’t the ones who are resented (other than by elected Dems and various union thugs).
To me, the ‘elite’ are those who know better what’s good for you and me than we do, i.e., the over-educated. Ego-driven power is their primary motivation in life. Typically, at least one Ivy or similar degree is required for entry to that club. With no sense of irony whatsoever, the younger elites are supportive of OSW. (not that they’d actually live in an OSW encampment)
Unfortunately, the Ivies no longer admit nor promote based on merit but on ‘diversity.’ They want (and govt regs require) a certain percentage each of males/females/whites/blacks/hispanics/native Americans/northerners/southerns/foreigners/athletes of various sports to keep the alum happy. That lovely mosaic can then be molded in their thinking to conform to what the universities and their professors want. It’s all so very intellectual, we just wouldn’t ‘get’ it.
In fairness, Ivies and all ‘highly selective’ colleges have always had ‘preferred’ admitees; historically they were legacies. If Grandpappy built a library, you can be pretty confident you’ll be offered admission.
The theory of elitists seems to be, why work and/or build/run a company with all the risk that involves, when you can be somewhat removed, and make all the laws under which those others have to run their companies?
I’m jut guessing - but I’ll bet neither you nor any members of your family attended an “elite” university.
Not trying to be rude - but to me - it looks like you have little idea of the topic. Not introverted fantasy idea - I mean - real data, real experience.
How close am I?
Is Northwestern or Stanford elite in your book? They’re not Ivy. Guess you’re right.
World citizens, visualizing world peace, diversity, thinking globally and acting locally and all that B.S.
“and you may tell yourself this is not my house, this is not my beautiful wife....”
Darn it! Now I have to go on You Tube and watch the video. I haven’t seen it in years.
Very unlikely based on his previous work.
I give you two clues in support of my post:
(1) "Murray draws heavily from social-science data—described in multiple appendices that span nearly 100 pages" [note: text marking is my own] -- http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/02/08/charles-murray-s-coming-apart-and-the-culture-myth.html
(2) Murray doesn't summarize his statistics in the article -- his summarizes his wishful conclusions in prejudicial, simplistic roll-ups and cartoon-like examples.
Not having the time to pursue this further, I'd bet he mischaracterized the very statistical data he references in that fulsome appendix.
Thanks. You gave me new vocabulary to describe the grant-grubbing academics I so despise.
I noticed years ago that there is a trash line in the energy industry. By and large, line managements are made up of people with technical or land-management degrees, and CPA/MBA people among the financial support ranks.
But the people in New York who vet the companies' policy and portfolio choices are all financial pukes from liberal-arts or elite Ivy colleges, and never the twain do meet, except when the financial people are telling the energy outfits' boards to slash head counts, or "get big or get out", or whatever the financial pukes' flavor of the year is.
In the early 90's Chevron bucked the financial pukes and refused to slaughter their upstream staff -- and Value Line's analysts promptly tore them down for "hoarding staff" when they could have improved their per-share ROE by a few decimal points by throwing hundreds, thousands of talented professionals out the window. Chevron and Exxon were big enough to ignore the financial analysts, and prospered.
Ten years later it was all the other way around, and the financial types in the Street were telling financial-news outfits that the reason that energy-company project portfolios were so thin was that line managements hadn't done a good job of driving their staffs. Which was self-serving BS: the reason inventories were thin, was that they'd been slashed at the insistence of the geniuses in the Street, and the firms themselves had been skeletonized.
However, there are a bunch of guys who wrote the code that Zuckerburg used to launch facebook.
The filmic version attributes the idea for Facebook to a pair of Harvard rowing-team members (Brahmin brothers and legacies) and a lot of the elbow grease, as you say, to others whom Zuckerberg self-dealt out of the payoff, all of whom wound up suing Zuckerberg after their shares were diluted by his repeated financial refreshments of the original investment.
Or so the film version has it. Interesting the faces the filmmakers put in the picture, though.
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