The Upper Middle Class is Ruining America

Business Insider ^

[cicero2k]

By the time I made it to a selective college, I found myself entirely surrounded by this upper-middle-class tribe. My fellow students and my professors were overwhelmingly drawn from comfortably affluent families hailing from an almost laughably small number of comfortably affluent neighborhoods, mostly in and around big coastal cities. Though virtually all of these polite, well-groomed people were politically liberal, I sensed that their gut political instincts were all about protecting what they had and scratching out the eyeballs of anyone who dared to suggest taking it away from them.

[BobL]

“Though virtually all of these polite, well-groomed people were politically liberal, I sensed that their gut political instincts were all about protecting what they had and scratching out the eyeballs of anyone who dared to suggest taking it away from them.”

For you people that cannot understand why there are so many rich people that are liberals, this explains it best.

What the rich fear, more than anything else, is the masses seizing control and stringing them up. So they try to use their money and their politics to bribe the people who lead the masses, like Al Sharpton - in other words, if you give Al Sharpton enough money and say enough things about the country being unfair to the “working class”, perhaps Sharpton will keep the next Eric Holder, who likely will have a last name even closer in spelling to Hitler, off their backs. In other words what does a rich person do if ISIS nabs them during a trip to Dubai, for example? He does what they demand and tried to buy his way out.

By the way, not that NOTHING ever proposed by the Democrats even hints at taking away the WEALTH of the rich, rather only the incomes of people trying to achieve that status (they even cut the inheritance and gift tax way down). BIG DIFFERENCE, and that is the reason that the Dems are able to hold on to the rich.

To the rich, in many cases, they could CARE LESS about ideology - they just want to keep their money and not end up like the Russian Royal Family in 1917. If it takes being liberal to do that (in their demented heads), so be it. If they felt safer supporting conservative causes, they would do that instead.

[BobL]

I agree, good article. But does anyone REALLY THINK that the 529 plan proposal was thrown in there haphazardly. They have millions and millions of dollars to spend on focus groups and the data necessary to actually call up and talk to the people benefiting.

I’m thinking it was test case, to gauge overall reaction. The question being “Could the Masses be used to turn on the rich, and defeat them in a wealth grab?” With the BIG PRIZE being 401k plans and figuring out a way to get their hands on that huge pot of money. Figuring out the relative political power of the masses versus some well-connected rich (and near-rich) is much tougher to gauge. And it looks like they got the answer they didn’t want - the Masses will not get behind the Dems as they try to pit the country against each other based on wealth. In this case, the Masses stayed quiet, and all the Dems heard was very high-decibel anger from the people that would have been directly affected.

So, so much for a direct approach - I suspect that the Dems will soon turn to the courts to do their dirty work here (in some way) as they’ve always done.

[applpie]

Can you say covetousness? Which God puts right up there as one of the big ten. yet while the poor and the less rich spend all their time coveting that of the more rich, the Super rich are stealing it all and setting up schemes to make everyone poorer with no way to get more wealth So they can have it all! if communism is all about wealth equity then how do China and Russia have so many of the world’s billionaires?

[SkyPilot]

Neither the author, nor you have any concept of the science of economics.

Science is the study of God's creation and those disciplines that He gave mankind (Physics, Biology, Engineering, Calculus, Chemistry, etc).

No, Economics Is Not a Science

At most, Economics is a Social Science, and today a weak one at that, given the corruption and manipulation that rules it.

Here are some more financial terms (like Quantitative Easing) that these charlatans have dreamed up. They are copied from the hard sciences, and deliberately invented so that they sound authoritative. Notice the words "absolute", "critical", etc. They even employ religious terms such as "covenant."

Absolute Advantage Absolute Auction Absolute Beneficiary Absolute Breadth Index - ABI Absolute Exclusion Absolute Frequency Absolute Interest Absolute Percentage Growth Absolute Performance Standard Absolute Physical Life Acceleration Covenant Acceleration Life Insurance Acceleration Principle Accelerative Endowment Accelerator Theory Convertible Subordinate Note Critical Mass Critical Path Analysis Quantitative Easing Quantitative Easing 2 – QE2 Quantitative Trading Systematic Sampling Wealth Psychologist Objective Probability Natural Hedge N.V. (NV or Naamloze Vennootschap)

It's all a paper thin lie. The Central Banks have manipulated everything, and now we have unstable, debt based currencies. The US Dollars (Federal Reserve Notes and Bank Notes) are "backed" by either taxpayer debt or private debt, and it is all a house of cards. The real problem the last few yeas is that the world's markets have basically been "given" massive, massive amounts of money that were created out of thin air by the Central Banks to "stimulate" the economy. And what backed this transfer of Trillions? Government debt.

My wife studied Economics. She was the college Valedictorian. I was an Engineering undergraduate. She went back to school to become the best nurse in the nation. She would not even spit for those who hold an Economics degree.

[rbg81]

I think some of the points he makes are valid. I think the gentrified urban “bubbles”, gated communities, and college campuses liberals inhabit insulates them from the reality of their policies. But, I too hate slums and would never want to live in one.

[HiTech RedNeck]

If people had a sincere dedication to God, they would all care about the difficulties of the poor and would celebrate the possibilities of the rich, no matter who they were. Because heaven (as a presence, not just as a final destination) would be worth even more to them than anything on earth, and would be defining the best uses of earth, by spiritual consent and not some human sayso.

Life presents us with challenges from slums to opulent riches and everything else in between. How we meet those challenges tells what we’re invested in. Both heaven and hell can make capital of them. But we have some choice as to which one to invest in.

[bert]

the article seems like sour grapes to me that is typical of have nots.

[TimSkalaBim]

Debating whether economics is a science or not is kinda like debating whether golf is a sport or not. Not an opinion, just an observation.

[SkyPilot]

Science is biology, engineering, chemistry, physics. “Economics” is not science, although it desperately wants to be known as one. In reality, it is below psychology

[SamAdams76]

I lived in a neighborhood that was ruined by High density housing. I wish I was rich I would find a beautiful home and count my money.

And you know the motivation behind that. Limousine liberals from the suburbs want to keep the riff-raff out of their own towns so they have these ugly "Soviet-bloc" style apartment buildings erected in the city to keep the underclass holed up there.

I would much rather live in a neighborhood where "gentrification" is going on than to live in one where "low-income" housing is being thrown up.

Years ago, I purchased a home in a gentrifying neighborhood just outside Boston. It was your basic working-class s*-hole, with three deckers, concrete playgrounds and old abandoned brick schools . But it was only 10 minutes to the city and I saw that yuppies were already starting to convert some of those three-deckers and brick buildings into condos and that funky coffee shops and ethnic restaurants were popping up. I pounced and bought an old Victorian for a song. Four years later, we sold it for nearly double what we paid and escaped to the outer suburbs. Never looked back. We lucked out. Had it gone the other way, we would have been stuck there.

[tbw2]

And yet the high density housing is arguably affordable housing.
There is rarely low density housing that is cheap except in the middle of nowhere.

[CurlyDave]

As one gets into advanced economics, not the simplified introductory economics of introductory college courses, lurking just below the surface where most people never see it is math, hard math. Stuff that makes calculus, differential equations, and even Laplace transforms look like a Sunday School picnic.

I have never seen a liberal who really understood advanced math, most top out with arithmetic, and simple arithmetic at that. This never prevents them from having a strong opinion based on nothing but ignorance.

But, if one ever studies enough economics to get into the really advanced areas, he will soon see that it really is a branch of science.

[tbw2]

Agreed. The proposal was testing the removal of tax benefits from 529s, where they trumpet only 3% use them (but if less than half of families have kids under 18, it is more like 10% of families with kids, 20% of the middle class). If that flew, then they could suggest it for things like Roth IRAs, HSAs, 401Ks.

[ladyjane]

This guy claims he is a conservative. My a@@!.

The guy is still angry at the kids in his high school who were wearing Ralph Lauren and he wasn't.

Class envy is very unattractive.

[Teacher317]

Though virtually all of these polite, well-groomed people were politically liberal, I sensed that their gut political instincts were all about protecting what they had and scratching out the eyeballs of anyone who dared to suggest taking it away from them.

Liberals are polite and well-groomed. Those who would fight impolitely to protect their possessions are not Liberal. No bias showing here.

[SkyPilot]

As one gets into advanced economics, not the simplified introductory economics of introductory college courses, lurking just below the surface where most people never see it is math, hard math. Stuff that makes calculus, differential equations, and even Laplace transforms look like a Sunday School picnic.

Sorry to disagree with you sir/ma'am, but Economics is at best a pseudo social science, and not a very good one at that. The love of money is the root of all evil. Today, Economics is a putrid pool of manipulation, central bank control, and lies. I find it no accident that the Antichrist will use economics, money, and greed to enslave mankind (Revelation 13). True students of science are engineers, medical doctors and nurses, chemists, and physicists.

[Rodamala]

Class warfare, a tool of the left for centuries. Don’t buy into it. Envy is a sin.

[Talisker]

Why should saving for your kid's college be tax exempt, but saving to help them buy a house or start a business isn't?

Because education is a special thing.

[CurlyDave]

Sorry to disagree with you sir/ma'am, but Economics is at best a pseudo social science, and not a very good one at that. The love of money is the root of all evil. Today, Economics is a putrid pool of manipulation, central bank control, and lies. I find it no accident that the Antichrist will use economics, money, and greed to enslave mankind (Revelation 13). True students of science are engineers, medical doctors and nurses, chemists, and physicists.

You are entitled to your opinion.

I am entitled to have mine. I do have both bachelor and doctorate degrees in Chemical Engineering, so I qualify as a "true student of science" in two of the areas you enumerate.

I do not need to reach Revelation 13 and torture it into revealing economics, money and greed as tools of Satan.

Back up to Mark 12:41-44, and Luke 21:1-4, where Jesus delivers the Lesson of the Widow's Mite. This lesson shows that God himself, has a profound knowledge of economics and human nature (as I expect He would) and teaches them to the disciples. Surely this knowledge can not come from Satan, since it is directly from the teaching of Christ.

And, it is impossible that money itself would be evil since the concept of tithing appears in Genesis. Why would God want to have part of a man's earnings if the money was evil in and of itself. If He wanted all of it, it might be that only God was powerful enough deal with the evil, or if he wanted none of it one could make a case that it was evil, but God wants to share with man. Money of itself can not be evil.

[SkyPilot]

You are entitled to your opinion. I am entitled to have mine. I do have both bachelor and doctorate degrees in Chemical Engineering, so I qualify as a "true student of science" in two of the areas you enumerate.

Agreed. I have an undergraduate degree in Aerospace Engineering, and two Master degrees in the same field.

I do not need to reach Revelation 13 and torture it into revealing economics, money and greed as tools of Satan.

Really? Wow. You must have some special power from Almighty God. Perhaps you would share your prophecy with us mere mortals who have not benefited from someone like yourself who has had a direct experienced with God.