One Of My Favorite Penzance Quotes

[filkertom]

"I don't think much of our profession, but, contrasted with respectability, it is comparatively honest":

Rep. John Fleming (R-LA) appeared on MSNBC with Chris Jansing this morning to attack President Obama’s new deficit reduction plan, which includes some tax increases on the wealthy. Taking up the typical GOP talking point, Fleming said raising taxes on wealthy “job creators” is a terrible idea that kills jobs because many of these people are small business owners who pay taxes through personal income rates.

Fleming is himself a business owner, so Jansing asked, “If you have to pay more in taxes, you would get rid of some of those employees?” Fleming responded by saying that while his businesses made $6.3 million last year, after you “pay 500 employees, you pay rent, you pay equipment, and food,” his profits “a mere fraction of that” — “by the time I feed my family, I have maybe $400,000 left over.”

On top of his congressional salary? Dunno. Even so, one tenth of that -- $40,000 a year -- would be more than I ever made, and enough for me, at least, to live really comfortably. I presume it would do well for a lot of you, too. With $400,000, I could get a regular house instead of a manufactured home, get platinum-standard health care, help my family, help my friends, go to every con I want to, and still save up for my dotage.

What it comes down to: They really don't get it. They simply don't understand what it's like to not be well-off. And I'm really trying to figure out how it can be a hardship to raise a family in Louisiana on $400,000 a year.

Comments

[jovan-scorn.livejournal.com]

In some ways you can't blame a person for having a totally messed up worldview like that. If you're wealthy you hang out with wealthy people, you compare yourself with them and it totally skews your perception. I think this is the same reason CEOs and other highly placed individuals make obscene salaries. The people who determine their pay make slightly less obscene amounts and "know" that the person who is above them should make more.

But everyone's pay was determined like this at that executive level. Placed higher, make more. It produces this weird feedback loop where the incomes increase higher than the required competency of the job. Honestly I don't know of many people who would qualify for a 2-3 mil salary based on what good they brought to the world. And some of that pay would be determined by what he would do with the pay to further bring good into the world whether that good be technology, literature, music, organization or leadership.

As for the whole job creators thing, the whole problem with that is there is no compulsion. It's like a room full of children "promising" to do try to do their homework if they can go home early or not clean up after themselves. Sure, some kids will honor their promises but most won't, they don't have a reason to.

Job creators don't put the public good ahead of their own gains. That's just the way it works. Don't worry, I'm leading into something here.

Example: A few days ago we had a company meeting where our HR manager was in and giving us a pep talk. . .I don't really know how to describe aside from it being long and annoying. One of his proud talking points was our company was sponsoring a local Hispanic cultural event, the undertones were mostly for recruiting purposes to have Spanish speaking labor as opposed to paying out for classes for those us perfectly willing to learn. But the icing was that the company paid for the rights to block out their major competitor from sponsoring the event too.

They paid to have their competition removed from a charitable event. And they were proud of it. Huh. People.