Those Poor Rich People

[filkertom]

They simply don't understand why people might be angry at them.

Comments

[blake-reitz.livejournal.com]

I hear that poor people just hate our way of life.

[renquestor.livejournal.com]

I think that the overall problem with Mr. Sullivan is that no one addressed the core issue, in my opinion, of why the vitriol was directed at him. Yes, the poor can be blamed for poor financial decisions. Yes the rich can be blamed for seemly not to care. However, the truth is, and what everything boils down to, is that the poor are in danger of losing their homes and everything they've broken their backs and slaved for for a long time. It's not much, but it's all they've got. They see the rich and feel absolutely no empathy because these people aren't in danger of being kicked out into the street. These people don't have to choose between paying the mortgage and putting food in their kids mouths. Many rich people have never had to worry about that. The article smacks of smugness and an inability or unwillingness to truly see how bad off some people are.

It's the old argument of "the poor are poor because they deserve to be." Which isn't quite the case. There are so many other sociopolitical considerations to consider before you could possibly begin to make such a statement. And this dude just doesn't get it.

Kinda makes me think of the modern "ghetto" culture that everyone bitches about. They say that urban blacks are lazy and don't care to do anything but talk about bitches, hoes, drugs, and money.

The truth is far more complex. When you're born into an area that's rife with drugs, violence, and a general lack of empathy for your fellow human, you adapt to that situation, which leads me to the welfare portion that everyone bitches about. The welfare of this country does not help people get back on their feet, it's all about keeping them where they are. As I've had dealings with the system, you really have two choices, make nothing and get welfare, or try and make something and lose all help.

This situation is far more complex than anything I can write in this post or anything Mr. Sullivan can write, short of a book.

Tom, sorry about the length of this post. I starting typing and the words just refused to stop. If I need to move this over to my journal I will.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Nope, you're fine. And correct. There's so much underlying all of it. The biggest thing to me, these days, is an outgrowth of the banking mess, and the huge bonuses paid then and now to the ones who basically got us into this mess. They're enriching themselves on public and private coffers, as can be seen by the ridiculous interest rates and unending fees charged to customers, while simultaneously cutting back on both consumer and business credit (which, as some people may remember, was the entire purpose of the financial bailouts, to unfreeze credit).

I think that the financial markets and the health insurance industry are, at this point, the two biggest hindrances to us fixing the country. And they simply do not see that they are going to destroy their customer base, their infrastructure, everything they need to survive themselves, just to get more more more bottom-line short-term profit. It's obscene.

[jenk]

they simply do not see that they are going to destroy their customer base, their infrastructure, everything they need to survive themselves, just to get more more more bottom-line short-term profit.

See also TV network executives not understanding that Tivo will seriously impact their advertising model.

[renquestor.livejournal.com]

Thank you Tom. Aye, sir that is quite the truth. When you've got people losing any financial hope just in the attempt to stay alive, there's a freaking problem.

[alverant.livejournal.com]

just to get more more more bottom-line short-term profit
I can hear those people now...

Well if I'm going to sell your stock in a few years, short term profit is all I'm going to see. So why not demand as much of it as possible? Why should I care about what happens to the company after I leave?

In 20 or so years, those guys would have died from old age so what motivation do they have to think that far ahead. Leave it for someone else to solve.

[the-s-guy.livejournal.com]

Yah. There's a difference between seeing it and caring about it. Especially when they're in a position to judge when the axe is about to fall and choose that moment to skip out with bags of cash.

Those who are much more closely enmeshed with a given corporation or industry are the ones who are going to be crushed when it all falls to pieces. The workers - especially blue collar ones - without transferrable skill sets. Any remaining founders who put everything they had into building the place up and dammit, are going down with the ship. (Precious few, those.) People who have transferrable skills but can't jump ship because the glut of other ship-jumpers is making finding a new job impossible. One or two who are hoping against hope that their stock options will vest before it all comes tumbling down.

[kengr]

Cue Marie Antionette.

Most folks don't get that the "let them eat cake" comment was simply a matter of her not being able to *comprehend* the situation for the common people.

"The people have no bread!"

"Let them eat cake."

Not sarcasm. Just a fundamental disconnect in worldview and experience.

[arensb.livejournal.com]

You'd think the images of New Orleans during and right after Katrina would have been a wake-up call. But I guess we as a nation just rolled over and hit the snooze button.

[amazingadrian.livejournal.com]

Another thing that New Orleans proved that people didn't seem to notice is that the poor outnumber the rich, and when pushed, will become royally fed up with them.

When everything finally goes to pot, I think the rich will be some of the first casualties. All that money won't help them in the face of real anarchy. They can't pay their way out of natural disasters, they can't use their money to shore up a collapsing system...there isn't a single problem that will truly go away by throwing money at it. Everything that can be solved that way is only a temporary measure.

[newjerseybadger.livejournal.com]

Um. If money is all you have and no one's accepting money, you'd be correct. However that's never actually happened. Cue pre-Nazi Germany; what people do when money is without value, is barter.

If the rich kept their assets in dollars and didn't see a crash coming, you'd be correct. But what will happen is that the rich will spend money, while it is still good, building enclaves and buying assets which are intrinsically valuable -- e.g. precious metals and future food production. Then will turn around during the crash and trade such things for the loyalty of trained and armed bodyguards.

The really rich can take care of themselves. They have interests not in common with the ordinary folk who live paycheck to paycheck, and they have means of avoiding disaster which are not available to you and me.

Mind you, I'm talking about the top 1% to 0.00001%. The top 5%-to-1% are a lot more like the rest of the economy today, just slightly larger houses in better neighborhoods, and newer cars. Not a lot different in the face of disaster.

[bryanp.livejournal.com]

One quibble: Marie Antoinette never said that. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie_Antoinette#Historical_legacy_and_popular_culture)

[renquestor.livejournal.com]

You're quite right. What she said was, "...and ice cream. I said Let them eat cake and ice cream!"

[admnaismith.livejournal.com]

WRONG! What she really said was, "Let them get stoned and send out for pizza!"

I saw it attributed to her online, and so it must be true!

[renquestor.livejournal.com]

The problem is, though, it seems that many of the rich have no real desire to try and understand what it's like to be poor. Many just look down their noses. Now I don't mean to paint all the wealthy with the same brush, but there are many who think/feel that way.

[stevemb.livejournal.com]

The issue is more fundamental than that -- the resentment is targeted against people who got rich by cheating, not against wealth per se, and certainly not against people who got rich by creating and selling actual legitimate goods and services. This poltroon's comments about "hard work" are so obtuse as to indicate either abject imbecility or a deliberate effort to blur that distinction.

[bigbumble.livejournal.com]

Bring back the 90% tax bracket.

[the-s-guy.livejournal.com]

Tricky. It'd make more financial sense for the rich to then either move their moneymaking to another tax zone or simply hire extremely expensive and sneaky accountants for more than the government wants to pay.

Tax, at the top end, is very much largely a matter of the government very nicely asking people if they wouldn't mind contributing. As a result, it's sadly more profitable to try and rig society views so that paying taxes is seen as the "proper" thing to do amongst one's rich peers. Even so, there will always be those who simply ignore the hints and count on their accountants being able to hide the evidence.

[jcw-da-dmg.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately, the people who need to understand this will either not read it, or will give it no credence whatsoever.

[renquestor.livejournal.com]

That's the bloody truth.

[the-s-guy.livejournal.com]

They're unlikely to largely because there's no apparent profit in doing so.

Presumably there is a way to make the rich sit up and take notice, but if I knew what it was, I'd be out talking to the megawealthy.

[catlin.livejournal.com]

I have a friend who grew up in a very very wealthy household. I won't argue her dad worked his -tush- off for his money (he is a specialist surgeon) but she has never had to do without. Even when she married someone they disapproved of and they cut off financial help til she divorced him, she always knew her daughter would have food, medical care, etc. Trying to talk to her about how hard it is to be poor is impossible. Trying to explain how hard it is to be upper lower class/lower middle class? Even harder.

The bracket where you are above welfare, below three times the poverty rate, is very very hard. There -are- no programs to help with skyrocketing insurance, medical, and fuel costs that make heating your home bearable. Nothing to help out when your car breaks down and you have no way to work. Nothing to help with your house payments if your hours get cut because of the recession.

[dornbeast.livejournal.com]

I don't know if your friend has read John Scalzi's article on being poor, (http://whatever.scalzi.com/2005/09/03/being-poor/) but if she hasn't read it yet, I'd say it's worth a try.

[newjerseybadger.livejournal.com]

I hadn't heard of that article until now. Thanks for the link.

[arensb.livejournal.com]

As I see it, there are a number of ways to become rich in a capitalist society: you can work hard, or you can be smart, or develop a skill that people will pay you to exercise, and so forth. Or you can be an amoral bastard who games the system for personal profit at every turn.

The thing is, these aren't mutually exclusive. You can be smart and study hard to be a surgeon and perform unnecessary surgeries on your customers purely for profit.

So it stands to reason that the richest of the rich must have several things going for them, including amoral bastardry. I don't have a problem with someone getting rich by inventing some new shiny thing that I want. I do have a problem with someone getting rich by playing numbers games on Wall Street, or by crushing the competition, or by bribing congresspeople into enacting favorable legislation.

[newjerseybadger.livejournal.com]

Second that, by God.

[jenk]

There's also a huge disconnect between the congenitally rich (trust fund rich) and first-generation millionaires. The ones who earn it slowly are often less likely to flaunt it.

[renquestor.livejournal.com]

I've noticed that too. Those who broke their backs tend to be quite willing to share with those of us less fortunate. Mainly scholarships, endowments, etc. The trust fund babies are too concerned with what their social group is doing.

[alverant.livejournal.com]

The root problem is that in a capitalist society the most effective way to get ahead is to be a ruthless bastard seizing every opportunity. It's like the law of the jungle except animals do it out of instinct and not callous greed. One of the few things I agree with in the christian bible is "the love of money is the root of all evil" (actually I'd say it's the love of power, but money is power in most situations).

What capitalism needs is ethics. But having ethics can cost you money when the other guy decides he/she doesn't need to follow the rules. That means the stock holders get upset that they're not getting as big of a return as they should be. Nice guys don't finish last, they go bankrupt and get bought out by the assholes.

So if capitalists won't follow basic ethics willingly, what is needed is someone with a big stick and the ability to use it effectively. But the elite bitch to politicians so the big stick becomes a wet noodle.

It's been this way since companies existed. The East Indian companies in the age of Sail to the plantation owners who fought to keep the practice of slavery to the banks and stock companies of today who demanded their right to grow to be "too big to fail".

Businesses should be able to make a profit, but they can't make a profit by stealing or extortion.

[renquestor.livejournal.com]

I agree with this sentiment wholeheartedly. A professor of mine once gave a lecture with a bit of this. He was referring to the robber barons of the late 1800s and the industrial magnates of the early 1900s. He said, "Do you think that the wealthy are going to donate their money and go to the church that states all brothers and sisters in Christ are equal and that you should look out for your fellow man (plus the root of evil stuff)? Or do you think they're gonna donate their time and money to the church that espouses you should be content with your lot in life and not rebel against legitimate higher authority?

[alverant.livejournal.com]

In the unabridged audio book of Star Wars Revenge of the Sith, Palpatine tells Skywalker that those who have power fear loosing it. And I think that's true of everyone. My job gives me some degree of power. It gives me the power to live in a townhouse, do some of the things I want, and give a home to three sweet loving cats. I would do what it takes to keep that power.

But there comes a point where you have so much power that the status quo isn't good enough. You have to work on expanding your power or else you're losing it. If you're not the hunter, you're the huntee. At some level you go from "trying to get a head" to "trying to get a head by taking from the other guy". Now it seems the have-nots are the other guy.

[lemmozine.livejournal.com]

When capitalism is abused sufficiently, it will fail. Like most economic systems, it works better when the participants remain honest and decent. It is not honest or decent to reap windfall profits, say, at the top levels of a health care industry that makes its profit by withholding desperately needed care, or by driving a huge company into the dust and destroying the country's economy in the process. The folks at the middle and bottom understand on a gut level that crimes against them have been committed, and are being committed, and we want our country and our money back, and the thieves in prison where they belong. Personally, I'd like to see them start with the ringleader, George W. Bush. He has committed treasonous acts against our economy and deserves punishment.

[peachtales.livejournal.com]

*sigh*

[bayushisan.livejournal.com]

I don't think the problem is capitalism, in and of itself. The problem is unrestrained greed in the pursuit of money. Jesus even spoke about this very problem "the love of money is the root of all evil."

I think the biggest problem is that too many pundits have equated captalism and a desire for success with unrestrained greed and, while not mutually exclusive, they aren't interchangable concepts either.