Reading last Sunday’s Doonsbury really got me pissed off. Once again, Trudeau is hung up on what the top 1% income bracket is making. When BD finds out that the top 10 hedge fund managers were paid 18.8 billion, his reaction is, “It’s game over – The Rich Won!”
Funny, I didn’t realize we were competing, or playing a game or whatever. What, exactly have they won? And how are we less better off because of it?
BD keeps ranting, “Might as well just send them the rest of our money now, They’re going to get it all eventually anyway!” Umm, right, because those evil hedge fund managers were raiding your checking account, right? They were hoarding all that money so that you couldn’t get a sot at it, is that it? How is BD, or the rest of us for that matter, involved with hedge funds? How have they impoverished us? Why the assumption of guilt, why the feeling of being personally attacked?
I would be very sympathetic if Trudeau were to detail how much money people made off the bailouts by the US tax payers. Through the government;s largesse, a few politically connected groups had their fortunes protected with our tax money. As unfashionable as it may be, I don’t mind people making vast sums of money through voluntary transactions. If it is voluntary, it doesn’t affect me. If my masters DC decide to protect cronies with my money, that is theft. Why isn’t Trudeau angry about that? Why isn’t BD making his check out to the Treasury? The hedge funds are leaving him alone, the feds aren’t…
The OWS crowd have been using the 99% rhetoric to great effect, but once again, I think they are misguided. When Steve Jobs died, several reporters asked some OWS folks what they thought of him. The reactions were overwhelmingly positive despite the fact that Jobs was certainly in that 1%. I like to think that if pushed on the matter, most of those folks would admit that Jobs did it right. He made stuff that everyone wanted and became rich doing it (and pulled lots of people out of poverty along the way). He never went to the government for help, even when Apple was on the verge of bankruptcy. Jobs wasn’t alone, there are plenty of entrepreneurs in the 1% that have provided services and goods for us. So why rail against the 1% when there are clearly great people in there? Why not protest against the people that get money from us without our permission? Why not protest against the ones giving away our money without permission?
Why indeed. People that make money by providing us things are great, people that essentially steal are not. Why are the two so often confused with one another? When will most people see that the dirtiest money flows out of DC? Why don’t people protest that? Oh right, they did, and got called racists for their trouble…