Conning the American people about wealthy Americans

2014

Regular readers know I frequently use the word scapegoat which by the way means. [a person or group made to bear the blame for others or to suffer in their place].

Being a scapegoat is no fun, accepting a scapegoat to ease ones own faults or shortcomings is easy. It seems to me more and more Americans are willing to accept the notion of others affecting their lives negatively. Sadly, some of today’s leaders and policymakers are adept at using the scapegoat strategy to further their own goals.

My current favorite is linking the 1% to inequality. What better way to curry voter favor than to make them feel victims, shortchanged, unequal and then find a group to hold up as the takers from others opportunities? How easy it is then to convince people that taking from the elite group will somehow make life better for everyone else. It won’t of course, and most Americans don’t think the wealthy among us should be “punished,” but you would never know that from the popular press.

You can easily see the game being played by looking at the selective targets among the 1%. Bankers and the Wall Street crowd are prime targets, but you hear nothing of the 1% and above among the Hollywood crowd or sports stars or football coaches or college presidents or TV personalities who bring in millions a year in cash income unlike corporate America where most compensation is not cash. And by the way, you don’t have to make a $1,000,000 a year to be in the 1%, that starts around $300,000.

America, you are being conned. Here is a challenge. Be honest now. What things in your life, what decisions have you made, what choices have you made, what have you done or not done that have all lead to where you are now? Think hard!

Now make a list of things others have done over which you had no control that have led to where you are now.

Which list is longer? Be honest.

You might want to read the following article.

‘Income inequality” has emerged as the issue du jour in national politics, threatening to displace the unpopular health-care law and the slow-growing economy this election year. Speeches and columns now routinely attack the banks or “the undeserving rich” and call on Washington to do something to redistribute income from the “super rich” to the poor and middle class. Democrats from President Obama to the new mayor of New York City are leading the charge on behalf of the “99%.”

This crusade is based on three questionable claims. One is that the wealthy are mostly Wall Street bankers benefitting from rising stock and real estate prices, or executives who pay themselves extravagant salaries. Another claim is that such people unfairly benefit from a system that taxes capital gains at half the highest marginal rate paid by those who earn salaries and wages. Then there is the assertion that the “super rich” have abundant funds that can be taxed to improve the living standards of everyone else.

All of these claims are false. By promoting them, the president and his supporters may hope to distract attention from ObamaCare and the economy. Yet they are igniting hopes they can’t possibly fulfill.

via James Piereson: The Truth About the ‘One Percent’ – WSJ.com.