In Defense of the Wealthy and the Elite: Tell the Middle Class to Stop Whining and Step Up
Posted: Sunday, January 16, 2011
by Jon Searles
Human society is an amazing thing and can best be described as the powerful and influentially passionate few leading the less impassioned and weak many. This is evident in all forms of government throughout the world. How the “few” use their power and influence on the “many” determines the type of moniker we give the government of these places; democracy, communist, totalitarian, socialist, etc..
The middle and working class people of the United States are becoming a group of whining ignorant cry babies with their hands held out for anything they can be given by the wealthy. The wealthy are working to protect what is theirs and arguably what they have earned. The wealthy and the middle class have common ground. They all want lower taxes, lower fees, better priced goods, and the ability to prosper financially (The American Dream?).
One cannot judge the entire business structure of the United States by examples set by Enron, Worldcom, AIG, Bernie Madoffs and the like; but by the companies that have grown in this economy and continually give back to improve. Some feel it is business and the wealthiest Americans' job to keep people employed. It is not the mission of American companies to keep people employed but their duty is to keep their businesses open using the tools and honest business practices open to them to make the business profitable. If this means moving jobs to other countries or buying materials made in other countries, so be it.
Many complain about jobs going overseas helping the economies of impoverished nations and taking jobs from Americans. Many bloggers and activists engage in diatribes against the wealthy opportunists while typing on computers made in India, wearing clothing made in Honduras, and twittering on phones assembled in an Asian country. Sales flyers and circulars on the best deals on foreign made electronics and consumer goods are not marketed to the wealthy but to the whining ignorant cry babies I mentioned previously.
Do you want to stop jobs from being shipped overseas?
1. Decrease taxes and fees to companies who show an honest and sustained attempt to keep business in the United States. This will reward the wealthy and successful and it is a good idea!
2. Encourage programs that teach Americans how they can reconnect with a stronger work ethic and reward companies who give jobs to and promote those that are willing to take back an American work ethic that has been diminishing in recent years. Read this carefully: Some people are not employable because they lack the desire and dedication to purpose to be employed. It is okay to say that there are some Americans that are just lazy.
3. Get the economically powerful middle and working class people in this country to buy items made in the U.S.A. Direct tax incentives and rebates on domestic goods! For example, if I buy a U.S. built car owned by a U.S. company, I should pay no sales tax or maybe a yearly registration rebate. If I buy a U.S. built television or washing machine I get free cable or soap for a year!
4. Increase taxes and fees on imported goods from other countries. This is a protectionist mode which we allow other countries to do but we tend to avoid it to protect our economy.
5. Increase fees on excessive exports that harm the U.S. economy. Sending too much butter, sugar, and wheat overseas causes higher prices for food in our economy.
6. Stop enabling failure with social programs that only strengthen poor behavior by our population. Demand results for money put into programs or change the program.
7. Set up world trading partners who make both sides play by the same types of rules. If a country allows the manufacture of pirated goods, we do not trade with the country. If the country allows goods manufactured by small children or in unsafe conditions, we do not trade with the country.
A country cannot promote and sustain a complete world view of a free market economy unless they are able to level the playing field. If U.S. workers demand a living wage that is 10-1000 times higher than workers in other countries, then we must as a population be willing to pay much higher prices, decrease wages in this country or not trade one on one with all countries in the world.
It is not the job of U.S. business to insure the economic success of the United States, that is too much to ask, however, if we make it the U.S. government’s job to enhance the economic success of U.S. companies within rules that help the population of this country the economy will prosper.
I am not advocating turning our back on the world and its offerings, but recent snowstorms in the Northeast gave me an analogy that is applicable. I shoveled the snow out of my own driveway before I went next door to help my neighbor shovel his.
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Top-level comments on this article: (1 total)You are completely clueless. All of the points you call for - these are EXACTLY the things that the wealthy prevent from happening, because these are the things that make them so wildly rich. The wealthy don't want you to buy American, they want to make stuff cheap in China and sell it to us at a premium. The wealthy detest, and would fight to the bitter end, to stop any sort of protectionism that prevents the free trade that makes them so amazingly wealthy.
Taxes are already lower here than in any other industrialized nation, and still the wealthy hide, cheat, and offshore their income. How can you possibly imagine that people who make $4 billion dollars a year - as one hedge fund manager did this year - are not being adequately rewarded? How can you possibly imagine that the rich (in a time where they have watched income disparity skyrocket as the wealthy benefit from tax breaks, layoffs, and slashing of social spending) are not being rewarded enough? What would you have exactly - $10 billion dollars per year salaries?
When unemployment suddenly went from 4% to 10%, do you figure that those people suddenly got lazy and decided they didn't want to feed their families anymore? They were working hard and were laid off to fluff up corporate profits!
Money is money. If the wealthy are taking more than their share, then there is less for others. They get tax breaks. Okay, that means the education budget for poor children - children who could go either way in this world - is slashed. That helps ensure that these kids will go nowhere so that someone at the top can purchase a new yacht? How does this make our country stronger exactly?
You are simply the most out-of-touch, sheltered, upper-middle-class nitwit I have ever had the displeasure of reading something by. You have no idea how the world works. Your proposals, which you figure would "reward" the wealthy - would be laughed out of hand by the them! You think they don't know how to reward themselves?
You're pathetic. I don't think you can imagine what it might be like if you were not be an upper-middle class white New Englander. You can't imagine what it might be for the millions of people who were working hard and were suddenly laid off. The rich ARE getting all everything they want. That is why there are still $200 million dollars condos being sold while millions of people have no options for work and are underwater on their morgatges.
Get a clue man, Christ.Please log in to respond to this comment.Your whining proves my point exactly. And by the way, I am not actually a New Englander and started my world living in a two bedroom apartment with my mom, brother, and sister. I guess I achieved my current success by working hard and not making excuses. Thanks for reading.Please log in to respond to this comment.
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