The Sage Observer

The War Against The Rich

          In a recent issue of the New York Times, it was said that the venture capitalist Tom Perkins and Kenneth Langone, one of the founders of Home Depot, said that the super rich in America were being vilified the way Jews in Nazi Germany had been. On this subject, I can speak for no one but myself, and I say this is not true. I’m not against the rich. I’m not against anyone who succeeds, and neither do I believe are most people. In fact, I look up to, respect, and admire them. Although I didn’t succeed, I have spent most all my life trying to be rich. I didn’t make it, but I sure as the dickens tried. There is no rich man anywhere who has worked any harder than I have–bar none, unless he has done hard labor in the fields, the coal mines, steel mills, or something on that order–most of whom have not become rich either.

          Allow me to tell you what I abhor about the rich and wealthy.

First of all, I object to those who are overpaid for the work they do. Speaking in general, it is my understanding (I have read from respectable sources) that, adjusting for inflation, wages of the average middleclass working person in this country haven’t increased since the seventies. I understand that the wages of the average CEO have increased from 112% of that of the average worker in their organization to 350% to 400% (I’m sure these percentages will be immediately challenged, but forget it. They are approximate and will vary from organization to organization, but they are certainly representative). What makes this condition even more reprehensible than it first appears is that, while productivity of the average worker has increased substantially over the period covered, productivity of the CEO hasn't increased accordingly. Also! In many instances, the CEOs involved laid off an equivalent number of workers, money-wise (or shifted the work offshore), in order to cover the loss to their bottom line from their pay increases.

          Second, this is just a part of the total picture. The foregoing notwithstanding, the Corporatocracy and very wealthy do not pay their fair share of taxes according to their ability to pay, effectively riding on the backs of the middleclass. Let’s forget this fair share bit as, by itself, it’s just talk. The question is, what does fair mean? It was decided long ago that, relative to taxes, fair means “according to one’s ability to pay” (Take note–they are constantly trying to change it. It seems all you hear anymore is the word “fair”. The word ability is ignored in the equation). In the seventies, the top personal income tax rate was 89%, or thereabouts. The top corporate rate was 51%.  In spite of the massive increases in profits, today, the top tax rates have decreased, I believe, to 28% and 35% respectively; and many, through “corporate welfare” (legal loopholes) and other means, avoid paying even that ( I understand that the average effective corporate tax rate is currently 18%. This does not include the taxes that are evaded, i.e. those that are illegal. I heard on C-span just yesterday that there are approximately $356 Billion in taxes that go unpaid each year in addition (as I understand it) to taxes on income illegally not reported. My what a hole that would make in the national debt over ten years.

          Third and probably most important of all, we have a Constitution that establishes our nation as a democratic republic, a government of the people, by the people, and for the people (Abraham Lincoln stated this very beautifully in his Gettysburg Address). By God, corporations are not people and neither did he create this world just for the rich and powerful, the elite. In the New Testament you will read that Jesus had much to say about this.

          Our Constitution established a representative form of government. It established a legislative body, our Congress, which is elected by the people and is supposed to represent the people who elected them; but “They Do Not”. Most, if not all, of them are bought and paid for (I say bribed), by the Corporatocracy through campaign contributions and influence enhanced by an open and/or revolving door policy in hiring representatives after they leave office. Some of these corporations go so far as to even write the very laws for which our representatives vote, sometimes sitting down in the representatives’ offices to do so. The only influence our people have over the government of our country today is their vote which is almost wholly influenced by the media and paid propaganda financed by the Corporatocracy through their campaign contributions. Needless to say, for the most part these corporation could care less for the environment, our country (Just look at globalization), or our people. They care only for their profits, themselves, and the rich.

          There is no war against the rich. The real war is only against us, the middleclass, those who are the real producers in this economy–those on the backs of whom the super rich tread, and we are losing. It’s not right, and you know it. Only those who are making all the money disagree. In the meantime, we still have twenty million or more people unemployed or under employed, hundreds of thousands, if not millions, homeless, sleeping on the streets, under bridges, or in their cars, forty seven million on food stamps, homes still being repossessed, and on and on–six years after the crash and no-one is doing anything about it. That’s the way it seems to me; and, yet, our problems can be easily resolved, if our “Representatives” only will–if they will look after the best interests of the nation and the people rather than themselves and reelection.

Ronald Miller

mtss86@comcast.net