What's a Richest American?
Of all the places to cut into President Obama's remarks today, I'd like to start here. As everyone now knows, there is a super-rich elite class of Americans -- and not just Americans -- that stands clearly apart from what we now are going to have to call the 'merely wealthy'.
The distinction here is quantitative, of course, but not simply in the way we have been trained to expect. Yes, the superrich have vastly higher incomes than the merely rich. But they also have vastly, vastly higher net worths. Income, lest we forget, is actually an unreliable and illegitimate proxy for true wealth. But -- and this is crucial -- the distinction is also qualitative: the superrich elite, as a group and as a rule, are culturally different from the merely wealthy. Anyone wanting a prefatory glance at the details should go read Chrystia Freeland.
It is essential we all notice that Obama's remarks laid bare a worldview dedicated to obscuring the fundamental and revealing differences between the merely wealthy and the superrich elite. According to this worldview, a family of five with a net worth of $100,000 and two breadwinners grossing $250,000 a year is, for purposes of taxation and the social compact, just like Warren Buffett...and just like Barack Obama.
It beggars belief that Warren Buffett, Barack Obama, or anyone else can really believe that these two groups of people are really so similar that we are entitled -- obliged! -- to refer to them all as 'the richest Americans'. Yet this Obama does, time and again. It is the habit, and now almost the premise, of his party. And it is a conceptual monstrosity -- a lie of such sweep and power that it can destroy far more than the fortunes of America's merely wealthy, or even those Americans willing to take on risk and toil for a chance to rise to their ranks.
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Re: What's a Richest American?
James, I'm so glad you started here. This business conflating the upper middle class with the super-rich really bothered me too. Not that I fall into either category, but the speech reeked of class warfare, which -- despite all Obama's lip service to rugged individualism and the American tradition -- is a distinctly unamerican stench.
Re: What's a Richest American?
James, Chris Rock did something funny on the difference betweeen high wage earners and wealthy people.
He said, "Shequille O'Neal is rich. The white man who signs his paycheck is wealthy."
Not exactly the same players you are talking about, but the same concept.
I live in New Jersey with a family of 6. It's so expensive here. $250,000.00 per year will not make you rich.
Aug '10
Re: What's a Richest American?
According to Fox News a few minutes ago earning $380,000 a year puts you in the top 1%. If that's right then it proves the point.
Edited on April 14, 2011 at 12:14amSep '10
Re: What's a Richest American?
To determine who is rich, you have to come up with an income level that will give you enough taxpayers to generate some revenue, but not so many that they can sway an election.
How well someone can live at that income level isn't relevant. The only thing that matters is, are there enough jealous slackers out there willing to stick it to the so-called rich?
Sep '10
Re: What's a Richest American?
It also bothers the heck out of me that Warren Buffett and other super rich evangelize for higher taxes on "people like themselves' when they know full well that the government cannot and will not confiscate a substantial portion of their wealth but will reach down to the mass of people who are productive but not super rich.
Re: What's a Richest American?
Tommy De Seno: James, Chris Rock did something funny on the difference betweeen high wage earners and wealthy people.
He said, "Shequille O'Neal is rich. The white man who signs his paycheck is wealthy."
Not exactly the same players you are talking about, but the same concept.
I live in New Jersey with a family of 6. It's so expensive here. $250,000.00 per year will not make you rich. ยท Apr 13 at 1:41pm
You Better Have One Child Only, as they say in that model of competitiveness across the Pacific. There is a juicy rant here that you can probably imagine in its fullness faster than I can type.
May '10
Re: What's a Richest American?
His definition of "Richest Americans" relies so heavily on intellectual dishonesty that it boggles the mind.
Edited on April 14, 2011 at 5:12am