Interesting quote!

It's a nice quote, and I can understand the feeling behind it. It says "for which you are at a loss to account" and that's probably more true. Like if you meet someone and they suddenly are rich but have no explanation, then there's probably something going on. But Hillary worked as a high power lawyer for a long time and made investments. It isn't unexplained.

There has been a relationship between wealth and power in this country forever. I like the idea of having a President who has lived more like I've lived. I think he would have perspective that would help him. But Bill Clinton didn't grow up wealthy. I don't know how wealthy President Obama was growing up. But as much as I like voting for people who haven't been wealthy their whole lives, it isn't necessarily an indication of crime or corruption, and it is a longstanding tradition in the US and most places for power to follow wealth. Not a tradition I'm happy with, but it's normal, not strange.

Hillary is not the only wealthy politician.

That it's what I expect at this point.

... the popular version does not convey the meaning of the original. Which might lead one to observe that if there were no convenient aphorism for an occasion, it would be necessary to invent one.

-- Mal

Warren Buffett? The Beatles? Yes, the Robber Barons, monopolists, war profiteers, and others built their fortunes based on crimes. But many fortunes were made legitimately.

And, oh, I think you left out J.K. Rowling.

Bill Gates and Warren Buffet are economic predators. Thankfully I'm not forced to buy any of their bullshit.

The music industry is very predatory. For every successful artist there are dozens more dropped like used cigarettes and smashed into the dirt, their flame permanently extinguished.

Nothing wrong with being comfortably wealthy by way of one's art, invention, and other creativity, but I don't think there should be any billionaires. Most are a drag on society. Many are criminal. They all ought to be taxed out of existence.

Income taxes ought to be steeply progressive, well above 50% at ten times the minimum wage and 90% at twenty times. It ought to be possible to shelter windfall income such as an athlete might make, so that they may spend it later when their athletic career is over, but estate taxes would be high.

Corporate taxes should be high too, encouraging redistribution of profits to employees, improvements in working conditions, and facility upgrades that reduce energy use, resource use, and pollution.

Those who prosper in an unfair economic system have not necessarily committed any crime at all, not to mention a "great crime." Words actually have meaning, you know.

was the original.

Instead of an ideologized version by those who can't handle the original.

It disposes of the "But look at so-and-so's fortune, it was earned" comeback and the "but they must have done something bad, so all we have to do is find the cause and label it for the crime it has to be." Sort of Aristotelian deduction reduced to an absurdity (like *that* never happens), and which has labeled as crimes a lot of non-crimes, or done nothing but foster paranoia and suspicion. (Not that some people don't luv them some paranoia and suspicion.)


At the same time, it's a generalization. Not every great fortune without a visible cause needs to trace back to a great crime. I can imagine cases where there's a licit cause, but not one that a private person feels like trumpeting about. Given the social climate for the last 40 years, if I found a way of making a billion dollars I'd change very few things in my life and certainly wouldn't publicize it. It would just invite abuse, insult, suspicion; people prying into my personal life; and it would attract those with hands out asking for more or, more recently, guilting me for more and making demands, from every corner. All the "don't judge me" and "don't preach" people suddenly put on judges' or ministers' robes (which are oddly similar, don't you think?).

If the quote used the word "most" instead, that would make it a generalization. As it is, it is hyperbole.

ask "Whose?"

is also very true of our 1%.

Hers is a pretty great fortune (and her personal story is also rather impressive).

She didn't cheat, lie, or steal to achieve her fame and fortune.

she is fine with paying her substantial taxes in the UK.

"I am indebted to the British welfare state; the very one that Mr. Cameron would like to replace with charity handouts. When my life hit rock bottom, that safety net, threadbare though it had become under John Major’s Government, was there to break the fall. I cannot help feeling, therefore, that it would have been contemptible to scarper for the West Indies at the first sniff of a seven-figure royalty cheque. This, if you like, is my notion of patriotism."