The wealthy are being unfairly demonized....

Do the Media Hate the Rich?
'Robb Report' sees signs of a new class warfare.

By Johnnie Roberts | NEWSWEEK
Published Jun 12, 2009

With the super-rich as its core readership, Robb Reporthas fired the initial volleys of a nascent media class warfare. In a two-page note in the June issue entitled "Putting Luxury Into Perspective," editor in chief Brett Andersen attacks "the mainstream media" for its "demonization of the wealthy and the industries that cater to them." This antipathy toward the magazine's prime audience and advertisers, Andersen charges, is "a media phenomenon we have observed lately with increasing dismay." He lambastes the wave of populism as failing "to recognize the ways in which luxury industries have enriched society not only economically, but also intellectually, technologically and culturally."

It was the magazine's second broadside in a row: In Robb Report's May issue, Andersen wrote a similar essay about the media's "pernicious prejudice" against the wealthy.

It's a sign of how the current economic distress is exposing class tensions. For more than a year, newspapers and mass-market magazines have been chronicling the recession's sociological and psychological impact on the nation's top 1 percent of the income scale. A stream of headlines heralding an era of asceticism ensued—"Luxury’s Lament: The End of Flaunting" (Women's Wear Daily), "Class Dismissed: A New Status Anxiety Is Infecting Affluent Hipdom" (The Atlantic) and "Even in Recession, Spend They Must: Luxury Shoppers Anonymous" (The New York Times). At the same time, populism has reemerged as a key political force.

-more-

http://www.newsweek.com/id/201864

:rofl:

They're starting to squeal like pigs.

Music to my ears.

I believe I'm being overcome by the vapors!

:rofl:

Nope, it wasn't the vapors.

Someone like Gucci probably discovered flush seams and right and left shoe design in his quest to please the Medici. Louis Vuiton may have inspired low end luggage makers to improve their quality and materials. Timex may have dissected a Rolex to see how it worked.

But what this article probably translates to in real life is: Rodeo Drive will be selling expensive drab and worn looking clothing that those in the know will, well, know when they see it. Personally, I have outgrown my designer phase. I buy for value now, and sometimes that means designer.

Calvin Klein shamed middle America stores into selling higher end stuff- then he went and bought Sears' entire stock of work pants and thick cotton t-shirts and underwear. Ralph Lauren has been painting WASP on the unwasped masses for forty years; his obsession with Viking youth is pronounced. But then you have Dolce and Gabanna who revel in the high chic of heroin on the beach and handcuffs in the bedroom. So we can't say that the premium retail consumption always drives the market to better itself.

Is the orchestra ready? :nopity: :nopity: :nopity:

Poor little rich people!

Robb Report.

:rofl:

You can't make this up, kiddos.

but it can't be demonized, because it's disgusting and inexcusable to begin with.

Being at the top of the heap gives them no right or excuse to be an asshole who looks out only for himself and cares nothing of the big picture, the resources that got him where he is or the greater good that they, ultimately by using these resources, share in responsibility of improving.

I'm also tired of hearing the cliche "it's nothing personal. It's Just Business" No, asshole, it IS personal when you reduce all of what we do, all of the hard work and hours of study and degree achievement to a mere hobbyesque lark meant to be bought and sold like cheap rice.

Yet there's no mention about that in the so called liberal media. In fact the rich have made significant gains in their class war against the rest of us, and now, when our society is almost prostrate and finally starts to fight back en masse, Newsweek comes out with this whining little piece of journalism.

Fuck 'em. Frankly we need to see the rich beaten back into their proper place, and to make them really whine I say restore the income tax brackets that were law under FDR, ninety fucking percent. Gee, amazing how well our country did when the rich were paying their fair share.

if "the rich" weren't spending every day bribing our own representatives to act against our interests.

"With the super-rich as its core readership, Robb Report ....... "

The core readership of the Robb Report is middle class people who are pathologically super rich wannabes. The super rich don't need to Robb rpeort to tell them what's what.

The Robb Report is a print version of Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.