"It also works the other way -- the poor have no idea what real rich people are like"

they show us on teevee every damn day! :(

:kick:

Most people have no idea at all.

than godlike praise for Obama?

once Keith and his large head went under. I think Matt got tossed off of a cliff.

"I know it's $25 for the pancakes, but they bring the butter out already melted..."

I tried not to let my jaw drop... a gaping pie-hole just isn't couth at breakfast.

Worth about $200M. He's in jail now :evilgrin:

who had attended college in the mid '60..she had worked the Civil Rights movement, ect., and she came from money...OLD Money. Her class and her "war stories" were loaded down with little bits of information on how the truly OLD RICH like to live, what they value, who they hate, etc. (I kinda got the impression that her parents were not real happy with the path she had chosen for her life and career, either heehee....) it was very eye opening...

I don't know if you are familiar with the TV show Leverage on TNT, but in last week's episode, such an event occurred. The bad guy, a rich blackmailer, was going into his favorite coffee shop, when Eliot, one of the good guys, was attempting a sort of con. When he goes into the coffee shop, he spots a basket filled with bananas and comments, "who would spend $3 for a banana?" Sure enough, when the bad guy walks in, he picks up one of those bananas.

The thrill seekers are the ones who fascinate me. I know some of the newly rich, but those with work ethics, not those who end up with wild lifestyles. One of my nephews used to hang with some of those kids when he was a teen, and extreme sports was their major hobby. How is it that most of us would be perfectly happy with a simple home, car, and enough money to get by, and these people would prefer to risk their lives to get a high?

and the high-risk ski slopes.

A $25 plate of pancakes isn't "wild" for him, and neitherwise a $500 or $1000 weekend skiing... maybe out of state... nor a $200 dinner. He draws the line at a $200 shirt. (Though maybe, if it were edible, it might be ok?)

It's nothing to do with the issue of "risking lives to get a high" that I don't understand... hell, I drove a taxi in Oakland, CA for a decade—way more dangerous than nearly any extreme sport, and a better high if you ask me... what I don't understand is the notion that pancakes are worth $25 even if the butter is melted... or that a dinner is worth $200 just because the waiter will change my ashtray half way through my cigarette, just to make sure that the table smells fresh... or the notion that anyone deserves enough money to pay those prices no matter what they do... or the fact that people aren't outright lynched whenever they lay-off thousands of people so that they can give bonuses enough to a few to afford all of the above plus a house in every timezone of the globe.

I want all those rich assholes, my friend included, to risk their lives for a high... with a little bit of attrition, maybe the money will be redistributed a bit more...

especially younger people.

wanted to change some flights that had already been booked to save a few minutes here or there. as she wrote in an email, "it's only a few hundred dollars more."

mind you she's one of the sweetest most hard working people you'll ever meet - but i believe she has lived in somewhat of a bubble her entire life and simply doesn't have a clue about the very concept of worrying about money.

With billionaire bosses who say, in answer to a problem I had, just do this or that! Simple! Yeah, right... when I laughed and said I couldn't come anywhere near affording that, I got this puzzled puppy look. There really was no understanding at all.

My employers are L-O-A-D-E-D. But, they treat their employees well. They are extravagant (flying to Nantucket for the weekend when it's a short drive away), and nickel-and-dimey at the same time. The disconnect fractures me sometimes. One day they'll buy everybody lunch, and the next day, they'll whip out the calculator when the check comes.

No matter where you are in the world, you will be sheltered from all the elements as, at best, you might have to walk the twenty feet in freezing weather from your limo sitting in the No Parking spot in front of the five-star hotel into the lobby, as the doorman holds the umbrella over your head.

Both a relative of mine, and a person that started a "Discussion" with me, have no idea whatsoever of what massive wealth is like, nor of people who are massively wealthy. Having known and been around uber- rich, I have seen first hand the huge chasm of how they think versus everybody else. The person who started the "discussion" who parroted Rush talking points right and left, until I managed to get him to under stand, that, to the uber rich, $100,000 is mere pocket change. And that most super rich don't work, and have never worked, because they come from money and have people who invest their money to make money. That concept, that rich people simply use their money to make money, never occurred to him - it blew his "rich people create jobs" meme right out of the water. And it's really sad, because people like him and my relative, simply do what the rich people's media tell them to do and say, like willing puppets, putting knives to their own throats, all lost in ideology and detached from reality.

be satisfied with what they have. And who work hard - mainly to take away what we have so that they can have more. And who buy their politicians to ensure that they will be able to accumulate unlimited amounts to live on.

No doubt in my mind what kind of people are "on the other side," so to speak. To quote that infamous rich person, Leona Helmsley, "We don't pay taxes - only the 'little people' pay taxes."

I'd rather be a "little person" than a pathological "person" with no conscience.

the rich are that way because they do what capitalism asks of them. It's the system that encourages pathological behavior, not the individual persons, that should be the focus.

Not all rich people are sociopaths, obviously. But most people at the top 1% of the social pyramid display, most definitively, sociopathic personal traits.

For example, a person can't be a billionaire and not be a sociopath, a functional one perhaps... but still a sociopath none the less. Normal human beings have a very hard time adapting to this system because they have capacity for empathy, which our current system considers a hindrance (and thus the reason why sociopaths flourish in it).

mainly a disgusting economic system rather than simply "bad actors", I can certainly accept that certain personalities are going to be much more willing to do what it takes to step on others and get ahead. Very good point.

But we need to realize that that systems do not emerge out of a vacuum. Granted sometimes the end resulting system is not necessarily what its creators had in mind.

But one thing that has stuck me is that basically every governmental, economic, and social/religious institution, at the end of the day, present a lot of systemic characteristics that can be described as being sociopathic. And at the same time, it seems most people, who reach the pinnacle of said institutions, also share a certain degree of sociopathic personality traits.

Now, is that just a mere coincidence or there is a correlation at work? I don't have the answer, but I think it is a very important point to notice.

More exposès into the lavish lifestyles of the super wealthy -- with a heavy empahsis on the visual example -- could influence public opinion accordingly.

Speaking of that, whatever happended to Robin Leach's Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous? Probably would scare the crap out of a lot rich folk today.

edited for spelling

you also show the lives of the people who work for them.

Take your example of Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous... That didn't cause anybody to say we should tax the wealthy in order to de-concentrate the accretion of wealth into few hands.

In the Depression, nobody wanted to see hard, grimy lives of real people. They wanted lavish fantasy romantic comedies. They wanted escapism. If there were shows about the rich and their lives, they wouldn't be taken as a reality check, they'd be an hour of entertainment.

If you showed the Lifestyles and made commentary on it, you'd be accused of demonizing them... it would backfire.

The only feasible way to make it work is to show a side by side comparison of RichMan/PoorMan and how they live their daily lives, the influence and power or lack thereof without allowing subjects to sway the viewer with commentary.

it's all in the presentation

So? Of course the rich would accuse you of demonizing them. That is expected and a give. Nobody likes to be exposed of their wrong doings.


The only reason why it would "backfire," IMHO, it is because you already have adopted their narrative as being the only reality, and you automatically went into the defensive. As an example, that is the reason why a republican can go on national TV and yell "class warfare" and squash any democrat or progressive into submission because they are afraid of that mythical backfire, why? Because they have adopted their narrative, and thus they have already lost the debate. Instead, anyone confronted with accusations of inciting "class warfare" should reply "damn, right it is class warfare, and you're waging it against us." Period, put them in the defensive.

Your last suggestion is also a good one. But I disagree with the assumption that showing the lavish lifestyles in a time of general poverty, while commenting on them, would backfire. The negative reaction it is to be expected, and it should be embraced. In fact the ratings would go through the roof, due to the controversy. We need to use their strengths against them, and this would be a great example of using the same MO that the rich have used to profit (controversy-fueled garbage TV) against them.

The visual is strong enough.

but my point was in regards of accepting the narrative of those who are most negatively affected by the commentary as being the reality. That is all.

I often thought of that juxtaposition while leaving my modest home, driving my modest car, toward an office to help manage billions of dollars for the boss who was leaving his Bel Air home and driving his Maserati to the same office. That we breathed the same air is perhaps the only thing we really had in common.

mostly middle class, educated people, is that most of the very rich are very rich because they worked really, really hard and/or they are really, really smart.

My friends, may I present Miss Paris Hilton!

about their cats' health. FWIW. I find lower middle class folks to be the most caring and most willing to stretch themselves financially for their pets' health.

dollar homes on the waterfront next to each other to tear down and build a 50 million dollar home.
It's a whole different world.

We're like stray dogs to them.

the one group its still acceptable to discriminate against: the oppressed JOB CREATORS!!!!!

and new money most often dies broke, thanks to those five million dollar parties where they're serenaded by Rod Stewart. Ostentation and outdoing everyone else are the names of the game, but none of that will ever get them invited to the inner circle of the truly pedigreed rich where the real wealth is.

And that is the circle they most want to join, the circle where they can be made to feel inferior by a glance or gesture. They will never be admitted, of course, so they remain in their own class of false wealth, squandering as much of it as they can and going deeply into debt when it starts to run a little low. Eventually, everything left is quietly sold at auction to satisfy creditors and the new crop of new money snaps it all up.

Were the antics of new money adequately publicized, we'd likely have a revolution in this country. Old money, however, remains understated and quite hidden and would be safe from it as they were during the New Deal.

the ostentatious, tacky sort. The 2nd generation is typically better and more broadly educated but the 3rd generation is anywhere from stuffy/stale to, quite frankly, nuts.

Most of them were very nice people. They didn't have to show it off and didn't care what people thought of them. Like you said, it's the 'New Money' assholes that really make a bad impression.

Nothing about the family would make you give them a second look, let alone guess they were in the nine figure club. The guy started and sold two different software companies and invested in a third that was bought by Apple. The guy drives a Honda SUV, lives in an ordinary house in an ordinary suburb of Los Angeles and picks up his kids at school every day. At the time one of their neighbors mistook him for unemployed and offered to pass along his resume at work for a programming job. He is still married to his original wife and they married in college penniless. And prominently placed in his home office is a photo of he and his wife with Al and Tipper Gore circa 1996.

Their only opulent indulgence appeared to be a passion for Heliskiing.

how do not discuss their wealth, nor show it off. For some, it is the best security one can "buy".

Not raising another Howard Hughes and Paris Hilton.

his way into poverty even if he tried. He's a "private equity all-star," not some poor schmuck who just won the lottery.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/29/business/yourmoney/29deal.html

Thanks for the thread, phantom power.

It's really not personal. When Marie Antoinette said "let them eat cake" referring to the starving pheasants that couldnt afford bread, IMHO she wasnt being mean, she just didnt get it. The reality of the wealthy makes them oblivious to the sufferings of the lower classes. And Barbara Bush demonstrated the same when she was in the Dome after Katrina with the thousands of refugees. She said that it was kind of like a camping trip adventure for them. She also said something to the effect that since they were poor and had nothing, they really hadnt lost much. The point is that they dont wish us to die, they just dont care if we do.

The Revolution is Waiting.

that poor people have a symmetric problem. I think the implication is that it's fairly easy to get somebody struggling by on a lower-class income to resent a guy who makes *somewhat* more money, but these same people will fail to resent Bill Gates, who literally could hand out thousand-dollar-bills to a million people, and have only given away one of his many billions of dollars.

I don't know, it's a bit like how a spider fails to see me as a potential meal. I'm more like a mid-sized geological feature at the spider's scale.

some say, some day they can be just like them. When they, or at least a large minority of those idiots, figure out that the game is rigged the shit will hit the fan. They'll go from Teabagger to Communist in a heartbeat, don't think they won't.

teabaggers are truly, genuinely stupid, until you understand that, you don't understand them

a genuinely stupid person will never have the fearlessness and humility to admit he has been conned, that's why it is so easy to keep cheating the genuinely stupid person over and over and over and over...they can't get it, they are brain damaged by genetics

is infinite as long as they are given someone to hate. And because they see themselves as temporarily inconvenienced millionaires, it will always be easy to turn their misguided idiot wrath on the poor.

Those poor birds.

I know you meant peasant but it is a chuckle.

I think that many millionaires and billionaires among the Nouveau Riche tend to shun the spotlight for the most part. Those who are of the "old money" are the ones who really have no idea that 98% of the population exists. They have been raised with money, sent to private schools, assume legacy positions in their family business, and hang out with other millionaires and billionaires.

They only have access to a minimum of lower class citizens, usually service people who do the real work for these "high society" folks.

The newly rich are split into two groups--those who flaunt it, and those who don't. Those who flaunt it are ones we are most familiar with. These are the ones with the opulent mansions, the fast and expensive cars, the biggest yachts, the roll of $100 bills in their pockets. They talk a lot, but rarely listen, and often have major addictions, whether to top shelf liquor, cocaine or other drugs, or some fetish they try to hide. They boast incessantly, but in truth, they are trying to recapture a point in their lives where they may have had real security in their lives, something rare in dysfunctional homes. So they tend to stand out in their new worlds, this time to prove that they are better than everyone else.

The other group among the newly rich are those who have a strong work ethic, who came up from other classes, but don't fall prey to temptations, who are happy with what they have managed to achieve, but don't go around blatantly proclaiming how rich they are. If they have kids, a lot of their money would likely be in trust funds or college funds, or they might have an inclination to travel. Many women in this group have severe self-esteem problems, and tend to indulge in such things as plastic surgery because they feel old no matter what their age--it's essentially, for them, a sort of PTSD, when they have spent time achieving this financial gain with their husbands (lovers, partners, whatever), and they look back and think that it seemed like an eternity getting there. This group will support many causes to appear even more affluent, but often lose touch with their own families because they have a smidge of paranoia that everyone is after their money.

I think that most rich people have the same foibles as the rest of us, but they tend to deal with it all differently. They will become more self-destructive, they will continue to appear apathetic, or they will become more reticent. No matter what, except for that top tier of old money, they will still know the rest of us are here, if only to have provided them with a step on that ladder to the top.

That guy's the biggest fucking sycophant.

clean their toilets, cook and serve the crabs, work at the $5 million parties. We are the ones who do their bookkeeping and keep track of their investments. Maybe it's time we spoke up. I have stories about encounters with the ultra rich employers and clients who are Republican supporting assholes. There are nice rich people too incidentally.

it makes it sound like people making $300,000 a year are not rich. Because only the super duper rich are 'real' rich.

A person who retires in their forties and makes more in pension than many other people make from full time work is certainly rich by the standard of those people doing full time work for less money.

that there are many who make more in an hour than that pensioner gets all year, and the worker earns 2 or 3 years. What people can't wrap their heads around is just how large this disparity has grown.

Is the sun a long ways away? It's 93 million miles. To fly there at Mach1 would take over 13 years. But in astronomical terms, it is only 500 light seconds or about .000016 light years whereas the next nearest star is 4 light years away or 248,000 times further.

The question is what is to be the scale? If only the super-duper rich qualify as "rich" that seems to ignore the reality. Suddenly somebody making $300,000 a year is non-rich as is somebody making $14,000 a year. Neither one of them is rich, once you upwardly define the meaning of the word rich.

Then look at the other reality - who gets the money?

We talk as if "the rich people get all the money" but the richest 400 only got 1.59% of the total income in 2007. The top .1% got 11.9% of the income, the top 1% got 22.8%.

That's hugely unequal, especially compared to 1986 when the top 1% got only 11.3% of the total income, but it still leaves a lot of income. It still leaves a vast majority of the incomem, which is divided up like so

next 4% - 14.6%
next 5% - 10.6%
next 15% - 20.8%

Those remaining members of the top 25% are taking 46% of the total income, which, combined with the huge share of the top 1% only leaves 31% for the bottom 75%.

When it comes to a share of the pie, the 46% is just much, much larger than either the 11.9% taken by the top .1% or the 1.59% taken by the Fab 400. But according to Taibbi those people in the top 10%, who get 25.2% of the income, compared to the 12.5% that goes to the bottom 50% are not "really" rich, because there are even wealthier people above them. And I have to wonder, in a full disclosure, it Matt in the top 10%? Does he, himself, make over $108,904 a year (which would put him in the top 10%)?

Re-read the article and try harder.

the headline includes a bogus phrase.

Plus, just because you make more money than I do, does not mean you are the boss of me.

I personally know people who are "really rich". As in take your private jet to Switzerland for a one week vacation for $300,000.

The article states that people, like yourself, have no concept of who the "rich" really are. People who drop $2k on lunch and who really run the country. People like these who control the message and use people (like yourself) like tools to hate those who work for a living but make a $250,000 per year like doctors, lawyers, engineers, etc. This class of people used to be upper middle class and have now dropped down to "middle".

People making $50,000 per year are no longer middle, they are now "working class". Drop below this with a family and you are poor.

The point is, the "really rich" are beyond the comprehension of the working class, and thus escape their ire, and thus escape paying half their income in taxes like they used to.

The person making $250,000 really is rich. Just because some people are far, far richer, does not suddenly make them non-rich.

The super-rich are super-rich, not "really" rich as if other rich people are just faux rich. If you are in the top 20% in national household income, then you are not in the "middle". Except in their own screwed up definition where they ignore the 80% of schlubs who are way below them as they enviously look up.

One of the reasons that the rich are not paying higher taxes is not because of people like me being deluded, it is because of those people making over $80,000 a year insisting that their own taxes should not go up. Collectively they have most of the money, and a huge amount of power as well, They also are more likely to ally themselves with those who are richer and to look down their noses at those who are poorer - the fools and tools (and lazy losers).

The upper 50% gets 87.5% of the income, only 22% of that goes to the top 1% (some of whom you seem to consider to be middle class, did you know it "only" takes $390,000 in household income to be part of the top 1%?). Those in the top 5%, taking away the top 1%, have an average household income of $218,434 according to IRS statistics, but you don't think members of the top 5% are "really" rich because, after all, they are not super rich.

That's the kind of crap definition that allows Obama to call his payroll tax cut a "middle class" tax break while it increased taxes on the poor.

I agree that people making over $250,000 are rich and should be taxed higher. I just think that those super rich should be taxed even more-up to 90%. You can pick what income level.

The fact remains that the bottom is not organized enough to insist on higher taxes for those at the top. Yet. It is coming though.

I thought my own post was way to harsh on re-reading it. Maybe the heat is making me cranky, but it's cooler now.

I think that $250,000 is too high for the threshold, as I have mentioned here http://journals.democraticunderground.com/hfojvt/140
and also here http://journals.democraticunderground.com/hfojvt/147

"Obama's plan will add $300 billion to the deficit in one year, and thus $3,000 billion to the deficit over the next ten years.

13.3% of that money will goto those in the top 1%, or $400 billion over ten years (plus interest)
However, another 40.9% of that money will goto the other members of the top 20%, or $1.2 trillion
And another 19.3% will goto the other members of the top 40%, or $579 billion.

For a total of $2.2 trillion going to those in the top 40%. Almost 75% going to the top 40% compared to 13.9% going to the bottom 40%.

Leaving only $800 billion for those in the bottom 60%, a mere $141 billion going to those in the bottom 20%.

Obama's plan, which he wouldn't even fight for, gave most of its benefits to the top."

It's sad how far away we are from anything progressive in taxation.

What you propose is not even in the ballpark of actual possible legislation, unfortunately, but we do agree on that

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/hfojvt/129

"It makes perfect sense to me to put in three more brackets
39.1% up to $500,000
45% up to $1,000,000 (1)
55% up to $5,000,000 (2)
65% for the rest (3)

At this point in history though, Republicans and conservadems would fillibuster such a proposal and the talking heads, who make over $2 million a year would be carrying water for the rest of the super-rich, calling it a huge, job-killing tax hike, rampant socialism, unjust and unAmerican. Even though those rates are lower than the ones that prevailed in the 1960s and 1970s, to say nothing of the 1950s."

But dang, I am living up to my motto "never use one word to say what you can do with four".

Having one's OWN: 747; island; security force; skyscraper; Rembrandt; Fortune 200 company (not 500); professional sports team; media empire; Formula 1 car; and....

the ability to BUY ANY WORLDLY GOOD WHATSOEVER, legal or not (AKA: drugs), AND EVEN PEOPLE, any age, gender, or nationality.

To commit crimes with impunity.

The American Middle Class has NO CLUE about where real wealth is, and what should be taxed.

government or the anti-christ or some other boogie man.

It isn't the Tea Party tools who are going to revolt.

I knew a banker who made about $2M a year. One day we were talking about something and he started a sentence "The rich people ..." in a way that clearly implied he did not consider himself one of the rich, and that "the rich" were big assholes.

Among other toys, he owned an 8000 square foot house.

Everyone I met worked at Kinko's or a restaurant or grocery store or was a secretary or file clerk. It occurred to me one day to stop and wonder where all the rich people were. Wherever they were hanging out, it was not where the rest of us lower income people hung out.

:kick:

visit Hearst's Castle the next time you are traveling along the central California coast. Google it or ask anyone who has been there.

My wife used to work for a high end real estate office in Rancho Mirage, California and we were able to visit a few winter vacation homes of
the wealthy that were up for sale around the Palm Springs area. What an eye opener that was. We really didn't have any idea just how poor we were
until then.

we see all these "middle class" families on TV and think that we all live in a certain size house in the suburbs with certain toys. What they don't show is the billions worldwide living in poverty, and the very small class of super-wealthy who have multi-million dollar luxury homes wherever they feel like it. We are made to feel like there is a very small caste of both very rich and very poor with a huge middle class. That is simply inaccurate, but it is part of the "American Dream" they perpetuate. As Carlin said, it's called the American Dream because you have to be asleep to believe it.

Are the mere millionaires and thousandaires who assume they are in or heading toward that upper crust... not a chance in reality, but if lead to believe this is true, the billionaires can get a lot of votes from them!

I have to say this is true. I've seen a lot of odd assumptions about them.

So yeah, it's easy to see why so many are in the dark about what a rich person's life looks like. Also, because they (the poor) have never had anywhere near the amount of money that those big wealth holders have access to.

Just saw that on his special entitled something like "But I'm not wrong"

Hills. Then take a day trip to East or South LA. Spend a few days just living in LA. You will see what disparity in incomes really means.

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