Tag Archives: rich

Waiting On Line

BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com

From New York City

Someone decided that it was a good story to write about the people who are paid to wait in line (or, as we say in New York, “wait on line”) so that rich people can get a seat.

The issue at hand is the oral arguments in the Supreme Court on Tuesday.

There are only 50 seats available for the public during the arguments and, for reasons that are alien to me, 50 people want to go and be there.

Line holders are a long-time Washington tradition. Continue reading →

Cliffhanger

BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com

New Year’s Day 2013. Football games? No. Parades? No. Hangover cure? No.

I spent the entire day watching the Chasing Classic Cars marathon on USA as background noise while focused on Twitter following the U.S. House Republicans wringing their hands over what to do about the Senate-passed bill to crawl back up the fiscal cliff.

Without getting into the weeds about things like (according to CNN.com) extending the excise tax carry-over on rum produced in Puerto Rico and the Continue reading →

Top 1% Pay Their Fair Share?

BY FRANK HILL
Reprinted from Telemachus.com

Support the move to replace our corporate and personal income tax code with a national consumption-based tax.

Why?

Because it will be far simpler than the current sclerotic byzantine income-based tax structure that has been in place since 1913. It will return the United States to the preferred tax revenue-generation method favored by our Founders who thought a tax on someone’s income could be capricious and ruinous to a person’s freedom and productivity.

They were right on the ‘capricious’ part. Continue reading →

Plan B

BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com

We’re now within 10 legislative days ’til the Fiscal Cliff – assuming the Members won’t be decking the Halls of Congress with boughs of holly on Christmas Eve and Day.

There is movement in the positions coming from either end of Pennsylvania Avenue. The President campaigned successfully on the idea of raising taxes on the wealthy – with the wealthy being defined as any family earning $250,000 or more annually. Continue reading →

Holding Middle-Class Tax Cuts Hostage

BY FRANK HILL
Reprinted from Telemachus.com

Which one is better..or worse? To which guilty party can these words be assigned, Your Honor?

We are always surprised, although we shouldn’t be, when we see the media attack the GOP in Congress for ‘holding the middle-class hostage to getting tax cuts extended for the wealthy (‘fat-cat, dishonest, conniving, Scrooge-like white rich) guys’. (That is the intimation, isn’t it? Tell the truth.)

Why is it taken as the Gospel Truth that the current impasse is solely the fault of the Republican Party in charge of the House of Representatives in Congress? Continue reading →

Soak the Rich

BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

My friend, the smart Senate staffer, sent me this missive this morning. I thought I would share it with you:

“There is clearly a Democratic obsession with taxing the rich. Let’s go through a little fiscal arithmetic and take the Democrats’ tax increase obsession out to its logical conclusion.

From a purely political power acquisition perspective, it makes all the sense in the world. It’s been a constant theme of Democrats for many years. Not all, but most, tell the American people that all of our fiscal problems can be Continue reading →

Line Cutters

BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

During the American Civil War, it became quite fashionable for the very wealthy to pay for the privilege to have somebody else take their place in the actual fighting of the conflict.

I was thinking about this dynamic at the airport today.

Instead of paying for the privilege of having somebody else fight for you, in today’s world of frequent flyers and business class travel, you can actually pay for the privilege of cutting in line. Continue reading →

High vs. Low-Income Earners

BY FRANK HILL
Reprinted from Telemachus.com

Income disparity is not as big as you may think, believe it or not.

Everyone is talking about ‘taxing the rich!’, ‘redistributing the wealth!’ and ‘income inequality!’ as if it is something from a fairy tale or something. If you didn’t know better, you would think you were reading history from the French Revolution (‘Off with their heads!) or the writings of Leon Trosky and the others who brought ‘income-equality’ (as in ‘low’ income for everyone but the rulers) in Soviet Russia for almost a century. Continue reading →

Hazing The Rich

BY GARY JOHNSON
Reprinted from Loose Change at TCBMag.com

Hey brother, can you spare a dime?

On second thought, keep it. . . . I’d prefer that people like me.

Two-thousand twelve is not a good year to be rich. I haven’t seen rich-bashing like this since my days as a 10-year-old caddy at Minnehaha Country Club in Sioux Falls. My pals and I would deride the potbellied, Cadillac-driving, cigar-chomping rich guys whose golf bags we lugged around on hot summer afternoons, chasing down their shanks, duck hooks, and chili dips for a 25-cent tip.

Although we had nothing but contempt and fear for these guys, not a day went by that we didn’t think to ourselves, “I’m going to work my butt off and someday have a bunch of money just like them.” Unfortunately for me and some chums—Jaybird, Kenny the Torch, Boo Radley, Punjab, Laff-A-Lot, and Bucky—that plan didn’t work out so well. Continue reading →

The Rich are Different

BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from theFeeheryTheory.com

The rich are different than you and me. And it isn’t only that they have more money. The rich have come under attack recently, so I decided to take a look at who is really, really rich.

What I found was a group of people who have changed our world profoundly. Think of the Walton family, responsible for Walmart. The Mars family, responsible for all of that Halloween candy. Bill Gates and the dearly departed Steve Jobs, who revolutionized how we work, how we interact, how we live. Mark Zuckerberg founded Facebook, and the Google guys are at the top too.

There is Warren Buffett, a role-model for all the savvy investors. And at both ends of the political spectrum, you have controversial figures like George Soros and the Koch brothers who made their money because they worked hard and were smarter than their competitors.

These folks have collectively revolutionized modern society. They had vision, creativity, persistence, and an innate toughness to get where they got.

So why should we begrudge them their wealth? Why should we talk them down and try to take their hard-earned money away from them? Continue reading →