Does Anyone Think the Uber-Rich are Usually on Their Side?

[Revoltingest]

I agree, but their 1ry ideology seems to be the establishment of Gilded Age 2.0. They believe the only role of government is national security and enforcement of property rights.

And civil liberties.

Yes, they give to a lot of good causes -- they can afford a top notch PR department. I see them credited on a lot of PBS shows, for example, though one wonders if this had anything to do with the cancellation of the Citizen Koch documentary.

Their donations to philanthropic organizations are well publicized (and tax deductible). Those to legislators supporting corporate deregulation, control of courts, academic institutions, &c, which dwarf their charitable contributions, are hidden, with Dark Money funneled through dozens of innocuous sounding organizations like Americans for Prosperity.

Showy good works are better than no good works at all.
I too hype all the good works that I do. I want credit!

 

[Valjean]

Does anyone else find this to be a particularly disgusting suggestion? If such an idea was ever enacted does anyone really believe it would stop there? Seriously?

I don't know... I think it's worth consideration.
What's a millionaire going to do with so much money, anyway, but spend it on extravagances and ostentatious displays? Don't you think it could be put to better use actually helping people, without impacting the comfort of the millionaire a jot?

Lets continue with the notion of how the rich controls the poor. I have yet to see that documentary, of course, so I'll have to make some assumptions as to how the rich is controlling the poor.

The rich is marketing to the poor, which really is a form of expression. I'm sure there's a lot of dishonesty and misdirection, but it's still a form of expression. Whoever feeds on this expression needs to bare the responsibility of filtering it. I'm sure there are other methods being deployed to control the poor, but if its to persuade votes, then I believe fundamentally it becomes expression from the rich targeting the poor. Objectively, any expression is legal as mandated by our constitution (well, most that doesn't cause civil unrest). Subjectively, I would say the expression should be honest but that's not really a requirement...

The rich market to other rich. Luxury resorts and cruise missiles aren't raising anyone out of poverty.
The rich own the legislators, who depend on their donations to secure and keep their jobs. They pander to the special interests of their donors.

 

[suncowiam]

I don't know... I think it's worth consideration.
What's a millionaire going to do with so much money, anyway, but spend it on extravagances and ostentatious displays? Don't you think it could be put to better use actually helping people, without impacting the comfort of the millionaire a jot?
The rich market to other rich. Luxury resorts and cruise missiles aren't raising anyone out of poverty.
The rich own the legislators, who depend on their donations to secure and keep their jobs. They pander to the special interests of their donors.

Yes, I agree. We need to vote in a system to stop this.

 

[YmirGF]

I don't know... I think it's worth consideration.
What's a millionaire going to do with so much money, anyway, but spend it on extravagances and ostentatious displays? Don't you think it could be put to better use actually helping people, without impacting the comfort of the millionaire a jot?

I get that much and it is a laudable aspiration but how would you like someone dictating to you how you spent your wealth? One tiny detail here is those who are in favor of this type of draconian action don't likely have much to lose. It's all very well when it's targeted at the other guy.

 

[Valjean]

I th

I get that much and it is a laudable aspiration but how would you like someone dictating to you how you spent your wealth? One tiny detail here is those who are in favor of this type of draconian action don't likely have much to lose. It's all very well when it's targeted at the other guy.

You're use of "draconian" is telling. We already confiscate and redistribute wealth for the general welfare in the form of taxes. It's this redistribution that's responsible for the prosperity and security we enjoy.
Do we want a zero-sum, competitive, sink-or-swim society, or a co-operative society where everyone's needs are met and no-one fears destitution?

 

[YmirGF]

I th

You're use of "draconian" is telling. We already confiscate and redistribute wealth for the general welfare in the form of taxes. It's this redistribution that's responsible for the prosperity and security we enjoy.
Do we want a zero-sum, competitive, sink-or-swim society, or a co-operative society where everyone's needs are met and no-one fears destitution?

It seemed an incredibly appropriate word which is why I employed it. To counter your idea, are you prepared to crash the world economy to usher in this altruistic nirvana?

 

[Valjean]

It seemed an incredibly appropriate word which is why I employed it. To counter your idea, are you prepared to crash the world economy to usher in this altruistic nirvana?

Why would 'draconian' legislation like minimum wages, child labor and occupational safety laws, prohibition of involuntary servitude, right to unionize, &c crash the economy? The right wing has always predicted that social legislation would lead to rack and ruin.
Human rights, prosperity and democracy are not foolish idealism. Where they've been tried they've worked.

 

[YmirGF]

Why would 'draconian' legislation like minimum wages, child labor and occupational safety laws, prohibition of involuntary servitude, right to unionize, &c crash the economy? The right wing has always predicted that social legislation would lead to rack and ruin.
Human rights, prosperity and democracy are not foolish idealism. Where they've been tried they've worked.

Sorry, @Valjean I tend to take the topic quite literally and such a policy, if not globally enforced, who simply cause an Exodus from whatever country imposed these types of "taxes". Punitively taxing the highest earners, those who have huge amounts of liquid assets and therefore have the means to flee could be devastating to any particular country who did this, if it was not done on a global basis.

 

[ThePainefulTruth]

But as a class, are billionaires overall usually aligned with your best interests or not? Of course, "usually" is meant to be a key word here -- something that several posters in this thread are over-looking.

Nobody gets it, the ideal stance is enlightened self-interest. I honor the equal rights of all as equal with mine, and expect the same in return. That's the basis for all morality, and the violation of that is the foundation of all evil. The root of all evil is a moral/legal double-standard.

What billionaires are is nobody's business unless they violate that.

 

[Vouthon]

It's a matter of perspective, really.

If we take the Kennedys, an elite patrician family that has had a presence in American political life almost every year for the past century and holds over a billion dollars in trust funds, one can come up with radically different narratives about them.

On the romanticized side of things, you get all the idealized images propagated by the PR machine of Jackie Kennedy, which painted the JFK White House as an idyllic and urbane 'Camelot', replete with chivalrous values and unfailing public service.

Bobby Kennedy, JFK's younger brother, emerged after the 1963 assassination as a social justice warrior campaigning for the rights of minorities and increasingly criticizing the Johnson administration's handling of the Vietnam War. He was a devout Catholic, the most religious of the siblings, and was portrayed as America's first major "Catholic radical" in politics, such that he became an icon of American liberalism. His subsequent assassination in 1969, while running for President and after winning the California primary for the Democratic nomination, secured his legacy as a political martyr.

After his death, Ted Kennedy became the "lion of the senate" and the most tireless advocate for universal, single-payer health care for all Americans until his death in 2009.

Well, that's one way of looking at it.

On the critical side of things, you then get the image of the Kennedys as a cabal of scheming and machiavellian rich-kids, with the men of the family engaging in sexual scandals left-right-and-centre, perhaps best typified by the infamous Chappaquidick crisis of 1969, when a drunk Ted Kennedy lured a young lady into a car after partying it up, which he then accidentally drove off a bridge and fled the scene, leaving the working class girl to die. His aides then perpetrated an almighty cover-up to shield him from blame, so that his presidential ambitions wouldn't be dented, such that the poor dead girl never got any justice.

JFK was likewise a serial womanizer and adulterer who even had sex with a woman who was simultaneously having sex with the biggest mafia-boss in the U.S. that his brother was concurrently tasked with taking down as Attorney-General. An extremely unsavoury business.

Bobby Kennedy wire-tapped MLK, expressed initial lukewarmness towards civil rights and benefited career-wise from shameless nepotism when his brother JFK appointed him Attorney-General. He had a stormy relationship with LBJ, such that one might view his subsequent left-wing radicalism as cynically opportunistic in view of his desire to succeed Johnson as president.

So, which "narrative" of the Kennedy's is the true one? Were they just a corrupt, power-hungry clan intent on beguiling the American people for their own benefit? Or did they also have years of genuine public service and passionately care about the liberal causes they championed? Or a bit of both?

I use this as just one example from a famous mega-rich family that has dominated US politics and cultural life.

 

[Vouthon]

I am reminded of a passage from the Gospel of Matthew, which speaks about how the elite privileges its own at the expense of the many:

Jesus spoke of it first, asking, “What do you think, Simon? From whom do the kings of the earth take toll or tribute? From their children or from others?” When Peter said, “From others,” Jesus said to him, “Then the children are free".

(Matthew 17:25-26)
​

I believe these verses have in mind the nepotism of the ultra-rich and powerful, who find ways of exempting their family wealth from tax while gaming the system to enrich themselves at the expense of their nations.

In the first century, kings and aristocrats would use tax levies (Matt 17:25) to compelling the less powerful into pernicious debt situations (Matt 5:25; 18:23–34) that caused peasants to ultimately lose control of their land.

The Old Testament book of Samuel actually contained a prophetic warning about the exploitative nature of royal authority, which sounds quasi-republican:

1 Samuel 8:10-22

Samuel's Warning Against Kings

And Samuel told all the words of the LORD unto the people that asked of him a king. And he said, This will be the manner of the king that shall reign over you...

He will take your fields, and your vineyards, and your oliveyards, even the best of them, and give them to his servants. And he will take the tenth of your seed, and of your vineyards, and give to his officers, and to his servants. He will take the tenth of your sheep: and you shall be his slaves, and you shall cry out in that day because of your king which you shall have chosen.

Nevertheless the people refused to obey the voice of Samuel, and they said, Nay, but we will have a king over us, that we may be like all the nations, and that our king may judge us, and go out before us and fight our battles.
​

In a similar way, the Tanakh prophet Amos denounced the Judean upper-classes for exploiting the poor:

Therefore because you trample on the poor and you exact taxes of grain from them, you have built houses of hewn stone, but you shall not dwell in them; you have planted pleasant vineyards, but you shall not drink their wine.

For I know your transgressions are many and your sins are great, You who distress the righteous and accept bribes And turn aside the poor in the gate.

(Amos 5:11)​

 

[Shad]

Does anyone think the uber-rich (people worth a billion or more) are usually politically or economically aligned with one's own best interests? Why or why not?

Nope. At times we share an interest or specific policy. However I feel this same of people that claim to be on my side. We share an interest or policy. Nothing more.

 

[ThePainefulTruth]

It's a matter of perspective, really.

If we take the Kennedys, an elite patrician family that has had a presence in American political life almost every year for the past century and holds over a billion dollars in trust funds, one can come up with radically different narratives about them.

On the romanticized side of things, you get all the idealized images propagated by the PR machine of Jackie Kennedy, which painted the JFK White House as an idyllic and urbane 'Camelot', replete with chivalrous values and unfailing public service.

Bobby Kennedy, JFK's younger brother, emerged after the 1963 assassination as a social justice warrior campaigning for the rights of minorities and increasingly criticizing the Johnson administration's handling of the Vietnam War.

Bobby was just as much a womanizer as JFK was, and they share the blame with their wives if they put up with it, or especially if they enable it as Hillary did. LBJ was the most evil president we've ever had by far, blackmailing most of Washington along with Hoover with their FBI files, and threat of violence, since they all knew he was behind JFK's assassination. A power monger as literally sick as Johnson was would never have left willingly. I don't have the evidence for it like for JFK, but I relatively certain he was behind the murders of King and Bobby. King, pointedly, was killed only 3 days after he announced his decision not to run again.

So far, the rumors of the murders associated with the Clintons do not rise to the level of similar certainty.

He was a devout Catholic, the most religious of the siblings, and was portrayed as America's first major "Catholic radical" in politics, such that he became an icon of American liberalism. His subsequent assassination in 1969, while running for President and after winning the California primary for the Democratic nomination, secured his legacy as a political martyr.

Most of JFK's equal rights efforts can be traced back to Bobby. And while Johnson finished getting them passed, he did so mainly to get his War on Poverty and Great Society programs passed. But Johnson was using them to keep Blacks down on the Plantation, which he explained to his racist allies, would be keeping "those ******s voting Democrat for the next 200 years". Sixty years and counting--though Trump and others (D'Souza, West, Owens, Sowell, Williams etc.) may be shining the light of Truth on those cockroaches now, and getting through to them. Blacks were historically Republican until Nixon's "no comment" on MLK being in the Birmingham jail.

After his death, Ted Kennedy became the "lion of the senate" and the most tireless advocate for universal, single-payer health care for all Americans until his death in 2009.

He was so corrupt and cowardly, he was disowned by his own father, and the greatest example, after LBJ, of selling his gluttonous soul to whatever cause would keep his corpulent body afloat.

On the critical side of things, you then get the image of the Kennedys as a cabal of scheming and machiavellian rich-kids, with the men of the family engaging in sexual scandals left-right-and-centre, perhaps best typified by the infamous Chappaquidick crisis of 1969, when a drunk Ted Kennedy lured a young lady into a car after partying it up, which he then accidentally drove off a bridge and fled the scene, leaving the working class girl to die. His aides then perpetrated an almighty cover-up to shield him from blame, so that his presidential ambitions wouldn't be dented, such that the poor dead girl never got any justice.

On thing that never got explained about that incident, how did he get out, but she didn't, or couldn't, the same way. I've never heard what the diver said about an open door, window, whatever.

Bobby Kennedy wire-tapped MLK, expressed initial lukewarmness towards civil rights and benefited career-wise from shameless nepotism when his brother JFK appointed him Attorney-General. He had a stormy relationship with LBJ, such that one might view his subsequent left-wing radicalism as cynically opportunistic in view of his desire to succeed Johnson as president.

Yes, he was left wing. But he promoted a colorblind attitude towards race and politically played both sides against the middle--both of which ideals were shot as dead as he was.

So, which "narrative" of the Kennedy's is the true one? Were they just a corrupt, power-hungry clan intent on beguiling the American people for their own benefit? Or did they also have years of genuine public service and passionately care about the liberal causes they championed? Or a bit of both?

Both JFK and Bobby were, by today's standards, politically and especially economically, conservative. Teddy was a pig...body and soul: