"Paranoia of the Plutocrats"

[applegrove]

Paranoia of the Plutocrats

by Paul Krugman at the NY Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/27/opinion/krugman-paranoia-of-the-plutocrats.html?hp&rref=opinion

"SNIP..................................



Now, just to be clear, the very rich, and those on Wall Street in particular, are in fact doing worse under Mr. Obama than they would have if Mitt Romney had won in 2012. Between the partial rollback of the Bush tax cuts and the tax hike that partly pays for health reform, tax rates on the 1 percent have gone more or less back to pre-Reagan levels. Also, financial reformers have won some surprising victories over the past year, and this is bad news for wheeler-dealers whose wealth comes largely from exploiting weak regulation. So you can make the case that the 1 percent have lost some important policy battles.

But every group finds itself facing criticism, and ends up on the losing side of policy disputes, somewhere along the way; that’s democracy. The question is what happens next. Normal people take it in stride; even if they’re angry and bitter over political setbacks, they don’t cry persecution, compare their critics to Nazis and insist that the world revolves around their hurt feelings. But the rich are different from you and me.

And yes, that’s partly because they have more money, and the power that goes with it. They can and all too often do surround themselves with courtiers who tell them what they want to hear and never, ever, tell them they’re being foolish. They’re accustomed to being treated with deference, not just by the people they hire but by politicians who want their campaign contributions. And so they are shocked to discover that money can’t buy everything, can’t insulate them from all adversity.

I also suspect that today’s Masters of the Universe are insecure about the nature of their success. We’re not talking captains of industry here, men who make stuff. We are, instead, talking about wheeler-dealers, men who push money around and get rich by skimming some off the top as it sloshes by. They may boast that they are job creators, the people who make the economy work, but are they really adding value? Many of us doubt it — and so, I suspect, do some of the wealthy themselves, a form of self-doubt that causes them to lash out even more furiously at their critics.





................................SNIP"

[Skittles]

1. as usual Krugman nails it

I think deep down a lot of the bankers and Wall Street assholes know they are nothing more than con men

edited to say, hell, not so deep down

[Cha]

2. Kick!

[sheshe2]

3. Bingo! K&R!

[another_liberal]

4. Damn, he's good!

Well said, Mr. Krugman, well said.

[ErikJ]

5. I think Krugman got it wrong.

"tax rates on the 1 percent have gone more or less back to pre-Reagan levels" ? I'd like to hear the explanation for that. Pre-Reagan top rate tax levels were 70%. They are now only 39%. I really doubt that because of the ACA tax rates have gone back to pre_Reagan tax levels. Has Krugman finally sold out?

[fleabiscuit]

8. From the link provided by Krugman

..."In 1979, for instance, the top marginal tax rate was 70 percent, but it affected very little income, so the average total tax rate for the 1 percent was about half that figure...."

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/01/in-2013-the-top-1-will-pay-their-highest-total-tax-rate-since-1979/266764/

[ErikJ]

9. Interesting. But I'd still like to see the whole explanation.

or breakdown of the figures.

[freshwest]

6. From a long poem some of them may have read:

'Rise like Lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number -
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you -
Ye are many - they are few.'

The Mask of Anarchy
by Percy Bysshe Shelley

Written on the occasion of the massacre carried out by the British Government at Peterloo, Manchester 1819 (of which I know nothing)



Who started the bloody class war, anyway!

[BelgianMadCow]

10. beautiful poem, I'm gonna look the rest up. About Peterloo:

"The Peterloo Massacre (or Battle of Peterloo) occurred at St Peter's Field, Manchester, England, on 16 August 1819, when cavalry charged into a crowd of 60,000–80,000 that had gathered to demand the reform of parliamentary representation.

The end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815 had resulted in periods of famine and chronic unemployment, exacerbated by the introduction of the first of the Corn Laws. By the beginning of 1819, the pressure generated by poor economic conditions, coupled with the relative lack of suffrage in Northern England, had enhanced the appeal of political radicalism. In response, the Manchester Patriotic Union, a group agitating for parliamentary reform, organised a demonstration to be addressed by the well-known radical orator Henry Hunt.

Shortly after the meeting began local magistrates called on the military authorities to arrest Hunt and several others on the hustings with him, and to disperse the crowd. Cavalry charged into the crowd with sabres drawn, and in the ensuing confusion, 15 people were killed and 400–700 were injured. The massacre was given the name Peterloo in an ironic comparison to the Battle of Waterloo, which had taken place four years earlier" from Wikipedia.

History repeats itself?

[Todays_Illusion]

7. I posted to the wrong thread. I apologize, not very active here.

Last edited Mon Jan 27, 2014, 02:54 AM - Edit history (1)

Edit to remove post on wrong thread.

[freshwest]

11. Your original seems appropriate to me. n/t