"Why Are the Rich So Damn Angry?" by Kevin Drum at Mother Jones

[applegrove]

Why Are the Rich So Damn Angry?

by Kevin Drum at Mother Jones

http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2012/09/why-are-rich-so-damn-angry

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

The last 30 years in the United States have been better for the rich than any other time or place in human history. High-end incomes are up spectacularly. Tax rates are down. Welfare reform has been the law of the land for 15 years. Private sector unions are all but extinct. The wages that business owners pay to their employees have been virtually flat for more than a decade. For the rich, it's been a golden age. And yet, America's wealthy class nonetheless seems to be in an absolute fury. The looters want their money, the government is embracing socialism, the president who rescued the banking industry hates them, and their tax dollars are all going to support a bunch of freeloaders and shirkers.

Where does this come from? Why are the very people who have done the best so angry? It's mystifying.

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

[applegrove]

1. Because the powerlusters in the GOP need all their base to be angry so

that they don't learn anything. Angry people don't cede any territory. GOP need angry followers so they will follow the GOP's false narrative & delusions so they will vote for the rich to take more territory (income) from the middle class, the working class and the poor.

[teddy51]

2. Because they think that the Have-Nots are trying to take there money! That's how they see

it, even though it is a bunch of BS. The only thing that the Middle Class and less fortunate want, is a fair share.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

3. I guess some just discovered them?

[Occamzrazr]

4. The rich are so damn angry because....

The rich are so angry because they have the time to be. Theyre all rich!

[unblock]

5. actually, this has it backwards. it's not the the rich are angry.

it's that for the most part, those who are angriest have garnered have become the richest.

the last 3 decades have increasingly produced a system where those unanchored by a conscience are able to extract a wildly inappropriate amount of wealth.

the system heavily rewards those who bust unions, layoff people, merge and eliminate redundancies, outsource, off-shore, create nuisance fees, throw hurdles in the way of customers wanting refunds or to correct billing errors, plan obsolesence, avoid taxes, lobby for loopholes, eliminate competition, create trusts, create virtual monopolies, jack up prices, segment customers, overcomplicate pricing, mislead in advertising, and so on and so on.

do nice people succeed in such an environment? sure, it can happen. but lost sleep might interfere with unbridled looting.


those who bring to the table an anger and resentment at those lower than them on the ladder have a much easier time of it. they just take and take without giving a second thought to all the stomping they're doing on those below while climbing the ladder.

[JNelson6563]

9. Lots of good points. Well said.

[Zoeisright]

10. Yep. The scum rise to the top.

The saying "the cream rises to the top" is completely inaccurate in many ways. First of all, cream only rises in milk when the milk is calm and undisturbed, which is completely unlike business. The business world is like a boiling, roiling pot of stew. In which the scum rises to the top. That's my link between food science and politics.

[abumbyanyothername]

6. If they are this angry now what will happen when . . .

peak energy starts to really sink in?

In 1930 oil energy was yielding a 100 to 1 return on energy invested. Today new sources are in the single digits.

Energy pretty directly translates to wealth. For the average American, it's like having 70 slaves serving every one of us, all day, every day.

But that number is going to start trailing off very soon. And most of the "solutions" (Canadian tar sands, Coal gasification, etc.) involve dumping so much CO2 into the atmosphere that the planet becomes not habitable by humans or other mammals.'

So the real pain is about to begin. And they're angry over the massage they've been getting.

[safeinOhio]

7. Because,

more is never enough.

[BeyondGeography]

8. There's such a thing as being incapable of happiness

Nothing will bring you to that realization quicker than having more money than you know what to do with and still being the same miserable shit that you were when had a lot less.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

13. Money doesn't buy happiness. It buys comfort but it won't make an angry person un-angry. nt

[lovemydog]

11. Projecting their wrecking of a once great economy

on to the poor and middle class.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

12. Nothing makes fat cats Greedier than being fed constantly corporate welfare and tax cuts. nt

[lunatica]

14. They must be very afraid of us

[MatthewStLouis]

15. GUILT.