Sunday, November 27, 2011
I am getting pretty sick and tired of this whole “99 percent thing.” I have no idea why the Occupy movement thinks the world breaks down between the top one percent and the rest of us. I suggest that a closer look at income shows the distinctions are far more complex than these idiots use to sell their swill.
I assume when they rail against the top one percent they mean by net worth. According to the New York Times, the bottom of the top one percent is worth over $19 million. That is a lot of money, but I suggest, the people who are worth $19 million dollars have very little in common with Occupy Wall Street hero Steve Jobs, whose net worth was estimated at over $8 billion in 2010. I am not suggesting a net worth of $19 million is insignificant, but I am sure a lot of that wealth for many millionaires is tied up in a family business. Those at the bottom of the one percent do not take private jets, control voting shares in publicly held companies, or manipulate commodities prices. Most of them, I bet, are very well off, probably working-class people who struck it big by working hard and being smart.
Looking at the top one percent by income is even more revealing. The 99th percentile income is a little over $500,000. Now half a million dollars a year is nothing to scoff at, and is obviously a significant multiple of anything I have ever made. (I guess that puts me in the 99 percent the Occupiers want to help.) But really, does making $500,000 put wage earners in the same class as say the chairman of General Electric who has made at least 10 times that amount in each of the past three years? Or to put it in terms I can relate to, the bottom of the top one percent is Brett Gardner, the top is A-Rod.
I suggest that someone making $500,000 a year (especially in New York where the prices are absurd) has a lot more in common than the average Occupy Wall Street protestor, than their phony supporters Graham Nash and Alec Baldwin. Well-paid wage earners still worry about their retirement, probably take the subway, and wonder how they will pay for private schools. Of course they have many more resources than most of us, but I expect their lives in many respects are more middle-class than first class.
Any movement that wants to put a wage earner, even a high one who makes $500,000, in the same group as Warren Buffet is either being deliberately obtuse or selling sophistry. So while their watchword of “We are the 99 percent” is catchy and makes for good headlines, and I suppose, makes it easy to chant outside the windows of people trying to sleep, it completely obscures real life.
It is always a little difficult to criticize the philosophy of this “movement” because they pride themselves on having none. Without taking a stand on anything, except being against a plethora of world woes from hunger, to war, to “corporate greed,” to excessive tuition, to police brutality, they allow themselves to criticize hard-working members of the 99 percent, like police officers and government servants, but deify Mark Zuckerberg. Most of us in the 99 percent, while acknowledging the world is not perfect and that corporations often abuse their power and need regulation, do not think the answer is some vague “movement” with no answers, no solutions, no desire to seek solutions, and which appears to exist at this point only to allow those who have their own agendas (anarchists, college students, hipster singers, bleeding hearts, and the chronically unemployed to name a few) a chance to get media attention by causing problems for the very people they profess to want to help.
One of the Philadelphia protestors in today’s New York Times said he wanted to move to a high profile spot after they get evicted from their current location so “a lot more of the right kind of people get annoyed.” I assume the “right kind of people” are the one percent. No desire to get across a message, make a point, offer any solutions. Their agenda is the same as your irritant child whining about having to clean his room. In the meantime significant public dollars are being expended to control their behavior. I am sure convicted felons like David Crosby are very proud.
I assume when they rail against the top one percent they mean by net worth. According to the New York Times, the bottom of the top one percent is worth over $19 million. That is a lot of money, but I suggest, the people who are worth $19 million dollars have very little in common with Occupy Wall Street hero Steve Jobs, whose net worth was estimated at over $8 billion in 2010. I am not suggesting a net worth of $19 million is insignificant, but I am sure a lot of that wealth for many millionaires is tied up in a family business. Those at the bottom of the one percent do not take private jets, control voting shares in publicly held companies, or manipulate commodities prices. Most of them, I bet, are very well off, probably working-class people who struck it big by working hard and being smart.
Looking at the top one percent by income is even more revealing. The 99th percentile income is a little over $500,000. Now half a million dollars a year is nothing to scoff at, and is obviously a significant multiple of anything I have ever made. (I guess that puts me in the 99 percent the Occupiers want to help.) But really, does making $500,000 put wage earners in the same class as say the chairman of General Electric who has made at least 10 times that amount in each of the past three years? Or to put it in terms I can relate to, the bottom of the top one percent is Brett Gardner, the top is A-Rod.
I suggest that someone making $500,000 a year (especially in New York where the prices are absurd) has a lot more in common than the average Occupy Wall Street protestor, than their phony supporters Graham Nash and Alec Baldwin. Well-paid wage earners still worry about their retirement, probably take the subway, and wonder how they will pay for private schools. Of course they have many more resources than most of us, but I expect their lives in many respects are more middle-class than first class.
Any movement that wants to put a wage earner, even a high one who makes $500,000, in the same group as Warren Buffet is either being deliberately obtuse or selling sophistry. So while their watchword of “We are the 99 percent” is catchy and makes for good headlines, and I suppose, makes it easy to chant outside the windows of people trying to sleep, it completely obscures real life.
It is always a little difficult to criticize the philosophy of this “movement” because they pride themselves on having none. Without taking a stand on anything, except being against a plethora of world woes from hunger, to war, to “corporate greed,” to excessive tuition, to police brutality, they allow themselves to criticize hard-working members of the 99 percent, like police officers and government servants, but deify Mark Zuckerberg. Most of us in the 99 percent, while acknowledging the world is not perfect and that corporations often abuse their power and need regulation, do not think the answer is some vague “movement” with no answers, no solutions, no desire to seek solutions, and which appears to exist at this point only to allow those who have their own agendas (anarchists, college students, hipster singers, bleeding hearts, and the chronically unemployed to name a few) a chance to get media attention by causing problems for the very people they profess to want to help.
One of the Philadelphia protestors in today’s New York Times said he wanted to move to a high profile spot after they get evicted from their current location so “a lot more of the right kind of people get annoyed.” I assume the “right kind of people” are the one percent. No desire to get across a message, make a point, offer any solutions. Their agenda is the same as your irritant child whining about having to clean his room. In the meantime significant public dollars are being expended to control their behavior. I am sure convicted felons like David Crosby are very proud.
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