Nation's Poorest Now Controls Two-Thirds Of The U.S. Soda Can Wealth...The Onion
- Before the Berlin Wall came down, I made many visits to Eastern Europe to visit my relatives. It was in Eastern Europe where I witnessed the damaging effects "economic equality" had on the population. That's right: economic equality. Under Communism, almost everyone had a job. There was only one problem. Wages sucked. In addition, most of the stores had empty shelves. For example, if you wanted to purchase some meat, you would have to wait on a long line for hours to get a quarter pound of meat---if there was any left by the time you approached the counter. If you needed a pair of shoes, there were some in the shoe stores---if you wore size 13 and liked your shoes the color brown.
- But even Eastern Europeans understood capitalism. As an American, I was able to get almost anything I wanted as long as I paid with American dollars. And only a dummy would go to the local bank to exchange dollars for the local currency. It was known---if you wanted better exchange rates---you dealt with the "black market," usually young guys on street corners who would bump up the exchange rate significantly. While it was illegal, the authorities would look the other way because every Commie country wanted American dollars. Since the fall of Communism, I often exaggerate that many former Easter European Block countries skipped capitalism and went directly to highway robbery.
- The point of all of this is that economic "equality" has never worked anywhere---at any time. And as soon as the chains of that economic system are removed, they learn quickly the rewards of hard work and talent often---of course, not always---but can often lead to a better lifestyle. Under systems like Communism only the elite prosper.
- And that brings me to my point. The elite progressive political class (Democrats and Republicans) keeps proselytizing about the need to attack economic inequality---this most recently from people like Hillary Clinton and the Occupy Wall Street hypocrites. They pretend not to be wealthy. They want us to believe wealth is a bad thing when they actually reside in the "upper stratosphere of wealth" to quote Rich Lowry.
- But it's actually even more disingenuous than that. The progressive political elite are always trying to sell an illusion. In fact, as the War on Poverty taught us, poverty won the war. The more progressives targeted inequality, the poorer more people became. As I pointed out in an earlier post some months ago, their "redistribution" scam only subsidized poverty. In fact, this progressive administration---after all the proclamations about economic inequality---has presided over the largest widening of the economic gap in American history.
- Yet, we rarely hear the progressive political class target the wealthy who support them. When was the last time you heard any of them criticize any Hollywood actor making $10-20-30M for one film? For that matter, when was the last time you heard any of them taking their own to task for somehow becoming millionaires while on government salaries of about $175,000 a year? When was the last time there was any real criticism of the Obama administration's hiring of so many Wall Street and banking veterans? And allow me to make myself clear. I have no problem with any individual's wealth. I do have a problem with those in the elite political class who are selective about whom they target for their wealth. The attack on Mitt Romney by the Democrats comes immediately to mind.
- Ed Morrissey in Hot Air made some interesting observations about this and the recent bumbling by Hillary Clinton: "She's the poster child for economic inequality...Her mediocrity and cluelessness will expose the hypocrisy and demagoguery of the Democratic Party's class warfare..."
- It's become increasingly clear the elite progressive political class are the great pretenders. The question remains: will Americans continue to be sold on this illusion? They have before so what's not to believe they will again.
Postscript: Since this was posted, Hillary Clinton announced she's running for president---running toward a $2B+ campaign after proclaiming she's for the middle class. ---another illusion. In addition, the Clinton Foundation is under scrutiny for its practices. Oh, and Hillary Clinton, champion of the middle class charges up to $300K for one 90 minute speech. In addition, we're finding out more about those emails on her private server. Her poll numbers are tanking especially when it comes to her trustworthiness. Get the fork read.
