I Hope the Rich Get Richer

AND YOU SHOULD TOO

Obama always needs someone or some thing to blame when one of his ill conceived ideas fail to work as he promised.  Its Bushes fault, it’s the flood, it’s the Japan earth quake, etc.  His most recent villain is the “millionaire,” you know, the guy with the white mustache whose picture you see in the monopoly game lighting his illegal Cuban cigars with crisp new hundred dollar bills, while the slavering masses wallow in abject deprivation, dragging their tired asses along endless soup-kitchen line-ups.  Yeah, we get the picture.

Super rich business moguls like Warren Buffet occasionally spout anti-affluence nonsense like “the rich should be paying a lot more in taxes.”  Hey Warren, in case you didn’t know, there is no limit on the amount of tax you’re allowed pay.  You’re free to pay as much as you like.

If Buffet won’t defend the rich, I will.  I love rich people.  I wish them well and I hope they get richer.  Well, allow me to qualify that.  I should say I love rich people who live in a capitalistic society like America because, the richer they become, the richer, healthier and happier everyone else becomes.  Unlike rich rulers in a monarchy or, worse yet, wealthy dictators, American capitalists are the average person’s best friend and entrepreneurial inspiration.

Look at it this way.  Everything we have in America is because a few people worked hard, got "RICH" and hired other people so they no longer had to do all the work themselves!  The "RICHER" they get, the more people they hire to do whatever makes them "RICH" so they can keep on getting "RICHER."

Wealthy Americans do not rule over other Americans. The Constitution does not grant them special privileges or royal titles.   I’ve been around for a long time and have had quite a few jobs but I have never been hired by a poor person.  Every job I ever had was either working for a rich person or a company that was owned by a rich person before it went public.

Rich people did not make poor people poor.  Suppose I was to invent some sort of new widget that everyone wanted.  Now suppose a take out a big loan and start manufacturing these widgets and I hire hundreds of employees and I become super rich.  Would that make anyone poor?  No, of course not.

You wouldn’t hate me for being rich, unless you’re some idiot like Michael Moore.   You would be happy that my hard work and risk had paid off and I was now helping hundreds of families put food on their tables.  

When new innovators rise to achieve wealth and when the already-rich get richer, it’s a sign that the economy is thriving and public policies are business-friendly. The markets are healthy. Inflation, interest rates and taxes are typically low.

Most mainstream journalists do not understand wealth. For example, TIME Magazine columnist Bill Saporito says, “The wealthiest 5% earn 21.7% of the nation’s income but spend proportionately less of it than average folk. That’s logical and also explains why the former save more than the latter and thus become wealthier.”

But money has to come from somewhere. You don’t just stumble upon a billion dollars. You create a billion dollars by taking risks, persevering and working hard.

Even if you inherit all of your money, someone worked hard at some point to create it. For example, if Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s future children or relatives inherit his wealth and become rich, their luck does not negate the work and innovation it took for Zuckerberg to build his wealth.

Simply saving money does not magically yield more money, as Saporito infers.  No one increases their wealth by hoarding it under a pillow.  At the end of the day, wealthy people—whether they are self-made or heirs—must take some level of risk by investing their money if they wish to become wealthier.

When wealthy Americans are confident in the economy, they invest more aggressively, they expand their businesses faster, they lend more generously and they spend their wealth more freely.  This behavior produces innovative technologies, loans and jobs so that millions of other people have access to homes, cars, vacations, higher education and high-tech toys.

Obama says it’s time to tax the rich.  He thinks raising the tax on millionaires and billionaires will fix the economy.  I say it will make the economy worse.  I say leave the millionaires and billionaires alone and soak the trillionaires.  That’s where the real money is.

Who are the trillionaires?  They’re the people who spent and spent until we ended up with a 15 trillion dollar deficit.   They are the politicians, public sector unions, crony capitalists and the rest that left us with a debt so big that it can never be repaid.  It’s time to make the trillionaires pay.  It’s time to make them pay their fair share.

Obama has complained that unless we raise taxes on the rich, there will be no money for Medicare. That’s a fair point, so let’s tax the trillionaires to recoup the costs.  Since the money that should have kept Social Security solvent was spent by the trillionaires for other purposes, it should be taken out of their spending.  Forget taxing income—it’s time to tax Federal spending.

Anti-wealth public policies amounts to “killing the goose that lays golden eggs”, and will only persuade independently wealthy Americans to shut down their businesses, stop hiring and retire early to some tropical paradise somewhere.

If the government is really serious about turning the economy around, the first step would be to totally eliminate all corporate taxes.  I know Liberals won’t believe a word of this, but most conservatives know I’m right.