Top 1%ers if your income is $32,000 or more. Period. Yet, the Occupy Wall Street remnants and the Elizabeth Warrens are so blinkered on this, thinking it is only the Haves and Have-Nots battle here in the US that matters. Out of sight, out of mind is the fact that many of our Poor are often much better off than even Europe’s Middle Class in most economic metrics.
Why is the 1 percent suffering from this peculiar mass delusion? Well, actually, it’s not that hard to understand. Because if you’re reading this article, chances are that you are in the top 1 percent of global income. And chances are also that you really don’t feel like a tycoon.
The cutoff for the global 1 percent starts quite a bit lower than the parochial American version preferred by pundits. I’m on it. So is David Sirota. And if your personal income is higher than $32,500, so are you. The global elite to which you and I belong enjoys fantastic wealth compared to the rest of the world: We have more food, clothes, comfortable housing, electronic gadgets, health care, travel and leisure than almost every other living person, not to mention virtually every human being who has ever lived. We are also mostly privileged to live in societies that offer quite a lot in the way of public amenities, from well-policed streets and clean water, to museums and libraries, to public officials who do their jobs without requiring a hefty bribe. And I haven’t even mentioned the social safety nets our governments provide.
So why don’t we feel like Scrooge McDuck, rolling around in all of our glorious riches? Why do we feel kinda, y’know, middle class?
Because we don’t compare our personal experiences to a Tanzanian subsistence farmer who labors in the hot sun for 12 hours before repairing to his one-room abode for a meal of cornmeal porridge and cabbage. We compare ourselves to other Americans, many of whom, darn them, seem to have much more money than we do.
But Obama hasn’t – remember, he is a World Citizen and being an Alinskyite, he’s working to transfer even our Poor’s wealth to others…and I thought Glenn’s passing line sums it up well:
Traditionally, envy was regarded as a sin.
We mentioned on GrokTALK! this morning that Socialism is the most selfish form of Government possible – the apparatchik at the top of the its power pyramid wants EVERYONE’s wealth to do with as they please and if that isn’t Envy, then it doesn’t exist at all. And you think there in Income Inequality here in the US? Socialism ALWAYS end up in shared misery….every time it is tried.
