‘The Rage of the Rich”

Also known as “the wail of the one percent.” This New York Times column by Paul Krugman will throw you into a rage. You’ll fume; you’ll yell; you’ll punch your computer monitor.

Paul Krugman doesn’t tell you anything you didn’t already know. But he pinpoints the problem — totally captures that arrogant self-absorbed Marie Antoinette attitude of the wealthiest one percent — and he does it all without a single swear word; without insulting anybody’s parents or anything. He’s a better man than I.

Here’s an item from that column: When Obama tried to close a tax loophole that hedge fund managers were reaping a fortune from, fund manager Stephen Schwarzman — a billionaire — compared Obama’s proposal to the Nazi invasion of Poland.

Regarding whether or not to extend the Bush tax cuts for millionaires, Krugman says:

“Among the undeniably rich, a belligerent sense of entitlement has taken hold: it’s their money, and they have the right to keep it…The spectacle of high-income Americans, the world’s luckiest people, wallowing in self-pity and self-righteousness would be funny, except for one thing: they may well get their way.”

And:

“Politicians spend a lot of time hanging out with the wealthy. So when the rich face the prospect of paying an extra 3 or 4 percent of their income in taxes, politicians feel their pain — feel it much more acutely, it’s clear, than they feel the pain of families who are losing their jobs, their houses, and their hopes.”

He wraps up the column with:

“And when the tax fight is over, one way or another, you can be sure that the people currently defending the incomes of the elite will go back to demanding cuts in Social Security and aid to the unemployed. America must make hard choices, they’ll say; we all have to be willing to make sacrifices. But when they say ‘we,’ they mean ‘you.‘ Sacrifice is for the little people.”