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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsTwenty Other Things The Rich Do Every Day.
a friend(?) of mine posted a link in Facebook to an article on daveramsey.com entitled "Twenty Things The Rich Do Every Day."
http://www.daveramsey.com/blog/20-things-the-rich-do-every-day
I was reading along thinking, "Yup, those are all the things the rich have the resources to do that the poor don't." Then I got to the commentary at the end of the list and realized I'd been ambushed. It's supposed to be a list of things the poor should do to become rich and the fact that they don't do them shows what a bunch of losers they are and how they deserve to be poor.
So, I created another list of twenty things rich people do every day:
1. Buy influence with campaign contributions.
2. Get preferential treatment from law-enforcement.
3. Use the media they own to promote policies that benefit them.
4. Own too-big-to-fail businesses that get bailed out by the taxpayers.
5. Pay lots of money to lawyers to make legal problems go away that would sink a poor person.
6. Evade taxes.
7. Gamble with other people's money.
8. Lobby the government.
9. Launder money.
10. Build defective products.
11. Exploit labor in third-world countries.
12. Pollute.
13. Buy their own political movements.
14. Do drugs. No less than the poor do, but they have resources to ride out self-destructive behavior.
15. Try to cripple Social Security.
16. Ride the revolving door from government service right into high-paying positions in companies they used to regulate.
17. Get no-hassle medical care, including abortions and long-term psychiatric care.
18. Buy really expensive clothes that will open doors that K-Mart clothes won't.
19. Take unpaid internships leading to prestigious positions -- something poor kids can't do because, you know, eating.
20. Let company shareholders take the fall for crimes they commit -- while serving no jail time.
One could easily do 20 more.
PassingFair
(22,434 posts)Really. Like poor people can afford to work out all gd day.
This guy is so "blessed" he fails to see his own privilege.
El_Johns
(1,805 posts)when I get home is "work out".
indepat
(20,899 posts)stage left
(2,962 posts)Unlike Ramsay's. What a Puke.
badtoworse
(5,957 posts)Your response to it does not reflect well on you.
El_Johns
(1,805 posts)Scuba
(53,475 posts)How does one wake up three hours before work when one has three jobs?
badtoworse
(5,957 posts)You do what you can. The fact that some aren't feasible for a particular individual does not diminish the value of any of the items.
El_Johns
(1,805 posts)did the factoid
"16. 74% of wealthy teach good daily success habits to their children vs. 1% of poor."
come from and what does it even mean? Good daily success habits? What, like brushing your teeth? Checking your stock gains? WTF?
The rich don't gamble? Like hell. With their own money AND with other people's money. The only difference between them and the poor is the "class" of gambling, lottery tickets and low-rent casinos v. Monte Carlo & real estate derivatives...
That list is absolutely disgusting & the author is seriously out to lunch. I believe he made the whole thing up.
TeamPooka
(24,229 posts)go along and get along.
El_Johns
(1,805 posts)TeamPooka
(24,229 posts)El_Johns
(1,805 posts)that the writer is thinking that poor people are rude and uncouth, & equates "speaking one's mind" with saying things like "He's such an asshole!".
But rich people get to speak their mind about whatever they want, & they say just as rude things quite publicly, like "Poor people wouldn't be poor if they weren't lazy-drug addicts-losers-defective genetically-etc etc etc"
Jamaal510
(10,893 posts)try to make whole states (or parts of states) secede from the Union.
22. pretend that health care is a privilege instead of a necessity.
23. bastardizing the words "freedom" and "liberty" in the name of discrimination and fiscally-regressive beliefs.
24. pretending to envy the poor for having access to food stamp programs, welfare, etc.
25. erroneously complaining that today's top tax rates are the highest ever, when they were much higher under Eisenhower (a Republican) and FDR.
DISCLAIMER: There are rich people who don't behave like this, but also far too many who do.
MrScorpio
(73,631 posts)Oh, the fun I could have had with that.