Paul Krugman-Nation of Takers

[n2doc]

Do today’s Republicans really believe that 47 percent of Americans are “takers”, living off money confiscated from the “makers”?

No: the evidence suggests that the GOP believes that the fraction of takers/moochers is much higher, in fact at least twice that high.

Ask yourself: when was the last time a Republican leader made a point of praising hard-working, ordinary families — as opposed to “job creators”? Think about what happened on Labor Day: on a day dedicated to celebrating workers, House majority leader Eric Cantor sent out a tweet praising … business owners:

Today, we celebrate those who have taken a risk, worked hard, built a business and earned their own success.

This all makes sense in the Ayn Rand intellectual universe, where a handful of heroically greedy entrepreneurs are responsible for all that is good. And if you live in that universe, your dividing line between makers and takers isn’t drawn at the point where people make enough to pay income taxes; everyone who isn’t John Galt should be grateful for what the Galts do, and we’re all takers by asking those heroes to pay any taxes at all.

In a way, people like Romney agree with Occupy: it’s them against the 99 percent, except that they consider the 1 percent to be the people being exploited.
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/19/nation-of-takers/

[Spazito]

1. Krugman nails it...

"This all makes sense in the Ayn Rand intellectual universe, where a handful of heroically greedy entrepreneurs are responsible for all that is good. And if you live in that universe, your dividing line between makers and takers isn’t drawn at the point where people make enough to pay income taxes; everyone who isn’t John Galt should be grateful for what the Galts do, and we’re all takers by asking those heroes to pay any taxes at all."

[jsr]

2. Precisely

[Bernardo de La Paz]

3. Krugman writes so clearly because he thinks so clearly. Kudos. nt

[hfojvt]

4. Doesn't Romney have a point?

I mean, think of the Fab 400. http://journals.democraticunderground.com/hfojvt/123

They give so very much to this country. And what do they ask in return?

A mere $300,000,000 a year, on average.

Why that is a mere $9.55 for each second, barely more than a minimum wage worker makes for 3,600 seconds.

You know these people are worth at least $20 a second, even for the time when they sleep or when they sit on the toilet and take a dump. Because you know that when they sit on the throne they produce little gold eggs and not the excrement that the rest of us produce, foul smelling rabble that we are.

$9.54 a second. It's a miracle they can even survive on so little. Truly, their sacrifice is an inspiration to us all.