So proud of this response to a Romney supporting friend of mine.... [View all]

[renie408]

I have a friend that I have been going back and forth about over this election for weeks on Facebook. He is my farrier and we have developed this weird thing where face to face we talk about everything under the sun BUT politics and on Facebook just about the only thing we talk about is politics. The distance of Facebook has allowed us to stay friends and business associates while arguing like crazy every day about politics.

We segued into a talk about the fall of Rome and a patriarchal society that hoards resources and strangles the lower classes. Another friend had jumped in and said, "Yep, that's pretty much what happened." To which my farrier responded "So, we just tax the rich bastards??"

Here is my response:

"Pretty much. I know that to some people it feels like that is penalizing 'them' for being successful, but that is a knee jerk, immediate reaction to something that is much more complex.

Some of the complexities involved are the fact they we cannot make an endless supply of money so that everybody can have some without reducing the worth of that money. Again, HELLO...Argentina. So, if the wealthy earn interest and dividends on their money and investments, they continue to sop up more and more of a finite resource. In any repetitive mathematical equation, you hit a tipping point. There is a parable about the Pasha of India wanting to reward the creator of the game of chess because he thought it was the most wondrous game he had ever played. He asked the man what he wanted for a reward and the man said, "My request is that you would give me one grain of rice for the first square on the board, two for the second, four for the third, and so on." The Pasha thought this sounded very modest and instantly agreed. The problem is that if you double the amount of rice for each square on the board, by time you get to the last square you have a pile of rice BIGGER THAN MT EVEREST. And the amount doesn't start to get freaky enormous or a problem until about the second half of the board. At the end of the first half of the board, you are talking about a large amount (I think I have heard it compared to several dump trucks worth). But into the second 32 doublings, that amount starts to get increasingly enormous increasingly quickly.

Same thing goes with the money that the wealthy are hoarding. They didn't start out holding 87.7% of all the wealth in the country. But since their money makes money, they have continued to get wealthier and wealthier even while we have been going downhill. And we are starting to hit the second half of the chess board. They have SO MUCH of the wealth and their wealth is earning SO MUCH of a return that every year they are soaking up an exponentially larger amount of that available resource. Bryan, if the top 20% of people were holding 87.7% of the food available and asking 80% of the people in this country to live off of 13.3% of the food, you would be the first in line with your pitchfork and torch. And we would go in there and TAKE BACK some of our food. You wouldn't sit around waiting for them to hand you the food, you wouldn't rely on them doing the right thing with the food and sharing it and you sure as hell wouldn't vote to give them MORE FOOD on the off chance that some how some of it would trickle back down to you.

The uber wealthy in this country have managed to take 2.7% MORE of the wealth in this country since 2007. While the middle class has basically fallen and can't get up, they have gotten phenomenally wealthier. Trust me, 2.7% of the wealth of this entire country is A LOT of land, money, and tangible assets. And we don't have it any more and they do. And you are waiting around for them to produce more jobs with that money so that some of it can come back to us. And while in some people's minds that makes sense, in THIRTY YEARS it has never happened. Since we have lowered what the top bracket pays in taxes, the middle class has steadily lost ground to that thin layer of upper class. There are no more jobs. There is nothing coming back to us. With our vast voting power we gave them that money thinking that they would invest it in economic growth and instead they have sat on it and allowed it to earn them interest. Which sucks up more money, which earns more interest and soon there isn't going to be enough left over to even HAVE a viable middle class.

And I don't blame them. I might do the same thing. Not because I would want to hurt the people below me, but because it is human nature to hold on to what is yours. But whether somebody runs you over by accident or on purpose, you are still dead. I think the huge thing that people have lost over the years is that the government isn't separate from us. It IS us. You have this idea that the government is some big, looming bad thing. I don't think it is. It is the tool that we have been given to insure the best lives we can have for ourselves. We cannot storm the halls of the wealthy with pitchforks and torches in this day and age. But we can use the tool the Founding Fathers gave us and take back something for ourselves. And that is why I vote the way I vote. Period. Not because I like or dislike a candidate, not because of some hot button social issue that gets my dander up...but on which candidate I think will give MY KIDS their best shot at having a decent life. Not the perfect candidate; there is no such thing. No one can satisfy everyone all of the time. But the candidate who at least recognizes that giving the wealthy more and more money isn't helping me one bit. "