Paul Krugman: Now That’s Rich

[EV_Ares]

Will Barack Obama raise taxes on the middle class? Nope:

Now That’s Rich, by Paul Krugman, Commentary, NY Times: ...Barack Obama wants to put tax rates on higher-income Americans more or less back to what they were under Bill Clinton; John McCain ... says that means raising taxes on the middle class. ...

When we think about the middle class, we tend to think of Americans whose lives are decent but not luxurious: they have houses, cars and health insurance, but they still worry about making ends meet, especially when the time comes to send the kids to college.

Meanwhile, when we think about the rich, we tend to think about the handful of people who are really, really rich — people with servants, people with so much money that, like Mr. McCain, they don’t know how many houses they own. (Remember how Republicans jeered at John Kerry for being too rich?)...

To imply that everyone except the poor belongs to one of these two categories: either you’re clearly rich, or you’re an ordinary member of the middle class ... just wrong.

In his entertaining book “Richistan,” Robert Frank ... declares that the rich aren’t just different from you and me, they live in a different, parallel country. But that country is divided into levels, and only the inhabitants of upper Richistan live like aristocrats; the inhabitants of middle Richistan lead ample but not gilded lives; and lower Richistanis live in McMansions, drive around in S.U.V.’s, and are likely to think of themselves as “affluent” rather than rich.

rest of the article @ link: http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/