Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Another Conservative Billionaire decides Liberals and Income Inequality= Nazis.

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/03/the-rich-strike-back-104753.html?hp=t1

In two-dozen interviews, the denizens of Wall Street and wealthy precincts around the nation said they are still plenty worried about the shift in tone toward top earners and the popularity of class-based appeals. On the right, the rise of populists including Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz still makes wealthy donors eyeing 2016 uncomfortable. But wealthy Republicans—who were having a collective meltdown just two months ago—also say they see signs that the political zeitgeist may be shifting back their way and hope the trend continues.

“I hope it’s not working,” Ken Langone, the billionaire co-founder of Home Depot and major GOP donor, said of populist political appeals. “Because if you go back to 1933, with different words, this is what Hitler was saying in Germany. You don’t survive as a society if you encourage and thrive on envy or jealousy.”

Perhaps that Tom Perkins guy wasn't the outlier we thought he was. Is this where we accuse these rich guys of class warfare?

Y'know, I'd probably have a bit more respect for these guys if they were at least creative enough to refer to Kulaks or something.

Oh no. You might go from being a millionaire to... still being a millionaire. The end is nigh.

 LordofHats wrote:
Oh no. You might go from being a millionaire to... still being a millionaire. The end is nigh.

Needs more Dragonborn to be considered nighable.

There's this trick that Perkins, Langone, and pretty much the whole of the Wall Street Journal editorial page play, where they assume that society could only want a change in the system because they must be jealous of the super rich. They just assume that people are changing, that suddenly they've just decided that it's okay to take other people's stuff for no other reason than that they want it. It seems almost beyond their ability to understand that people might simply be changing their opinion on how well the system works.

But Pew's research has shown that people are increasingly seeing a system where a person's success is not automatically a result of their hard work. In 2000, 74% of people stated that most people who want to get ahead can make it if they work hard, but in 2014 that's dropped to 60%. While in 2000 just 23% of people would have told you that hard work and determination are no guarantee of success, but now that number has grown to 38%.

http://www.people-press.org/2014/01/23/most-see-inequality-growing-but-partisans-differ-over-solutions/

And the change in public perception isn't just a product of blowing political winds or economic circumstance - the trend was visible from 2004 long before the Great Recession kicked in. Simple fact is faith in system to reward hard work has declined because the system no longer works like it once did, and people are waking up to that.

The calls for redistribution aren't born of jealousy, but a belief that the game is rigged.

And that is a dangerous time. If some one feels the game is rigged, then their is no reason to play by the rules. That leads to anarchy.

 Easy E wrote:
And that is a dangerous time. If some one feels the game is rigged, then their is no reason to play by the rules. That leads to anarchy.

Sure, but before that there should be plenty of scope to change the rules. It's a shame that's made harder by a handful of lunatics screaming nazi (or a few more than that screaming theft) but there you go.

I wonder if every OWSer had an expensive gun instead of a smartphone, would have ever been accused of "entitlement".

I mean, I know this guy has made millions/billions with Home Depot, but encouraging envy and jealousy is economics 101... it's how the economy rolls.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:
I mean, I know this guy has made millions/billions with Home Depot, but encouraging envy and jealousy is economics 101... it's how the economy rolls.

Well, when it is a consumption based economy anyway.