Reform Entitlements For Those 'Moochers,' The Rich, Part 3/Final

As income disparity has risen over the decades, the wealthiest among us, never content to be, well, "the wealthiest among us," have had an element seemingly demanding even larger amounts for themselves, including in tax breaks or government subsidies. In a paraphrasing of multi billionaire Warren Buffett's fairly recent comments, the rich have been coddled. The more they have been coddled, the more they want to be coddled. Interestingly, many conservatives have argued that poor and middle class people become addicted to government programs. The more government programs, the more they'll want even more government programs. The conservative "theory" has been, "cut off the government programs and force them to have to work, or work more." If you believe there is truth to this "theory," then you should too accept that there is truth in the above comment about the rich. After all, what we're really talking about here is human nature; you know, "give them an inch and they'll take a mile," or "give 'em a penny and they'll want a dollar," or "give 'em one of your Twinkies and they'll ask for the other one too." Of course there was that one person who became famous when he wouldn't give up his eats to anybody and shouted, "Let go o' my Eggo."

Rising profits and income for the wealthy have driven some in that select income bracket to want more. They ship jobs overseas to cheap labor countries, why? Because they can't pay their light bill? Nope, because they want .... "more money!" Then they can sit and fret over their stock prices that only rose 5 points last week* and say, "If I cut payroll even more, I'll make ..... "mo' money, mo' money, mo' money!" Naturally many of these folks are, or have been, corporate officers, especially Chief Executive Officers (CEOs). They have seen huge increases in compensation over the last decades. There are lots of numbers bandied about on CEO pay versus pay for others, but generally, about 35 years ago CEOs at the nation's top corporate headquarters earned something like 40 to 45 times what the average worker earned. I think most Americans would say that's a pretty good rate. Well today, they earn something like 350 times the amount of the average worker. The whole upper part of the American economic system is controlled by pretty much the same small group of people who sit on various boards to "govern" (cough, cough) the nation's biggest corporations; these select few out of a population of more than 300 million. Again, figures vary depending upon source, but generally, AT LEAST 80% (again, some say more than that) of all stocks and bonds are owned by the wealthiest 10% of Americans. Perhaps even more disturbing, and I'm already very disturbed (should I reword that?), the 400 Americans at the top of the income pyramid earn more than HALF of ALL Americans combined. Then there's this absolute nonsense that these super wealthy people have to "plan for retirement," as if they're really on the same level with the rest of Americans. What a bunch of stuff that comes out of a bull's behind!       

So we've had some conservatives complaining about so called "Obama phones," a public relations success for them, at least at the moment, unless Americans find out the telephone program really started under that bedrock of liberalism ..... RONALD REAGAN! Some conservative politicos tried to convince Americans that Obama would give you a phone, "IF" you would vote for him. It was a double whammy; a give away to a bunch of moochers AND a vote buying scheme, all rolled up into one. From what I understand, Rush Limbaugh was on the verge of a stroke over the free phones, undoubtedly worried that any self-respecting fascist would have a tough time overcoming the odds of beating free phones. Hm, maybe the conservatives have something here..... Reagan won 49 states in his reelection, so maybe free phones do work! Or..... maybe it was the free "Reagan cheese." For those of you too young to know, President Reagan started a large effort to give free 5lb blocks of cheese to Americans. Of course, with Reagan, it was "American cheese," not any of this "Swiss" stuff or "queso blanco" from him, no sirree! It was "red, white and blue," or maybe that was just the color of the mold on it? The program covered people on Social Security or on food stamp assistance, but the cheese was a frequent item for sale on street corners, and I don't mean from licensed vendors. It was surplus cheese bought by the government, often used to feed military personnel, as I recall. Further, I believe free butter was given away, at least for a time, although not on the same scale as the cheese, but Reagan, who increased the defense budget tremendously, could properly claim that he provided both "guns AND butter" to Americans, besides huge budget deficits.    

So the idea supported by some conservatives that the wealthy need the enticements of millions and millions of bucks to spur them on is either nonsense, or a symptom of people who have become so spoiled, they think just a few paltry millions of dollars aren't worth the effort to obtain; it must gazillions. If you invented something and were offered, say a million bucks, would you then say, "Well, I'm never going to invent anything again for THAT kind of money!" The whole psychology has been turned on its head, if you'll pardon the expression (psychology...turned on its head, get it?). I guess only poor people and those "unrich," as I term it, are "moochers," since the wealthiest Americans "deserve" any tax cuts and subsides; after all, they have been dubbed, "the job creators," by conservatives. But I like the other term for them anyway. I want entitlement reform, dammit! Those spoiled moochers, the rich, are just bleeding the country dry. If this keeps going, I won't even be able to get a free "Reagan phone."

* Remember folks, if you own a few shares of stock, the chance of you getting truly rich from that stock is not terribly high, BUT if you own stocks (plural) like the wealthy own stocks (plural), in the millions of shares, an uptick of a few points in one or more can mean a huge increase in their already substantial wealth.
   
WORD HISTORY:
Strew-This word goes back to Indo European "struh/streh," which had the notion of "spread out, scatter," as it was a derivative of Indo European "stereh," which meant, "to spread, to stretch out." This gave its Old Germanic offspring "straujanan," with the same meaning. This then gave Old English (Anglo-Saxon) "strewian," which meant "to scatter, to strew." This then became "strewen," before the modern version. The other Germanic languages have: German "streuen," Low German Saxon "straien," Dutch "strooien," Norwegian and Danish "strø," Swedish "strö." These all mean "strew, scatter," and in some cases, "sprinkle." You can probably guess what German "Salzstreuer" means ... "salt shaker," literally "salt strewer." I could not find a form in either West Frisian or Icelandic, but both have forms of "straw," which by the way,  is closely related to "strew." I covered "straw" in this article (actually close to this series on entitlements): http://pontificating-randy.blogspot.com/2009/09/yikes-were-already-socialists.html