In Defense of the One Percent

The one percent: the segment of our global society that is often blamed for the economic disparity both in the United States and throughout the world. They are also  the scapegoat of many of our society's problems. Financial crisis of 2008? Blame the one percent. Sluggish economic recovery? Blame the one percent. Your cat died? Blame the one percent. But is all this hate towards the exorbitantly wealthy really warranted? Or are we just blindly blaming the one percent for our (the "99%") own faults and mistakes? 

The one percent, for those of you who are unfamiliar with the term, refers to concentration of wealth and income in the top one percent of global society. In our global society, the highest earning one percent of the global population controls 46% of the world's wealth. The other ninety-nine percent is the rest of society, those who aren't incredibly wealthy and do not have multiple vacation homes in countries we've only seen in magazines or on television. 

These members of the upper echelon of society are very much like us. Despite what some liberals may have you believe, the incredibly wealthy have to abide by the same rules and regulations as us; their wealth does not earn them any special privileges when it comes to the law. Such as RadiumOne CEO and millionaire  Gurbaksh Chahal. Mr. Chahal plead guilty to two misdemeanors for domestic abuse and battery last month after security footage of him hitting and kicking his girlfriend 117 times over the course of half an hour. Mr. Chahal got 52 weeks in a domestic violence program, three years probation, and 25 hours community service. And justice was served! 

If anything, the one percent's wealth is more of a handicap than an advantage.

Take teenager Ethan Couch, whom we've covered here at In Loco Politico before. Ethan was driving a pickup truck while intoxicated and struck a stalled SUV on the side of the road. The accident left four dead and two seriously injured. But before you start getting your pitchforks and torches and start rioting, know that Mr. Couch got ten years of probation. Ten years! To add to this, a defense expert diagnosed Ethan with the terminal disease of affluenza-- a terrible disease that is prevalent among the one percent. Judge Jean Hudson Boyd believed that Ethan was far too privileged and wealthy to know better and let him off with a stern warning.

Judge Boyd has dealt with teenage drunk drivers before. In 2004, 16-year-old Eric Miller stole a bottle of vodka and proceeded to get drunk. He then stole a pickup truck from the parking lot and killed 19-year-old father and husband Philip Andress. A jury found Andress guilty and Judge Boyd sentenced him to twenty years behind jail. Andress's mother was a drug addict and he was raised by his grandfather, something Judge Boyd took into consideration. 

“The court is aware you had a sad childhood, but you are fortunate to have a grandfather who is so committed and loves you,” Boyd told Miller. “… I hope you will take advantage of the services and turn your life around.”

Affluenza is a mysterious disease that seems to only affect the wealthy. The symptoms of affluenza are a sense of entitlement, a feeling of superiority over the less fortunate, lots of disposable income, and a collection of exotic cars among other things.  

If anything, the one percent are actually oppressed in the United States.  President Barrack Hussein Obama and his liberal cronies in congress have made it (or have tried to make it) increasingly hard for the one percent to survive in the United States. They continue to propose tax hikes for the rich and also want to cancel the tax cuts of the Bush era, forcing the one percent to suffer. Just ask Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY).

“In the eyes of many, it is hard to ask more of households making $250,000 or $300,000 a year. In large parts of the country, that kind of income does not get you a big home or lots of vacations or anything else that is associated with wealth."

Because after all, all that matters in life is big houses and lots of vacations.

Raising taxes on the one percent and big businesses will only hurt our economy. After all, these companies and people are the job creators of the country. Albeit, most of the jobs they create are overseas but they create jobs nonetheless.  If anything, these people and corporations should continue receiving tax breaks to ensure they pay little to no taxes, such as General Electric (GE) (which paid a rate of 7.4% in 2010). The corporate tax rate in America is so high, it actually forced GE to hold $108 billion of their profits overseas because they would have taken a tremendous hit had they brought it back to the United States. 

Our Lord and Savior Ronald Reagan would have never allowed such preposterous and unfair tax increases. Sure, tax rates were actually higher in seven out of Reagan's eight years in office as opposed to now, but that's not the point. That's just another red herring propagated by the liberal media to get the public to forget the real issue at hand: the war on the one percent.

For the most part, the citizens of the United States (minus the fine folks over at Fox News) have brushed off this claim that there is a "war" on the rich. Our President and those greedy, un-American liberals continue to try and force the one percent to pay a higher percentage in taxes, in part to pay for social welfare programs for the poor. I say let them eat cake! The one percent worked hard to make their millions (or billions) of dollars and they put in years of blood, sweat, and tears into what they do. My parents never were rich not because they were paid minimum wage and worked forty+ hours in the freezing cold because that;'s the only job they were offered. No, it's not a culmination of all those disadvantages. They were never rich because they didn't work hard enough. 

The war on the one percent has reached unprecedented levels that it has become akin to persecution of the Jews in Nazi Germany. Venture capitalist Tom Perkins explains the parallels the best:

I would call attention to the parallels of Nazi Germany to its war on its "one percent," namely its Jews, to the progressive war on the American one percent, namely the "rich."

The one percent and Wall Street bankers should be free of any blame for the economic crisis of 2008. The fact that not a single Wall Street CEO has been prosecuted for their (non-existent) role in the economic collapse should be fact enough that they are innocent of any wrong doing. Instead of blaming the poor bankers and CEOs that were simply just doing their job and providing loans to people, we should be blaming the reckless individuals that took out loans they couldn't repay, simply to undermine the economic health of our majestic country.

We should go back to those circa 2008 days of very little to no government regulation. We all know that that turned out for the better and our economy is totally not in shambles because of it. After all, our great country was built on the principles of dog-eat-dog capitalism and stepping on the backs of the less fortunate to advance yourself. This is America after all. If people want handouts then they should move to a socialist European country where freedom is as hard to come by as guns are.