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Obama Takes Class Warfare To The Next Level With The "Buffet Rule" And A New "Millionaire Tax": Is A Market Selloff Imminent?
In his increasingly desperate attempts to pander to a population that has by now entirely given up on the hope, and barely has any change left, Obama is going for broke (or technically the reverse) by setting the class warfare bar just that little bit higher. This time around, his targets are millionaires, who according to the NYT are about to see their taxes soar. Or not: nobody really knows if the proposed "Buffett Rule", affectionately known for crony communist #1, will impact just millionaires income tax, which incidentally is the same as what everyone else is paying, or, far more importantly, their Investment Income, which is where the bulk of America's wealthy income comes from. Which incidentally makes all the sense in the world: two and a half years after Bernanke has been desperately doing everything in his power to raise the "wealth effect" if only for the richest 1% of the US population, it is, from the government's perspective, time for the taxman to come knocking and demand his share of the capital gains. Yet what is lost in this ridiculous proposal are the unintended consequences, which always follow idiotic decisions arising out of central planning, number one of which would be a market crash as those who have paper gains since the market lows of 2009, scramble to lock in the old capital gains tax rate of 15% instead of holding on to paper profits that could end up being as high as 35% (or more): an event that would cut actual income by over 25% should one wait to cash out! And since 25% is substantially more than anything that Twist and QE3 and 4 could hope to achieve, it is all too conceivable that those holding on to profitable positions will have had enough, and take their profits, likely converting them into physical and non-dilutable assets along the way. As to whether they would subsequently relocate to far more hospitable countries, such as those that don't foment class warfare, and implicitly invite a civil war, that remains yet to be seen.
In the meantime, here is how Obama just made sure his already record low rating is about to plumb depths unseen since the time of Jimmy Carter, via the NYT:
President Obama on Monday will call for a new minimum tax rate for individuals making more than $1 million a year to ensure that they pay at least the same percentage of their earnings as middle-income taxpayers, according to administration officials.
With a special joint Congressional committee starting work to reach a bipartisan budget deal by late November, the proposal adds a new and populist feature to Mr. Obama’s effort to raise the political pressure on Republicans to agree to higher revenues from the wealthy in return for Democrats’ support of future cuts from Medicare and Medicaid.
Mr. Obama, in a bit of political salesmanship, will call his proposal the “Buffett Rule,” in a reference to Warren E. Buffett, the billionaire investor who has complained repeatedly that the richest Americans generally pay a smaller share of their income in federal taxes than do middle-income workers, because investment gains are taxed at a lower rate than wages.
Mr. Obama will not specify a rate or other details, and it is unclear how much revenue his plan would raise. But his idea of a millionaires’ minimum tax will be prominent in the broad plan for long-term deficit reduction that he will outline at the White House on Monday.
In other words, another typical Obama ploy: let the details be ironed out in the future, but for now we just want to accentuate the class animosity. After all, it is all too obvious that those millionaires, like Buffett, who so desperately want to show their patriotism for America, are in no way aware that the Treasury has this thing called Pay.gov which allows such uber-patriots to whip out their credit cards and pay down America's record debt, in essence voluntarily doing what Obama plans to enforce for everyone else. We are certain that Mr. Buffett will promptly demonstrate to the public his receipt from precisely such a patriotic transaction.
As for the proposal, to say that it is doomed would be optimistic:
The Obama proposal has little chance of becoming law unless Republican lawmakers bend. But by focusing on the wealthiest Americans, the president is sharpening the contrast between Republicans and Democrats with a theme he can carry into his bid for re-election in 2012.
It could also reassure Democrats who have feared that Mr. Obama would agree to changes in programs like Medicare without forcing Republicans to compromise on taxes.
The administration wants such a tax to replace the alternative minimum tax, which was created decades ago to make sure the richest taxpayers with plentiful deductions and credits did not avoid income taxes, but which now hits millions of Americans who are considered upper middle class. Mr. Obama has said that many average Americans could see a tax cut if the system is overhauled, since ending many tax breaks would allow for lower rates while raising more revenues from the wealthiest.
The millionaires’ tax is among several changes Mr. Obama will propose in urging Congress to overhaul the federal income tax code next year, both to raise revenues for reducing deficits and to make the tax system simpler and fairer, said the administration officials, who agreed to speak in advance of the president’s announcement on the condition of anonymity.
The millionaires’ rate would affect only 0.3 percent of taxpayers, they said. That would be fewer than 450,000; 144 million returns were filed for 2010.
That's wonderful: in other words it is very few of the people who, mostly through years of hard work, have succeeded in breaking through the vaunted 7 digit net worth figure. But the good news is that Buffett, instead of focusing on his own share of philantropy, believes that it is his centrally planned duty to enforce his strict lack of moral code on everyone else. Too bad the other millionaires do not have the billions necessary to become one with the TBTFs and know that whatever they put their money in, Uncle Sam will never let it blow up.
If Obama wants to enact a Buffett Rule, how about instead of addressing taxes, said rule makes it clear that capitalism is coming back to replace the crony communist regime we have all grown to love and enjoy for the past 3 years, and individual failure is once again an option, instead of the socialist risk phenomenon that Buffett, more than any one individual America has grown to symbolize and represent?
Furthermore, when the $1MM cutoff fails, which it inevitably will (the rich are rich for a reason: they tend to be, for the most part, quite adept at finding loopholes), and those targeted promptly "offshore" themselves, what will Obama's next "rich" cutoff be: $500,000? $100,000? $25,000? Those on Earned Income Tax Credit? Sooner or later, you know Obama is coming for you.
Lastly, and presumably comically, considering that 41.2% of the "middle class" pays no income taxes, we wonder if this is not just a ploy by a wily Buffett, who knows the loophole in the tax code better than anyone, to make sure that nearly half of all millionaires pay... absolutely nothing.
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Another painful and stupid move by ExLax-in-Chief Obama.
1) it won't work, and will create less revenue and drive away investment capital and jobs
2) it will further lay the blame for the economy on Obama and his crony billionaires and millionairies like Buffett, Immelt, Soros, Goldman, who profit from it.
3) It will highlight Obama's Marxist roots and his hypocrisy, and that of his foolhardy base that he seeks to impress.
Countries like Sweden and Denmark hardly killed themselves with much more redistributive economies than the US ... with good governance nearly anything from communism to social darwinist anarcho capitalism can be made to work, with bad governance you get cronyism whatever the label.
Reform government, then worry about wellfare and central planning vs. self reliance and free markets.
Ever wonder why Mr. Buffet is so generous as to suggest the taxation of his fellow millionaires? Well, he and Mr. Bill Gates (of Hell) long ago figured out that they can get away without paying no income taxes . . . by placing their financial loot in their foundations. Is it really a stretch that when the income tax was enacted that CONgress also enacted the law for foundations to exist. Foundations are the means whereby the super-rich get away from paying ANY taxes while the income tax and estate laws keep the lid on any up-and-coming nuevo rich from climbling higher. Foundations are also the means to do psychopathic social engineering, hence Mr. Bill Gates and his population-reduction vaccination programs. Also, why is Mr. Bill Gates Senior so enfired with stopping the removel of the Death OR Estate Tax?!?
Mr Buffet may be a con artist and a swindler, but apparently he is not entirely a hypocrite, and certainly is no "communist" as was claimed in the article.
“There’s class warfare, all right,” Warren Buffett told The New York Times two years before the 2008 crash, “but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.”
If we tax the rich, they won't give us a job.
Just a rant here.
A straight across the board percentage tax rate for everyone. Lets pick an arbitrary number 10%. If you make $1,000 you pay $100, if you make a $1,000,000 you pay $100,000. That seems fair to me. No loopholes, no deductions, no write offs. Simple enough, eliminates the need for the IRS in its present incarnation as well as everyone pays taxes.
Progressive taxes are bull shit. If companies failed when they performed poorly then we would not have these ultra-rich ceo's, becuase they would get canned when their companies do no perform. Exorbitant compensation at the TBTF are only possible because the government and the corporations are the same group of people. Regulations are not enforced and the corruption continues unabated.
People know how to spend their money far better than the government ever will. If you want an economy that is based on bullshit consumer spending, then you should let consumers spend by taxing them less, as the government will just waste their money anyways. If you want an economy that is solid then the government needs to actually enforce regulations, eliminate most regulations as they stifle business, and stop central planning. Additionally we need to produce something and encourage savings, therein lies the path to wealth.
But whatever, everyone has their own agendas, so few can exercise common sense. For example the fact that public pensions are one of the main factors bankrupting states and municipalities. Yet very few even consider decreasing these pensions, or eliminating public sector unions, or at least curbing them to a rate that is affordable. This is but one example. The solutions are quite simple, they are common sense, but we still get this tripe from Obama, Congress as the 'magic' fix.
Seems to me that consumer and business confidence levels are extremely low. I wonder why that is. I wonder why businesses do not want to expand. Maybe it is because we seem rampant fraud propped up by the government. Maybe its because we see our regulatory institutions like SEC refuse to regulate and prosecute fraud. Maybe it is because we see the administration sue a private company because they want to exercise their rights to build there business in locations they choose. Maybe its because we see the passage of a health care reform that does not serve the interest of the people but the intersts of big government and corporations. Maybe it is because we do not have capitalism but corporatism. The people are disheartened, business is discouraged, its taxed, over-regulated, and the playing field is not level, the government picks the winners and losers. Or how about the fact that the administration picks the same people who were influential in refusing to regulate to be the same people to fix the problems.
They must think the American people are really stupid, maybe they are. Ah the list could go on and on and on.
I fully expect a similar article posted by ilene pitching this nonsense in the near future.
Ron Paul / Cain 2012 Bitchez
How about not taxing us three, four, five times on the same money earned? Forget saving anything. Why should we? We are taxed on earnings, taxed on savings, taxed on anything that may be used to improve our situation. We are taxed on property, taxed on sales, taxed on purchases, taxed on income and taxed when we die. Who wants to save or spend when it's all going to be taken anyway. Wanna leave something to your children? Make sure they can afford to bury you AND pay capital gains.
The spend it all mentality comes from being punished for saving ANYTHING. Invest your money, hoping to save for retirement and it has to be done the way government tells you, or they tax you more. Put it in the stock market or 401k and you are considered wealthy, even though you are putting everything into something with no guarantee of return. Then, when the government decides they want it, they crash and burn it and tell your children and the non-producers it's your fault. Life sucks sometimes. Especially if you're a boomer.
I don't want anything from government except to be left alone and to be allowed to keep enough to feed myself before I die. I really don't give a crap what anyone else has, just leave what's left of mine alone. I'm not a millionaire, but don't want the millionaire's money either.
If the government was in the business of enforcing individual liberties then perhaps what you suggest would be possible. That is probably why the Constitution was created in the first place, to protect just that. How many times does history have to repeat itself for humans to learn the basic lessons.
Obamanomics
Of course, the Buffets of the world do not need a "Buffet Rule" as they are free to send millions to the U.S. Treasury whenever they like. Did Buffet do this? Did anybody?
Great post Tyler, as frequently highlighted by ZH, the top 5% of earners grabbed over 80% of the country wealth increase over the last 30 years.
Why stop there?
Let's make it higher, there are most definitely too few billionaires and too few people on food stamp in this country. We can do better than this.
Tax the rich
Feed the poor
Till there are no rich no more
+10 (years after). Listening to the whole catalog; thanks for the memories.
As long as I've been around
To my convictions I am bound
Well here's what I've found
In the cities and towns
Life ain't nothing but a merry-go-round
and the poor are obese
Germany will be pushing for a financial transfer tax to curb HFT (high frequency trading)
The best idea yet... 25% capital gains tax. Let the whining millionaires pay the bill....
Class warfare? It started in the 1980s. Only it was the rich that got the upper hand. Tax reform 1986 was a stealth tax increae on the middle class: repealed deductions for consumer loan interest and student loan interest while decreased upper income tax brackets by dramatic amounts, decreased cap gains and AMT.
That was 'trickle-down economics' in action. It was supposed to lift all boats but now after 30 years we can see it never did. Worse, lots of money left the country.
Overall tax strucutre is heavily regressive in the US: poor pay a higher % of income on gasoline tax, sales tax, telecommunication and wire taxes on phone bills and cable, tolls on roads and bridges, pay for nearly all public transportation, alcohol tax, and payroll tax.
Black market, black market black market black market,
2.5 T budget, 18% Hayek taxes maxed flat rate....,
and a huge 10% 1.5 Trillion underground economy blackmaket
in everything, from landscaping to food, to medical barter,
you name it, jewlery, all on ebay all paypal, or barter,
sorry no VAT, suckers.....I give it 2 years.. and its in.
Our entire problem has been created by those like Buffet who pay nothing in real taxes and play the system to pay very little in capital gains.
I would have no problem with instituting an 80% tax on stock transactions. Get this charade of a system over with. The stock market has become nothing but a tool of the uberwealthy to confiscate the hard earned income of the middle class.
Sorry but just like winning the lottery you didn't work or do anything of value to earn money from stock transactions. The finance economy is a farce and it is time to end it. The less people invest in the con game, the better.
My vote goes to the candidate that will end income tax. Good hair is nice but it doesn't promote Liberty.
http://theinternationalforecaster.com/International_Forecaster_Weekly/Market_Havoc_and_Threats_to_Your_Pension
Article from Bob Chapmans site, long, but applicable.
Take heed........
You know you guys at ZH need to stop looking at everything in the world as half full. I dont know if a prerequisite to being a contributor here is to be on zoloft and/or exhibiting traits of paranoia but as much as I appreciate many of your timely and detailed work but your constant critic of everything that is going around is borderline ...
To have the writers here criticize a tax rate for people making over $1M while critizing Fed's various QE endeavors on the premise that is devaluing $ and hurting savers and/or working ppl all at the expense of GS and HFT is another example of paradoxical and paranoid world you guys are living in.
First off, how are Obamas ratings going to plummet when the majority of americans aren't millionaires? Are they going to only poll millionaires?
Secondly, refer to GE for what you get with tax breaks. They pay no taxes, get a huge refund, still offshore at every given chance AND spend 24/7 trying to figure out how to do more with less.
Based on from what I have seen........I have zero problems going after the rich. They have all the money and are they doing anything to help out? NO.
It's also amazing how many people with ordinary pathetic lives are conceived into believing that this is a bad idea and get in an uproar over it and seemingly forget every ass ramming corporate america has dealt them over the years.
However......I don't change my opinion that we are in a complete race to the bottom regardless. I'd just assume hurry up and get there the suspense is killing me.
rsn:
Thought experiment for ya. Take it ALL, income, assets, real estate, take it ALL. Pick your level of richness (that is, millionaires can be down to $50k if you wish):
a) makes everyone feel really good {got them bastards}
b) what effect does this have on i) the debt and ii) rectifying the situation.
c) what do we do next year?
- Ned
hilarious.. pay.gov takes credit cards
so let's all max out our credit cards to pay the debt and tell the banks to fuck themselves..
A Modest Proposal
The top federal income tax rate when Eisenhower was President was 90%. So was he the really big advocate of class warfare?
http://ntu.org/tax-basics/history-of-federal-individual-1.html
I came late to the party here, and tried to read through the more recommended comments. All I've gotta say is that neither the ZH writer nor most of the commenters get it. The truth about our economic ills does NOT lie at the feet of our first black president who everyone loves to hate around here. The truth? Our nation's economic sovereignty has been lost to an international plutocracy that runs all of the G20 governments, including ours.
What do I mean by that? Labor has been arbitraged and exploited throughout the world by the multinationals such that it has resulted in 20% effective unemployment here in America. Capitalists and plutocrats who control government have changed the ground rules of the game so that they may seek the lowest production costs anywhere in the world for making products. This is called "free trade" for anyone not paying attention.
The plutocratic and corporate control of governments has gotten so pervasive that even China, a centrally planned society, has fallen into the spell of the corporatists. It has infected every major or developing economy globally, and controls our two political parties in America as well as the corporate media. This has brought about a brainwashed and polarized society here at home that thinks all controversy is "left versus right". In fact, Obama is governing to the right of Richard Nixon, and today's Democratic party is to the right of Nixon's Republican party. It's only the brainwashed fools, such as this ZH author, who thinks Obama has governed for three years as a "crony communist".
Fact is, our wealth inequality is by design and the class war has been waged successfully by the plutocrats who run our government. The Democrats are corporatists as are the Republicans. Obama is a tool of the Plutocracy. Labor in America will never be the same and our median standard of living will continue to dwindle as other developing nations see a lift in their standard of living. I like to call this the "entropy of labor". For those who didn't take physics in high school, or can't remember, this simply means that energy gets dispersed to fill a given space. In this case, the labor "energy" gets spread out throughout the global economy, hurting America's manufacturing base and working class, while helping those in China, Vietnam, India, etc. This is why America has lost its sovereignty as a nation where economics is concerned. Just as Greece and Germany has lost its sovereignty as nations as long as they try to keep up the charade of the EU.
Without nationalism, or the pursuit of national economic interests, globalism will take its place. This is great for the overall global standard of living, but it's hell for America's standard of living. One good thing, though. It lowers the threat of future world wars since countries that are interdependent and do business with each other are less likely to wage a hot war against each other. In a nuclear age, that is vital.
So, getting back to this article, the whining about the Buffett tax by the ZH author is simply a distraction, as is the ridiculous rant against Obama. Rant against him all you want, but if you do, realize that he is but a pawn in the international chess game being run (and won) by the Plutocrats.
I hope you're wrong, yet fear you're not.
The truth about our economic ills does NOT lie at the feet of our first black president who everyone loves to hate around here.
They don't , they hated the one before him, and the one before him, and the one before him.
Why The first mulatto Potus is despised for, is he is a Communist.
Has government taken over the means of production under Obama? IF not, then you don't know what you're talking about, and you don't even know what a Communist is.
Again, since you may not be old enough to know political history, Richard Nixon was to the left of Obama, just as the GOP in that era was to the left of today's GOP. Or don't you remember wage and price controls, or Nixon's proposed nationalization of our health care system?
I meant the GOP of Nixon's era was to the left of today's DEMOCRATS. Obviously, it was to the left of today's GOP, which goes without saying.
You incentivise(sic) the wealthy to create jobs, i.e. "document you've created X U.S. jobs for X tax benefit". It is a form of Mercantilism, and it is needed. We (the US) are the only ones not playing this game, in some way. Lack of critical and or forward thinking and, more importantly, leadership, in the beltway, is disconcerting, to put it nicely. JMOs.
Yeah it is class warfare when a hendge fund manager making $30 million is asked to pay taxes at the same rate as a person earning $100,000/year.
alternative view of the income tax & more fun facts about commerce that you thought you knew:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKAVJyaY3q0
Maritime Law Rules Religion & Economics
Got to get the "us and them" feeling going even more to distract the crowd.
not to say I have much in the way of sympathy for the rich in this country as I live on the other side of the tracks, I don't exactly despise them either, "the rich" are more of an abstract to me. who I do despise are the multinational conglomerates and industries who present us with poisoned food, poisoned water, and hawk synthetic poisoned drugs to deal with the health issues that come from all the poisons we consume and come into contact with in the first place. cancer rates and mental illness are skyrocketing and over half the country is on some form of medication. physicians prescribe "meds" like candy, I have seen it over and over again where where these pills do far more harm then good, when more often than not the health issues could be managed and even cured without the use of synthetic drugs.
yet we all know the FDA and the USDA have long since been bought by big agro and big pharama and they are killing us, our children and our elderly especially the lower middle class and the poor and yet it seems nobody cares or even wants to know. that's to say nothing of the police state we now live in, the false war on terror that we all pay for with both blood and money, the centrally planed wealth sucking economy that no longer provides for any kind hope for a better life for a large percentage of the population and continues to drive what little is left of our production base overseas. (Obama's jobs creation czar just sent how many more jobs to china?) and of course the fake right/ left paradigm driving MSM propaganda machine that keeps the whole thing going.
my point in all this is tax the rich more or don't, who gives a shit? It's not like anything will change, those with the real money, power and influence will continue to have and expand exactly that regardless of what new bit of political/ ideological stupidity is floated from the white house, to believe otherwise at this point is either dangerously naive or willfully ignorant.
the political, corporate and economic culture in America is systemically corrupted, morally bankrupt and far beyond anybody's ability to correct, repair, fix or improve in it's current incarnation. the only way foreword, the only way out of this is to allow the old system to destroy its self not spend money and blood in an attempt to maintain the convenient but enslaving and dieing status quo...then maybe we might have a chance at being being what we were meant to be, free Americans with the right to self determination the ability to succeed or fail and try again by our own hands, not libtards, teabaggers, democrats, republicans, socialist liberals, right wing nuts, anti government extremists, truthers, birthers or any of the other labels and groups we get lumped into nowadays.
"we the people", myself included, had a hand in creating this dystopia in which we all now live though our negligence and complacency and the founders made it very clear that only we the people can correct it. so the real question is how and when to we finally take up the responsibility en mass, throw off the shackles and chains and brake the illusion that we need this control freak, fiat paper nanny Orwellian state to be safe and be Americas.
how do we get people to care about their freedoms, rights and futures again?
to increase taxes on the rich or not is just another meaningless sideshow distraction...
a little long but I agree....its built to fail. Politics and business working together to create a ludicrous, untenable situation......one tiny exception at a time. I would like to know if they taxed everyone in the country 100% for a year, how long would it last as the sole funding of the govt?? Maybe a few weeks. Its a pathetic distraction, as though none of this would have happened if higher taxes were there all along. You might ask, 'how stupid do they think we are?' Answer.................Pretty fucking stupid, most of the country is watching the emmys and gives a shit.
I get so sick and tired of the winners of the class war crying about their miserable existence at the top of the social pyramid. I wrote last week on a thread that since accountants were always able to stay ahead of the tax authorities, it was time so simply tax wealth. Use it or lose it, as they say. My comment got dozens of up votes and not a single down vote. Now that the White House actually proposes what everyone thinks is a good idea, OMG it's class warfare. Ask yourselves why it was a good idea until Obama agreed with it, and now it's class warfare.
I have paid Impuesto de Patrimonio in my home country for years. Guess what. I'm still pretty well off. As will America's millionares be. The difference is, American millionaires don't feel obligated to anyone but themselves.
Better name: the Tyranny Tax!
This is what happens in a world where private property rights are no longer recognized and where tyranny is diguised as charity!
The so-called "job creators" have been trying to destroy the middle class for 30 years. but as soon as there's a push back, THEN it's class warfare. Gotcha TD. You're a tool if you think the class warfare just started with Obama. In fact it's a monumentally imbecilic thing to suggest while the "job creators" sit on their cash and squelch the economy to serve their own ideological interests. But then when you have someone who imagines themselves as some modern day Fight Club stud behind a fake internet persona, what else could you expect?
You got it. When TPTB got nervous about communism after the WWII, they figured an affluent middle class would be one way to prevent a violent overthrow here. And the middle class thrived.
Well, communism is dead, and now we're all shocked, just shocked to learn that the American middle class is in the intensive care unit without health insurance.
I already know the faults of my statements. I suppose just because I hate the actions of the bloody rich I shouldn't look past what this shithole gov't has done, and is doing to us. I have no solution. Everyone else's solution sounds like a freaking fairy tale. It will never work. I honestly believe will be fighting tooth and nail all the way to the bottom and worst yet probably end up getting in a war that really matters.
As far as solutions go, maybe there aren't any. I've been trying to think about the whole in terms of the govt and central banks as the biggest players in the mkts...they print their own money and make the rules. Ultimately they want control. So, I anticipate an imaginative new framework to appear where little of the past is corrected, the present managed with risk-sharing-mechanisms (various bullshit to shift losses around) setting up a future where much of the same economic activity can continue as it did before.....all this and the Fed and govt maintain or expand their control.
The rich have gutted the middle class. They have continuall
y passed paper around to one another in a financial game of musical chairs. While everyone riding on the gray train makes millions on providing nothing, doing nothing, and simply buying and selling everything, there is always a bubble that bursts. One rich guy gets left holding the bag looking out the back of the caboose of that "gray train" asking: where's the sucker that's supposed to buy this overpriced house, overpriced commercial property, overpriced .com stock, from me? So now what's left is a glut of overpriced houses, overpriced commercial properties, that those who actually want to LIVE in those houses and those who actually want to USE those commercial properties to start a business cannot even begin to afford the inflated prices now posted for these "investments". The want for more is out of control. Until those with all the cash advance stop buying up everything that they can afford but have no use for, things will only get worse. As I see it the answer is simple. The rich have too much money to play with and they have no interest in doing anything constructive with what they have. They "play" the stock market as if it were Las Vegas-- with no concern to what inflating the commodities market does to the average American. Raise their taxes. Less money motivates the working class to work harder. Why would it not do the same for the rich?EAT THE RICH!!!!