In yet another attempt to stoke the wealth divide that he, and the Federal Reserve have created and pushed to French revolution levels, yesterday Barack Obama had some more comments about the uber wealthy, the same uber wealthy who are shoveling hundreds of millions of dollars in "speaking fees" and other contributions into the charity of that other Democratic middle-class champion, Hillary Clinton.
(And speaking of France, maybe Obama should speak to that other socialist Hollande about how France's 75% tax on millionaires worked out [8]).
In this particular case he was envisioning America's hedge fund managers as an example of all that is uber-wealthy, the people who indirectly through personal and corporate lobby money are in control of Congress, and was hinting at yet another attempt to raise their taxes. As Bloomberg reports, Obama whose crowning achievements are one by one being taken away from him, with Obamacare in peril and the TPP crushed by his own Democrats in the Senate, has had a longstanding proposal to raise taxes on what is known as carried interest. It has gained little traction in Congress and certainly hasn't been approved by Obama's own tax advisor Warren Buffett, who is all for raising income tax but is oddly mum on the topic of financial asset taxation.
Still, Obama has not given up and once again invokes the infamous fairness doctrine, saying that "fairness demands that the nation’s wealthiest pitch in as more and more Americans are falling behind."
Why does "fairness demand" anything? Because according to Obama America's wealthy are nothing more than society's lottery winners. From the Daily Caller [9]:
The top 25 hedge fund managers made more than all of the kindergarten teachers in the country. So, when I say that, I’m not saying that because I dislike hedge fund managers, or I think they are evil, I’m saying that you’re paying a lower [tax] rate than a lot of folks who are making $300,000 a year. You pretty much have more than you’ll ever be able to use in your family will ever be able to use.
There’s a fairness issue involved here. And by the way, if we were able to close that loophole, I could now invest in early childhood education to make a difference. That’s where the rubber hits the road. That’s … where the question of compassion and ‘I’m my brother’s keeper’ comes into play. And if we can’t ask from society’s lottery winners to just make that modest investment, then really this conversation is for show.
Of course, "society's lottery winners" simply because they have all the money and influence, will never agree to voluntarily part with their wealth by handing over more of it to Uncle Sam. Instead they will bribe Congress with a fraction of what taxes they would pay to crush any incipient tax reform.
After all they "won the lottery" precisely because they knew how to best game the system.
Instead what they will stronly "suggest", is for the Fed to go ahead and fund America's money needs by way of continuing to monetize its deficit: it may even require a rate hike first just to make sure the economy resumes its depressionary ways, just so there is cover for QE4, QE5 and so on.
And yes, for those who wonder, it was this "deficit monetization" process that since it was first launched in 2008, has made them richer than anything conceived in their wildest dreams.
They also won the lottery because they were smarter. Supposedly. Because as the cartoon below shows, that particular question is certainly up for debate in recent years...
