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Oh QUELLE SURPRISE, America! Published in my RW Rag today: "What's so Awful about the One Percent?"
Last edited Sun Jan 1, 2012, 03:50 PM - Edit history (1)
. . . and it was written a month ago.
Get excited!!! THEY'RE NOT ALL BAD!!!
http://articles.latimes.com/2011/dec/04/opinion/la-oe-schiller-who-is-the-one-percent-20111204
The late Steve Jobs was in that elite club this year. In his earlier days, Jobs would have been camped out with the OWS crowd, probably passing around a joint. Should we count him as one of "us" or one of "them"? (And you can't use your iPhone or iPad to vote "them."
Oh bullshit. Jobs was no liberal. Apple makes their crap in Chinese sweatshops that work their slaves in punishing hours and conditions; some even killed themselves due to their intolerable plights. He also fired workers just for unintentionally rubbing him the wrong way.
We'd also quickly recognize among "them" Sergey Brin, Larry Page and Eric Schmidt, who became billionaires developing Google. And, as they are sipping a latte to keep warm, the OWS campers should also reflect on whether Howard Schultz, Starbucks' founder and No. 330 on the Forbes list, is with "us" or "them."
Let's see, does he worry about where his next meal is going to come from? Does Howard Schultz pay the mortgage OR the electric bill this month? Does he go into work every day with a 500 pound figurative anvil strapped to his back that says "YOU could be NEXT, peon, so work harder!!!"?? Does Howard Schultz have to worry about paying a five-digit student loan debt or worry about getting thrown out of his house for the crime of getting sick??? Really? Are you that effing stupid, Bradley?
Not every member of the Forbes 400 is a high-tech folk hero. There is a lot of inherited wealth on that list too (the Mars, Walton, Cargill and Ford dynasties). But 70% of the Forbes elite are self-made billionaires. Those entrepreneurial successes include not just the names behind Facebook, Google, Apple and Starbucks but also EBay (Meg Whitman, Pierre Omidyar), Yahoo (Jerry Yang), Nike (Phil Knight), AOL (Steve Case), Amazon (Jeff Bezos), Subway sandwiches (Peter Buck, Fred DeLuca), "Star Wars" (George Lucas) and even Beanie Babies (Ty Warner). Does anyone doubt that these members of the reviled 1% have enriched the country in significant ways?
Uh, most of the people on that list enriched China, Indonesia, Malaysia and India in significant ways moreso than they have American workers. Especially Phil Knight. Some of the Forbes 400 are figureheads that had nothing to do with the origination of their product/service. And damn it, no one is entirely self made.
Oh, but let's not forget, folks . . . if THEY could do it with a little hard work and elbow grease. . . why . . . any of us can!!
Even more to the point is that all of these club-400 elites were once just like "us." Jobs worked on the first Apple computer in a garage on a shoestring budget. He had vision, not wealth, to propel him to fame and fortune. Oprah Winfrey (No. 139) rose from poverty to TV queen through determination, hard work and a couple of lucky breaks. Even Warren Buffett, No. 2 on the Forbes list, started out looking very much like just another hardworking middle-class kid with good Midwestern values.
These storied rises from "rags to riches" are what make America the unique and prosperous nation it is. Some critics would have us believe that the American dream is dead. But that's a view purveyed by those without the vision, the grit, the energy or the single-mined determination to build a better mousetrap. Starry-eyed inventors and entrepreneurs have no doubts about that dream. They know it exists and that they are going to achieve it. Maybe not on the first try, but eventually. That's the entrepreneurial spirit that drives competitive markets, that not only makes the American dream come true for some (the 1%) but also improves life for the many (the 99%).
These storied rises from "rags to riches" are what make America the unique and prosperous nation it is. Some critics would have us believe that the American dream is dead. But that's a view purveyed by those without the vision, the grit, the energy or the single-mined determination to build a better mousetrap. Starry-eyed inventors and entrepreneurs have no doubts about that dream. They know it exists and that they are going to achieve it. Maybe not on the first try, but eventually. That's the entrepreneurial spirit that drives competitive markets, that not only makes the American dream come true for some (the 1%) but also improves life for the many (the 99%).
Oh just SHUT it with the class warfare card, slappy. Horatio Alger is a lottery.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horatio_Alger_myth
What can you say about hackneyed, deluded articles like this? What can you say about the state of education in this country where a person like this; one who cannot even look out of his own window but would rather form an opinion based on the teachings of the likes of Friedman (Milton AND Thomas) and Hayek, becomes a professor and author?? There needs to be more widespread progressive voices to counter this sort of idiocy.
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