The Dow Jones Industrial Average hit an all-time record high, so it's time to celebrate! We the people have regained the wealth we lost five and a half years ago! It's time to throw a $16 billion par-tay!
I can't wait to roll around in those kinds of bills, can you? That $16 billion recovery works out to $50.79 per American. But before you run out and get yourself a new toaster oven for this evening's celebratory Hors d'oeuvres, here's the caveat: "The rebound in wealth has benefited mostly wealthier Americans. The Dow Jones industrial average has just set a record high, and roughly 80 percent of stocks are held by the wealthiest 10 percent of households."
Forbes just added 17 Americans to its Billionaires List. There are a total of 442 Americans on the list, more than any other country. This is all part of a growing economy, right? Not so much for the 800,000 people facing furlough and a 20 percent pay cut. And while Americans just can't hear "too big to fail" too much, they sure as hell can get too much of small businesses, which are now deemed too small to give a rat's ass about.
This "recovery" doesn't look at all like the picture painted by the rich. It's way more like your car stealing, toilet hugging, piggybank stealing alcoholic relatives getting out of the rehabilitation center you paid for who are driving your car past you as you walk to work. Never mind you've yet to figure out how to get rid of the putrid smell they left in your bathroom; those jack-offs hit the lottery and are now making headlines that are calling you out as "unsupportive" and "enabling." And the rest of your family is eating it up.
Dana Saporta, an economist at Credit Suisse, said the $16 billion worth of good news, "Should boost consumption, because as people feel wealthier they tend to spend more. It doesn't necessarily mean that households will go on a spending spree." Well, that's not entirely true.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Clav
We're missimg a bet here. We should give all the gun nuts a bounty for the body of every rich person they bring in, then when all the rich are dead (or moved away), and their money given back to its rightful owners, us, round up all the bounty winners, charge 'em with murder and fry 'em.
Two undesirable classes of creeps wiped out in one plan...
2 - Dr Joseph S Maresca
Taxes were higher under the Eisenhower and Kennedy Administrations to pay for the high debt accumulated from WW2 and the infrastructure projects needed for a growing population. The same should apply today. We completed the Iraq War and are winding down Afghanistan. Tax rates should be higher to pay off this debt. In addition, the population is growing a million people or more a year beyond the death rate. We'll need considerable infrastructure to support this new population increase which has continued unabated since 2000. In the year 2000, there were 300MM people in the USA. Now, the population is about 315MM
people and growing.
3 - roger nowosielski
Great piece, Diana, definitely should be this week's editorial pick. What's relatively new, perhaps, about modern times is the contempt with which the über rich regard the rest of us. And of course our media just eats it up.
4 - Dr Dreadful
Nice work, Diana: one of the best rants I've read on Blogcritics in quite a while. Certainly got my blood boiling.
And like the best rants, contains a kernel of eternal truth, which is that the little guy always takes the biggest hits.
5 - Christopher Rose
Great work as usual, Diana!
6 - John Lake
Really very nicely said, Diana. I especially liked the part about "...that manifests as... vulgar displays of wealth..."
7 - Clav
If we're really serious about taxing the rich, we should start taxing the churches; many of them far outstrip most of the wealthy individuals in net worth.
It's ridiculous that we've allowed them to escape taxation in the first place.
8 - Christopher Rose
Completely agree, Naily.
9 - Glenn Contrarian
Clav -
If we're really serious about taxing the rich, we should start taxing the churches; many of them far outstrip most of the wealthy individuals in net worth. It's ridiculous that we've allowed them to escape taxation in the first place.
You know I'm strong in my faith, but I agree if for no other reason than the simple fact that all churches - the true as well as the false - use this nation's infrastructure too. Every church pays for electricity, water, and sewer - why not our regular taxes too?
10 - zingzing
"It's ridiculous that we've allowed them to escape taxation in the first place."
for now, at least, no politician wants to be the one that starts taxing the churches. and you know it's not going to be a (GOP) republican, so let's not even bother with that. it could possibly be a libertarian, but i kinda doubt it. it would probably be a lefty, and someone safe in his/her own district, but the damage would be to the democratic party, which would suffer a massive hit in the next election. it's just not going to happen, at least for now. but it's a great idea. the church is a huge scam. great business though.
11 - Igor
What a duo! The church and the rich: one has a grip on your brain and the other on your wallet.
12 - Glenn Contrarian
zing -
the church is a huge scam. great business though
That is true if those who lead that church live an extravagant lifestyle and do not pour as much of the offerings as possible back into the growth of that church.
If the leader(s) of a church do not live an extravagant lifestyle, and if they use as much of the offerings as possible to help the church to grow, then it's quite likely that said leader(s) actually believe what they preach and are trying their utmost to follow the tenets of their religion...
...which means the religion's not a scam, for a scam is only a scam if the scammer knows what he or she is doing is wrong.
13 - Christopher Rose
No surprise you defend the gang you belong to, Glenn, but your logic is flawed.
It doesn't matter how church leaders live, they still take money from people who are being exploited and don't haver to earn their own keep or pay taxes like the rest of us.
Using the offerings - the profits - to grow the organisation is just spreading the reach of the gang or cult, whilst exploiting yet more people.
Many scammers don't believe what they are doing is wrong, so every single point you make is, in fact, simply wrong.
14 - Zingzing
Sounds like the world's biggest, longest, most self-righteous Ponzi scheme. I don't think growing the church should be the goal. Using that money to do good in the community is a different, far nobler goal.
15 - John Lake
It has been my experience that some churches, usually but not always in remote areas, have a tacit undercurrent of Satanism. One way or the other, some church members are taught to discriminate against those not involved in their churches. Religious groups tend to dominate areas, and force minorities out by refusing them employment or housing.
Ours is an era of definitions. Marriage has been redefined. Does the word “church” necessarily mean a place where God is worshipped, or is in still a church if they are secret Satanists?
I’m sure I have here offended some readers, but I speak from my experience, and stand by it.
16 - Clav
The practitioners of Voodoo (which is widely and openly practiced here in South Florida) call their places of worship "churches." It's a church if that's what you call it.
Voodoo is widely practiced in the Caribbean and Latin America, which is how it got here in the first place. One of the more important of their practices is animal sacrifice. A few years ago, their right to that practice was fought all the way to the Florida Supreme Court and won. Voodoo ceremonies now legally include animal sacrifice. The workers in the town hall of one of the towns that forms Metro Miami regularly have to walk very carefully into the building on mornings when the town commission is deciding an important (and disputed) new law, in order to avoid stepping on the animal carcasses littering the sidewalk and steps up to the building.
In Brazil, the religion is called Candomblé. It is very openly practiced, with churches everywhere, though Catholicism is still the primary religion there. In the 1970s, I traveled frequently to Brazil on business, and on one such trip, happened to be there for New Years Eve, a major holiday on the Candomblé calendar. In homage to Iemanjá, the goddess of the sea and giver of good fortune, the various congregations assemble on the beach at nightfall, stake out their areas, and push the sand into a large mound in the center of their area. On the mound, they place offerings to Iemanjá consisting of fruits, candies, and even cigarettes and rum. Each congregation has their own small music ensemble playing the old traditional instruments. The air soon is a cacophony, but nobody minds; they all begin to dance around their sand mounds, and many fall into deep trances as they dance.
At the stroke of midnight, the young men in each congregation pick up a crude handmade reed boat-raft, load it with the offerings, and carry it down to water's edge and launch it.
The legend is that if the boat gets past the waves near shore and goes out to sea, Iemanjá has accepted it and the congregation making the offering will have good luck in the new year. It happened that the year I was there observing, there had been a pretty good storm that morning, so the waves hitting the beach were pretty substantial, and the offering boats were not getting past the waves, at which point, the young men who had launched them jumped in the water and swam them out past the waves to ensure they would get to Iemanjá and bring her favor on the congregation.
It was a very interesting and picturesque evening.
17 - Glenn Contrarian
*sigh*
Chris, zing, and John -
I know none of you believe, and that's up to you. But when it comes to a church wherein the leader(s) do not live extravagantly, flaunting their wealth, or otherwise fail to use the offerings responsibly, tell me - how is that any different from a counselor? When it comes to a generic not-quite-so-whacked-in-the-head church, what does that church do but counsel those who go to it? Most churches can quite literally be likened to businesses - heck, in the Philippines, a church must be registered as a "corporation sole" (Google it, if you like). Like any business, those churches provide a service and they try to grow...and there's a heck of a lot of businesses out there that I'd trust less than I would religious organizations!
The preachers of most churches think they're doing what's best for the people, and they certainly do quite a bit of one-on-one counseling and comforting as well - most bereaved and brokenhearted families are deeply grateful for the comfort and solace that a preacher (or priest or mullah or monk or whatever) can give - that's a crucial part of what they do. What's more, for every idiot preacher who uses his position to abuse someone and winds up in the news, there's a hundred who don't - but you never hear the good news in the news, do you? And when you condemn a religion, what are you doing, really, but condemning the people who belong to that religion? For there is no religion without people belonging to that religion.
For Chris - I'm not defending a 'gang'. I'm not even defending the Church of which I'm a member. I'm simply referring to religious organizations in general.
And for all - you can despise religions as much as you like, but IIRC atheists don't have such a great record when it comes to keeping the peace, either. This might come as a great surprise to you, but we're all human, religious and areligious alike.
To write off the majority of humanity as fools or whatever simply because they believe in this or that religion, to make assumptions about their education or logical facility based on their faith, really isn't much different from the kind of prejudice I grew up with. Whether the prejudice is against race, ethnicity, disability, age, gender, sexual preference, or religion, it's still prejudice. It's all different stenches of the same stinking pile of crap that is prejudice.
18 - roger nowosielski
There's another fast one that some of the commenters here are trying to pull. In particular, Diana's rather biting critique -- not a rant because ranting comes close to raving -- of the entire ethos that pretty much defines today's US of A is being conveniently ignored, as though amending our tax code was all that was required to turn things around. And so, we've changed the topic and stripped the article of its intended venom.
I said, "trying to pull" so as to give those commenters, whoever they may be, greater credit than they might otherwise deserve. To accuse them of naivete, of truly speaking with a straight face, not suspecting in the least that Diana's points could well go beyond the simple matter of taxation, would be far more demeaning, IMHO.
I'm proceeding on the assumption that most BC denizens, although there are always exceptions, are not complete idiots.
19 - Dr Dreadful
Hi all: the site's spam filter seems to have decided you're all desperate criminals this evening and is blocking everything. I've released your comments and hopefully this will persuade it that you're not all Nigerian businessmen trying to deposit $15 million into somebody's bank account.
I think you should all have my email address, so if you continue to have issues, please let me know.
20 - roger nowosielski
Well, let's hope it's not going to be as bad as the last time around.
21 - Irene Athena
Clavos -- Homeless people come to my church every single day for food, and no, they aren't required to listen to a sermon. Volunteers from the church bring the food, they cook the food, they serve it, hang out with the people who come to eat, and then these volunteers clean up afterwards. The church isn't skimming anything off the top from those donations.
The churches in the city have divided up the responsibilities for caring for the poor. Some focus on food, others on shelter, clothing, transportation, medical needs....
See the thing is, you have to have a place to COOK the food, to serve the food, and it would be nice for the homeless people to have a HEATED building when they come in from the cold., You have to have a place to store the diapers, and the coats, and the toiletries that are distributed...
Tax the churches if you think you're going to be helping the homeless by doing so. But before you do, you might want to follow some homeless people around for a week, and observe the types of places where they are getting help day-to-day.
22 - Glenn Contrarian
And if you really think that preachers are all hucksters pushing scams, let me relay to you one particular name: Dr. Martin Luther King.
23 - Irene Athena
Tax the churches if you think it will help the poor. Before you make the decision, through, you might want to follow a few homeless people around for a week and see where a lot of them are getting help day-to-day (food, shelter, toiletries, diapers for their kids, clothing, medical care, transportation.)
A lot of people, when they are down and out, come to the church for help. The churches aren't in competition with all those soup kitchens the atheists are hosting. People serving the poor need all the help they can get.
24 - roger nowosielski
Income inequality in America.
25 - Capt. Hook
Irene,#21:
Except for the idea that it's time we start taxing the churches, I didn't say (I didn't even imply) any of those things you're accusing me of in your comment. Perhaps you're addressing another commenter?
But to answer one of your points: I don't advocate taxing the churches to help the poor, and the taxing I advocate would be along the lines of the income tax for individuals and corporations: graduated and progressive according to income, so the poor churches would pay little to no tax, while the televangelists and the Vatican outposts, as well as other wealthy churches (Creflo Dollar, Billy Graham, Church of Scientology, e.g.), would pay in accordance with their wealth.