“If we want the whole world to be rich,” P.J. O’Rourke famously wrote, “we need to start loving wealth. In the difference between poverty and plenty, the problem is the poverty and not the difference.”
This is starkly at odds with President Obama’s overwrought, aggressively divisive rhetoric on income inequality. Demonizing wealth earned honestly, as the president likes to do, puts the nation’s poor at great economic risk. Defending the free market system that enables the poor to rise is essential to moving beyond divisive economics and giving everyone the same opportunity. That is the crux of Jeb Bush’s op-ed in the Wall Street Journal today:
We have to make it easier for people to do the things that allow them to rise. We have to let them compete. We need to let people fight for business. We need to let people take risks. We need to let people fail. We need to let people suffer the consequences of bad decisions. And we need to let people enjoy the fruits of good decisions, even good luck.
That is what economic freedom looks like. Freedom to succeed as well as to fail, freedom to do something or nothing. People understand this.
Punish job creators and you will have fewer jobs; punish wealth and you will have less wealth. Those who don’t have much wealth to begin with–the poor–will suffer most. The central question of a Mitt Romney candidacy, should he win the GOP nomination, is whether or not he will he feel secure enough to make this argument. On “Fox News Sunday” yesterday, Romney left the impression of a candidate who is halfway there:
WALLACE: Rick Perry calls for a 20 percent flat tax. Newt Gingrich has a 15 percent plan. You would keep the top tax rate at 35 percent. And in contrast to most of your rivals, you would not lower the tax on capital gains and dividends for anyone making more than $200,000 a year.
Question: aren’t you basically right there with Barack Obama; the rich should pay more?
ROMNEY: No, I’m just saying don’t raise taxes on anyone. I want to make sure that with the precious dollars we have, that we can provide tax relief, that those dollars go to middle income Americans.
The people who have been hurt in the Obama economy are not the wealthy. The wealthy are doing just fine. The people that have been hurt are the people in the middle class, so I focus those precious dollars that we have, I focus that on the middle class.
It’s unclear what Romney actually means when he says “those precious dollars that we have,” but the implication certainly seems to be one of attacking “the difference” and not “the poverty” itself. Later on in the interview, however, Romney comes back around to offering the kind of common sense and historical proficiency the current president lacks:
WALLACE: In your last book, you repeatedly talked about creative destruction, the idea of creative destruction in capitalism. First of all, what does that mean to you? Creative destruction?
ROMNEY: Well, it’s an unfortunate but in some respects essential part of free enterprise and the example I use in my book is when someone came up with inventing the tractor, it destroyed a lot of jobs. It destroyed many enterprises that people in the horse-drawn plow business went out of business. And yet the wealth of the American people and the well-being of the American people grew dramatically. Invention — whether of a new product or a new technique or a new invention tends to put some enterprises out of business and encourage other businesses to become more successful with the — with the outcome that the entire society becomes better off.
Romney is going to have to repeat that line often enough for the country to hear it over the inevitable flood of class warfare that the president’s nearly $1 billion will buy him. That’s what it boils down to: the president is proposing a system in which “the right to rise,” as Bush calls it, is constantly attacked. Romney is defending a system in which the right to rise is available to all. He need not be shy about it.
"“If we want the whole world to be rich,” P.J. O’Rourke famously wrote, “we need to start loving wealth." n nMaybe "we" DON'T want the whole world to be rich. Maybe "we" want the whole world to have the food, shelter, health care, education, and income they need to live lives of dignity. Everytime you or others like you write stuff like the above quoted, you demonstrate how completely and profoundly you fail to comprehend what the vast majority of human beings truly want, and what they have *a human right to have.*
By the World's standards, to have food, home, health care, education, and income, and ability to care for one's loved ones who are unable to care for themselves – is actually GREAT WEALTH. In the 70's, the average income in the WHOLE WORLD was LESS than the income of a schoolboy's newspaper route after school. There is nothing inherently evil with seeking financial independence for oneself, independent of the govt or charities, or with wanting to keep most of what one earns for oneself, and NOT being compelled to feed a voracious and always starving DICTATORSHIP that seeks to control by means of bleeding off more of our income than we can afford to surrender.
"By the World's standards…." n nYes, that's my point, Rose. And although the standard of living in this country is generally higher than in many other countries, most Americans are not only not rich, or even close to being rich, but are struggling to pay for basic necessities. Many have to choose between buying food, paying the mortgage or the rent, and seeing a doctor when sick, and can't even think of paying any other bills. Millions of Americans have lost their homes, are living in their cars or on the street. A large number of those are children. n nMy point, Rose, is that P.J. Crowley, when he wrote, "If we want the whole world to be rich, we need to start loving wealth," was not referring to the relative wealth of having the basic necessities of life. He was referring to CEO-of-an-oil-corporation wealth, and he is saying that we ALL want to be rich according to that standard, and that we should all love wealth of that kind. n nI am objecting to that claim, because it is absolutely 100 percent false. In fact, in reality, most Americans are NOT wealthy and do NOT believe that our country should love and cater to the wealthy. They want to be able to feed their families, send them to good schools, raise them in safe homes and neighborhoods, and be able to take them to the doctor when they're sick. And we're not going to get there by opposing all and any government regulations, taxes, social services, or by giving tax breaks to corporations and the wealthiest Americans. That's not going to help anyone but the people who need help the least.
The problem with such an "altruistic" attitude is that there are only TWO WAYS towards folks having more – ENOUGH! – a good job or small business of their own – or THEFT. GOVT THEFT isn't anything BUT theft, it is a Marxist "theory" that they never live by, it is their sales pitch. But we see the nations that have "progressed" in it and the misery index there is exponentially increased because the Govt budget is NEVER going to be enough to cover their promises. Meanwhile, their method REQUIRES people stop trying to legitimately acquire these necessities on their own IF they want to participate in the insanely inadequate Govt programs. nMeanwhile, all Producers will tell you "I NEVER GOT A JOB FROM A POOR MAN." nOur Founding Fathers' goal was that Citizens should have means at hand to be financially independent and recognized that families building together was the best way for that to happen. Look at any of the families that were "living large" three generations ago, BEFORE A LOT OF THE NEW REDISTRIBUTION SYSTEMS were in place, Personal Savings accounts were LEGAL AND PROMOTED (NOT referring to LIMITED ACCESS IRA's which the Govt is fixing to STRIP from the SAVERS) and Inheritance and Capital Gains – the LACK of those taxes and their policies meant that a family could build, and far more of them then took care of their entire family than did those where one heir cut out the others. In spite of literature. In the 60's, it was common to have families whose wealth was built over generations. AND though the houses and cars and clothes were great to live up to their reputations, fact was, the wealth was so spread in the families that the cash flow was NOT that great, and in the next three generations, all was lost, due to taxes and mismanagement – largely due to failure to realize the impact of changes in the tax laws. n nAttacking the Wealthy – the JOB GIVERS – has resulted in 50% of Americans getting their income from the GOVERNMENT. It doesn't take a math wizard to figure out that the other 50% of Americans cannot support GOVERNMENT, THEIR OWN FAMILIES, and 50% of Americans. No matter how wealthy they are. n nSo, where is the CREAM going? to wealthy POLITICIANS who never held a SECULAR FREE ENTERPRISE JOB in their lives, who are bleeding off TAX DOLLARS to fill their PRIVATE COFFERS at your expense. nDo you realize how many of them have salaries, savings, and pensions that make that of "WEALTHY CEO'S" of huge monopolies look PALTRY??? nAnd they are the POLITICIANS who help those monopolies bust all the ANTI-TRUST LAWS??? nAND TELL YOU HOW IMPORTANT IT IS FOR THE RICH TO PAY HIGHER TAXES? n nOne of my uncles fell for that and found the primary retirement fund of the 1960s – to sell the family home when it became an "EMPTY NEST" and retire on the CAPITAL GAINS from it by buying a small house or apartment, an RV and a BOAT and traveling to their hearts content – WAS WIPED OUT FOR MIDDLE AMERICA because MIDDLE AMERICA fell for the PLOY of CAPITAL GAINS TAXES on the RICH – Their PROFIT on their HOMES was stripped from them – they didn't know they were "WEALTHY" – they voted for Capital Gains taxes based on the urging of their union stewards, and blamed Republicans for the consequences. And were shocked when tons of the BEST JOBS were lost as business in the USA closed down – as the "wealthy" stopped buying – ESPECIALLY BOATS! Which took down Steel Mills, etc, etc, etc… Whole industries that were NOT Mega Monopolies shut down. American Cotton mills. nAnd the employees all managed to hear union reps explain how the REPUBLICANS did it. And the DIM POLITICIANS laugh all the way to the banks. n nStudy the Founding Father's Financial Principles where they desired the govt to get out of the way of lawful enterprises that would give FAMILIES financial independence. And THAT made America STRONG. nWhen the Democrats went after this stuff, the USA had led the world in SMALL PERSONAL SAVINGS accounts to back mortgages. nOVERNIGHT, INSURANCE companies became the prime backers of mortgages. n nPause and seriously consider THAT.
PJ Crowley is a George Soros right hand man and was behind the Middle Eastern Revolutions this year, laying the groundwork for many years. nHe is an evil man and heads up Soros' organzations which are all Marxist. So if HE is advocating WEALTH, you can bet it is NOT from Honest Enterprise but from something else entirely. n nWhat I am talking about is REMOVING enough Govt regulation to give Honest Enterprise a chance to BREATHE!
…*a human right to have.*r nr nEven the most elementary reading of history makes it manifest that human beings have no natural rights whatsoever.
Then so-called "conservatives" should stop claiming that they do.
I remember when JEB Bush said, "I know I must be doing something right because I have equal numbers on both the Right and the Left very angry with me." (pretty tightly paraphrased) – scrubbed from Fox transcripts. n nHe doesn't VAGUELY remind me of what I am looking for. News sites and Internet can scrub all day long – I'll never forget why I deem him inappropriate for Elected Office. He's a heavily LEFT leaning RINO to me. nAnd he is NO George Washington Bush, by a long #### shot. either.