The Different Kinds of Rich

I was watching Keith Olbermann give an impassioned rant about Tea Partiers and taxes. It blew Keith's mind that middle class and working class people would fight for rich people to keep more of their money. Keith's argument was that these poor imbeciles thought they were going to be rich one day themselves, so they were fighting for their future rich selves. He then went on to say this was a pipe dream. These people were never going to be rich. Needless to say, it gave a lot of food for thought.

The first thing I can say is that eating the rich doesn't work when it comes to saving this country from its fiscal problems. There isn't enough money among rich people to plug that hole, and that is assuming that you loot them to the last penny. The bulk of the money rich people have is not invested in solid gold plumbing fixtures, so the rich can shower and shit in style but in capital investment that provides goods and services. Eating the rich only results in cutting your own throat.

The second thing I can say is that eating the rich doesn't work because the rich can escape. They already do this now by moving their money offshore. They will simply go the next step and move themselves. People may argue that there should be laws to prevent this sort of thing, but it would ultimately result in the USA becoming a prison nation like North Korea. This is pretty ludicrous.

I'm alright with rich people keeping what they earn, and it isn't because I think I will become rich. But my heart doesn't break for them either. If compassion for the poor does not move me to support the welfare state, you can be certain that I have no compassion for the rich. The rich loot just as much as anyone else looking for bailouts, subsidies, and tax breaks denied to the rest of us. Among the rich, you will find few libertarians because the rich support the status quo. They support the welfare/warfare state. If that same state should turn around and loot those rich fuckers, I think this is ironic justice. Serves them right.

But I want to focus on Keith's assertion that Tea Party people were imbeciles because they think they are going to be rich someday. How true is this? Do these people really think like this? And considering that Olbermann is a rich asshole, where does he come off saying shit like this? Is he an elitist?

What I can say is that it is stupid to believe that the average person is going to be Bill Gates. This isn't going to happen. People don't appreciate just how truly rich these billionaires are. There is a wider gap between what Bill Gates makes and what Michael Jordan makes than there is between a doctor and a janitor. When a rich liberal like Olbermann can rant about the rich, he isn't talking about himself. He knows this gap. Even as a millionaire, there is a smaller gap between Olbermann and a janitor than there is between Olbermann and Gates. This is why Keith identifies more with a working class guy like me than he does with a guy like Bill Gates. This is why it blows his mind when a guy like me identifies with a guy like Bill Gates. But I don't.

It is relatively easy to go from poverty to making the median income in the USA. This is because the median income is the average. You have to be lazy or very unfortunate not to make the median income. You can make more than the median income with hard work. This means working a second job or becoming a dentist or starting a plumbing business. This is the kind of rich that most Tea Party people dream of becoming, and their number one foe is the government. Between regulations and taxes, it is damn hard to be entrepreneurial. This is what Olbermann doesn't get. The fact is that the poor/middle class/rich categories doesn't capture how things really are. Here's how it really breaks down.

The lazy poor: These are people who don't work but get by because of welfare and sponging off friends and family.

The working poor: These are people who do work but can't make enough money to support themselves or their families. They make below the median income and struggle.

The blue collar middle class: These are skilled wage earners who make the median income or above. Some even start their own businesses. They do not have college degrees, but they are hard working and know their trades.

The white collar middle class: These are people who make the median income or above, tend to have college degrees, and work in an office. This would include professional workers like doctors, lawyers, dentists, etc.

The small rich: These are people who make more than $250K a year but under a million. Some are even millionaires because of savings, investment, ownership of a business, or what have you.

The celebrity rich: These are millionaires who basically make their money from being famous. This would be Keith Olbermann, Madonna, Lady Gaga, musicians, athletes, Charlie Sheen, etc.

The big rich: These are people who make millions and work largely in the financial services realm. These are your Wall Street types. These are your hedge fund managers. To a smaller extent, you have CEOs of large companies. The one common thing they have is they live in service to capital.

The mega rich: These are the billionaires. These are the people who hold the real wealth. There aren't many of them, but their large bases of capital give them enormous power and influence.

I think my class divisions give a much better picture of how things really are. If I plotted this stuff on an x and y axis with x being wealth and y being virtue, the celebrity rich and the lazy poor would be very close together despite a large gap in income. Here's how it would look:



This is a rough graphic, but this is how I picture it in my mind. When you add in the virtue element, you can see where social affinities come from. The reason a guy like Olbermann can champion the lazy poor is because he has as much virtue as they do. He doesn't do real work. He gets to rant on air and entertain people. Granted, he makes way more than these people do, but this is largely due to luck. If you believe being rich is simply a matter of luck, you are going to identify largely with those down on their luck and despise the virtuous rich. But the rich aren't all the same. A guy who builds a construction company from the starting point of a hammer and his own two hands is far different than a sportscaster turned political curmudgeon who happened to find an audience on cable TV.

People who work are better than people who don't work. How you work identifies you more than how much you make. If you doubt this, consider a lawyer and a plumber who make the same amount each year. The lawyer drives a Mercedes while the plumber drives an F-150. Who do you think will most identify with the waitress serving breakfast at the Waffle House? Now, who is going to identify more with the bum panhandling on the street? The fact is that the plumber will identify more with the waitress while the lawyer will identify more with the bum. This is why lawyers and their ilk will support charities while plumbers tip better at diners but curse a homeless person.

The dividing line is the issue of work vs. luck. If you believe becoming rich is a matter of work, you are going to have one set of values. If you believe becoming rich is a matter of pure luck, you are going to have another set of values. The ones who believe in luck are going to support the welfare state and redistribution while those who believe in work are going to see this redistribution as looting, theft, and a disincentive to work.

Who is right? Is work a matter of work or luck? The answer is both. Even the hard working plumber would have a rougher time of it had he not been born in the USA. I'm sure Keith Olbermann manages to show up at work each day. But the dividing line comes down to whether it was a greater ratio of luck to work. The plumber who builds a business through establishing a solid reputation is much different from the lawyer who had a class action lawsuit fall into his lap.

I can always tell what kind of rich a person is by their attitude towards working people. I find that the founders of companies have great affinities for the working class while the sons and daughters of those founders do not. Talk to a long time Walmart employee, and they will tell you this. Sam Walton was the richest man in the world, but he was good to his workers. His children have not been so good. This is the difference between luck and work.

Tea Party people are not imbeciles for wanting lower taxes. They are people who believe that true wealth is derived from productivity and thrift. They are stupid for thinking they are going to be rich like Olbermann, but I think many of them see themselves starting a business for themselves. KO thinks this is stupid. If wealth is a crap shoot, these people are no better than the fools who play the lottery.

Now, there are people who mix it up. For instance, someone who became wealthy through luck but credits it to hard work is a conceited fool. On the flip side, people who become wealthy through hard work but claim it was luck are seen as being humble and self-effacing. Then, there are those people who know wealth comes from luck, but they believe they can bend luck their way. In short, they are more clever at playing the game. The reality is that these are the crooks, and they will prosper before going to jail.

For me, it boils down to work versus luck. You either decide that the way to get ahead is work more, or you decide to roll the dice. You choose to either grind or bluff your way through life. Both strategies work. I just choose to be a grinder. I'd rather work than gamble. And as I get older, I find myself alienated more and more from the gamblers. This hit me as I ran into a blue collar worker outside of a college. He remarked that there must be a lot of money coming and going through that institution in reference to the tuition. I agreed and added, "Yeah, but they aren't learning anything there." We both laughed at this irony knowing most of the students were going to be pouring coffee at Starbucks.

You have the bums, the celebrities, and the shysters on one side. You have the working class, the entrepreneurs, and the honest people on the other side. I know which side I am on. This is the real divide in this country. It isn't rich versus poor. It is between those who make an honest living and those who are lazy and full of shit. In between are those who haven't made up their minds. This is the college student with six figure white collar dreams. This is the waitress rubbing a quarter on a scratch off lottery ticket. This is the house painter that gets into flipping houses.

If there is a chief vice in all of this, it is not greed. It is laziness. I will save this for a later post.

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