Michael Maiello's picture

    Rich, Insecure and Victimized

    By Michael Maiello on Mon, 01/27/2014 - 2:38pm | Politics

    It would be lovely to never worry about money and to work only for the love of it rather than the need to care for ourselves and others that drives most of us out of our warm houses and apartments on frigid days where, all things being equal, we would just rather not.  I imagine that if more of us had real choices about how to spend our days that it would be tougher to find somebody to pay to make you a sandwich but that we'd all be happier for it.

    Judging by the behavior of the upper, upper crust, though, I might be wrong.  Extreme wealth, it seems, also involves the paranoiac fear that it can all be taken away.

    I liked Josh Marshall's take on the Tom Perkins "Kristallnacht" comments and Paul Krugman's as well.  There is also a bit that Patton Oswalt has in his current stand up act that I think sums this up.  He wonders how megarich celebrities deal with the warped reality of their own lives and imagines that they find ways to bring themselves down to Earth just so they know they're real.  His example is Arnold Schwarzenegger -- he started out celebrated because he was very good at lifting heavy weights.  Then he became a movie star in a language he didn't even speak well but it made sense because they had him playing largely silent killer robots and barbarians.  Then the public fell in love with his persona, his acting marginally improved, he made gobs and gobs of money, married into the Kennedy family and became governor of California.  So, of course he had a kid with the housekeeper.  He did it to prove that he can't get away with everything.

    If you're one of the 400 richest Americans who controls more than $2 trillion (that's the Forbes estimate and it's low because it's mostly based on the liquid, reported holdings) you must be shocked daily at the strange circumstances of your life.  Like royalty who imagine some divinityy behind their station they must be somewhat flabbergasted by the random chance of it all.  Sure, they believe they "earned" it, but they can't believe that all of the other hard working and talented people around them who have so much less than they do, are that inferior?  I suspect that they are waiting for reality to assert itself, or for some form of mean reversion.

    Heck, in the lower depths of reality where I live I often wonder what I would do if my job were taken away tomorrow.  I do not have a reliable plan, given my education and credentials, to duplicate my current earnings.  Put another way, I know that I am somewhat generously paid for who I am because I have been fortunate enough to have been noticed by some people with the means and willingness to pay.  I do not believe that those people are easy for somebody like me to find.  So if I am somewhat paranoid, I can only imagine about those with much more to lose.

    Unnoticed in the Perkins story is that, around the same time, the chairman of McGraw Hill claimed that the government's lawsuit against Standard & Poor's is revenge for the ratings agency's decision to downgrade the U.S. Treasury in 2011.  I wrote today about why I think this is ridiculous.  The U.S. government, after all, is why S&P even has a business.

    That, I think, is the hardest thing for me to take about the wealthy paranoids.  How much better can we treat these people?  Obama basically defended them after the Financial Crisis.  They pay lower tax rates than most working people.  No matter how angry the American people get they never seem to support any radical redistribution of wealth. En masse, the people actively oppose this. The stakes for the rich have never been lower. People are talking about tiny tax increases and nothing more.

    If rich people can't enjoy being rich they should give somebody else a turn.

    Topics: 
    Politics

    Comments

    I read the Marshall & the Krugman and you and then I just ran across this on Dealbook

    Nazi Remarks Make Perkins Persona Non Grata in Silicon Valley

    and then this previous

    Anger Over Venture Capitalist’s Letter

    and then I thought of the ultrarich that I have personally known and of the ultra rich described as hosting Obama events in Remnick's New Yorker piece,

    and then I must admit I thought:

    this whole rich insecure and victimized is just a narrative made up out of very thin cloth, mostly hearsay and anecdotals. Until I see a scientific poll of the ultra rich, I just ain't buying anything more than this whole thing is just more stoking of  us vs. them class warfare, which is fine if that floats your boat. But don't present it as journalism. It's a narrative that always sold well in history, so more power to you if you can make hay out of it, but for me, I ain't buying it about most ultrarich Americans these days, sorry.  Sure,it describes outliers like the Koch Bros. and Gerard Depardieu....also Ebenezer Scrooge, Scrooge McDuck, the King of Midas, Mr. Burns of the Simpsons...but not Richie Rich


    by artappraiser on Mon, 01/27/2014 - 4:24pm

    Most of them that I have spoken to or met also seem not to exhibit this kind of anxiety.  And, of course, Josh's friend who gave him the anonymous quote was quick to dissociate himself from the herd as he saw it.

    That said, Harold McGraw did claim in court that Geithner was out to get him.  So, there's that.


    by Michael Maiello on Mon, 01/27/2014 - 4:38pm

    In his book, Theory of the Leisure Class, Thorstein Veblen characterized the super wealthy as a preserve for predatory qualities that were incompatible with the models of efficiency that "workmen" of lower classes need to excel at if they are to survive through the efforts of their labor.

    Veblen talks at length about how cultural norms of the lower classes contribute more or less to the need for such a preserve in different societies. Marshall's comment about the pendulum points to that variable level of acceptance.

    But the bailout of Wall Street brings into question whether the "preserve of predatory values" is happening at all. There was more acceptance of the idea when it operated (or at least was perceived to be operated) upon a winners take all, losers lose everything basis. Now that the super wealthy class has been "saved" in the name of economic man, their previous function in the theater of deals is much less predatory in appearance.

    The change highlights their dependence upon people who actually know how to do things.

     


    by moat on Mon, 01/27/2014 - 4:36pm

    Every conversation I've had with a "well-off" person on this topic has ended up with his saying: "Yes, but we already pay XX% of the taxes--50% of the people don't pay any. How long can be expected to carry this load alone? How much more can we be expected to pay?"

    Of course, we always get into all the other taxes the poor and less off do pay, but that never seems to make a dent. I've had people tell me that everyone should pay at least $1 a year in federal taxes so they'd know what it was like to pay taxes and would feel they had a stake in the society. And on and on and on.


    by Peter Schwartz on Mon, 01/27/2014 - 7:04pm

    I wonder if people who make this argument think that citizens who lived before the national income tax, a fairly recent innovation, had any stake at all in society...


    by Michael Maiello on Mon, 01/27/2014 - 9:24pm

    Acquisitiveness naturally breeds, or even intensifies, a fear of loss. It's the fear of having nothing, of powerlessness, that drives people to acquire, and acquisitions provide a layer of protection, an "overcoat" against the cold. As you note, one hopes to be able to do less as one has more, but that also breeds insecurity. Will one's nest egg be preserved and carry one through, or will one have to draw on principal or even go back to work?

    But the acquisitive impulse is fueled by the fear of loss before, during, and after.


    by Peter Schwartz on Mon, 01/27/2014 - 7:11pm

    Of course, then there was that guy on CNBC or somewhere who thought it was GOOD news that 85 people owned as much as the next 85 billion people (or something like that), and the 85 billion should wake inspired to become one of the 85.

    MM, I think it depends on how much a person is ideologically committed to his economic status. IOW, some people are rich, but aren't very philosophical about it. They did XYZ and became rich. End of story.

    But other people regard their success and that of their friends as confirmation of a philosophical position, which goes beyond the money they have in the bank. So, beyond wanting to defend their wealth, which doesn't need that much defending actually, they become heated when their philosophy is attacked.

    Key to this is convincing themselves that their status is NOT random, but a result of hard work and talent and perseverance--in short, the things those without lack. Now include in that their marriage and religion.


    by Peter Schwartz on Mon, 01/27/2014 - 8:49pm

    I just wish to clarify this.

    85 people own more than 3.5 BILLION people.

    I mean who cares. And as I referred to this earlier in some blog, maybe it ends up being 85 families because of trusts and such.

    No big deal!

    http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/01/22/1271695/

    -Now-that-you-know-85-people-own-

    more-than-half-the-world-here-s-what-to-do-about-it

    But who is counting?


    by Richard Day on Mon, 01/27/2014 - 11:31pm

    Extreme wealth, it seems, also involves the paranoiac fear that it can all be taken away.

    I would argue (judging from what made my father run) that it's this fear that drives (at least some of) them to become extremely wealthy in the first place. So the fear is lurking and ready to pop out as soon as they attain a certain level.


    by Peter Schwartz on Mon, 01/27/2014 - 8:51pm

    I had a friend whose father used to call the phone company every time the operator gave him a wrong number that cost him money. He wanted a refund of the few pennies he had wasted.

    For many years, my friend did well, but not wealthy well. But at one point, he became extraordinarily wealthy, and almost as soon as he did, he started complaining bitterly about taxes.

    He'd say things like, "This is a great country. You can really build something, assuming the government doesn't take it all away." At the time, I think he'd sold his business for something like $100 million, and he was going to have to pay something like $25 million in taxes.

    Admittedly, $25 million is a lot of dough, but still, that left him with $75 million, an amount I could hardly conceive of ever earning or winning. Surely, $75 million was the more than plenty for him and his two-car family. But suddenly, he felt preyed upon; he felt like he had a target on his back and the government was training an arrow on it.

    I never said anything to him because he was a friend, but it seemed to me that he had lost his grip on reality. Then, being the fairest of the fair, I had to wonder how I would feel were I in his position was going to be taxed that way. I'd probably feel some anxiety as that $25 million disappeared from my bank account.


    by Peter Schwartz on Mon, 01/27/2014 - 9:02pm

    I might feel the same but I have no patience for that argument either in myself or in others. Its hard to change how you feel but it fairly easy to change how you think and what you do..

    I'll make a little confession that's a bit embarrassing. I'm 56 years old and I'm a product of my time and my upbringing. I've worked hard to change  the crap I was brought up with and I've had quite a bit of success, but....I'm still a bit homophobic. I feel some discomfort when I see two men kiss. But in my mind I believe in justice and fairness,  respect for everyone's rights and freedoms, and making this world a better place for all people.

    So I'll hide any discomfort I feel if a couple of my gays friends kiss. And I'll be there if there's some protest for gay rights. I'll vote and agitate and write to support gay rights. Because it doesn't matter what I feel it matters what I think and what I do, and I want to do what's right.

    People will always feel discomfort or worse when confronted with those they see as the other or feel discomfort for any number of other twisted reasons. I don't care what people are feeling. I expect people to do what's right or at least try.

     


    by ocean-kat on Mon, 01/27/2014 - 10:57pm

    Well put


    by Flavius on Wed, 01/29/2014 - 9:12am

    Latest Comments