This morning, on MSNBC's Morning Joe, one regular pointed to a front page article on a daily newspaper today about the unfair tax rates for hedge fund managers. I remembered reading about this years ago. This is the type of problem causing the disappearance of the middle class, and the increasing gap between rich and poor.
Even Joe Scarborough remarked today that the rich never came to him when he was in Congress asking for tax breaks, because they had mechanisms for paying low taxes [not really an accurate statement about many of the rich, but it was interesting to hear a true Conservative make the admission]. The reality is the Sam Walton children, already four of the richest 10 people in the world [his widow a fifth], have spent millions buying politicians to get rid of the estate tax so that endless generations of Waltons will never have to work again - I'd heard estimates of $160,000,000 paid out in political contributions by the family primarily for that purpose.
The point of the story is that hedge fund managers pay capital gains rates on millions of dollars of ordinary income - while the rest of us who work for a living struggle on. This is the worst example of the Warren Buffet point that his secretary pays higher tax rates than he, the richest man in America.
The rich are different: Even Bernie Madoff may be kept out of jail and be allowed to preserve millions of his assets while he explains how he stole $50 billion, although his wife claims the millions she has are somehow unrelated to the fraud - oh yeah, right. The guy belongs in jail now - as an economic terrorist, maybe Obama should send him to Gitmo for it's last days - maybe let Blackwater interrogate him to find out where the money went.
Enough of a rant for today. I shouldn't let them get me started.
