Rich vs. Poor
By Thom Hartmann A...
The rich love to demonize the poor, but it turns out that the wealthy are the ones who need a little shaming. Paul Buchheit over at Alternet compiled various reports, studies, and analyses, and found clear evidence that the poor are way more ethical than the one percent. In fact, after reviewing all the data, Paul found clear correlations between wealth and unethical behavior, between wealth and a lack of empathy, and between wealth and being unproductive. In other words, the rich work less, care less, and cheat more often than the working poor.
For example, an analysis of seven psychological studies found that so-called “upper-class individuals” were more likely to lie in a negotiation, break traffic laws, take valued goods from others, and even cheat to increase their chances of winning a prize. Numerous studies also found that those in a higher social class were more narcissistic than poor individuals, to the point of even looking into the mirror more often. In addition, the wealthy didn't fair well in studies about understanding the needs and feelings of others, about contributing to charity organizations, or even about taking on the risks of an entrepreneur.
For decades, we've heard right-wing memes about welfare queens and takers, but it looks like all of that was just a diversion to keep us from figuring out that the rich are scoundrels. The one percent has tried to convince us that it's our fault we can't get ahead, and that it was hard work that put them at the top. Now we know that it was actually a complete lack of ethics that made them their fortunes, and that kept us from sharing in the prosperity. We need to disprove the cliché that “nice guys finish last.” Let's take our economy back from the cheaters and the crooks.
Comments
#2
I wonder if there's a genetic coorelation between being wealthy and immoral/unethical. If there is, perhaps we should prevent the wealthy from reproducing, with the goal to eventually cleanse those bad genes from the pool. And maybe a DNA test for those bad genes to identify the closeted wealthy wanna-be's.
I'm home sick right now, so this is probably just a anti-histimine-induced fantasy.
Gotta dream big.
#3
Spot on Thom... lock 'em all up and throw away the keys!
#4
LOVE of money IS root of ALL evil CORP BILLIONAIRE LOBBYIST GREED I
ITS NEVER ENOUGH FOR THESE FOLKS
#5
Years ago my aunt was an arts photographer in a major American city. She routinely dealt with wealthy patrons. She reported that their manners left much to be desired and many were extremely stingy and arrogant. My son, who has also dealt with wealthy clients, says that, frequently, the wealthy are among the great unwashed, as well.
Bad manners, stingy, arrogant, adverse to general hygiene, and all the things Thom mentions above--sounds like someone I'd want to emulate and running our country--not.
lie in a negotiation, break traffic laws, take valued goods from others, and even cheat to increase their chances of winning a prize. Numerous studies also found that those in a higher social class were more narcissistic - See more at: http://www.thomhartmann.com/blog/2014/05/rich-vs-poor#newlie in a negotiation, break traffic laws, take valued goods from others, and even cheat to increase their chances of winning a prize. Numerous studies also found that those in a higher social class were more narcissistic - See more at: http://www.thomhartmann.com/blog/2014/05/rich-vs-poor#new
#6
If money is the root of all evil why do Democrats want to take it all from the Republicans. Wouldn't that make them evil.
Funny I never thought of Oprah, Gates, Buffett, Clinton, Pelosi etc as evil. Huh.
#7
Quote Kend:If money is the root of all evil why do Democrats want to take it all from the Republicans. Wouldn't that make them evil.
Kend ~ What a perfect aristocratic and greedy perspective. Is Zoro and Robin Hood also evil for taking money? The Democrats don't want to take the money for themselves as you would lead us to believe. Actually, they want to take the money to use to finance the commons that benefit everyone. Wealthy people just don't want to have to pay any fair share of that which they also use. Now that is truly evil. To answer your question no, the Democrats wanting to take money from the Republicans in the form of progressive taxes doesn't make them evil. It doesn't even make them remotely as evil as the Republicans; who only want to pocket profits that they will never need or use. All it means is that the Democrats are doing their job
#8
Us with faith in all types of things like decency,morals,and god
As opposed to faithless vicous,moraless,and godless people
Sounds like basic age old ""good versus evil""
Yes what comes around goes around and evil will return evil,
Not very smart people, sad really. All for the love of worthless numbers.
#9
A few working definitions bring Mr. Hartmann's point into sharp focus:
Capitalism is an economic system based on infinite greed elevated to absolute virtue. Infinite greed is the rejection of every humanitarian principle our species has ever articulated. The rejection of all such principles is moral imbecility. Capitalism is therefore the economic expression of moral imbecility.
Capitalist governance means absolute power and unlimited profit for the One Percent and the Ruling Class in general, total subjugation for all the rest of us -- in other words, capitalist governance is fascism, also known as plutocracy or (perhaps) "sociopathocracy": rule by moral imbeciles.
Nazism is the ultimate form of sociopathocracy. Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf -- in English, "My Struggle" -- is the bible of Nazism. Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged -- a fictionalization of the ubermenschen/untermenschen heirarchy that is the core principle in Mein Kampf -- is the bible of capitalism. Both are epics of moral imbecility. The relationship between Mein Kampf and Atlas Shrugged demonstrates the relationship between capitalism and Nazism: the latter is the ultimate expression of the former.
Thus We the People should have no difficulty foreseeing the terrible, final price we will pay if the moral imbeciles who now tyrannize us are allowed to remain in control of our nation.
#10
Quote Loren Bliss:Capitalism is an economic system based on infinite greed elevated to absolute virtue. Infinite greed is the rejection of every humanitarian principle our species has ever articulated. The rejection of all such principles is moral imbecility. Capitalism is therefore the economic expression of moral imbecility.Capitalist governance means absolute power and unlimited profit for the One Percent and the Ruling Class in general, total subjugation for all the rest of us -- in other words, capitalist governance is fascism, also known as plutocracy or (perhaps) "sociopathocracy": rule by moral imbeciles.
Loren Bliss ~ I have to hand it to you brother. You certainly have an inspired way with words that make me blush. I agree with everything you've said. Please keep them coming.
#11
#12
Kend- reading your lame, clueless posts makes me awfully glad you don't vote here. - AIW
#13
Austerity is genocide without the (now-unfashionable) death camps. From the perspective of the One Percent, it has the added bonus of enabling the Ruling Class to blame the victims: "she chose to pay her rent rather than buy her medications and she died; it's all her fault."
Such is capitalist governance -- and it will get unimaginably more savage, probably even death-camp savage -- before there arises an organized resistance with enough solidarity and discipline to overcome it.
#14
Austerity transforms an entire society into one big-ass death camp. - AIW
P.S. Howdy Loren! Cheers!
#15
At various times on this forum I've said our culture nurtures psychopathy. Thom has just done an excellent job validating my point. Excessive wealth warps personalities.
Take our two-tiered justice system, for example; one that punishes rich people's misdeeds with velvet gloves while in stark contrast, bringing down the sledge hammer on anyone else who breaks the law. The wealthy are "above" the law, therefore they don't have to act ethically or responsibly. They don't even have to grow up, no matter how old they are. Thus our culture encourages psychopathy and narcissism in the upper classes.
Understanding the needs & feelings of others, giving back to society, earning one's keep, supporting causes greater than one's self interest… all these things are part of what it means to be a mature adult. Therefore each one of these well-heeled brats Thom describes is just another case of arrested development. Overcompensation and unearned privilege are largely if not exclusively to blame. In a caste system such as ours, "nice guys finish last" is more than a cliche; it's reality.
Meanwhile right-wingers love projecting their worst characteristics on the rest of us. It's how they exonerate themselves… all of it false pretense, of course. Unfortunately too many people still buy the lie that millionaires & billionaires "earn" what they've got, or that they possess a special talent or characteristic making them somehow more worthy, more deserving, than the rest of us. All of it hogwash, of course…
Like ole Jim Morrison shouted onstage, at the booing crowd: "You're all a bunch of slaves!" Or just sorry suckers. Take your pick. - Aliceinwonderland
#16
Hello, Alice. Always a joy to see you!
#17
Apropos Jim Morrison and Deathcamp Nation, Tom Waits said it pretty well too -- so well it should replace that bullshit propaganda on the base of the statue of liberty, so it now says STEP RIGHT UP, in neon yet, flashing, first the message, then a line of dollar signs, then the line of $ illuminated sequentially from left to right, one $, then $$, then $$$, then $$$$ until the entire line is lighted. Then a moment of darkness. Then STEP RIGHT UP. Then the $ again...24/7, the new eternal flame, forever. STEP RIGHT UP.
#18
For those who unfortunately do not know Tom Waits and his bitingly relevant cutting-edge work -- rap before there was such a thing -- here is "Step Right Up":
#19
I'm a Tom Waits fan. Great poetry, hot piano licks, all swathed in this skid-row sort of aura... a one-of-a-kind, true-blue original! - AIW
#20
Figured you would be, Alice. Bet our record collections -- LPs back in the day, CDs now -- contain lots of duplicates.
#21
I just listened to "Step Right Up" and wow what a masterpiece! Never heard that one before. No piano licks, but what a cool bass line. (I'm really into bass lines...) Sax sounds great too. And you're right, Loren; it truly is a rap song, even with bass & sax!
Mr. Waits was ahead of his time, no doubt. What's more, the guy's sense of rhythm and phrasing are to-die-for. Thank you so much for sharing! - AIW
#22
Allen Ginsberg, whom I vaguely knew, held forth at great length about Dylan's "Hurricane" (on the 1974 album Desire) being the fulfillment of the poetry/music blend that came out of the Beat era, and for maybe three years I accepted that as aesthetic gospel. Then a woman I was involved with introduced me to Waits' work, which I have felt ever since truly IS that fulfillment of which Ginsberg spoke. But this -- this YouTube cut I just posted -- blew my mind. I have the original remixed on CD and as we both know, it's superb. But this variant on YouTube is truly something else. And that's gotta be the most deliciously rowdy whorehouse sax I've heard in years, maybe ever.
#23
And thank YOU for digging it!
#24
Loren, you never fail to put a smile on my face.
Such nocturnal old bohemian socialists, we are! And proud of it. - AIW
#25
Indeed, Alice, very glad to have lived as we did -- and do. Thank you again. G'night.
#26
Loren, the label 'kakistocracy' fits nicely if the emphasis is moral fitness.
#27
Kend: Democrats are asking that the wealthy only pay/contribute their FAIR SHARE to the government and society and country that has afforded them so much. The only thing they came to the table with was an idea--the rest of us did the work. We extracted the raw materials. We made. We delivered/transported. We bought. We sold. We paid taxes, so they could rake in subidies and obtain low-interest loans (while the rest of us are raked over the coals in high interest) and pay the settlements for lawsuits brought against them for shody product that harms the customer and fellow citizen. We built and operate and maintain the roads and bridges and ports and railroads they use for NO COST or very little cost. They did not do it all themselves. They had help--lots of it--and are spitting on that help. They are ungrateful, ill-mannered,...
They (the wealthy and, by association and complicity, rethuglicans) have made the environment hostile for small business, while pretending to be for them, as they have the ear of our legislative and judicial branches and MAKE policy. Competition is a joke to them. Market share are falacy. They want all of a market
Fair is all people want. We want to rear our families in peace and health, have a home, have a job that pays living wages, retire without fear. The wealthy treat the real people who do their real work and who buy that work with general disdain. History shows that they will pay the ultimate price for greed and selfishness--something they began, they perpetuate, and should expect unless they change. Only they can stop this eventuality.
I don't see anything to admire about the wealthy and the rich-ass-kissers who defend them. They have ruined and are contributing to the downfall of the United States, as they did in Rome and Russia and France and China and.... They are unpatriotic, criminals, and traitors. And they should be judged as such.
#28
New mantra for the Democratic Party, "Are you better off today than you were thirty years ago?"
#29
Ya your right Alice America sure doesn't need hard working job creating people like me that pay hundreds of thousands of tax dollars to vote. What would America become.
#30
Elioflight- Thumbs up! Yeah! I concur. Coulda written it myself...
It is kindred spirits like you, Loren, Marc, Sandles and a host of others I've to thank for my sanity, along with much inspiration. Truth to power! At least that's where it starts... - AIW
#31
#helpvets Flashback: Republicans Block VA Health Care Funds: http:Proof it is the Republicans to blame for VA problems by blocking Berny Sanders bill...
And all the Fox Boobs and clear channel radio stations that fired all the commentators of the radio stations they bought and brought in their own, like Rush Limbaugh, who they gav e a $400,000,000 dollar 8 year contract ($50,000,000 a year) to spew out garbage day after day like a broken record... also, sean Hannity, Mark Levin, and a whole host of others continue to blame Obama and the Democrats for all the problems with Health Care... They continue to mock the ACA despite it does not affect them or their health insurance since most of these bastards are millionaires. Makes you wonder if they are also on the Koch Payroll like Paul Ryan, Speaker Boehner, Mitch M. and all the Tea Party shills that got elected into the house of representatives along with all the Tea Party governors that rejected Medicaid expansion.
Just take 5 and scroll down my twitter feed and share these with your friends to help us @ #uniteblue get our message out to the voters so as to inspire voter turnout to vote these bastards out of office.
https://twitter.com/RACmoveToAmend
They say a picture is worth 1000 words, well I've put together hundreds of pictures that reveal all the dirty tricks the Republicans have been doing to screw the poor. the link above will show them in picture form...
#32
Kend, my husband & I have always fared best creating our own jobs, for the most part. Being at the perpetual mercy of someone else's whims is no way to live... especially if that "someone's" interests happen to conflict with our own. A given in the typical work environment, regardless of what type of business it is. - Alice IW
#33
Enact a progressive tax on net worth. The first $10 million exempt. Increase inheritance tax. No one starts out with more then $20 million in life. Restructure the institution of higher learning. End wealthy benefactors appointing regents and chancellors. End the trophy positions. Cap salaries of college sports coaches and staff. Today administration costs are double student endowments. Make it a percent of student endowments. First two years of college free. End tenure for it leads to cowardice in educators. A failed economic system is a result of a failed education system.
Increase fees on a progressive scale for political advertisements on our airwaves. All this money spent on politics can be channeled back to the public. End the tax deduction for political lobbying.
We learned over 50 years ago the "Ruling upper class power power elite" from Domhoff. They mean to rule us all. The Bush-Reaganomics defeated the Carter green energy movement. The petrol-chemical corporations hold the economic gun to our heads and force us to consume their goods. They don't understand that gun is held at their heads too. The planet they are warming up will destroy life on this planet Life their great grandchildren will need for survival. What fools! What spineless jellyfish cowards we have become as a society. We are walking hand in hand with flower baskets to our doom. All we have now is words to write. Waiting for the starry starry night.
#34
Craig, I agree with everything you've just stated, but for one exception; the amount of assets exempted from such a tax. Ten million?!!! Waaay too high, my friend. How about one million? - AIW
#35
Alice: Thanks--kindred spirit. Hey, I need you guys, too, for my sanity.
#36
Craig Bush and others -- Why do you try to keep coming up with new tax structures? The tax structure of the new deal worked quite well. Among other things, it kept anyone from becoming a billionaire. If we could go back to that tax structure, we need to insure that no one takes over the media to convince us that the New Deal tax structure was bad.
#37
These studies about rich people may have some truth to them, but there are many questions about human behavior which social scientists have not been able to adequately explain, and the idea that rich people are all the same and are all bad, with no good among their ranks, seems like an over-simplification. Rich people have set up foundations which engage in work which has nothing to do with poltiical influence and control. Rich people often have helped to support the arts, which in America receive little or no government funding; if you are too poorly informed to know much about visual or performing arts, than maybe this aspect of philanthropy would seem irrelevant. People with money have supported scholarships for college students, medical research, and many other worthy causes. Tavis Smiley is indirectly involved with research on poverty that is being funded by a well-known foundation based in Baltimore. The John and Catherine McArthur Foundation together with Harvard conducted a study of renters, which found that there is an increase in people who rent or want to rent, because of the inability to afford home ownership, and that many renters have difficulty in being able to afford to meet expenses. People in this country are not entirely without some rights and some ability to affect policies. Many are either apathetic to what is going on, or think that rich people are completley innocuous. More time should be spent on these progressive talk shows in thinking up new ideas and strategies to combat the negative influence of wealth on government and on business. Thom and his fellow progressive or left-leaning hosts come across sometimes as being emotionally depressed, and that goes against the whole notion of taking action.
#38
Kend -- America has more hard working people than any other country according to various studies. What we need is more of socialist ideas of Canada. Ideas that put more money in the hands of those hard working people. That money will create the demand wihich actually creates jobs. The jobs which the 1% take credit for creating but actually just went along for the ride. The key thing the 1% are good at is destroying jobs through efficiency (AKA as productivity). The 99% responsibility is to make sure that productivity is shared by all. The 1% support people like reagan to make sure they receive all the benefits of the productivity. The evidence is shown in a plot of productivity and median wage. Since 1981, median wage has stopped increasing.
#39
Robindell -- Why are you implying that Thom is oversimplifing? He said more likely.
#40
Kend,
The fact is there are many people that are well endowed with money as well as integrity, but the issue is much more basic than that--people with fewer means don't have as much to "want", and when they do, the hits them like a brick, and, often enough the laws are made by people that create rules that make it impossible for some poor people live a rational life. A woman with liimited means many not be able to afford a babysitter for the times she has to see her caseworker, so she takes the kids along, Then too, in areas where thieft and larceny are more common, the babysitter may see things that she passes along to "friends", with the result of the woman's flat "gone missing". It happens--is she a "welfare queen" because takes a cab so she can get back home with three kids more quickly, instead of waiting for a bus?!
Heck, is a father of children from two women, one his ex, and the other, well . . . who loves his kids, all of them a lawbreaker when he sees, all of them each at different times, and supporting the ex, and the "mistress" In some societies it's quite acceptable, and even a social norm so that a man that doesn't take care of the children of "the other woman" is considered to have shirked his paternal responsibilites. Only in America we punish the women for taking money from the men that fathered their chldren, not just adding to their income, but fuliling their obligations to what they "brought intot he world".
This hectoring of people that try to get by on almost nothing is downright un-Judao-Christian.
What is true that you forget is the concept of Stewardhip, something that is expressed in some Christian Churches, and in Judasim, as well, the notion that reason we are granted "more" is to enable us to provide for those people that have "less" It is said that Andrew Carnegie lived on one tenth of his income, providing libraries, some of them currently being closed because the those erstwhile "stewards" and philanthropists imagine that what they "unearn" is theirs to enjoy.
It' isn't evil. if my understanding of Classic Christian thought it's a dealy sin--Avarice!
#41
"Now we know that it was actually a complete lack of ethics that made them their fortunes, and that kept us from sharing in the prosperity.".....I've never heard a better argument for justification of returning to the pre Reagan tax rates.
#42
Robindell, of course there are exceptions. No one is saying ALL rich folks are this or that; only that when examined and analyzed, patterns emerge, showing that wealthy people are, as a group, prone to certain devious, irresponsible behaviors more than less privileged, less pampered members of society. I think your interpretation of what's been said is a little shallow. Thom has simply pointed out how certain personality disorders are nurtured and encouraged by unearned wealth and overcompensation; also that this has been analyzed from some sort of data collected, such as (I would guess) personality testing and/or statistics. Since the oligarchs have claimed for years that it is poor folks who are the takers, the irresponsible ones, the devious ones ad nauseam, why is it not worthwhile to call attention to evidence that would refute these claims, exposing them for the lies that they are?
I think the bottom line here is that we'd much rather have a social/economic system where extremes of wealth and poverty don't exist, where we needn't rely on the generosity of a super rich class of people to support things like the arts, medical research and so on; where these things belong to something known as the commons, shared by all.
You seem to be criticizing Thom and other progressive talk show hosts for sounding depressed. Why shouldn't they be? In today's environment, there's plenty to get depressed about. I see no reason why being depressed or angry must somehow cancel out any potential for action. While it is hardly advantageous to be controlled by one's emotions above all else, emotions have their place. I get kinda tired of hearing progressives always accused of being "too emotional". Might as well accuse us of being "too human". - Alice IW
#43
Chuck, don't you ever get tired of having to point out the same things over and over again, to the same people? Such as the simple necessity of paying workers enough to keep the economy functioning, via the goods and services they need just to function from day to day? And the idea that demand creates jobs; that without people having enough money to spend, businesses suffer along with the economy… Hardly sounds that mystifying to me. Yet for some reason Kend just doesn't seem to get it. Like his inability to comprehend the necessity of universal healthcare, along with the feasibility and advantages of such a system. Whether Kend fails to comprehend any of this out of willful ignorance or from genuine cognitive limitation, I think there comes a point where we'd be wise to back off and withdraw our efforts. I don't know about you, but I get awful tired of repeating these things. - AIW
#44
Now Kend this is where I think businesspeople are not so smart. You supply jobs ONLY when there is demand for your product. That demand comes from PEOPLE/WORKERS with MONEY in their pockets. Without that demand you need not supply anything to anyone and you might as well sign up for welfare or go work for someone else and let them treat you like crap.
You are waging war on the people who make your product and who buy it--the people YOU DEPEND ON FOR PROFIT. How do you not get that? Were you alseep in business class. I edited business textbooks for a living--took basic business classes in college. I know what's in them.
Business in the United States pays very little in taxes. It's all over the news and here on Thom's blog--are you not reading it? If you pay thousands in taxes in Canada, then good for you--I say that's something to brag about not bitch about.
Business people are like a bunch of whiney babies--they want everything handed to them; they don't want to pay taxes or overhead; they don't want competiton; they don't want risk; they want the government to give them subidies, low-interest loans, deregulate so they can profit without barriers. Guess what BUSINESS IS RISK AND HARDWORK--and if you cannot DEAL with these realities, you should not be a businessperson. Business is a CONTRIBUTION to society not a pocket-filler for the bloodsuckers, the ruthless, the greedy, and, perhaps, the stupid. Business is supposed to be about making a living and providing a living for others--it's not the "get rich scheme" you all seem to believe it is.
Yes, Alice it gets boring saying the same things over and over. All conservatives have the same illogical answers and not-thought-out-at-all phrases for every occasion. I've heard them all and can predict them with great accuracy that I think I could and perhaps will write a book on their tired and lame responses: Lame Conservative Answers for all Issues.
#45
Yeah Elio, I've heard Thom, Ed and Randi (not to mention various economists, along with some bloggers here) make those same points over and over and over, about the necessity for working people to be able to afford the products & services businesses provide in order for businesses to stay in business. (HELLO.) They might as well be arguing that the sun rises in the morning and sets in the evening, or that we need air to breathe in order to stay alive. ("Duhh… really?!") They seem unwilling to acknowledge the important role workers play in the functioning of any economy. It's all part of this lame ideology the rulers & takers keep hammering at us from their ivory towers, to justify anti-labor policies, austerity, etc. and make us feel obsolete, powerless and irrelevant. Because when people are disempowered, they are less likely to fight back. - Aliceinwonderland
#46
Studies like this should be broadcasted!
#47
Quote Loren Bliss:For those who unfortunately do not know Tom Waits and his bitingly relevant cutting-edge work -- rap before there was such a thing -- here is "Step Right Up":
Loren Bliss ~ Thanks for that brilliant song. It sure did stick a chord with me. (Pardon the pun) Right now I'm torn between cleaning out a house and helping my company "downsize." It sure did hit home. (Again, pardon the pun)
Another song that rings this bell is from John Fogerty, "Fortunate Son."
Fortunate Son, by John Fogerty (CCR) Video
"You're house kinda looks like a Rummage Sale." How true! How true!
#48
Quote Aliceinwonderland:Craig, I agree with everything you've just stated, but for one exception; the amount of assets exempted from such a tax. Ten million?!!! Waaay too high, my friend. How about one million? - AIW
Aliceinwonderland ~ I'm not so sure I agree with either of you on this one. Thom should have elaborated in his discourse as to just what wealth constitutes as fostering ill social behavior. Remember, to you and I, $1M is a lot of money. However, it is small change to someone with $1B. Remember that the vast majority of wealthy elites who are causing austerity and so many of our other social ills have wealth well into the Billions of dollars. Before we judge as to the appropriate cut off perhaps we should look at who has what and exactly what they are doing with it first. After all, you don't want to throw out the baby with the bath water. For instance, the Kennedy family always had millions; yet, look at what they gave back with it.
#49
Quote chuckle8:Craig Bush and others -- Why do you try to keep coming up with new tax structures? The tax structure of the new deal worked quite well. Among other things, it kept anyone from becoming a billionaire. If we could go back to that tax structure, we need to insure that no one takes over the media to convince us that the New Deal tax structure was bad.
chuckle8 ~ Well said! I agree!
#50
Quote Robindell:These studies about rich people may have some truth to them, but there are many questions about human behavior which social scientists have not been able to adequately explain, and the idea that rich people are all the same and are all bad, with no good among their ranks, seems like an over-simplification.
Robindell ~ A very excellent point. Remember, even FDR, the author of the New Deal, was relatively rich too.
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