Monday 27 January 2014

The Paranoia of the Plutocrats

The rich are different from you and me department:  as usual Krugman nails it in today's New York Times.  He comments about the out-of-the-ballpark criticism by the 1 per cent of attacks on what they have and receive:

"We are...talking about wheeler-dealers, men who push money around and get rich by skimming some off the top as it sloshes by. They may boast that they are job creators, the people who make the economy work, but are they really adding value? Many of us doubt it — and so, I suspect, do some of the wealthy themselves, a form of self-doubt that causes them to lash out even more furiously at their critics."

He adds: 

"Anyway, we’ve been here before. It’s impossible to read screeds like (these) without thinking of F.D.R.’s famous 1936 Madison Square Garden speech, in which he spoke of the hatred he faced from the forces of “organized money,” and declared, “I welcome their hatred.”

"President Obama has not, unfortunately, done nearly as much as F.D.R. to earn the hatred of the undeserving rich. But he has done more than many progressives give him credit for — and like F.D.R., both he and progressives in general should welcome that hatred, because it’s a sign that they’re doing something right."






No comments: