Obscanity: You'll know it when you see it

The belief that the wealthy are worthy is waning – Los Angeles Times.

That the point is even open for discussion suggests that a sea change is taking place on the American political scene. For decades, the wealthy have been held up as people to be admired, victors in the Darwinian economic struggle by virtue of their personal ingenuity and hard work.

Americans consistently supported fiscal policies that undermined middle- and working-class interests partially because they saw themselves as rich-people-in-waiting: Given time, toil and the magic of compound interest, anyone could retire a millionaire.

That mind-set has all but been eradicated by the damage sustained by the average worker's nest egg, combined with the spectacle of bankers and financial engineers maintaining their lifestyles with multimillion-dollar bonuses while the submerged 99% struggle for oxygen.

(emphasis added)

I hope his predictions are right. For FAR too long we’ve been living in an a faux democracy where 1% of the people own more than a third of the wealth, and the top 20% own more than 80% of it. The purpose of income tax was to raise revenue for the government, but it was mostly to prevent an aristocracy from forming. Are we there yet?

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