Wealthy liberals are often accused as hypocrisy. Conflating liberalism with socialism, conservatives seem to believe that rich libs don't have integrity unless they redistribute their own personal wealth evenly across the world's population.
So I did a comic showing what would happen if the world's wealthiest man did exactly that.
Click on the cartoon to see it larger.
Sorry Ted. You can cry all you want, we're still going to pound that idea into the heads of red state voters. We're not going to allow you to convince the working class that they're really best aligned with liberal Democrats. And there's nothing you can do about it. LOL!
ReplyDeleteWhat's sad is that the anger of working class Americans is a *class* anger, but that the lack of any radical working class movements in America since the 1940s has meant that the anger has been co-opted by the right-wing and turned into a weird funhouse mirror version of itself. They're still angry at the rich, but they align themselves with politicians who do nothing but cut corporate taxes and never really address the "social" issues they claim to oppose.
ReplyDeleteActually, Ted, why don't you just do the math for the top 400 richest Americans and Americans themselves -- 1.54 trillion divided by 300 million. You get about $5000 per person -- which might be nice, but wouldn't actually go towards doing much as the GDP of the US is 13 trillion or so, giving everyone (except those 400) an average 11% bonus of their per-capita GDP income.
ReplyDeleteIn other words, the redistribution of cash won't really do anything except make Christmas shopping interesting.
What we need is a fair distribution of education, housing, and goverment services. But that takes real work, and who has time to work when they can hide cash in their freezers and solicit undercover cops for bathroom action?
Yeah anonymous, there's a word for conservatives who seek to completely ally the working class to them: fascists.
ReplyDeleteActually, the top percent would give the average US citizen an average of $80,000 in yearly INCOME if the wages were flattened. We are having a strong wealth imbalance that is getting worse and worse every day. The best way to "Flatten" it would be to re-instate Tariffs, trade barriers and strong consumer and labor protections. Let local farms feed local people. Let local factories produce local goods. No more poisoned toys and shit laced salmonella spinach from the third world being sold at a ruinously low competitive price. Kick out illegal immigrants by enforcing existing laws. That way, the "Free Market" would actually have a semblance of freedom and people could demand fair wages and though they'd be a little higher, fair prices.
ReplyDeleteI love to frustrate liberals. It's so fun because we easily convice the NASCAR crowd that the Republican Party is their best friend, and there's nothing libs can do about it. Logic, reason, persuasion, facts ... it makes no difference.
ReplyDeleteLOL!
Sex with a tighty righty is fun because they squeal like little piggies! I also like the idea of $8.50 American or Canadian either will now buy a six pack of Molson and a lime. Thank you republicans for the sliding dollar.
ReplyDeletehi ted,
ReplyDeletenot sure where you going with this cartoon - $8.50 is a lot of money in the context of much of the "developing world" -
it would effectively double the income of the poorer 50% - which would - given the cost for basic substenance, etc. - probably increase medical and educational support tenfold or so. or at least get them out of the "debt" "they" "owe" to "us"...
sure it would probably not be practical to give money away just like that (e.g. inflation) - but that wasn't the point, was it?
btw there was a recent report that the philantropic (sic) foundations such as the Gates foundation is actually part of the problem -> the "investments" of these funds (i.e. shell oil in nigeria) lead to more problems than the eventual charity is likely to "solve".
regards
andreas
I thought I wrote this already but charitable organizations can be a part of the problem for more reasons than one.
ReplyDelete1) they help give a false sense to the voting public that there is less need for government spending than reality dictates.
2) as andreas points out "the "investments" of these funds (i.e. shell oil in nigeria) lead to more problems than the eventual charity is likely to "solve".
"
Thank you for calling Commies-R-Us. All of our revolutionaries are currently busy or in prison.
ReplyDeleteWe at Commies-R-Us do not believe in outsourcing revolution. You can be assured that we use only indigenous revolutionaries although we do use the experience of others throughout the world.
For those of you who insist on waiting for someone to answer your call, may we suggest reading Can American Workers Make a Socialist Revolution? By George Novack?
Have a nice revolution.
And now for something completely different.
According to The CIA World Fact Book, the average GDP per person is USD10,200 (2006 est.). So we have a disparity between the $8.50 derived by dividing up someone's wealth and the average GDP.
I think people tend to obscure the difference between the wealth created by people working and the wealth that is stolen from them by the Capitalists.
Some of that wealth the Limousine Liberal was gained by his own effort but the rest was gained by the exploitation of others. So, in dividing it up is one way of returning but it is still a more part.
A better idea would be to do without the Capitalists. Cut out the middle men.
Showing that redistributing wealth is meaningless does not change the fact that limousine liberals are hypocrites. Edwards is a prime example.
ReplyDeleteScapegoating small-time hypocrites takes away from solving the real issue. Also, charity is a drop in the bucket compared to sane economic policy.
ReplyDeleteCan you really call Bill Gates a Liberal?
It amazes me how often these comics get misinterpreted. It's not a matter of scapegoating rich philanthropists. As Ted has pointed out in the comic, the absurdity is that wealthy individuals could give away all they own and not come close to scratching poverty. On a whole, sure, the rich are stingy when it comes to charity (as a % of their income), but it wouldn't really make all that much difference if they gave it all away. I think the point is that everyone is guilty. Rich philanthropists may be hypocrites, but poor Americans are just as idiotic to suggest that these individuals should redistribute their wealth when it won't do that much good. The desprately poor don't need cash, they need food, clothing, and shelter. If you want things to change, adopt an economy without a dehumanizing system where most of the wealth is held by corporations, governments, and the superrich. I suppose the reason so many people got so many different messages from this comic is that we're too comfortable with one-punch political comics we can't interpret anything with tones of meaning.
ReplyDelete