If you thought you had seen it all when it comes to sob stories of the “super rich” following the comparison of the criticisms of banker bonuses to the lynching of black people in the south by AIG’s CEO in September, think again. The latest groveling, inane defense of the “super rich” comes from none other than the gatekeeper of the largest oligarch whorehouse on planet earth. The Mayor of London, Mr. Boris Johnson.
Now I warn you, do not read the following Op-Ed on a full stomach. The vapid, nonsensical, Onion-like prose may very well induce fits of nausea and uncontrolled regurgitation. This is quite frankly one of the worst things I have ever read in my life. It echoes like a sort of grandiose ass-kissing ritual one would have encountered in a Middle Age court from an aspiring manservant of the realm, desperately trying to rapidly advance a coupe of notches up the social strata of some decadent feudal kingdom. Simply put, Boris Johnson should be ashamed to show his face in public after writing such disingenuous garbage.
Now for some excerpts from the UK Telegraph:
The great thing about being Mayor of London is you get to meet all sorts. It is my duty to stick up for every put-upon minority in the city – from the homeless to Irish travellers to ex-gang members to disgraced former MPs. After five years of slog, I have a fair idea where everyone is coming from.
But there is one minority that I still behold with a benign bewilderment, and that is the very, very rich. I mean people who have so much money they can fly by private jet, and who have gin palaces moored in Puerto Banus, and who give their kids McLaren supercars for their 18th birthdays and scour the pages of the FT’s “How to Spend It” magazine for jewel-encrusted Cartier collars for their dogs.
I suspect that the answer, as Solon pointed out to Croesus, is not really, frankly; or no happier than the man with just enough to live on. If that is the case, and it really is true that having stupendous sums of money is very far from the same as being happy, then surely we should stop bashing the rich.
So he starts off right away with complete idiocy. Sure, I genuinely agree that having that much money is more of a curse than a blessing, but that doesn’t mean we should stop bashing oligarchs. Not all (but most) oligarch wealth has been created or maintained and coddled via Central Bank policies that favor their class, bailouts and crony capitalist deals. That’s why the rest of us aren’t benefiting from this phantom “economic recovery.” Perhaps he forgot the saying by Honore de Balzac:
“Behind every great fortune lies a great crime.”
Now back to bumbling Boris.
On the contrary, the latest data suggest that we should be offering them humble and hearty thanks. It is through their restless concupiscent energy and sheer wealth-creating dynamism that we pay for an ever-growing proportion of public services. The top one per cent of earners now pay 29.8 per cent of all the income tax and National Insurance received by the Treasury. In 1979 – when Labour had a top marginal rate of 83 per cent tax after Denis Healey had earlier vowed to squeeze the rich until the pips squeaked – the top one per cent paid only 11 per cent of income tax. Now, the top 0.1 per cent – about 29,000 people – pay an amazing 14.1 per cent of all taxes.
Of course they pay the most in taxes. Just like JP Morgan pays the most in fines. It’s a cost of business and a small price to pay to make sure the serfs don’t get too uppity. Seriously, what planet does this guy live on?
Nor, of course, is that the end of their contribution to the wider good. These types of people are always the first target of the charity fund-raisers, whether they are looking for a new church roof or a children’s cancer ward. These are the people who put bread on the tables of families who – if the rich didn’t invest in supercars and employ eau de cologne-dabbers – might otherwise find themselves without a breadwinner. And yet they are brow-beaten and bullied and threatened with new taxes, by everyone from the Archbishop of Canterbury to Nick Clegg.
So according to Boris, we couldn’t survive with oligarchs. Why not just bring back royalty? Oh wait…
The rich are resented, not so much for being rich, but for getting ever richer than the middle classes – and the trouble is that the gap is growing the whole time, and especially has done over the past 20 years. It is hard to say exactly why this is, but I will hazard a guess. Of all the self-made super-rich tycoons I have met, most belong to the following three fairly exclusive categories of human being:
It’s not hard to say exactly why the gap has widened. I’ve basically been writing about it for years. His conclusion; however, exposes his embarrassing bias.
(1) They tend to be well above average, if not outstanding, in their powers of mathematical, scientific or at least logical reasoning. (2) They have a great deal of energy, confidence, risk-taking instinct and a desire to make money. (3) They have had the good fortune – by luck or birth – to be able to exploit these talents.
I know a lot of people that demonstrate the above qualities. Many, many people, and none of them are oligarchs. So please give it a rest.
We should be helping all those who can to join the ranks of the super-rich, and we should stop any bashing or moaning or preaching or bitching and simply give thanks for the prodigious sums of money that they are contributing to the tax revenues of this country, and that enable us to look after our sick and our elderly and to build roads, railways and schools.
Now he’s totally off the deep end. I hear the Onion is looking for writers…
Indeed, it is possible, as the American economist Art Laffer pointed out, that they might contribute even more if we cut their rates of tax; but it is time we recognised the heroic contribution they already make. In fact, we should stop publishing rich lists in favour of an annual list of the top 100 Tax Heroes, with automatic knighthoods for the top 10.
Knighthoods. Makes a lot of sense actually since there generally seems to be a strong negative correlation between folks being knighted and being decent human beings.
If this was your attempt at continuing to inflate a oligarch housing bubble in London, congrats Mr. Johnson. Well done. Perhaps some day, you’ll receive your precious knighthood.
Full article here.
In Liberty,
Mike
Follow me on Twitter.
Donate bitcoins: 35DBUbbAQHTqbDaAc5mAaN6BqwA2AxuE7G
Follow me on Twitter.
How can you reconcile liberty with the support of taxes and a view those who earn more need to have more of their wealth confiscated at gunpoint by the state. This article reeks of envy and frankly belongs in the category of fanatic central planning cheer leading and wealth redistribution at its most virulent. You cannot reconcile this view with liberty and have shown your true colors.
You need to take a step back and calm down. Where did I EVER call for higher taxes. My point was actually the opposite, that taxes don’t matter to these people. It is a cost of business to them to keep the serfs quiet. I am in favor clamping down on cronyism, ending bailouts and restoring the rule of law. I have never once in my many years of writing called for higher taxes. So read what I actually write and get a grip on yourself before spouting nonsense.
Michael Krieger
The end of empire is not a pretty picture. Bumbling Boris is the last of a dying breed. It is indeed sickening to watch. Hopefully the average person is also able to see through the charade, though sometimes I wonder if people are really listening. It is more like Boris is talking to himself, and hoping he is tossed a few shillings by his constituency.
0.1 % contribute 30% of taxes and there is outrage because that 0.1 is “rich” – this is the shocking aspect of western Society that is veering towards Marxism at an alarming rate. Thanking them sends out a message they are welcome – probably to encourage more of these tax contributors to the UK, however people blinded by envy cannot see this.
Marxism, fascism (crony capitalism), it all leads to the same place for most of us, Pete.
Plenty of us are against both. You might consider joining the club.
He’s just feathering his nest. Cameron is toast after the next election, no matter who wins. Boris sees himself as Camerons successor. A good session of ass-licking is never wasted.
There is a British TV series where millionaires pretend they’re “normal” people, and at the end of the show, they reveal themselves and give money to the plebs. Have you guys seen this show?
To me, it seems like blatant propaganda, that they hope they’ll be remembered for their kindness when the bankers start getting lynched.
Well, maybe your correspondents have a better point than you do.
What a hateful, envious, nasty peace of work you are. Thanks to your type of thinking the collectivist society is almost here. Any good book
on the success of communism written after 1990 should cure you. Buy some.
I fling your whole comment right back at you, Guy.
Communism, Socialism, Fascism–all are collectivism. The US and Britain are fascist, with some socialist trappings to prevent mass revolt.
No one here has said ‘the rich are evil’. But anyone with any awareness of what is going on in both the US and Britain knows that the financial sector and the military-industrial-intelligence complex have become parasitic on society and thereby generated huge personal wealth for a select few, at the expense of the many.
I am contrary to most “isms” which involve governments taking individual property and civil rights and enforcing their will by force.
The virility with which Boris Johnson was attacked from all sides, including this blogger is indicative of peoples views on wealth: In today’s world celebrating wealth is abhorrent and getting rich does not equate to achievement but having something which should be punished with plunder … how far we have fallen
Do you recognize that a lot of the wealthy in “The City”, as well as in many other places, got their wealth through dishonest, even criminal, means?
You seem to be willfully ignoring that fact.
Advocating the liberty of oligarchs to plunder does the ‘liberty movement’ no favors.
Here’s a concrete example of how the game works, Pete:
http://kingworldnews.com/kingworldnews/KWN_DailyWeb/Entries/2013/11/27_Paul_Craig_Roberts_-_The_US_Is_Being_Destroyed.html
You are worse than these “bloggers” you bash. First of all, I am well off and have no envy of anyone’s wealth.
I have NEVER bashed wealth in itself, I have bashed oligarchs and what they are doing to society via their crony relationship with government. If you cannot see that, you aren’t paying attention. In a free market you don’t have oligarchs and neo-feudalism.
A final point.
In a single post you both decry government taking by force, and defend a government bootlicker who has dedicated himself to helping oligarchs steal from the rest of us (e.g. LIBOR and all the other scandals originating out of London).
What gives?
There are criminals in all strata of society – what is your point? Are you suggesting that all super rich are criminals or the only way to get rich is through nefarious deeds?
I have made my position, not suggestions, clear for many years now. The proof is in the pudding. The oligarch class (including politicians) is funneling the wealth of the rich and middle classes to itself, all the while providing scraps for the newly formed poor and marginal so that they do not revolt. This is obvious and the data shows it to be true.
My point should be very clear for anyone to understand. A random criminal does not affect society at large in a major way. A crony capitalist billionaire criminal or a group of them have the ability to destroy societies, cultures and empires through their crony deals and theft as they have done throughout history and are doing now in the USA.
I would expect most wealth is generated through providing something that many people want.
Crony capitalists get wealthy by leveraging, corrupt and out of control governments – they are the result and not the cause of the problem. You forgot to clarify only the gratitude going to Crony capitalists was being criticized, however methinks your reaction was a broad based assault on wealthy individuals.
You can “thinks” all you want, but all you are doing is making stuff up and spouting nonsense. I have a track record of many years writing and hundreds of thousands of words written, none of which ever has been bashing wealth or rich people, rather bashing crony oligarchs. Period, end of story you are making things up. Find something better to do with your time than invent fantasies.
Michael Krieger
Well, it’s a slightly more reasonable comment, Pete, except for the concluding phrase.
Yes, it would be nice if “the top 0.1 per cent – about 29,000 people” paying “an amazing 14.1 per cent of all taxes” had all, or even mostly, gotten that wealth honestly. But I see no reason to believe they have.
If you’re wealthy, and you got it honestly, I salute you. But if you want to be an apologist for an utterly corrupt system, you will be shouted down, period.
Your assertion that crony capitalists are the result of out-of-control gov’ts, not the cause, is simpleminded. Just as a friend of mine who wants to put all the blame on ‘the corporations’ and none on gov’t, is simpleminded. They’re two sides of the same coin.
There was a time when the ‘envy’ accusation worked to shut people up . Just as there was a time in the US when accusing people of being un-American if they didn’t support all the warmongering worked to shut people up. No longer. The reality is too obvious, and with the internet it’s too easy to point out the facts for any with eyes to see.
Examples of the corrupt system and its effects are too numerous to go into here. But briefly:
The fiat money system by its nature works to concentrate money into fewer and fewer hands. Look at the results after one century of the Fed, and it’s clear. The Fed was created by a handful of super-wealthy, and their bought politicians. See Griffin’s ‘Creature from Jekyll Island’.
The financial sector has looted society, as numerous websites chronicle daily.
The military-industrial-intelligence complex has consistently pushed us into illegal, imperialist wars based on lies, for profit. This was obvious even back in the 1930s–see Smedley Butler.
The health-pharmaceutical-insurance-food-chemical-biotech complex. These interests have literally gotten rich off the chronic ill-health of the masses, by denying them info on how to be truly healthy so they could sell them non-solutions.
The for-profit prison system, jailing people for victim-less crimes, while our gov’t can’t find the bankers laundering 100s of billions of drug dollars annually, and our soldiers are in Afghanistan are guarding the poppy fields.
etc. ad nauseum
This is a system that the ‘greatest generation’ and baby boomers created. They literally sold their descendants into bondage. Why? Because they were conned and herded into it by a group of super-wealthy elite and their henchmen, and it was just easier to go along.
You may perceive this as a diatribe against wealth in general, but it’s not.
If the honest, good-hearted wealthy will get their head in the game and get serious about understanding and fixing the problems we’re facing, we might find our way back to a reasonable approximation of a free market system where people can succeed or fail based on their merits. This is what I would like to see.
Otherwise, it will be either ‘1984’ or ‘1789 France’, and either way I doubt the honest wealthy will fare very well, nor should they because they will have abdicated their responsibility.
Actually the best way to become a billionaire oligarch is to inherit your wealth. Very few oligarchs actually earn their wealth. However they have set up a system whereby as rentiers they are able to continue amassing wealth by looting and raping the middle class. They own the system and they have lackeys and toadies like the Mayor Johnson to justify things.
GHJ – you mention central banking, military industrial complex, the incarceration system big pharma do you think these industries and those that have grown wealthy through them operate in a free market (capitalism) or are they products of government meddling with laws, patents, other sovereign countries, revolving doors etc etc – the blame squarely lies with the government as enablers of this “system”
You are tiresome Pete. Do you think anyone at this site does not recognize the gov’t side of the problem? Do you imagine there are not private-sector figures behind the gov’t?
You started this conversation defending the following distribution of wealth by insulting the vast majority of the populace as ‘envious’.
http://tcf.org/assets/images/blog_images/20130304-video-wealth-inequality-in-the-us-is-worse-than-you-think.png
from: http://www.people.hbs.edu/mnorton/norton%20ariely%20in%20press.pdf
All your comments are deflections. Debating with you is as useful as debating with my ‘liberal’ friend who places the whole problem in the private sector. Might as well debate Dems vs Repubs.
Gangs