Friday Night at 8: The Rich

(Peggy Lee, “Why Don’t You Do Right,” with Benny Goodman, etc., courtesy of YouTube’s nik 1297)

The rich want to get richer.  Rich, rich, rich.  Ah, the good life.

‘Course there’s old money and new money and probably a whole lot of other categories as well.

My ex-husband’s best friend came from an extremely wealthy family.  He was enormously, shall I say, “thrifty.”  Wouldn’t ever take a cab, only subways,and if he could walk and save the subway fare, all the better.

I know another fellow who came from modest circumstances in Brooklyn and now is very wealthy.  He’s the least materialistic person I’ve ever met and I have no doubt if he lost all his money his personality and character would not change one whit.  I find that amazing, and am glad to have known such a person.

Then you have the young urban professionals, who in Manhattan, can be making up to high six figures annually.  Of course there’s exceptions, but they’re the ones who give business to all the trendy restaurants and nightclubs.  They also provide great color to the Big Apple Scene in their youth and fashion.  Whether these folks will stay wealthy remains to be seen, but a good percentage of them will.

I have nothing against rich people.  I remember when Bush stole the election in 2000 and begun his criminal tax cuts for the rich, there were a whole lot of rich folks who objected, and especially super wealthy parents who weren’t exactly thrilled with the slash in the capital gains tax (maybe their heirs weren’t entirely admirable, who knows).

I work for lawyers who make a lot of money.  Much of that is spent in the first several years of practice paying off student loans and also paying way too much rent to live close to work.  I’ve spoken to many of the newbies over the years.  In the 80’s, oh that was a bad crew, obnoxious, rude, arrogant and entitled.  But for the past decade or so, each new class is as nice as can be, they have ideals and want to make a difference in the world along with making lots of money to pay off their student loans.

There’s a lot of rich folks who would pay way more taxes with no complaint.  I know this because I’ve spoken with some and read about others.

I’m not rich, by the way.

Unfortunately, there’s also a lot of stupid people who are rich.  I don’t think you should be allowed to be rich unless you pass a test, really.

There are incompetent dolts who occupy some of the highest positions in business and commerce, in all our industries both for and non-profit.  They make a lot of money and do nothing but screw things up.  I think that happens when a bureaucracy becomes too big and I guess when the power structure of a society becomes too lopsided and corrupt.

The stupid rich people don’t even enjoy their money.  They’re too busy using their energy to keep folks from realizing they are stupid fools.  It really is a shame, all that money being wasted.

We have old dilapidated institutions here in America.  And we have fresh minds who are unfazed by confronting the challenges of our times.  It isn’t the rich who are the problem.  The big obstacle to this union of problem and solution is the criminal crooks and common thieves who are occupying the White House in Washington D.C.  They have spread their poison throughout the land and in every state, city and town, their minions have prospered, in an icky sort of way.

There are solutions to our problems.  We need to get rid of these crooks, throw them in jail, make our society understand this kind of behavior is no longer allowed — I believe that’s called, um, laws, something like that.

I’ve written a lot about impeachment over the last several years.  The circumstances will change after November 2008, but the need for accountability will not.  No matter who gains the White House in November, to me that goal of holding these crooks to account will hold just the same as it always has.

We have solutions, and people who know how to implement them.  But there’s a stinking obstacle in our halls of government.  Make no mistake about that.