"Damn I'm rich! $$$$"

This was the post of someone I know on Facebook regarding a web site he went to on the relative wealth of most Americans. I know it was meant to show that We The People aren't really doing so badly compared to the rest of the world. I also know it was meant to engender gratitude for what We have. But it still is a gross over-simplification of what the real issues are (and to the conspiratorial mind-set, perhaps is meant to calm and mollify those of us in the 99% of this country).  

But the real issue is in all of this, that however much We Americans have (once again, at least in the 99%) more than the rest of the world, poverty is relative. If you only make a dollar a day and subsistence is $1.25, that's much better than making $6 an hour when you actually need $8 to truly survive. These sites and 'meters' don't take into consideration a great many things. For an increasing many in this country, they are skewing more towards Third (and Forth) World living every day. 

Americans need to simplify their lives for the most part. And they can do with a lot less in the material realm than they think they can. Americans have been led into thinking that they Need To Have so much, because... well, because They're Americans, dammit! The Country has been marketed into excessive material to prove how well We Are as a country (and to feed the 1% 's insatiable need to OWN EVERYTHING). Americans are now as a People being forced to cut back their expectations because those said expectations were not anywhere approaching reason (that's why most Americans are up to the tops of their increasingly disappearing hairlines in DEBT [called the "Sweet Spot" by the Credito-Industrial Complex]).

But that said, the incidence of homelessness is increasing exponentially in this country. I for instance was homeless for almost three years (living on the couches of friends, etc. with no money coming in). And I had these resources to keep me from the worst of it. According to this sites scale, I'm filthily wealthy -- and believe me, that ain't the case.

So, yes. I am relatively well off. I now have enough money to eat, and to pay my (adjusted due to disability) rent. I don't have a car still (in LA, that's sacrilege!). And here it is, yet another holiday, and I didn't have enough 'spare cash' to do anything besides go to a pot-luck party later today. In the meantime, I'm 'working' (writing). I hope someday soon to at least have a car to go for a (small luxury) scenic drive for a holiday. Perhaps soon, I'll have even more available funds to do even more.

But right here, right now, I'm grateful for what I have. I wish everyone else that gratitude as well. 

And I also wish that the World some day comes into more of an equitable equal distribution of quality of life. We're not there yet though. Don't let the truly Wealthy mollify you into believing that this is 'all right' (cause it ain't).

"Class Warfare" vs. Crass Warfare

So. President Obama calling on Taxing The Rich is "Class Warfare," as if the Rich don't know a thing or two about Class Warfare.

When did things get so crazy that the Poor and the Middle Class have to pay full taxes, but for some reason, The Rich need to be exempt? The reason usually given is that; "The Rich are creating jobs for Americans, and that's why..." Nonsense (and my language is cleaned up here for a general audience). The Rich don't create jobs for Americans, they create jobs for their companies. And when it suits them to ship those jobs to foreign shores for slave wage employees, they do it. In a heartbeat. Except for my mind, their having a heartbeat is questionable.

The Rich make often many times (millions to billions of times) the amount of the average American Worker. And to top it off, many of their industries would not exist in this "Capitalistic" society if they hadn't received massive subsidies to build those very same industries (the most egregious examples being the Oil and Nuclear Power companies). And to top even that off, not only do they pay no taxes on their massive incomes, most of these "Captains of Industry" continue to get major subsidies.

Which never, by the way, get talked of being cut by the lackies of The Rich from the US Budget in any way like those elements of/programs for "...the least of these" -- "The Poor will always be with You."

Yes, it's time for The Rich to pay their fair share of taxes. And while we're at it, let's cut their entitlement programs. Let their  business rise or fall by their economic standards, losses, and gargantuan egotistical mistakes. If we need to rise and fall by our personal capitol and mistakes, then so should they.

Tax The Rich and Cut their subsidies, Mr. President. No more Entitlements for those who don't 'need' them becasue of their business expertise (or lack thereof).