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Guest Post: Hating The Rich

Tyler Durden's picture


Submitted by James E. Miller of the Ludwig von Mises Institute of Canada,

In the midst of the extramarital affair scandal involving former CIA director David Petraeus, the mansion which mistress-turned-media target Paula Broadwell is hiding out in was revealed by the Daily Mail. This $2.3 mansion contains seven bedrooms and five bathrooms and is owned by Broadwell’s brother. Some are pointing to the mammoth home as yet another symbol of the vast inequality that pervades the West. It is said that to see the house is to have a glimpse at how the “other side” lives- the other side being subtly hinted to as that of the undeserving bourgeoisie.

In many respects, much of this loathing is well deserved for Ms. Broadwell and her brother Stephen Kranz. A former trial lawyer for the U.S. Department of Justice, Tax Division and Chief Counsel for the District of Columbia’s Office of Tax and Revenue, Kranz is currently a partner at the D.C. law firm Sutherland. Much of his career has focused on the tax code. It appears that he once used the code as a weapon to shakedown other Americans in the service of Uncle Sam. Today, he advocates for taxpayers but the fact remains that he owes his standard of living to the formalized thieving racket the state labels taxation.

So to some degree, a bit of detestation is warranted at Kranz. But consider former presidential candidate Mitt Romney. During the beauty pageant (otherwise called campaign) to become president, the former Governor’s immense wealth was used a basis for attack. He was regularly mocked for the various homes he owned and his net worth of around $250 million. He was criticized for being out of touch with how the majority of the country lived and felt. In other words, he wasn’t a real man of the people.

To that, this writer can only say good riddance. The so-called “people” have been indoctrinated to see wealth as something to take by government force. Romney is by no means a good man- good men rarely make a run for public office. He fell into a great deal of income through second-hand government contracts and political connections. But his intimacy with the state is not why he faced an onslaught of censure. It was simply because he had something few else do - riches.

And because his house was bigger than most, his car collection larger than others, and his tastes more refined, he was hated by the media establishment. Even Romney’s de facto supporters who constituted the “conservative press” were careful to not draw attention to Romney’s wealth. Such would not inspire the hard laborer to rush to the polls in a fevered passion. President Obama ran a campaign based on handing out tickets for an auction of stolen goods. The incumbent’s success on Election Day came as no surprise to anyone familiar with mankind’s universal mannerism of desiring something in the now rather than later.

Western culture is presently defined by many things; one of which being an instilled sense of extreme jaundice toward wealth. No doubt Karl Marx would beam with pleasure in seeing how the contemporary bourgeoisie is regarded with hateful suspicion. His plan of crippling class warfare is slowly taking hold. This isn’t for the reasons Marx envisioned however. In his incredibly flawed understanding, the bourgeoisie would suck the very living out of the proletariat by keeping their hands clenched around society’s capital.

Instead, the accumulation of capital has financed the advent of modern technology. Man now lives longer, consumes more calories, is more mobile, and has ready access to a centuries worth of information. But rather than aid in the masses’ search for truth, the rise in convenience has made the species soft. The ignorant now cling to juvenile appeals of nationalism and the prospect of having government officials redistribute wealth in the name of justice.

Before the twentieth century and the ascendance of the all-intrusive state, sumptuous living was typically seen as something to aspire to. It aroused jealously which fueled a lust for reaching such heights of luxury; not to pick away at success. With its various schemes of theft, the state has institutionalized that which would be considered a crime if done by private hands. It has attracted those who not only relish in stealing by legal decree but also the voters who have a fetish for knocking those more successful down a peg. In short, it has turned envy into a laudable trait which can in turn be used to mask some political scheme.

A great deal of this can be attributed to the government granting of privilege to the well-connected. As long as the state exists, there will be a class of people who use political means to acquire vast swaths of riches. Their opulence feeds the feelings of animus the average man has towards the moneyed. It is through democracy that this hate is put into concrete action. As Albert Jay Nock writes,

Above all things the mass-mind is most bitterly resentful of superiority. It will not tolerate the thoughts of an elite; and under a political system of universal suffrage, the mass-mind is enabled to make it antipathies prevail by the sheer force of numbers.

Democracy isn’t just mob rule; it is a social system which the most craven tendencies of man are appealed to for political success. Instead of standing true for a justice that is based on a set of moral principles, the elected official will sink to whatever cesspool of indecency is necessary to garner just a few more votes. Democracy may start off as a means for self-determination but it quickly devolves into a race to the bottom fueled by endless promises to fill the public trough for the swine to feed at.

The bourgeoisie values of prudence and temperance are no longer respected in the Western world. They are seen as anachronistic and not in tune with the needs of society. This is a self-defeating attitude that will only lead to further impoverishment. For as long as success is punished and high time preferences are rewarded, the capacity for productive efforts deteriorates.

Coercive egalitarianism based on ill feelings of Schadenfreud is a cancer. There is no conceivable benefit in everyone being equal. There is only one moral social system and that is free, unadulterated capitalism which gives everyone the chance to improve their own standing. Anything less represents the triumph of the idiotic masses over good sense.


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Sat, 11/24/2012 - 04:26 | Link to Comment BallsWoodman
BallsWoodman's picture

Great, I'll try and make as much money as possible selling your mother and daughter's vagina to whoever wishes to violate it.  I know you won't complain because you seem to respect any endeavor that produces a positive cash flow. Thanks for the tip. i'll join the club and enjoy the fruits of my labour.

Fri, 11/23/2012 - 14:38 | Link to Comment Henry Hub
Henry Hub's picture

The idea that Americans hate the rich is truly laughable. Americans didn't hate the rich because they believed that they would soon be joining their ranks. Mark Twain said every American is a temporally embarrassed millionaire. Class was rarely mentioned in the past in American culture. Instead we had the liberal, conservative divide. One of the great myths promulgated is that the rich all earned their wealth. Nothing could be further from the truth. Most of the wealth in this country has been inherited. No one resents the wealth Steve Jobs earned with his amazing success with Apple, but they are starting to resent the parasitic nature of the inherited aristocracy.

But now we are starting hear about "class warfare". It is only spoken of recently as a one way street - upward. No one mentions the unrelenting class warfare waged against the middle class in this country in the last thirty years. Things have dramatically change for the worse in this country for the average American. Jobs outsourced and lost, stagnant wages, etc. The 90% are starting to wake up and the wealthy inherited aristocracy are planning to deal with them with Homeland Security and hollow points.

Fri, 11/23/2012 - 17:45 | Link to Comment Cathartes Aura
Cathartes Aura's picture

while I agree with your post for the most part,


I'd just add that you are referring to the aspirational classes in this sentence, and not all amrkns have used up their lives aspiring to be something they are not - something held out to them like a treat to get them to perform the required cultural tricks.  there is a certain type that does perform for treats though, and they're outing themselves with massive bitterness and some anger of late. . .

those who have been focused on their reality, steadily securing it, have never jumped through the hoops proffered.

Fri, 11/23/2012 - 18:02 | Link to Comment Bob
Bob's picture


Fri, 11/23/2012 - 18:23 | Link to Comment Cathartes Aura
Cathartes Aura's picture

it's all in the mind Bob.  as you well know.


Fri, 11/23/2012 - 18:38 | Link to Comment Bob
Fri, 11/23/2012 - 20:15 | Link to Comment Cathartes Aura
Cathartes Aura's picture

ahh, yes, true love is nothing if not idealism!  possibly some sly unspoken commentary too?  I smiled.

I was always partial to this one in my very early years,

always been an idealist, now tempered with lived realities, but still impressed with the youthful visions - these young guys, soul-full:

Sat, 11/24/2012 - 12:04 | Link to Comment Clark Bent
Clark Bent's picture

Except that you are wrong. It is not true that most wealth was inherited. Maybe most super-wealth was inherited, but most Americans actually work for their wealth. What they need is opportunity and that is based on free markets without the rulemaking government tipping the balance its way (and by extension the way of its important constituencies). Just rules that apply universally and are not handed over to enthused and captured federal agencies to favor their cronies and theories. They need real property rights so that the property they earn is real. Diluting the markets with b.s. Fed policy and govenrment increase-home-ownerhsip fantasies allow workers to be defraueded of their live's capital earnings. Leave the poor alone and make the rules count. Quit changing the laws on an hourly basis while rich-kid ssholes with Harvard degrees explore their theories about saving the poor when they haven't the slightest acquaintance with reality. Restricted, even impotent, government is what the poor need and want. Many think that swine Obama is talking about this when he talks about fairness. He isn't, and they are too uneducated to understand. 

Fri, 11/23/2012 - 14:40 | Link to Comment Michelle
Michelle's picture

Anybody can become wealthy - all it takes it determination, hard work, average or above average smarts, lots of optimism with an undying belief that one will achieve success, and a bit of luck that often follows those with an optimistic attitude.

If more people put as much energy into productive endeavors as they do on this board, imagine the possibilities.

There are opportunities everywhere, everyday. Just do it.


Fri, 11/23/2012 - 15:03 | Link to Comment Michelle
Michelle's picture

Those posters junking my above post must be poor and will continue to be poor because of their inability to see opportunities.

Too bad, might be nice to be in the top 0.005%.

Fri, 11/23/2012 - 15:34 | Link to Comment spooz
spooz's picture

Perhaps those posters don't agree with your simplistic cheerleading for a system has become hopelessly corrupted by special interests.

Sat, 11/24/2012 - 11:04 | Link to Comment lakecity55
lakecity55's picture

Methinks she was referring more to personal effort to succeed despite the "system," since everyone here knows it's rigged, rigged worse than anytime except, well, name a time.

I know lots of folks who are struggling, but being successful in a smaller way (due to soft totalitarianism).

Don't give up.  There really are more of us than them.

Fri, 11/23/2012 - 17:48 | Link to Comment Cathartes Aura
Cathartes Aura's picture

classic example of dualist thinking - I'm rich, you're not, you must be envious!

perhaps you're just arrogant and some are rankled.

Fri, 11/23/2012 - 19:37 | Link to Comment Dr. Sandi
Dr. Sandi's picture

Maybe if the cheerleaders would buy a round of drinks for the house from the wealth THEY gained using this proven method, the rest of us POOR bastards would be less cynical in our response.

Fri, 11/23/2012 - 15:18 | Link to Comment batterycharged
batterycharged's picture


Yeah there's always selling drugs, stealing, id theft.....opportunities abound!


Fri, 11/23/2012 - 20:51 | Link to Comment Marco
Marco's picture

There's room at the top for the best or the hardest working ... but how about the also rans? Social mobility has gone down the fucking toilet and it's not because people got lazy. Opportunity is disappearing, simple as that ... it's still there, but not in the way it was in the past.

Fri, 11/23/2012 - 22:48 | Link to Comment Lord Koos
Lord Koos's picture

If hard work was the only criteria for success, most African women would be millionaires.

Fri, 11/23/2012 - 14:58 | Link to Comment ahb
ahb's picture

More drivel makes its way to the ZH features. Americans still aspire to be wealthy and to a great extent still worship wealth even more than they worship authority. Romney lost not because he is rich (in fact a man like that could only reach that level in American politics BECAUSE HE IS RICH), but because he is a pathological liar and narcisist who is too fucking proud of himself to cast his wealth in a way that was palatable to Americans who are finally understanding the connection between wealth like Romney's and the demise of their own finances and prospects for the future. People are finally waking up to see the exorbitant privilege that is given to people in America who only make money with money. They see that people like Romney have available to them ways to dodge taxes and protect wealth that are just not available to the rest.


All of you assholes who are mourning Romney's loss need to realize 2 things: 1. Your days of both benefiting from the government's unfair preference for the rich and credibly complaining about it are coming to an end. People are starting to understand the connection between the continued rise of the elite and the decline of their own prospects and 2. Obama is better for them than Romney because if Romney had won you would have half of the country going back to fighting the elite's agenda instead of embracing it because their own asshole is the guy who's carrying it out.

Fri, 11/23/2012 - 22:45 | Link to Comment Ginsengbull
Ginsengbull's picture

You don't get it. Romney and 0bama are on the same team. They take turns robbing Americans of their wealth and liberties. When they're done, it's away to the FEMA camps for anyone who can't buy their own freedom by paying their fair share of the national debt. Right now it's about $150,000 for each man, woman, and child.


Save your money. Don't waste it on cel phones and thong underwear.

Fri, 11/23/2012 - 22:49 | Link to Comment Lord Koos
Lord Koos's picture

But the democrats at least use some lubricant when they are fucking everyone in the ass.

Fri, 11/23/2012 - 14:58 | Link to Comment ToNYC
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The advent of modern technology? we were sitting there and modern technology arrived thanks to accumulating Capital!!


If that is not the most back-assward distillation of Marx, a dedicated humanist who saw capital ism in 1848 turning children into 14 hr a day worker slaves. Yes he advocated class differences doctrine which should be a lesson for All going  there. Free thinking humans invent and share technology, providing solutions for All the living humans in broadcast range leading to a virtuous circle of making sure to pay the tech-transferers so they like to do it again and not retire from thinking. Thinking is the hardest thing, that's why so many of Henry Ford's other people don't do it.


Fri, 11/23/2012 - 15:16 | Link to Comment bank guy in Brussels
bank guy in Brussels's picture

In 1848, Karl Marx lived at this house here in Brussels, not far from me ...

Where Marx wrote the Communist Manifesto

Photo collection of a friend I have come to know, political refugee from the USA here in Belgium ... All his websites blocked from Google after he published a crooked article that kept a corrupt US federal judge from being promoted to the Supreme Court

Karl Marx's house in Brussels, where he lived 1846-48:


Sat, 11/24/2012 - 10:59 | Link to Comment lakecity55
lakecity55's picture

Too bad we can't send an F16 back in time and do the airstrike.

I'll bet ol Karl was financed by the PTB for his intellectual musings.

Fuck Commies. Fuck NAZIs.


Fri, 11/23/2012 - 15:08 | Link to Comment Crassus
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Many of the hereditary wealthy have no idea why they're rich - usually from an original royal land grant or government contracts. I was amused by the open letter from the Wall Streeter, after the 2008 collapse, threatening those in other professions that all this genius might soon leave the Street and compete with them in their fields. They have no idea that their success is because of Fed and Treasury policy, no professional governing body (like the Bar Association), and the SEC which is unique among law enforcement agencies.

Fri, 11/23/2012 - 16:38 | Link to Comment NuYawkFrankie
NuYawkFrankie's picture

Re "Hating the Rich....."


"They" must be getting very nervous to be dredging up that hoary old chestnut. 

And desperate... if the best "they" can do is to come up with such a transparently nonsensical, blame-the-victim, obfuscating toady apologist for criminal-banksterism - as the author of this piece, Mr James E. Miller.

Fri, 11/23/2012 - 15:48 | Link to Comment batterycharged
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I have to laugh at the elitists calling outrageous advantage as "true free market capitalism".

What insanity.

How did free market get so bastardized? It's as if you didn't have monopolies and billionaires, it was a FAILURE of capitalism.

That rich people were an indication of successful free market.

Here's a little econ 101 lesson. The best free market economies have a LOT OF COMPETITION.

And what is the result of a lot of competition? LOW MARGINS. Yeah, that's right. People don't become extremely wealthy in a competitive market. They only become wealthy when they are Rockefeller or Gates, because they have monopolies and they stifle competition.

So when you say "it helps no one to be equal" and "I believe in free market", you sound like an IDIOT. Why would it help to have dumber people in society or less-advantaged people, if you want true free market?


Fri, 11/23/2012 - 15:57 | Link to Comment Call me Ishmael
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If I wanted to read bullshit I would'nt be reading Zerohedge. "Before the twentieth century, (wealth) was typically seen as something to aspire to"? How about truth and properity as things the only strong people on this earth aspire to?

I'm pretty sure the world was haves and have not before advances in technology. The greatest standard of living ever acheived in the history of the world was built by the poor and middle class with, Yes capitol, and it was taxed highly in the 20th century. Untill the neo-cons starting with Reagan through Bush W looted the country with tax cuts and money to weapon makers, (the democrats are worms too). What does this country make now? Nothing but paper money and fast food.

Go back to calling it like it is ZH. Those that build and preserve life create value and prosper. Those that lie, lie to themselves and eventually run out of places to hide and suckers to take part in their charades.

Fri, 11/23/2012 - 17:25 | Link to Comment Call me Ishmael
Call me Ishmael's picture

To add to the above, Bush W also got the Fed printing money to give to the worlds biggest gamblers way back in 2002, but you can scrap this whole argument!

Why don't the billions that stress over money everyday realize how debt creates money? Then the next logical question, who creates debt? Why does debt have interest? How is there enough money to pay back debt if it's only issued with interest?

How can every human practice, life form, and ecosystem in the world orbit around paying back a loan with interest to a for profit entity with ever increasing efficiency?

Fri, 11/23/2012 - 16:03 | Link to Comment lindaamick
lindaamick's picture

The majority of humans want a roof over their heads, food, clothes and whatever else it takes to sustain a life with dignity. 

It is the humans that STRIVE for wealth at all costs usually involving some scheme which is extractive rather than value adding, that is deplorable especially when these people wind up with more riches than they and all their relatives could use in a lifetime.

"Wealth Envy" is a term invented by the elites to deflect the "greed" spotlight from themselves onto the poor and others lacking resources to maintain a life of dignity.

Fri, 11/23/2012 - 16:13 | Link to Comment Hacksaw
Hacksaw's picture

This is one of the biggest piles of BS that I've read in awhile. There was a time I respected the Mises institute, but with the papers coming out of it lately I'm losing that respect very quickly. They appear to be nothing more than a mouth piece  for the rich bastards.

 Those that lived through the depression loathed the rich, bankers, lawyers, and politicians. Most wouldn't even put their money in the bank. That generation of rich haters supported laws that stopped the fraud and theft perpetrated by the rich and brought about one of the largest economic expansions ever in the U.S. Centralized wealth is as destructive as centralized government or centralized unions. How hypocritical are those who rail against centralized government while advocating for centralized wealth?

Fri, 11/23/2012 - 21:29 | Link to Comment James
James's picture

Hacksaw, The disdain you are feeling towards the Mises Institute compels me to inform you that the Mises Institute recieves it's funding from the Rockefeller Foundation.

As you can now see, that is why "They appear to be nothing more than a mouthpiece for the rich bastards."

Caveat Emptor my friend.


Sat, 11/24/2012 - 10:12 | Link to Comment tip e. canoe
tip e. canoe's picture

Mises Institute recieves it's funding from the Rockefeller Foundation

most valuable comment on this thread imho

Sat, 11/24/2012 - 10:53 | Link to Comment lakecity55
lakecity55's picture

Most Americans want to work and build. It's part of the DNA of the country.

The PTB, the corrupt politicians and the class that feeds/feeds off of them are not American.

PTB are always pushing some kind of collective arrangement that leaves them holding the (money) bag.

Folks have got to tune out of the MSM and the phony political theater we're bombarded with.

I try every day to figure out some small way to screw with these interlopers.

Everyone needs to get in gear and go galt, malt, or walt: whatever it takes to grab economic power back from these vampire control freaks.

PTB have rigged this system to crash freedom and install police state control in euroland and usa. They are going to do it, too. Look at all the freebies. Once they get enough freebies distributed, they will cut them off. Instead of praying to God for help, they will demand you bow down to their unholy power for your very existance.

Prepare. Stash. Get Ready to Rumble.

Fri, 11/23/2012 - 16:12 | Link to Comment Venerability
Venerability's picture

And for the umpteenth time: Americans absolutely do not "hate the Rich" in any blanket sense.

Americans are all about Fair Play and a Meritocracy.

Americans admire those "Rich" who have made their money creating things and building things - companies, services, creative endeavors - anything that benefits their fellow humans.

But Americans do NOT admire - and at this point, they actively detest - those "Rich" whom they perceive as having made their fortunes tearing things down and stealing from their fellow Americans.

That includes shortsellers, hedge funds, derivatives-mongers, downsizers, outsourcers, and financial engineers of all stripes - and the Naysayer Industry that "enables" them.

Americans are at last at a point in our history where we yearn to embrace the Positive again. We want compromise, consensus-building, old-fashioned horse-trading, and both political parties and media outlets that start to say Yes, We Can - not No, We Can't.


Sat, 11/24/2012 - 13:30 | Link to Comment Venerability
Venerability's picture

I think that's the first post I've ever made at Zero Hedge that wasn't automatically - by rote - trashed by the KochBots.

So it COULD be one heckuva Bullish signaler for OUR parts of the Markets - PMs, Oil, Manufacturing, Real Things - dead ahead.

Note that the PM-hating Financial Times joined incestuous-with-LBMA GFMS late yesterday in acknowledging the possibility of Silver at 47-50 - that's 47-50 - in the very near future.

ZH also, of course, needs to keep a close eye on the Arafat autopsy starting late Tuesday, just prior to what Moderate! Palestinian leaders are calling a "Make or Break" UN vote on Friday.

Pointing these things out is in no way taking sides - no matter what AmDocs seems to think - but simply allowing things "into the Market" early that may affect our trading and investment.

Fri, 11/23/2012 - 16:17 | Link to Comment williambanzai7
williambanzai7's picture

I'm afraid this is a bunch of crap.

Americans still admire those who build hard work into success, something that is becoming increasingly difficult to accomplish without gaming a corner of the system.

What they detest is a system that now prevents hard work from translating into success because all the benefits have been divided up by the crony kleptofraudtocracy.

With all the shit that has happened, continues to happen and goes unpunished, I am sick and tired of hearing implications that anyone who expresses anger about it is a person who advocates Marxist ideology and uses terminology like class struggle and bourgeoisie.

Time to clean the latrine.

Fri, 11/23/2012 - 20:50 | Link to Comment sumo
sumo's picture

Fully agree. This article is fucking bullshit.

But it is part of a recent, worrying trend on ZH, to sell both Red and Blue team brands of Stupid.

Fri, 11/23/2012 - 16:22 | Link to Comment zilverreiger
zilverreiger's picture

and rightfully so

Fri, 11/23/2012 - 16:30 | Link to Comment Helvetico
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Great! Once we've done away with all morality except for "making a buck," we can bring back chattel slavery! First up on the auction block will be Libertarians. 

Fri, 11/23/2012 - 20:51 | Link to Comment sumo
sumo's picture

First up on the auction block will be children.

Fri, 11/23/2012 - 22:19 | Link to Comment Cathartes Aura
Cathartes Aura's picture


yes, they're already being traded amongst the users, be it catholic priests, football coaches, boy scoutmasters, I could go on. . .

rarely acknowledged, more prevalent than anyone could imagine.

Sat, 11/24/2012 - 20:18 | Link to Comment Incubus
Incubus's picture


children will be exploited from now until the end of civilization.

Preach something holy about it and cry over the evils--but never address the root cause as to why such things happen in society, at any rate.


morefeelgood-ism coming up.  Want a side order of nationalism or racism to go with that, too--while we're on the whole better-than-you schtick?

Fri, 11/23/2012 - 16:41 | Link to Comment oleander garch
oleander garch's picture

It was recently reported that about 3% of the wealthiest Americans can be classified as becoming wealthy as 'entrepeneurs.'  Therefore, in the libertarian world view, I would assume, that it is safe to hate the 97% who are not wealthy from enterprise but rather from theft, coerrcion and inheritance.   I'm looking at you, Lloyd Blankfein, Jon Corzine, Kochs and Waltons.

Fri, 11/23/2012 - 16:50 | Link to Comment SkiBivio
SkiBivio's picture

"Hating the rich" and "class warfare" are just memes of the kleptocrats and plutocrats.  No one hates the rich, except perhaps the small percentage that has always hated the rich.  What folks hate is crony-capitalism, crony-corporatism, crony-banksterism.  I'm pretty sure von Mises hated those, as well.  Rid the world of crony-"whatever," and being wealthy will go back to being aspirational, as well as being earned. (Congrats to Mr. J.E. Miller for writing a piece that tarnishes the term "liberatarian" and the Mises Insitute.  Did you have so much time, on your hands, because no on invited you for a turkey dinner?)

Fri, 11/23/2012 - 18:04 | Link to Comment Cathartes Aura
Cathartes Aura's picture

while I agree with your points here, it would be a great service to get a more firm definition of "libertarian" going forward - it seems to be a cap to fit many sized heads at the moment. . .

it's got a religious flavour that could use some more grounding in reality if it's going to be taken seriously.

Fri, 11/23/2012 - 16:52 | Link to Comment jayman21
jayman21's picture

Fuck You Holder.

Fri, 11/23/2012 - 17:00 | Link to Comment homonohumanus
homonohumanus's picture

I love how skeptical Austrians are and how they avoid the pit falls of most others branches of economy which is gross genralization and close to "religious" assumption.


Though they are blind to the fact that grwoth is going no where in a close system and as such blessed with limited resources. If things were to resume as usual after the unwinding of that crisis, with an average growth world wide in both population and economic activity of a pretty conservative 3% within 20 years the population and the size of our economic activities would have... doubled... again...

Good luck find the resources and the energy to extract them. Good luck finding enough oil to be tranformed into food. As A.Bartlett puts it, modern agriculture is the art of transforming oil into food.

Then let not speak of the impact of the industrial on the environment (global warming or not).


Resuming business as usual in a early 19th century manner is not solution to our troubles. Though a definitived rebuttal of John, eugenist, Mayar, maniac, Keynes "crap" (another scuptor of his own feces...) would be a first in the direction of sanity...

Fri, 11/23/2012 - 17:03 | Link to Comment Bansters-in-my-...
Bansters-in-my- feces's picture

Ritch or poor .we are all being sprayed with chemicals that are some day going to GREATLY affect our lives "weather" we like it or not.


Everyone who knows this please be persistant and patient with friends and family on this and make THEM prove you wrong,not you prove your  right.

They need a little help if they have not noticed yet.....

.................Stop Chemtrail Spraying>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>--------------

Fri, 11/23/2012 - 17:46 | Link to Comment homonohumanus
homonohumanus's picture

Some girls like it, one chemtrail a day keeps the doctor away... #6

Fri, 11/23/2012 - 18:06 | Link to Comment Cathartes Aura
Cathartes Aura's picture

a newbie troll makes his voice heard.

Fri, 11/23/2012 - 18:53 | Link to Comment candygram
candygram's picture

Marx's main argument was that since the workers were the ones who create wealth, through mixing their labor with input materials, they should decide what was produced and what to do with the surplus. He didn't hate rich people. He hated a system that allowed for one or a few people to control all of the surplus value created in a business enterprise, thus turning the many into serfs of a different form.

To understand why this arrangement is so dangerous, it's important to observe the difference between early labor movements and their current incarnation. Most early labor agitators took a doctrinaire Marxist approach, arguing that the workers should manage and direct surplus. However, as time went on and the wage laborer/serf mentality set in, workers stopped seeing that as a realistic expectation. They settled for arguing for higher pay, easier working conditions, and being "given jobs". That's how what started as a mutual contract between two equals becomes a cancer on society. It's what Marx warned about in Kapital.

Anyone who uses Marx's name as a curse word should sit down and read his works. You might be surprised.

Fri, 11/23/2012 - 19:27 | Link to Comment IamtheREALmario
IamtheREALmario's picture

"Anything less represents the triumph of the idiotic masses over good sense."

That is a very ignorant statement by the author and for that alone he should probably be ignored.

The author seems to think that people do not trust the "fiat endowed" because of jealousy. I am thinking that those who are jealous of the fiat endowed are also those who worship them and want to be like them. They Kowtow to them.

The people who hate the rich, I mean really, really hate the rich are those who understand that the rich got that way through the power of fiat money creation, either directly or through relationship ... and use fiat money as their mechanism of control and power, doling it out heavily to themselves, some for their friends and then using it to create rules that keep them in power and with a disproportionate amount of fiat and others lacking it. The fiat rich trade their trash for value and attempt to ensure that others are perpetuately at a disadvantage and in need of crumbs thrown in their direction. It is not the lack of an "equal" system, but the lack of a fair system that is disliked. If the rich use their self-created and self-propagating laws to deprive others of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, is it not then fair for those discriminated against to use whatever means they have at their disposal to deprive the fiat mongers of the same?

There is no "workers of the world unite" charade, such that Marx proposed. All one has to do is read both the "Communist Manifesto" and Saul Alinsky's "Rules for Radicals" to clearly see see that Marx was nothing more than a community organizer ... and not especially successful at that.

The choice seems to be coming to 1. Equal opportunity under the law OR 2. Equal opportunity regardless of law because the law is corrupt and maintains the status quo of undeserved parasitic power. It would be a different world if ALL people had the power to create fiat money and dole it out to themselves and their freinds and not just bankers and government officials having that power that divides people. What makes the bankers and government so special and worthy of privilege? ... (spoiler nothing, and certainly not blood. Those IN power want and hold power over others though fiat creation power and violence, nothing more).

Fri, 11/23/2012 - 19:43 | Link to Comment Dr. Sandi
Dr. Sandi's picture

It's unfair to say James E. Miller should be ignored because of this article.

Take all of his contributions to Zero Hedge, then ignore ALL OF THEM.

Fri, 11/23/2012 - 19:48 | Link to Comment Urban Redneck
Urban Redneck's picture

That isn't a Mansion.  It's not even a McMansion.

It looks like about 2500ft2.  As far as I can remember there aren't any mansions on Park Road once you get out of the park.  It's middle class home in gentrified ex-ghetto, lucky not to be row house.  Nice renovation job, but the only reason that house would be worth more 2 million is that DC is in its own universe in terms of housing & finance bubbles.  Bernanke is printing like a madman to perpetuate the DC-Wall Street mother-of-all-bubbles, and since there is a finite supply of short-commute housing for an ever-inflated DC workforce paying with ever debased fiat money, the nominal price is higher than it would be elsewhere in the US.   

Fri, 11/23/2012 - 21:07 | Link to Comment Aurora Ex Machina
Aurora Ex Machina's picture

I'd like to point you all towards this talk by the Director of the RSA [UK, Capitalist, Social Order ++, Supports Keeping Pets well]

"We've also seen a fracturing of the middle class, into those, again, tenaciously trying to hold onto their middle class status, and the super-rich, who fly around the globe as super-citizens"

9:30 ish. He then goes on to kick Greenspan in the balls. Note the rather jarring narrative structure (for anyone who buys into the OP's piece): the "super-rich" aren't Upper Class, or the Elite.

.."We need solutions that combine individualism, hierarchal authority and solidarity" (17:40ish)

It's an interesting mirror to the OP's piece, it's essentially a version of the old tripartite power base of society.

Anyhow, if you want a real answer, that's simple: let's take Jeff Bozo, with his space program. He's been a total shark business wise, AMZN never made any profit (it might now with robots, and the skeleton infrastructure of warehouses all built specifically so that they're robot friendly), and he's hooked on space. Great! ...Apart from the fact that his 2011 VTOL launch directly used ancient Soviet tech that had been done 30+ years ago. That's not an ubermensch, that's someone playing around in a wanky fantasy of Rands, totally ignoring the fact that it took a super-power to design and create all the technology he's resurrecting, and like a total prick, he's happy to use the massive monolithic State production while happily claiming that Ariadne V is "nothing" compared to "his" efforts. Likewise, look at Richard Branson. Very, very dodgy business credentials, most of his franchises succeed when he's not involved, and he loves playing the playboy. Or Jon McAfee in Belize, playing out his drug fueled fantasies... and then we scrape the barrel with scum like Trump who've used lawyers to shore up their business failures for forty years.

People don't hate the rich: they hate the losers who wasted their wealth.

Look it up ~ 20-30 years ago, no-one had anything good to say about Bill Gates. The People love him now, because he's doing positive something with his money. (Now - I might think his African efforts are badly weighted and extremely dodgy in scientific basis, but hey, at least he's putting it out there). Likewise, The People generally think Jobs was a shit, and an idiot for dying due to irrational fears of modern medicine (real smart if you're a technology giant... !).




Hogwash: people are judged on how they utilise their resources. People hate the Walmart & Kochs, because they provide shitty, exploitative product and then do nothing but selfish interest with their wealth, and even when they try it, they squander $390,000,000 to Karl "I don't understand math or statistics" Rove. That's just a whole bunch of fail in a can, and pitiful. Muppets? Oh... they come in all economic brackets. That's why the super-rich are still only middle-class, don't ya know.

The People love billionaires who change the world with their money ~ might want to look up the positive scores the Google founders get and so on.


Fri, 11/23/2012 - 22:24 | Link to Comment Cathartes Aura
Cathartes Aura's picture


fuck Bill Gates, and his cronypal Warren Buffett, AND the big pool of monies they use to poison the world.

where they hide their monies is foundation-all.

Fri, 11/23/2012 - 23:06 | Link to Comment Aurora Ex Machina
Aurora Ex Machina's picture

Of course.

If you read carefully, I said "The People" love them. This was never a personal reply, but it answered the OP's piece that "the masses" hated the "rich". Sorry ~ I wasn't answering in a personal capacity, I was answering the OP's assertion, which I found false.



If you want to make a topic on "what do you (personally) think of "the rich"" then you'll get a different answer.

Sat, 11/24/2012 - 04:08 | Link to Comment Cathartes Aura
Cathartes Aura's picture

you're right, I did mis-read "The People" as a reply to the OP - apologies, given the thinking that goes into your posts, and upon re-reading, the tone becomes more clear.

no need to fill me in on what you really think about "the rich" - but I'll look out for the next thread here that does seek your commentary.


Sun, 11/25/2012 - 01:33 | Link to Comment Radical Marijuana
Radical Marijuana's picture

After reading several previous articles by this author, I am inclined to automatically trash it. ALL political debates are so totally dominated by the biggest bullies' bullshit that practically nothing else is possible. The author of this article stays way too much inside the frame of reference of the established bullshit for my taste. In my view the elites are just as insane as the idiotic masses, and they are both dancing themselves towards destruction.

We should no longer use false fundamental dichotomies and impossible ideals to try to understand what is happening and what to do about it. Human reality is ALWAYS organized lies, operating organized robbery. Those who were the best at that became the most wealthy and powerful people. Everyone operates inside of those systems, and almost everyone is brainwashed to believe in bullshit that prevents them from understanding those systems any better.

Almost everyone who now lives in North America benefits from the history which genocidally wiped out the people who had been living here before the European led invasion of the last 5 Centuries, and then assimilated the survivors. The entire continent was simply robbed from those who were living here for more than 10,000 years before the Neolithic civilization style of lies and violence came and took over. There is nobody living in North America now that is not inside of that system of runaway fraud, backed by force. Futhermore, there will never be anyone able to live outside of such a system, in some form or another. Upon that foundation was built everything else. The reality is always production taking place inside the context of coercion. What has been happening more and more is the runaway triumph of the crazy coercion causing the production to be eroded and undermined, to the point of collapse into chaos. By and large, I dislike the masses of people just as much as the elites. I basically hate the whole system, and I see no reasonable hope for the future, but for the social insanities to get way, way worse in the foreseeable future.

Fri, 11/23/2012 - 21:39 | Link to Comment Disenchanted
Disenchanted's picture



I have 1 gazillion clownbux(aka Fed Reserve Notes)...I be 'rich'  Wheeee! /s

There's a difference between 'rich' (as defined by average American$) and true wealth.


I do not want to be another American rich soulless zombie. I no longer crave our clownbux.


The Pretender


I'm going to rent myself a house
In the shade of the freeway
I'm going to pack my lunch in the morning
And go to work each day
And when the evening rolls around
I'll go on home and lay my body down
And when the morning light comes streaming in
I'll get up and do it again
Say it again


I want to know what became of the changes
We waited for love to bring
Were they only the fitful dreams
Of some greater awakening
I've been aware of the time going by
They say in the end it's the wink of an eye
And when the morning light comes streaming in
You'll get up and do it again


Caught between the longing for love
And the struggle for the legal tender
Where the sirens sing and the church bells ring
And the junk man pounds his fender
Where the veterans dream of the fight
Fast asleep at the traffic light
And the children solemnly wait
For the ice cream vendor
Out into the cool of the evening
Strolls the pretender
He knows that all his hopes and dreams
Begin and end there


Ah the laughter of the lovers
As they run through the night
Leaving nothing for the others
But to choose off and fight
And tear at the world with all their might
While the ships bearing their dreams
Sail out of sight


I'm going to find myself a girl
Who can show me what laughter means
And we'll fill in the missing colors
In each other's paint-by-number dreams
And then we'll put our dark glasses on
And we'll make love until our strength is gone
And when the morning light comes streaming in
We'll get up and do it again
Get it up again


I'm going to be a happy idiot
And struggle for the legal tender
Where the ads take aim and lay their claim
To the heart and the soul of the spender
And believe in whatever may lie
In those things that money can buy
Though true love could have been a contender
Are you there?
Say a prayer for the Pretender
Who started out so young and strong
Only to surrender

Sat, 11/24/2012 - 00:29 | Link to Comment Mediocritas
Mediocritas's picture

What an absolute pile of steaming bullshit this article is. Miller rants on about an entitlement culture of the poor...errr, ever bothered to look at the entitlement culture amongst the rich? Be fair mate, c'mon, let's see the whole truth shall we? Oh the moaning on Wall St if the bonuses don't come in as big as expected! "Boo hoo, I was entitled to that bonus, paid for by Geithner and Bernanke for my total incompetence! WAAAH, all the other guys will laugh at me driving last year's Aston Martin".

We're not railing against the fairly better off. We're not railing against people who are smarter, worked harder, had better ideas, or had better timing and used it to make more money than the average. Good for them, I respect them and they deserved their appropriate rewards. Only an idiot thinks everyone is, or should be, treated as exactly equal.

What we're railing against is an excessively unreasonable distribution of power (and money *is* power). There's nothing wrong, immoral or ridiculous about this, quite the opposite, it's natural to resist oppression as demonstrated by a multitude of animal studies that show apes and monkeys behaving the exact same way as humans when subjected to injustice.

Failure to resist excessive empowerment of others means failure to prevent others acquiring the power to oppress and destroy you. Failure to resist is an evolutionary death sentence which is why evolution never selected for passive behavior. Miller thinks that 3.5 billion years of evolution got it wrong and that the resistance going on now is ignorant and naive. Bullshit, Miller is ignorant and naive.

We're railing against the Pareto distribution of wealth, an artificial abomination overlying a natural Gaussian distribution of abilities. We're railing against those who have the power to create money from thin air and abuse this power to acquire the productive fruits of others without doing a goddamn single second of useful work themselves. We're railing against a criminal cartel that has acquired the wealth of the world, by means that no right-minded person would ever call fair, and uses it to oppress all competition. 

Seems like you're one of them James E Miller. Fuck you too.

Sat, 11/24/2012 - 08:33 | Link to Comment AurorusBorealus
AurorusBorealus's picture

I agree.  I would also observe that these bleating, simple-minded calls for laissez-faire capitalism, and some bizarre libertarian anarchism (diametrical opposed philosophical positions: for without a state, who is to guard liberties?), are no solution to the problems facing Christendom (and Japan) at the moment: just as calls for more socialism, more money-printing, more government bureaucracy, and the like are no help.  What is needed first and foremost is wise leadership, that places the national interests of Western nations as the aim of government.  What is needed second is national sovereignty over international capital: government cannot be for sale or purchased by internation capital.  Government must be, in a word, "sovereign."  Third, Christendom needs much less democracy, not more: it is democracy that, in large part, created this mess, as the masses vote for handouts and bankrupcy.  Finally, and probably most important, Christendom must return to basic affirmations of virtue as the aspiration of the citizenry.  Jefferson understood that without virtuous citizens, any and every form of government, will devolve into tyranny, bankrupcy, and chaos.

Fri, 11/23/2012 - 23:37 | Link to Comment Brixton Guns
Brixton Guns's picture

Meh.   Let them eat ROCK.

Sat, 11/24/2012 - 02:45 | Link to Comment luckylongshot
luckylongshot's picture

What is really naive about this article is it assumes the communism vs capitalism discourse is valid. The problem with this is the 1917 communist revolution  in Russia was actually funded by the Rockefellers and JPMorgan. This was becaause the february 1917 revolution that briefly brought democracy to Russia excluded the private bankers. As always the problem is the private bankers determination to rape the public everywhere and at any cost...and this is capitalism.

Sat, 11/24/2012 - 14:33 | Link to Comment smacker
smacker's picture

All that tells you is that banksters didn't believe in free market capitalism in 1917 any more than they do today.

Sat, 11/24/2012 - 06:12 | Link to Comment Deacon Frost
Deacon Frost's picture

An old quote

Under capitalism, man exploits man.

Under communism, it's just the opposite.

~John Kenneth Galbraith~


Sat, 11/24/2012 - 06:47 | Link to Comment smacker
smacker's picture

This Mises article doesn't do a good job at describing the problem. But in the UK there is most certainly a residual dislike and jealousy, often verging on venomous hatred, in the minds of many people against superiority: wealth, those who were fortunate to be educated in private schools, business success and all the rest of it. This hate campaign is run by the duplicitous Left. It makes no difference that some of the Lefties have had their own success in life and become 'champagne socialists'. You can't teach old dogs new tricks. Like the Left-wing nutter who runs The Slog blog, who posts an endless stream of false allegations, distortions, lies and hatred against the Right (that's the Tory Party in the UK) but chooses to ignore the widespread criminality and corruption in his own Left-wing ranks, and that the Marxist leader of his beloved Labour Party was parachuted in by commies in the Trade Unions.

Since the financial crash of 2007-8, the UK Left has blamed it onto "capitalism" and by association, the Right. Whilst conveniently ignoring that it was their beloved Labour Party under Blair/Brown who caused it by running an unsustainable credit boom for years and what went on was 'crony capitalism', so popular among Left-wing corporatists like their old pals Mussolini & Hitler.

We now see repeated attempts to introduce new taxes against those who live in properties with higher than average market values but the Left hide their hatred under the label of 'Mansion Tax' as if it will only apply to folks who live in giant country homes worth millions. In fact it would apply to millions of people living in central London and elsewhere.

It goes on and on....

Sat, 11/24/2012 - 07:32 | Link to Comment Budd Fox
Budd Fox's picture

Steve Jobs deserved to be rich....LLoyd Blankfein deserves to be hanged. John Corzine should be quartered and exposed. Bill Gates earned his richness and is giving it all away for god causes...we know who deserves what, scumbag

Sat, 11/24/2012 - 12:35 | Link to Comment TomGa
TomGa's picture

The "Hate the Rich" rethoric reminds me of the 1987 miniseries "Amerika" with Kris Kristofferson.

Sat, 11/24/2012 - 17:26 | Link to Comment steve from virginia
steve from virginia's picture


The rich are thieves, they borrow their fortunes then oblige their customers to repay the debts ... even as they steal their customers' jobs! As thieves the rich should meet their obligations by forfeiting their wealth ... not all of them, enough to drive the rest crazy with fear of loss.


@ Romney: "And because his house was bigger than most, his car collection larger than others, and his tastes more refined, he was hated by the media establishment."


Too suave and debonaire for us peasants, right? Dumbest article on ZH yet.

Sat, 11/24/2012 - 21:21 | Link to Comment chasman
chasman's picture

Let me express myself so you can understand me clearly Steve, FUCK YOU YOU PIECE OF SHIT. There I think that is clear. I worked 60 hour weeks for 30 years and paid 100 of thousands of dollars in taxes to gain wealth. FU AH for telling me I am a thief. You say it is the Dumbest artical on ZH yet. Mybe it is because your fucking Liberal brain is too small to understand the content. Fuckin Ass Hole

chasman's picture

