Maggie's Farm

We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.

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Sunday, November 4. 2007

Rich People

Since we posted Zaccheus today, these comments seem timely. (Tax collectors, in Roman times, were wealthy because they worked on commission, and I suspect that they were viewed the same way we view the IRS.)

Rob Port says Most rich people are smarter than you, and work harder.

I have no argument with that. My experience with people bears it out. I would add, however, that most rich people are pretty good at dealing with people, too. A quote from the piece at Right Wing News:

To put it bluntly, for every Paris Hilton in the world there is a Bill Gates and a Steve Jobs who rose to the top because of their brains, hard work and ability to innovate.

This will anger a lot of the class warfare people who are likely union supporters and subscribe to John Edwards' "two Americas" theory, but those people are mostly angry because nobody wants to believe that their lack of fulfillment with their lives is their own fault. It's always easier to blame some invisible, anonymous conspiracy.

I do not happen to believe that wealth=life fulfillment, but for many folks it seems to be a big part of it - and it's a free country. Whole thing here.  And my recent related piece, Love the Prosperous.

Photo: A smart rich person

Posted by The Barrister in Our Essays, Politics at 12:25 | Comments (6) | Trackbacks (0)

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In Roman times, tax collectors were viewed as far worse than IRS agents. Zaccheus and his ilk were personally liable to the governor for the quota of taxes they were expected to collect. Therefore (Econ 101) to cover the risk that one guy might skip town, the collectors would extort extra from his neighbors, and if the extra was more than the bad debts, well then, the tax collector kept the spread and got rich! IRS agents are sweethearts in comparison!
#1 Gwynnie on 2007-11-04 16:25 (Reply)
Thanks for the lesson in collection extortions.

Helps tie some ends which were hanging after hearing the Gospel reading.

Like, why would a son of Abraham need to return moneys extorted?

Little Zach already was kicking back half of his take to the
poor.
#1.1 Leag on 2007-11-04 18:42 (Reply)
Good essay at the link--the closing sentence is nice--paraphrased, "Why should one person's bad decisions be a mortgage on another person's good ones?"

Oh yes, forgot, Hillary sez ''we're all in this together''. She should put that phrase to music and call it the pickpocket's song.
#2 buddy larsen on 2007-11-04 17:59 (Reply)
It's deft language, tho. If you don't want the government to usurp the private sector into penury in order to create the Borg, then you must be ''selfish'' and ''greedy''.

Bah.
#2.1 buddy larsen on 2007-11-04 18:05 (Reply)
B...

I believe it was you who has the daughter who is new to Wall Street as an analyst. This is an illuminating articel about the death threats an analysts received after downgrading Citigroup...there are comments ,some from former analysts who don't have nice things to say.

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/markets/article2796774.ece

one comment:

As a former Wall St. analyst, I can attest of the tremendous bias to overlook bad news. It is simply bad for business. Investment bankers don't like it since they have to maintain a positive environment for highly profitable underwritings, companies don't like it since their stocks are worth less, and investment managers don't like to be caught with their pants down. My compliments to Ms. Whitney for straying from the herd.

Bob Hoye makes some very important points in his post. We have a long way to go before we can neutralize the damage done by Greenspan's reckless and irresponsible monetary policies during his tenure as Fed chairman. The truth will eventually surface but not before going through what will likely be major shocks to the investment community.
Miguel, Battle Ground, WA
#3 Habu on 2007-11-04 18:55 (Reply)
Amazing story.
But I do have to tell you that she is having a great, fun time, despite 15-hour workdays, 7 days/week. A fascinating and educational time to be working on Wall st.
#3.1 BD on 2007-11-04 23:05 (Reply)

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