Who are the super rich?

Though the original post has been deleted, I saw a blog entry summarizing a University of Chicago Law School professor's rant that he can't afford potential tax hikes because he only makes $400,000 or so a year. Only $400k? I think somebody needs to get a better handle on his budget. My wife and I make about a third of that combined. We somehow manage to make ends meet paying for cable (no movies), Netflix, childcare (youngest one needs full time daycare), a legal Mexican to cut our lawn, our mortgage, NJ property taxes (among the highest in the nation), a car payment (other car is paid off) and a class or two for our children (just bought the oldest a clarinet).

We don't have a cleaning woman, but that is more because we haven't found one we like. We also don't pay for private school, aside from the private kindergarten our daughter goes to because our town does not have the full day kindergarten working parents need. Granted, we probably have a smaller home, but it is still 4 bedrooms and 2 baths and our retirement and college education funds are a mess, but we somehow manage to make a decent middle class living earning less than one third of the law school professor. Even adding in the additional costs a larger home and private school would cost to our budget, we would probably still have quite a bit left over if our income doubled, much less tripled. But then we have always tried to live a somewhat modest lifestlye that I am sure looks quite affluent to a family making less than half of what we do.

While the law professor does create jobs for the cleaning and garden people, whatever classes he puts his children in and wherever else all his money goes (I imagine he also invests in stocks), it sounds like he is doing quite nicely. Paying taxes is part of the price of living in a civilized society, which includes protection to prevent people making a minimum wage and just getting by from storming the castles of the rich for a more immediate wealth distribution.

The law school professor is obviously highly skilled and no doubt deserves the high salary he earns. I don't begrudge him trying to keep control of as much of his money as he can. But to say he is not rich is a joke, especially in this horrible market for new lawyers coming out with over $160k in law school loans with no job prospects.

Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it

With eight weeks to Election Day, many polls report that Republican candidates are better liked than Democrats and the GOP is salivating over what this means for their chances in the mid-term elections. Before they get overly excited over their return to power, just remember this. There is a very powerful voting block of people that are remaining very very quiet: the silent majority.

We hear plenty from partisan observers, both on the left and the right, but how much do we really hear from average citizens, aware of what is going on, forming their own conclusions, but just going about their business? This powerful group knows how close the Republicans and President G.W. Bush came to sinking this beautiful, wonderful country straight into the toilet. At the moment, those potential voters are not motivated as President Obama has not wowed them for many different reasons. But they may be motivated when they realize that their inaction will mean handing the keys back to the Republicans who really got us into this mess.

And despite how much the GOP may want the President to stop blaming Bush, the leftovers from the Bush administration like the wars in Iraq & Afghanistan and the economic mess are the key areas affecting the country today. Criticizing the President for how he is handling those problems is fine, but I haven't heard anything from the GOP aside from the same policies that have stopped working and have left us with a whole pile of bi-partisan debt that is going to have to be paid down no matter how much they want to cut taxes on the rich. I really don't understand how anyone could really believe President Obama could come into office, wave a magic wand and boom, instantly no more war and a robust economy.

PS to all these liberals bashing the President for not doing enough: don't forget the country didn't elect liberal representatives and senators to get the president's back. Maybe you should think about what that means.

Political party poopers

Far fewer 18- to 29-year-olds now identify themselves as Democrats compared with 2008. That would be fine if we weren't stuck with a two party system. Instead we are froced to choose the lesser of two evils because, to be frank, I have no faith that either party wants to do what is best for the average middle class American.

The one thing I learned in college is that the Republicans were not my friends. Even if I agreed with them on some issues, and probably would have been happy in their party in the early 1970s, I discovered they were too two faced to be trusted (not that the Democrats were much better). They preached freedom, yet campaigned on taking away rights as they campaign on a platform of fear and hate. They preached fiscal conservatism, yet borrowed and spent like there was no tomorrow. I've seen them transfer wealth from the middle class to the wealthy, making the reality of our parents' lives the impossible dreams of our children.

And let us not forget their discrimination of anyone educated with their elitism comments, which I find ironic as it was their actions in making it impossible for college graduates to lose their student loan obligations in bankruptcy thus forcing them to remain soulless cubicle drones, assuming they can find a job, to pay back their debts. I'm not a big fan of the Democrats, I think they spend to much on entitlements and not enough on investing in the country's infrastructure, but if my choice is of the two -- it sure won't be the narrow minded, Glen Beck, intolerant, anti-civil rights, freedom hating Republicans. You sleep with dogs, you get fleas.