Pushing Back Against Greed

Linda McQuaig takes on the new "realism" being pushed by the ultra-rich that everybody else needs to tighten their belts so the rich can continue to enjoy their tax breaks and outrageous lifestyles:

For that matter, why is greed and love of money considered good in the case of a wealthy investor, while the wider desire for simply a decent living standard is increasingly considered an expectation that may have to be curbed in ordinary citizens?

As deficits pile up, we are soon to be inundated with the message that we are living beyond our means and must learn to do with less.

Certainly, our small wealthy super-elite seems determined to ensure that nothing gets in the way of its right to fully indulge its greed, and that the burden of deficit-reduction is imposed on others.

A conflict appears to be looming therefore between Canada's elite, typified perhaps by Kevin O’Leary, and the aspirations of millions of Canadians who don't want to see programs they value -- health care, education, pensions -- sacrificed to deficit reduction.

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In the U.S., where the hard Republican right has already taken control of the agenda, there's been an open assault on labour, and attempts to convince the middle class that the great advances made toward economic equality in the postwar years (both in the U.S. and Canada) are simply not affordable.

As prominent financial commentator Suze Orman put it in an interview with CNN's John King last week: "It may be you have to tell your kids, sweethearts, I just can't afford to send you to college. I have to pay for my own retirement, my own home."

Orman and King both blithely pronounced the American Dream dead, with Orman suggesting that this was simply being "realistic."

But there's nothing "realistic" about the conclusion that the middle class -- either here or in the U.S. -- must learn to do with less, that we must accept a world where parents are forced to choose between affording their retirement and sending their kids to college.

Both Canada and the U.S. were deficit-free not long ago. Indeed, Canada was running major surpluses until the 2008 Wall Street crash sent the world economy reeling.

What is unsustainable is society's willingness to accommodate the greed of the super-rich.

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Of course, the rich preach that their uncontrolled greed benefits us all. But hard evidence shows this isn't true. As they've become increasingly dominant in the past 30 years, ensuring deregulated markets and low taxes for themselves, their own incomes have soared, while average wages have stagnated.

At the close of her article, Linda McQuaig calls for the real solution to budget shortfalls: tax the rich!

She isn't calling for a vendetta. She is simply calling for them to carry their weight. They have a responsibility to contribute to the society that has allowed them to heap up so much wealth. They may backslap each other and tell heroic tales of single-handedly making their billions, but as Warren Buffet has honestly pointed out: if a previous time he would have probably starved to death because his skills -- picking businesses to invest in -- assumes a society with a developed business system and the legal and financial framework to let individuals invest in those companies.