Waiting for Superrich-Man

“So who’s the greedy one here? The unemployed, who have not failed to notice their unemployment check is larger than the paycheck they would get if they took a job? Or the rich, who want to take the money the government does not seize and put it into the economy where it will magically produce a job, for someone who will get off the couch and take it?”

Fox News commentator John Gibson, in the passage taken from his blog above, frames billionaires as superheroes, as those who will save us from this recession, who will – as we heard repeated ad nasuem in the last few weeks – create jobs for the unemployed, and kick start our economy by investing in America. They are the ones who take the risks, who have the insight, ingenuity, talent and discipline to make America exceptional, and thus, the billionaires will lead us to a better, more prosperous country for all. And while the billionaires are our economic heroes, the victors of the free market, the government is the villain, an evil, Stalinist Robin Hood who steals from the deserving rich, and gives to the Maury Povich watching couch potato poor (See David Sirota’s Why the “Lazy Jobless” Myth Persists”).

And thus, the recent – and unsuccessful – “assault” on the wealthy was greeted by the Wealthy Whiner, the Rich Victim, the Penthouse Punk, fighting the evil, totalitarian government on behalf of the common man. The Penthouse Punk has been the symbol of the new, “counterculture” Republican Party amid the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression.

And what’s most frightening? Many in the middle and lower class are buying it. And like it or not, many in the American public – on both sides of the aisle – have come to side with Gibson, and see billionaires as our heroes in this economic disaster, and the government as our foe, demonstrating a dramatic shift in our values, and a serious danger to the public.

Hitler Liked Taxes!
Paul Krugman shines a spotlight on the “Angry Rich,” who see government regulation as tantamount to a Nazi takeover – literally. He tells us the story of billionaire, Wall Street magnate Stephen Schwarzman, who compared Obama’s proposal to close a tax loophole to the “the Nazi invasion of Poland.” And, as the New York Magazine article “The Wail of the 1%” points out, Schwarzman is not alone in playing Poland, as many of the rich on Wall Street who bankrupted the economy feel that they have been “mugged” by Obama’s modest government intervention.

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