Does richer mean smarter and harder working?
Romney's 'success' problem
Is getting ahead in the U.S. simply a matter of brainpower and hard work, as the GOP candidate says? And if so, is everyone else stupid and lazy?
By Michael Kinsley, LA Times
August 2, 2012
Why does a typical bus driver in the U.S. earn a monthly disposable income (after taxes) of $1,594, while a typical bus driver in Peru earns $325? Why does an airline pilot here bring home $4,206 a month, while a pilot in Lithuania doing what we hope is pretty much the same job with the same training makes only $1,674? (These figures, from worldsalaries.org, use 2005 dollars, adjusted for the actual purchasing power of various currencies.)
Well, the explanation is obvious, isn't it? These foreigners just aren't as smart as we Americans are and they don't work as hard. Because if they did — as Mitt Romney was just explaining in Israel — they would be as successful as we are. And that's pretty darned successful. And they aren't.
Romney worries that Americans are losing their appreciation of success, as evidenced by President Obama's desire to reduce the rewards of success by raising taxes on high incomes. He sees in this not just a bigger tax bill for successful people but an insult as well. An alternative perspective is that any successful person who feels personally insulted by a request from the president to share a bit of it is, in the immortal words of Liberace, crying "all the way to the bank" (or, to quote someone else, "a master of the fancied slight").
(More here.)
By Michael Kinsley, LA Times
August 2, 2012
Why does a typical bus driver in the U.S. earn a monthly disposable income (after taxes) of $1,594, while a typical bus driver in Peru earns $325? Why does an airline pilot here bring home $4,206 a month, while a pilot in Lithuania doing what we hope is pretty much the same job with the same training makes only $1,674? (These figures, from worldsalaries.org, use 2005 dollars, adjusted for the actual purchasing power of various currencies.)
Well, the explanation is obvious, isn't it? These foreigners just aren't as smart as we Americans are and they don't work as hard. Because if they did — as Mitt Romney was just explaining in Israel — they would be as successful as we are. And that's pretty darned successful. And they aren't.
Romney worries that Americans are losing their appreciation of success, as evidenced by President Obama's desire to reduce the rewards of success by raising taxes on high incomes. He sees in this not just a bigger tax bill for successful people but an insult as well. An alternative perspective is that any successful person who feels personally insulted by a request from the president to share a bit of it is, in the immortal words of Liberace, crying "all the way to the bank" (or, to quote someone else, "a master of the fancied slight").
(More here.)
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