The fat cats strike back
Pity the Plutocrats
By THOMAS FRANK, NYT
Bethesda, Md.
THESE are the times that try rich men's patience. Not because this interminable economic crisis threatens to cost them their fortunes, of course, but rather the reverse: that by humiliating so many others, the slump has exposed the mighty to the horrors of criticism. Yes, sour sounds have reached their ears: recrimination, reproof, ridicule, rebellion!
The people have been thinking about how the economy came to collapse in the first place, of the role that great wealth and the deregulation of the financial industry played. And over the years, the unthinkable has happened. People have started to say mean things about billionaires. Even the president has engaged in the "rhetoric of class warfare." During Wednesday's debate, for example, this Danton of the Democrats went so far as to say that businesses shouldn't get tax breaks for moving jobs overseas and even scoffed at that archetypal small-business man, Donald J. Trump.
Rhetoric like this makes the very rich feel very sad. It has sent them on a crusade to restore matters to their rightful place. And in the process they have developed one of the distinctive literary forms of our time: the plutocrat's j'accuse.
The most famous example is the open letter to the president written last year by the hedge fund manager Leon Cooperman and dissected at length in this week's New Yorker magazine. In it, Mr. Cooperman blames Mr. Obama (and his "minions") for "setting the tenor of the rancorous debate now roiling us that smacks of what so many have characterized as 'class warfare.' " This is serious, this roiling and this tenor-setting, but it is not the only damage the president's words have done. The "divisive, polarizing tone of your rhetoric is cleaving a widening gulf," Mr. Cooperman continued, "between the downtrodden and those best positioned to help them" - meaning, apparently, hedge fund managers like himself.
(More here.)
By THOMAS FRANK, NYT
Bethesda, Md.
THESE are the times that try rich men's patience. Not because this interminable economic crisis threatens to cost them their fortunes, of course, but rather the reverse: that by humiliating so many others, the slump has exposed the mighty to the horrors of criticism. Yes, sour sounds have reached their ears: recrimination, reproof, ridicule, rebellion!
The people have been thinking about how the economy came to collapse in the first place, of the role that great wealth and the deregulation of the financial industry played. And over the years, the unthinkable has happened. People have started to say mean things about billionaires. Even the president has engaged in the "rhetoric of class warfare." During Wednesday's debate, for example, this Danton of the Democrats went so far as to say that businesses shouldn't get tax breaks for moving jobs overseas and even scoffed at that archetypal small-business man, Donald J. Trump.
Rhetoric like this makes the very rich feel very sad. It has sent them on a crusade to restore matters to their rightful place. And in the process they have developed one of the distinctive literary forms of our time: the plutocrat's j'accuse.
The most famous example is the open letter to the president written last year by the hedge fund manager Leon Cooperman and dissected at length in this week's New Yorker magazine. In it, Mr. Cooperman blames Mr. Obama (and his "minions") for "setting the tenor of the rancorous debate now roiling us that smacks of what so many have characterized as 'class warfare.' " This is serious, this roiling and this tenor-setting, but it is not the only damage the president's words have done. The "divisive, polarizing tone of your rhetoric is cleaving a widening gulf," Mr. Cooperman continued, "between the downtrodden and those best positioned to help them" - meaning, apparently, hedge fund managers like himself.
(More here.)
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