First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out....

Or the Silicon Valley investor who wants to split California into six states, with S.V. being its own libertarian techno paradise, and The Poors shoved off elsewhere.

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2013/12/tim-drapers-silicon-valley-partition-plan.html

Then again, this kind of idea isn't confined to delusional billionaires.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-02-06/baton-rouge-s-rich-want-new-town-to-keep-poor-pupils-out-taxes.html

 

You actually think, with the climate of this country today, the rich should not be afraid of anything? They have been demonized at length for the last five years...to the point that we had an entire movement (Occupy) in the streets protesting their very existence. There have been numerous "pivots" towards wealth inequality by the president. The rich have been held up as examples of everything wrong with this country. Hell yes they should be worried.

 

That's true. They have been suffering these past five years. Suffering like crazy. I bet their incomes have just cratered. And all the violence they have endured!

It is a terrible thing to be rich.

 

The poor have been demonized for thousands of years, and they have no money. Yes, it's the rich who should worry.

Actually, you know how the richest of the rich can take the pressure off? Stop being assholes. Warren Buffet is a billionaire who people actually like because he seems to have some level of humanity and self-awareness. Zell is, literally, a vulture investor. And he's worried about his life being ruined? He's lucky someone hasn't strangled him in his sleep.

 

Bob, I am not defending...I am just pointing out how, after it was stated that there was this "weird culture of victimization" being felt by the wealthy, there is some reason for feeling this way. I don't see it as weird, I see it as the way things are.

 

Name a rich person who has actually been victimized.

Being forced to share a public street with protesters is not "victimization."

 

Zell sucks.

Oh, and this little bon mot, from the link above about Zell.

http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/blog/2014/02/charles-schwab-jobs-out-of-san-francisco.html

 

I guess my question would be, worried about . . . what?

What, exactly, should they be worried about? Nobody can "take" their money or possessions. The only way in the world they see any drop in their present condition is by an increase in their taxes (income, cap gains or estate). Government cannot redistribute "wealth" . . . all it can do is tweak the percentage of income they owe to the government, which at present is near the lowest levels in a century.

You see, that's the biggest problem with the 1 percenters. Instead of looking at the top marginal tax rate in 1944 (94% of anything over $200,000) and saying, "Damn, we sure are LUCKY things aren't like that now!", they hyperventilate and call the president a socialist when their top rate increases from 35% to 39.6%.

 

Vulture investors buy things no one else wants. If they are the bad guys, what's the alternate solution to the problems faced by the companies they decide to buy?

 

In the case of the Tribune Co., the alternate solution was just to keep doing what they were doing without the debt load, which would have given them infinitely more time to figure out the next step.

But Zell took possession of it with money he never had, gutted it, made off with his profit and left it for bankruptcy.

Job creation at its finest.

 

Real-life vultures serve a purpose, too, but that doesn't make them pleasant creatures.