Oh, I agree with you, and I wasn't trying to defend Tabash or his apparent conception of what it must mean to tighten one's belt. I was just reacting against what is an increasingly common misconception, at least among people I know and talk to, that the rich comprise a monolithic bloc of society. There are the silver spoon types, and there are the sociopathic social climbers, but there are also a lot (even if the percentage is diminishing as income disparity between the rich and poor widens and social mobility becomes more difficult) of rich who didn't start there, who work hard to be there, and who pay their taxes and give back to their communities rather than just buying toys or hoarding the wealth to pass on to their children or whatever. Over the last several years there's been a class warfare social narrative emerging in this country, and that's more than justified given the institutionalized iniquities and the increasing visibility of the abuses of parts of the financial sector. But, and maybe I'm just sensitive to it because of my background, there's this idea that the rich, however rich is defined for the purposes of any given conversation -- more than 100k per year, or 200k, or millionaires -- are automatically the enemy, and I don't find that to be the case.
It's similar to another narrative with which I'm very familiar, albeit from a (mostly) different set of people: that social protections and welfare programs only enable those lazy poor people to live off the rich. Are there people milking the system? Without a doubt. But they are not representative of the people who use the system. The poor are not a monolithic bloc. They are poor for all kinds of reasons and with all kinds of backgrounds. Many are born to poverty, and many are not but manage to achieve it during their lifetime.
I think part of the problem with discussing the rich is that the way rich is popularly defined includes a range from the obscenely rich top 1% who control more than a third of the wealth, down through the less obscenely wealthy 10% who control about 10% of the wealth, which would be about right if the other 90% were distributed roughly fairly, which it's obviously nowhere close to being. So the definition of rich covers a large range of people, while the idea of rich conjures images of yachts and leisure and expensive preparatory schools and silver spoons.
Sorry for the lengthy reply. I'm too tired to go back and chop it down right now.
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It's similar to another narrative with which I'm very familiar, albeit from a (mostly) different set of people: that social protections and welfare programs only enable those lazy poor people to live off the rich. Are there people milking the system? Without a doubt. But they are not representative of the people who use the system. The poor are not a monolithic bloc. They are poor for all kinds of reasons and with all kinds of backgrounds. Many are born to poverty, and many are not but manage to achieve it during their lifetime.
I think part of the problem with discussing the rich is that the way rich is popularly defined includes a range from the obscenely rich top 1% who control more than a third of the wealth, down through the less obscenely wealthy 10% who control about 10% of the wealth, which would be about right if the other 90% were distributed roughly fairly, which it's obviously nowhere close to being. So the definition of rich covers a large range of people, while the idea of rich conjures images of yachts and leisure and expensive preparatory schools and silver spoons.
Sorry for the lengthy reply. I'm too tired to go back and chop it down right now.