Today I need to apologize. I need to humbly...oh, so humbly...beg for forgiveness. I mean, beg. Because, you see, I've said something really foolish and utterly wrong.
Here it is: as you know, I've been writing a lot about how America is now basically owned by and governed for about 2% of the population, the "mega-rich" who got Ronald Reagan & Co. to transfer vast amounts of the nation's wealth from us to them.
Well, I'm wrong.
I've looked at the numbers and discovered that it isn't 2%. It is more like 1%.
That's right. About 1% of Americans own pretty much everything. (Here's a site you can go to see some of the numbers in question http://www.stateofworkingamerica.org/. And while you're cursing... I mean, cruising, look at this column by Nicholas Kristof in the New York Times, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/18/opinion/18kristof.html?_r=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=a212).
So, to the top 1%...the mega-bankers and mega-lawyers and mega-CEOs who have vacuumed every penny out of the public's pocket...the Wall Street Brokers who "broke" the economy and then used bail-out money to give themselves obscene bonuses...the Off-Shorers and Out-Sourcers who plunged us into a "post-industrial, service-based economy" of mass unemployment and national decline...
I'm sorry.
I'm terribly, terribly sorry I grossly underestimated just how rare and strange you are.
Can you ever forgive me?
Posts
Lean Back
4 years ago
Your apology is accepted.
ReplyDeleteThe other 1% are actually the lawyers, bankers, and government officials who, while wealthy, don't understand how this thing works. I mean, they think owning a couple of Aston Martins means they have joined the big league?!?
I think it was really cute of you to say that we managed or governed anything. We don't.
Other people do that for us. We gave Ben his sinecure over at the Fed a couple of years ago when Al seemed to be getting a little dodgy and actually used the words "irrational exuberance".
We thought he was a straight shooter. So the jokes on us. Well, not really. But you get my point.
Thank you for your apology though. It makes my frozen strawberries and cream breakfast more enjoyable. And really, thank you for clearing up the possible confusion between the 1%ers and the trash, oops, I mean the second %. They are actually in charge.
Who cares if they work for us?
Sincerely,
the 1%ers.