Grateful poor to thank rich for trickle down wealth

Written By: - Date published: 1:09 pm, May 19th, 2010 - 29 comments
Categories: class war, Economy, Satire, tax - Tags:

It is befitting that the 27st of May just one week after the Budget – marks Thank The Rich Day, which sees poor people the length of the country gearing up to offer their gratitude to the rich for their contribution to the welfare of the poor through making themselves richer.

Thank The Rich Day is, in fact, the brainchild of grocery packer Joe Brown, who says the rich simply don’t get enough thanks for distributing wealth through ‘trickle down’.

‘Trickle down’ is the watertight fiscal mechanism through which wealth and happiness is distributed. It works, through the wonders of gravity, through a top-down approach. Quite simply, the vast majority of the country’s money is allocated to the already rich. The rich have the poor to trickle down to; the poor have no-one to trickle down to, as they are already at the bottom of the heap, so therefore any money given to the poor to spend will simply be pissed into the sewers. (Any claims that money trickles up, eg from the struggling elderly to the pockets of power company executives, etc, are categorically erroneous, as Sir Isaac Newton could surely explain)

Mr Brown says the Budget in itself is a grand opportunity for the poor to thank the rich through the great ceremonial handover of wealth from themselves to the wealthy. But the sacrifices the poor are graciously making to enable massive tax cuts for the rich on Budget day (namely accepting virtually nonexistent income tax cuts while accepting a raft of further tax rises and the decimation of important public services) simply aren’t enough, says Mr Brown. The poor didn’t elect this government, so they can’t take the credit for these noble sacrifices foisted on them.

‘I felt we had to rise up in gratitude, and do so off our own bat. That’s why I came up with Thank the Rich Day.’

Mr Brown also sees Thank the Rich Day as a long overdue day of redemption for the rich, who have been pilloried for their supposed role in the credit crisis.

‘Whose fault was it really?’ says Mr Brown. ‘The poor bastards who were buying houses they can’t afford. The rich are victims in all this. Why else would they have been compensated so well?’

Brown says Thank the Rich Day will give regular poor folk a chance to spread the word about the inherent benevolence of the wealthy.

‘Who pays our pay cheques? The rich. Who pays their pay cheques and owns their companies? The richer. Us poor don’t thank the rich enough. The hourly wage I earn packing their smoked salmon at Moore Wilsons has made me so grateful. When they make an investment in a bottle of Moet, they’re making an investment in me. They’re giving me a job, and they’re investing money that I’d just spend.

‘When they buy investment properties, they’re freeing up the rental market while also driving up house prices, thus delivering me from the temptation of buying a house for my family that we can’t afford. The hundreds of millions of dollars taxpayers lose when landlords write off their losses in tax is, as I see it, a valuable incentive no, reward – for them putting a roof over our heads.

‘And when they deny the poor pay rises so they can pay their executives million dollar bonuses, I sleep easy knowing that at the end of the day, I’ll be better off, that million dollars is gonna trickle down and look after me.’

Mr Brown says the lukewarm reaction to National’s tax cut package was a reflection of the naivety and greed of the common man.

‘Under National, my tax cuts will be effectively nothing, but that’s a good thing. A dollar or two for me, that’s not going to make a difference, I’ll still be fucking poor, but a couple hundred a week for an executive, that’s a lot of money to trickle down.

‘The money’s better off in their hands, where they’ll invest it overseas, thus not affecting inflation, therefore keeping my grocery prices down, at least until the GST rise kicks in. If I had the money, I’d only fritter it away on groceries and power or footwear for my children, and we all know increased spending leads to inflation, so I’d be making things more unaffordable for myself. Which could be alleviated by a pay rise, but that would be inflationary, so I’d actually be worse off in the long run. Besides, if I have a pay rise, that’s less money for my boss to trickle down to me.’

Mr Brown says he has enough trouble budgeting as it is.

‘Imagine if money was evenly spread, I wouldn’t know what to do with it. The rich are rich because they are good with money, which is why they should be entrusted with the vast bulk of it, and by ensuring what trickles down to me is finite, they teach me how to budget it’s like pocket money.’

Mr Brown says trickle down theory is proof that capitalism works for the poor.

‘There’s an old view that if you feed enough oats to the horse, some will pass through to the road for the sparrows. And as a sparrow myself, I’m happy feasting on my share of the oats.’

Poor people can celebrate Thank the Rich Day by making a donation at their local Business Roundtable castle. Donations over $15 will receive free shoeshine.

29 comments on “Grateful poor to thank rich for trickle down wealth ”

  • Comments are now closed

  1. Bright Red 1
    19 May 2010 at 1:44 pm

    very very funny. skewers them so well.

  2. Pete 2
    19 May 2010 at 1:53 pm

    F*ck yeah!

  4. BLiP 4
    19 May 2010 at 2:12 pm

    isn’t “trickle down” a hoity-toity way of saying “golden shower”?

  5. Brett Dale 5
    19 May 2010 at 2:47 pm

    How do you think people become rich?

    Maybe by getting good gardes at school and going on to university and then
    getting a high paid job.

    Or maybe by starting up a business and working 60-80 hours a week in
    building that business up.

    Maybe by making the right choices.

    Maybe by pure luck?

    Some of your posts here are actually trying to make out that rich people (I anit one of them)
    are somehow bad people?

    Which is crazy.

    • Maynard J 5.1
      19 May 2010 at 2:54 pm

      Maybe some of them do, Brett, when they are posts about corporate greed and white-collar crime, or insurance rip-offs and the like.

      Since this isn’t one of them, it was incredibly stupid to post that comment here.

    • Craig Glen Eden 5.2
      19 May 2010 at 3:30 pm

      No Brett people on the left are not anti all rich folk just those that have done it on the back of others or People who are happy to stack the deck so to speak

      But I guess most of all I am anti a Government that makes a lot of noise about improving our standards of living and then runs the economy in such away that wages don’t increase in real terms.
      Most except the uber rich are going to be worse off after this tax swop. If this is fiscally neutral for the Government and the really rich are going to get more someone has to loose. Now logic would tell you the ones who are going to loose are the ones who are not getting much that’s just not right in my book.

    • Pete 5.3
      19 May 2010 at 4:01 pm

      “Maybe by getting good gardes [sic] at school and going on to university and then
      getting a … job.”

      “Or maybe by … working 60-80 hours a week …”

      Excluding all the talk about high-pay and building business specifically, what would you say Brett to the aged-care worker who studied hard, got good grades, went on to (and completed) University-level study and works 60-80 hours a week – is this person no less ‘hard working’ and desrving of high pay? Or is that person’s choice (to work in aged-care) what has stopped them from being amongst those that ‘desrve’ a high financial reward?

      And what is a ‘right choice’ – do you mean $$ above all else? Should we reward those who make the ‘tough decisions’ like cutting services (health, edcuation, rehabilitation etc) and send jobs offshore (to maximise the financial rewards of shareholders/business stakeholders) above those who want to educate our children, collect our rubbish, sweep our streets or look after our parents when we can’t?

      I am one of the people who will be financially rewarded by the machinations in the budget, and I don’t consider myself to be a ‘bad person’. Instead I believe that our leaders are making choices for the ‘few’ (something Goff has got right), instead of allowing for a more equal society. And equality means equal opportunity as much as equal reward for effort (hard work) – something that has been bought into sharp focus since the recession.

      Where is the job creation and the qualitative, evidence-based assistance for those less fortunate (note – not less ‘ambitious’)? Where is the spending that is evidently going to bring a long-term return rather than lining the pockets of those with a financial interest? Why are we removing spending that has been shown to have a exponential benefit on our society?

      It is blind ideology Brett. An ideology you can’t see beyond.

      • Brett Dale 5.3.1
        19 May 2010 at 4:43 pm

        Pete:

        Yes I do believe it sucks that aged care workers who oput in so many hours, arent on a higher wage.

        By right choices, yes I mean people who did invest wisely.

        You say your a not bad person and I believe you, but either is the rich accountant or businessman who choose a field where pay is high.

        I use to work for a certain chairty, and a lot of these so called bad rich guys gave away a lot of their money to this charity, they did it without alerting the media also.

        They also gave a fair amount of their time.

        Yes Im all for spending more on health and education, I hear people on the left screaming out “what about health and education?” when the government wants to spend money on business, broadband, tax cuts, etc etc.

        But no one on the lefts screams this out, when the Government gives $8million dollars to fund “Good girls” or Outrageous Fortune” or hundreds of thousands dollars giving so Scribe so he can do another album.

        Where is the outrage then???

        Putting a pictur of scrooge mcduck and bagging the rich for having made money is a bit immature in my book.

        • Draco T Bastard 5.3.1.1
          19 May 2010 at 4:57 pm

          I use to work for a certain chairty, and a lot of these so called bad rich guys gave away a lot of their money to this charity, they did it without alerting the media also.

          http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2001/dec/21/voluntarysector.fundraising

          The poor are more generous than the rich when it comes to giving to good causes, according to research which challenges the “Robin Hood” myth of charity as an agent of redistribution.

          A study published today finds that the least well-off give a higher proportion of their income to charity than the wealthy, no matter what their age, class or beliefs.

          Partly the problem is the system – capitalism itself. It only works if the majority of people aren’t financially independent hence why Jonkey wanted to lower wages and doesn’t like community/socialism. NACT really do want people to be totally dependent upon them – hence the BS about “needing” the rich. And partly it is because there really are psychopaths rorting everyone else with no remorse.

          Putting a pictur of scrooge mcduck and bagging the rich for having made money is a bit immature in my book.

          Considering that most of those people who are rich have, quite literally, stolen that wealth from everyone else then it seems a reasonable way to get that across. As an example, Jonkey got rich by nearly destroying the entire NZ economy.

          • frustrated 5.3.1.1.1
            19 May 2010 at 7:01 pm

            Are you out of high school yet ?

          • Graham 5.3.1.1.2
            20 May 2010 at 6:57 am

            “Considering that most of those people who are rich have, quite literally, stolen that wealth from everyone else”

            I don’t understand how you come to this conclusion. Mind explaining?

        • pollywog 5.3.1.2
          19 May 2010 at 5:24 pm

          But no one on the lefts screams this out, when the Government gives $8million dollars to fund “Good girls’ or Outrageous Fortune’ or hundreds of thousands dollars giving so Scribe so he can do another album.

          Where is the outrage then???

          With regards to music…

          It’s over at Public Address in this thread called ‘Changing times’ and follows on from one a few years back called ‘(Bean) counting the beat’

          with most of the outrage directed at the feet of the man in charge of allocating funding, Brendan Smyth.

          A man described as the most powerful in NZ music by virtue of being the sole arbiter of arts and culture fit for public broadcast and in whose decisions there can be no questioning.

          Incidentally, both those threads got closed down because Russell Brown was being a power tripping, control freak 🙂

    • bobo 5.4
      19 May 2010 at 4:05 pm

      Your gardes weren’t good enough I take it..

    • Lanthanide 5.5
      19 May 2010 at 4:36 pm

      “Maybe by getting good gardes at school and going on to university and then
      getting a high paid job.

      Or maybe by starting up a business and working 60-80 hours a week in
      building that business up.

      Maybe by making the right choices.

      Maybe by pure luck?”

      Maybe they were born to parents who were middle-class, or better, and therefore had all these opportunities in life. Unlike those who were born to lower or working-class parents and never had a chance, simply because of their upbringing and community when they were children.

      I happen to believe that ‘luck’ is a large part of why most rich people are rich. Lots of people start businesses every year with great ideas, but often it is luck that separates the ultra-successful from the successful.

  6. Just Right 6
    19 May 2010 at 3:29 pm

    Like most satire there are grains of truth. It is true infact that the rich buying a bottle of Moet does keep the poor author in a job.

  7. Just Right 7
    19 May 2010 at 3:33 pm

    Read this again and think it is terribly clever. Plus think it is a great idea to have a Thank the Rich day

  8. john 8
    19 May 2010 at 4:00 pm

    Money can and does trickle up from the poor to the Rich. Two examples: Water is privatized and a profit to shareholders has to be paid in addition with dividends and share market confidence putting the price up more and more. GST increased hits the poor while the Rich get income Tax breaks. The Rich and the Likes of Mr Brown are the sort that have brought protest and street violence, mainly from the rich’s army, to the streets of Bangkok. Thais are a Buddist peace loving people but the poor there have been driven to desperation by a western neo-liberal model producing huge inequality. There young Thai girls are forced into prostitution for the Rich to ravish from all Asia. At the cheapest price possible by the free market!

    Since the Rogernomic criminal coup de etat (So called Labour sold out its people here and the Unions rolled over like bloated pussies) house prices have become unaffordable. In 1981 I bought a house 3 bedroom in Wellington nr centre for $32,000, my salary was $10,000 a year 3.2 times my salary. If the national salary average now is $40,000 that house should be $128,000. The New Right have sold this country down the road to monopoly money and the Rich, it’s literally like like the game “Monopoly”! New Zealand has become a money grubbing free-for-all, “meat on the menu lads” cannibilise each other for gain society.

  9. Clipbox 9
    19 May 2010 at 4:31 pm

    Catherine Delahunty simply referred to the trickle down theory as more like the ‘Piss On You theory’

  10. zonk 10
    19 May 2010 at 6:15 pm

    Bill English said today this was not a lolly scramble, but a caviar scramble.

    John Key referred to the slice of cheese lower and middle income earners could now look forward to, (though noting it was likely that the price would got up with GST increases, so tomorrow it would only be half a slice).

  11. zonk 11
    19 May 2010 at 6:18 pm

    Key also added that New Zealanders should not envy Australia and other nations with their lower unemployment and higher wages, but that we should be grateful that they exist to provide us with leadership.

  12. fatty 12
    19 May 2010 at 6:38 pm

    John Key is exactly right, the country needs the rich.
    The ‘country’ in this case is the poor people, poor people only exist these days due to the rich existing.
    But this relationship goes both ways, the rich also need the poor. They need them to work long hours for little pay, they must have poor employment conditions, they need them to do the mundane jobs for little reward. They need poverty.
    Capitalism only exists through the poor propping up the rich. It requires the rich to exploit the poor, which is NZ is most of the country.
    John Key is right, but he only told us one side of the story.

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