It’s official – class war over, rich won

Written By: - Date published: 5:40 pm, October 3rd, 2011 - 15 comments
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Republicans have accused President Obama of waging class war by calling for tax increases on the rich. Warren Buffett responds by going straight to the result and declares the war is over and the rich have won. There may be more battles to come however – Buffett is in also in  favour of higher taxes on the rich in the interests of fairness. He should have been on the Tax Working Group.

15 comments on “It’s official – class war over, rich won ”

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  1. randal 1
    3 October 2011 at 6:07 pm

    Yes well there aren’t really all that many truly rich people in New Zealand. That does not mean they shouldnt pay their fair share though. Ohterwise they waste it on toys and overseas trips and the rest of the peasants try to keep up.

  2. Afewknowthetruth 2
    3 October 2011 at 6:45 pm

    The transfer of wealth from the poor and middle classes to the rich is over but the war isn’t over.

    Now the rich have to try to hang on to what they have, which will only be possible by terrorising or exterminating the poor and middle classes.

    • prism 2.1
      3 October 2011 at 8:59 pm

      AFwktt There was a sad little story about Detroit existing, rather than living, on Radio Nz tonight. The abandoned houses some going back thirty years, going to jail for something you didn’t do, gangs of schoolkids terrorising each other was a grim story. But it is safe to listen to it, the listener won’t slide into a black hole of depression because there is a guy with some hope and ideas and determination. The problem of being poor and sort of filed permanently under P and U (useless and underclass) is being changed in small steps.

  3. randal 3
    3 October 2011 at 7:03 pm

    hey a few know the truth. thats how the rich get their jollies. Think if you want to know what God thinks of money just look at who he gives it to!

  4. Colonial Viper 4
    3 October 2011 at 7:54 pm

    Buffett has made the right comments, but he plays the game and profits hugely from it just like the rest of the billionaire class.

    • Lanthanide 4.1
      3 October 2011 at 10:10 pm

      I do find there’s a bit of a disconnect about what he’s saying.

      He’s saying that “I pay less tax than my secretary”, well, guess what, you can actually make donations to the IRS/government and they’ll gladly accept them. So if you personally have a problem with it, put your money where your mouth is and start paying what you consider to be a fair tax rate. Lead by example, instead of just castigating others.

  5. vto 5
    3 October 2011 at 8:01 pm

    That wasn’t much fun, lets try again.

  6. dad4justice 6
    3 October 2011 at 8:05 pm

    But Helen Clark is rich, she owns 5 houses and is childless, so she must have a huge nest egg. Wonder if Peter can visit the US again? Yeah right !!

  7. joe90 7
    3 October 2011 at 8:28 pm

    John Dos Passos

    The Camera Eye (U.S.A. trilogy)

    they have clubbed us off the streets they are stronger they are rich they hire and fire the politicians the newspaper editors the old judges the small men with reputations the college presidents the wardheelers (Listen businessmen college presidents judges America will not forget her betrayers) they hire the men with guns the uniforms the policecars the patrolwagons

    all right you have won you will kill the brave men our friends tonight

    there is nothing left to do we are beaten we the beaten crowd together in these old dingy schoolrooms on Salem Street shuffle up and down the gritty creaking stairs sit hunched with bowed heads on benches and hear the old words of the haters of oppression made new in sweat and agony tonight

    our work is over the scribbled phrases the nights typing releases the smell of the printshop the sharp reek of newprinted leaflets the rush for Western Union stringing words into wires the search for stinging words to make you feel who are your oppressors America

    America our nation has been beaten by strangers who have turned our language inside out who have taken the clean words our fathers spoke and made them slimy and foul

    their hired men sit on the judge’s bench they sit back with their feet on the tables under the dome of the State House they are ignorant of our beliefs they have the dollars the guns the armed forces the powerplants

    they have built the electric chair and hired the executioner to throw the switch all right we are two nations America our nation has been beaten by strangers who have bought the laws and fenced off the meadows and cut down the woods for pulp and turned our pleasant cities into slums and sweated the wealth out of our people and when they want to they hire the executioner to throw the switch

    but do they know that the old words of the immigrants are being renewed in blood and agony tonight do they know that the old American speech of the haters of oppression is new tonight in the mouth of an old woman from Pittsburgh of a husky boilermaker from Frisco who hopped freights clear from the Coast to come here in the mouth of a Back Bay socialworker in the mouth of an Italian printer of a hobo from Arkansas the language of the beaten nation is not forgotten in our ears tonight the men in the deathhouse made the old words new before they died

    If it had not been for these things, I might have lived out my life talking at streetcorners to scorning men. I might have died unknown, unmarked, a failure. This is our career and our triumph. Never in our full life can we hope to do such work for tolerance, for justice, for man’s understanding of man as now we do by an accident.

    now their work is over the immigrants haters of oppression lie quiet in black suits in the little undertaking parlor in the North End the city is quiet the men of

    the conquering nation are not to be seen on the streets

    they have won why are they scared to be seen the

    streets? on the streets you see only the downcast

    faces of the beaten the streets belong to the beaten

    nation all the way to the cemetery where the bodies of the immigrants are to be buried we line the curbs in the drizzling rain we crowd the wet sidewalks elbow to

    elbow silent pale looking with scared eyes at the coffins

    we stand defeated America

  8. randal 8
    3 October 2011 at 8:35 pm

    d4j. 5 houses might be rich for a peasant but for the really rich its peanuts. and if you a monkey then they’ll throw you a few every now and again just to watch you dance.

  9. Jim 9
    3 October 2011 at 9:24 pm

    How many truly rich are there in NZ? If there aren’t that many (as someone posted earlier) we know that the truly rich from across the world operate through our banks, corporations, in markets and because of NZ government policy choices.

    This financial interconnectedness is the other side of ‘contagion’, ‘financial collapse’, recession, debt deflation and austerity.

    We also share the same grievances as #occupywallstreet because we know that the 17 huge US banks under investigation because of housing derivatives fraud are global in their interconnectedness with other international banks.

    Some of the truly rich live in Australia and New Zealand, and the others and their plutocratic friends are no less our problem simply because they live elsewhere.

    • Lanthanide 9.1
      3 October 2011 at 10:13 pm

      I wonder if this is partly behind Key’s parachuting into NZ politics.

      He knew he’d never quite strike it big enough to really sit at the table with the rest of the world elite, unless he also had some political standing behind him.

  11. AndrewK 11
    4 October 2011 at 10:17 am

    The class war ends when the conditions that fuel its existence cease to be. As long as there is an elite ruling class operating through a dutiful coordinator class to subjugate and extort a disproportionately massive subject class the class war remains a fact of life.

    The class war will only end once the majority has released itself from the control of the ruling establishment, a condition that seems to be the ultimate consequence of humanity’s perpetually evolving social experiment.

    The wealthy cannot declare the class war to be over as their very existence is evidence of its continuation.

  12. Richard 12
    4 October 2011 at 4:45 pm

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akVL7QY0S8A

    “Distinguished law scholar Elizabeth Warren teaches contract law, bankruptcy, and commercial law at Harvard Law School. She is an outspoken critic of America’s credit economy, which she has linked to the continuing rise in bankruptcy among the middle-class. Series: “UC Berkeley Graduate Council Lectures” “

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