Poor Bastard

By Ed Raymond
Staff Writer

DRD4-Free CEOs Should Retire To Low-Tax States

I’m in the middle of “Mirrors,” a marvelous book by Eduardo Galeano. It’s a rather strange book. It has over 600 very short stories or themes crammed into about 360 pages. The Minnesota government shutdown was in its full idiocy when I started it. One theme near the beginning called “How Could We?” struck me. It asks one fundamental question, which Democrat and Republican legislators (state and national) should ponder:

“To be mouth or mouthful, hunter or hunted. That was the question. We deserved scorn, or at most pity. We were the most vulnerable beasts in the animal kingdom, terrified of night and the jungle, useless as youngsters, not much better as adults, without claws or fangs or nimble feet or keen sense of smell.

Our early history is lost in mist. It seems all we ever did was break rocks and beat each other with clubs. But one might well ask: Weren’t we able to survive, when survival was all but impossible, because we learned to share our food and band together for defense? Would today’s me-first, do-your-own thing civilization have lasted more than a moment?”

Do The Rich Have The Virtues Of Generosity, Charity, and Helpfulness?

Recent research by credible psychologists and psychiatrists indicate that the rich have now adopted the “me-first, do-your-own-thing” expressed by Galeano. Research published in the “Journal of Personality and Social Psychology” in 2010 found that “lower-class individuals” are more generous, give a greater proportion of their assets to charity, and are more helpful to all members of society. In other words if “high-class” individuals had been around us in our caves, they would have let the “lower-class” do all the hunting and defending.

Incidentally, why do we associate “high class” with “high income” and “low class” with poverty? It’s a question to ponder. Is it because the rich have more “stuff?” With that extra burden of providing for the “high class,” normal cave folks would not have survived. For further development of this social theory, I suggest Thomas Frank’s article “Easy Chair: Servile Disobedience” in Harper’s. (He also wrote “What’s The Matter With Kansas?” which has some of the same themes.)

To help other people, one must possess empathy. The 2010 psychological research centered around how to make wealthy people more empathetic. After all, being rich, they have the greatest capacity to give. Frank discusses this failure to empathize with how the lower-class people treat the rich: “We have spent thirty years doing everything we could to transfer the wealth of the nation into the bank accounts of the affluent, to send them victorious, happy and glorious, long to reign over us. We’ve cut their taxes ... We’ve furnished them with special megaphones (like Fox News and the Wall Street Journal) so their voices might be heard above the crowd. We have conferred upon them separate and better schools, their very own transportation system (corporate jets and Bentley limos), and a full complement of private security guards ... We let them build a system of bonuses and ‘executive compensation’ ... and had the taxpayers take over their dumb investments (like subprime mortgages).” We even provide them with huge estates and international playgrounds so they don’t have to associate with the low-class riff-raff in state and national parks.

Frank Says Americans Are Born To Serve And Assist The Wealthy

Once in a while an errant millionaire gains empathy and brotherly love through tragedy. When Andrew Carnegie learned his anti-union thugs had killed a number of strikers in his steel plants, he had an empathetic epiphany. Suddenly Carnegie came up with the “duty of the man of wealth” philosophy: “[The wealthy] must consider all surplus revenues which come to him as trust funds ... and administer them ... to produce the most beneficial results for the community – thus the man of wealth becomes the mere trustee and agent for his poorer brethren.”

That’s why Carnegie considered the estate tax the wisest form of all taxation. He said it would “induce the rich man to attend to the administration of wealth during his life.” Carnegie was no Warren Buffett–-but he was no Bernie Madoff either.

Frank says it is “our inalienable duty” to serve the wealthy. Even Mark Dayton, one of the wealthy, could not convince Minnesota Republicans and Tea Partiers to tax the rich at the same level as the middle-class. Some of the lower-class, Frank says, “act as a nation of footmen. We cater to the wealthy … and glorify them in our leisure.” Frank adds: “Political parties dedicate themselves to serving the rich. We take up collections to buy equipment and pay teachers so the rich won’t face the burden of paying taxes to support community schools. In fact, legislatures pass voucher systems so the rich feel better about sending their kids to private and religious schools.” Lately the political parties are discussing cutting Social Security benefits because the rich don’t want to chip in and pay their fair share.

The members of the lower-class may have a gene problem when it comes to wealth or liberalism. The University of California, San Diego State, and Harvard have combined to study why people are liberal, progressive, and empathetic. We liberals have a dopamine receptor gene DRD4. It is not present in the wealthy unless they have a genetic defect.

Results are preliminary but dopamine contributes to our feelings of pleasure, depression, and other emotions. Particularly empathy. If the researchers can get this all sorted out soon, perhaps we can cure the wealthy of selfishness, greed, and “me-first” and “do-your-own-thing.” If we could ever collect or clone enough DRD4 genes, we could dump barrels of the gene stuff in the waters of all country clubs and five-star hotels and solve our poor-rich income gap with gene therapy.

An Exclusive Club Of 7,700 Members Without The DRD4 Gene

For almost a year Governor Mark Dayton has been asking 7,700 Minnesota millionaires to pay their fair share of income taxes in order to help close the state’s $5 billion budget gap. Evidently the wealthy Dayton has acquired the dreaded DRD4 gene from some low-life, otherwise he would leave his wealthy compatriots alone to bask with their “stuff.” The Star Tribune interviewed a few of the 7,700 who evidently were desperately trying to stay out of the news during this budget Armageddon and shutdown. The Tribune reported that “few would comment about the potential hit to their own paychecks and lifestyles and that the ‘tax-the-rich’ plan sounded hollow to them.” A few said philanthropy would be hurt (the lower class wouldn’t be able to go to symphony concerts, plays, operas, and art galleries) and that Minnesota would be “branded as a difficult state to do business.”

CEO Doug Baker of Ecolab who “earned” $8.5 million last year said sales taxes could be raised instead of the income tax. Baker wants to spread sales taxes over practically everything that is a “purchase.” Of course sales taxes hit the poor and middle-class hard. I guess we don’t have to worry about Doug ever having the DRD4 gene.

Polaris Industries CEO Scott Wine said if the wealthy were taxed more he would consider moving to a lower-tax state when he retires. Polaris is already closing a plant in Wisconsin and moving it to Mexico. To Scott I suggest he choose among the ten lowest tax states in this order: South Dakota, Alaska, Wyoming, Nevada, Florida, Montana, New Hampshire, Delaware, Utah, or Indiana. In any of those states Scott could exult each time he writes a small check to the revenue department. I will even help Scott move. Evidently he cares little about social or family associations if he is only interested in being in a no or low-tax state. I certainly don’t want him as a neighbor if his only interest is money. That’s Dullsville.

Is Fagin The Head Of All MBA Business Departments?

The absence of the DRD4 gene can also create a lot of criminals. Slightly before the big crash of Wall Street banks in 2008 a poll was taken of 2,500 Wall Street professionals in banking and investment departments. They were asked if they would use inside information (a violation of insider trading laws) to make ten million dollars if the chances of getting caught were 50 percent. Seven percent said yes. But this is the more interesting point. If there was zero chance of getting caught, 58 percent said they would be happy to break the law. My question is: Are these the kind of guys we want next to us in our survival caves?  According to many people, the best and the brightest graduates of the Ivy League end up on Wall Street. Perhaps they should be all tested for the DRD4 gene before they are admitted.

These are the guys who dreamed up hedge funds, credit default swaps, offshore shell companies, collateralized debt obligations, and other financial garbage that caused the economy to fireball. These bright guys called stock they sold “pieces of crap” and “dogs” behind the backs of their investors–and happily sold the “crap.” One of the biggest entertainment expenses for hedge funds and Wall Street banks? Providing prostitutes for big investors at Super Bowl parties and other events for the rich.

Preet Bhara, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, defends using wiretaps against Wall Street crime: “When sophisticated business people begin to adopt the methods of common criminals, we have no choice but to treat them as such.”

Do We Really Want To Be A Mexico?

There really isn’t much question that by the next Minnesota budget cycle the Grover Norquist-Tea Party-Republican crowd will have the Minnesota state government by the throat and will be choking it to death in a full bathtub. The tub will certainly overflow in 2013. They will never agree to pay the public schools back the $1.4 billion they have borrowed. Who needs public schools anyway? The $700 billion from the tobacco funds? Good luck.

The richest man on the planet lives in Mexico, along with many millions who exist below the poverty line. The Mexican super-rich provide many jobs for the super-poor because it is very difficult for them to appear in public without dozens of bodyguards. A simple trip to the hairdresser or downtown lunch may involve five SUVs filled with armed guards. The super-rich are even rarely seen around their homes. They must always be fearful of kidnappers, the favorite part-time crime of the major drug cartels. The enclaves of the super-rich are filled with security guards, gardeners, nannies, chauffeurs, house servants, and other cheap support staff. In a sense, the few super-rich have a symbiotic relationship with the millions of super-poor. They both live in fear, and can’t exist without each other.

The fact that the poor and middle-class in the U.S. have not received any wage increases of note in over thirty years while the rich have earned an average of eight percent a year suggests we may soon be like Mexico.

During WW II and the forty years following, the top ten percent took home just a third of the national income. By 2007, however, the top one percent controlled 34.6 percent of the national wealth. Job prospects are so poor for 2011 college graduates in the U.S. that 85 percent of them expect to be living at home with their parents. All of this while the U.S. has the lowest tax burden among all developed countries. Developed countries with good social and economic safety nets spend between 40 and 50 percent of their Gross Domestic Product on taxes. The U.S. and Mexico are fairly close to each other at 24 and 17.5 percent respectively.

I think it’s interesting that China just completed a 26.4-mile Bridge to Somewhere, across Jiaozhou Bay in Shandong Province. It’s the longest bridge over water in the world. In the meantime, our rich paid $2.3 million for an old portrait of Billy the Kid, had 19,501 private jet landings at West Palm Beach, purchased $13,997 diamond-studded prom dresses for daughters, and paid $5.6 million for the white dress Marilyn Monroe wore while enjoying the breezes flowing upward from a subway grate. Waste or abuse? The movie director of “Transformers: Dark of the Moon” would qualify. He trashed 532 cars making the movie.

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