I see Jonathan Chait is trying to help AOC with her PR problem: "What is the clearest and best articulation of the view that AOC has done something hypocritical or wrong by attending the Met gala in a 'tax the rich' dress?"Thank you @AOC!! 👏👏✊
— Titania McGrath (@TitaniaMcGrath) September 14, 2021
The most effective way to tackle economic inequality is through the medium of haute couture.pic.twitter.com/qf4wDKdEJS
Chait is ostensibly soliciting attacks on AOC, but I assume this is in the spirit of making a steel man argument: What are the strongest arguments for the position I want to disagree with? Get those all out in the open so I can work on my argument against them. Or just give me a basis for declaring that there is no good argument on the other side.
I'm not going to read every answer to Chait's tweet, but mostly I'm seeing support for AOC. That is, people aren't answering the question. The fact that the gala is full of rich people certainly doesn't establish that she's a hypocrite. She's telling the rich folk to their face that they ought to be taxed.
Of course, they are taxed. She didn't even say "Soak the rich" or "Tax the hell out of the rich," but even if she had, she'd be forthrightly advocating policy change in front of the people who'll get stuck with the burden. That makes her more brave than hypocritical. But it still wouldn't be especially brave. I'm sure that socially these rich folk would endorse the notion that they ought to bear a heavy burden of taxation.
Posts
125 comments:
I think AOC missed the mark here.
She should have worn a dress that proclaimed "Kill the Kulaks!"
"Soak the rich" doesn't mean get the rich wet. It means suck the rich dry.
As I blogged in 2010:
"[T]he old expression "soak the rich" was not originally based on an image of dunking the rich in a vat of water or other liquid or somehow hosing them down or otherwise wetting them. The original etymology of "soak" is "suck." So "soak the rich" is more like suck the rich dry. I haven't been able to Google that answer successfully (suck-sessfully, as Bob Dylan would say). But I wondered about this expression back in 1990, when we had to look things up in real books. Take my book-learned word for it and don't picture those "soaked investors" drenched in shit (or anything else). Picture them dessicated. Not wet."
'I'm sure that socially these rich folk would endorse the notion that they ought to bear a heavy burden of taxation.'
The really rich don't have income like your average working stiff, so they pay little or no income tax.
They also employ lawyers and accountants to figure out how to pay as little of the other taxes as humanly possible.
I'm not in opposition to this, by the way. Congress sets up the tax laws and they are not 'loopholes.' The actual laws keep them from paying more.
But did she pay for her $30k ticket? Was she invited by someone else who paid the freight? Will this show up later as a donation? Is it bribery? Nobody is asking those questions...it's all about the ugly dress.
To me, it's very simple: Smug, self-absorbed narcissism. She likes being the center of attention. Credit where it's due, she is more shrewd and intelligent than she is given credit for. But she, and her followers, truly scare me. If she could, she would be Madame Defarge at the guillotine, knitting the next names for cancellation.
Now, that is stretching rationalizations to their breaking point. There was nothing bold or daring about wearing a "tax the rich" dress to a gala of mostly rich people. It's quaint and silly.
jvb
'So "soak the rich" is more like suck the rich dry.'
Jeffrey Epstein and Bill Clinton approve of soaking the rich.
I see Vogue doesn't care about COVID. They will put not one but two maskless reporters within 6 feet of a person and then wave a germ catching microphone in their face. Fierce and Fearless!
I can't wait until SHE gets socked 61% of her salary from NYC. Serves her right as she wants all of OUR money to give to her Green New Deal Cronies and Union bosses who always seem to make out really good, whilst "the real working class" (NOT HER) suffers.
All these rich people know that if they attend these $30,000 a seat galas they can espouse all they want about fashionable causes that appeal to masses, but like the Facebook elite, they will be whitelisted and free from the taxes they claim they want through special rules in the tax law. AOC's Tax the Rich dress comes with a wink and a nod, only I think AOC doesn't get the joke.
There is no nuance when it comes to socialists like AOC. She believes that your money- all of you- is theirs for using as they determine. She fully believes that your time of life, that is, the time you put into your work, your savings, your family's future, belongs to them. In her mind, you exist to feed the government, and there is no other purpose for your being here. In some circles that's known as slavery.
She does not mean take a bit from the rich, nor take a bit from only the rich. She means to take a LOT from the rich, because they not only have more to take from, but also because they are more willing to offer up ransoms in the name of 'taxes' to buy off the government for other things they want. The rest of us? Not so lucky. We don't have an extra million or two to get government off your back for a few years. For us we're told 'If you like your social security, you can keep your social security.' Sure. Except for when it runs out.
I always preferred the straight ahead, non-nuanced version PJ O'Rourke named in his book, "Eat the Rich".
The more of this sort of thing I see, the more mask mandates start looking like sumptuary laws.
She hates Davos billionaires as much as Trumpers, yet to a man, they hate her and her plan to tax the ever living shit out of them.
Cognitive dissonance is the fertilizer for flim flam. More Ivermectin, please. No wonder Fox News is flooded with snake oil ads.
We are witnessing the consequences of social Darwinism play out in the media with it's greatest adherents being selected for recycling.
It’s all theatre. We don’t tax the rich. We don’t tax wealth at all. We tax income. So the burden always falls on the working man and woman. Always. The wealthy just laugh and continue to fund theatrical players like AOC who know the game. No one in that room is afraid of AIC “taxing” them. Chait has always been a clueless partisan hack. Hence the portmanteau “Chaitred” to describe his journ-O-lism during the Bush 43 years.
https://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2019/05/soak-the-rich.html#:~:text=A%3A%20The%20use%20of%20%E2%80%9Csoak,tax%20heavily%2C%20or%20extort%20money.&text=by%20an%20extortionate%20charge%20or,to%20cost%20a%20high%20price.%E2%80%9D
This blog post makes me wonder why Chait could hate Bush so much over the Iraq war and have nothing to say about Biden leaving vulnerable Americans in Taliban hands. Are there no Cindy Sheehans now? Are there no grieving families Jonathan?
The cost of attending the MET gala is fully tax deductible.
The higher the tax rate of the rich, the greater the value of the tax deduction.
What would have been consistent with AOC's position would have been:
"End Tax Deductions for Rich Charities (like the MET and the Ives)"
"The MET should not be a Charity"
"Don't deduct the cost of your ticket."
But those slogans would probably have violated the MET's dress code for the event.
While her political message isn't considered hypocritical to the hyper-persnickety grammar police her presence at this elite event as a guest certainly is.
It’s the Return of Occasional-Cortex!
Who paid for her ticket? Did she go for free? Elitist.
Good thing she has such a broad fundament to write out the word “Rich” so largely.
But a true socialist would never be anywhere near a Met gala, except perhaps to picket it.
So "soak the rich" is more like suck the rich dry.
Yes, that has a better wring to it.
As far as AOC, she's being sucked in to the good life, superficially beneficent like so many who acquire their wealth from the parasitic, non-productive sectors of the economy.
The implication of "Tax the Rich" is that if the government just had a little more money to spend, all our problems would be solved. Some would counter that if government spent what money it had more wisely and carefully, all our problems would be solved.
As it is, the government is already spending more money (for some very large value of "more") ... money that it is borrowing from tax payers that haven't yet entered the job market or even been born.
Althouse, "I'm sure that socially these rich folk would endorse the notion that they ought to bear a heavy burden of taxation."
Babs Paley (wife of the CEO of CBS back in the golden days) said, "You can never be too rich or too thin."
The rich want to keep their money and make more of it. Warren Buffett (D. Omaha) is 90 and he continues to make money. He's not sending in extra to Uncle Sam. But at the end, the Gates Foundation gets most of it. The second wife and kids get relatively little.
I always wonder what keeps rich lefty-libs from just writing big checks to the gummint if they feel so strongly about what they owe.
Actually, I don't wonder--they are despicable people.
Interestingly she and none of the other elites are wearing masks while the servants working the gala have to wear masks. Priceless.
I think she wants attention. What do you think?
The only real problem with AOC (and her ilk) is that no one ever engages with her ideas--they are swept away by her "glamour".
Is she phony? She is as legit as the implants in Madonna's butt at the VMA awards. AOC is living the haute bourgeois life of a "celebrity" courtesy of safe-seat politics and left-wing dopiness. Chait is her perfect defender.
Her dress is a bad joke, but the more salient issue is that she and other guests showed face while the staff was required to be masked.
What is AOC being 'brave' about? What penalty is she risking by showing up at this event, dressed as she was? Physical assault? Ejection from the premises? Cutting remarks? Side-eye looks? Whispered descriptions of her as a 'jumped-up former bartender from the Bronx'? Wealthy attendees might not contribute to her campaign chest?
She risks none of these things. Instead, she will get smiles, approving head-nods, and air fist-bumps from media and the other attendees, who do not think of themselves as The Evil Rich but as The Virtuous Well-to-Do.
Speaking of the NY rich and taxes, are the southern district of NY feds still ransacking Trump's tax returns in search of a crime?
Who paid for AOC's 35,000 dollar entry fee to this gala? Will she declare this as income?
For some reason seeing her waving her booty like that makes me hungry for chicken & listening to the blues song "Back Door Man".
I think the real issue is that she markets herself as a proponent of the working class, while attending parties that cost $30,000 per ticket and wearing a dress that I read cost $12,000. That might not be fair, Trump is a billionaire and nobody gives him guff about being a proponent of the working class. But, consider this, Trump hangs out with blue collar types and proposes policies that most of the working class thinks will actually help them. AOC gives of a condescending air.
She's really speaking truth to power. /eyeroll
This essay by El Gato Malo is on point here. His material is free. An excerpt below:
"even those that literally OWN social media are not immune. hell, they are begging for this.
Mark Zuckerberg trolled for surfing holding US flag on 4th of July: 'AI getting too human like' | MEAWW
they are like exhibitionists in flagrante delicto in ever more precarious places and “losing” cell phones full of naughty fun time video in the paparazzi bathroom.
they seem to want to get caught.
perhaps it’s desperation for attention, perhaps it’s just world-class, weapons-grade obviousness and inability to self-image.
whatever it is, it's just amazing.
it’s perfect hubris and nemesis straight out of a euripidean tragedy complete with a chorus of furies to to drive them to madness.
they are such narcissists that they have to play a game they cannot possibly win because the only alternative is not being famous and THAT is worse than death.
then they wonder why they are viewed as so many grotesque aristocratic barons and kings, marie antoinettes and eva perons.
i don’t think i ever really understood the french revolution before this year.
i never understood just how wildly out of touch an elite faction could become or how gratingly, stunningly, persistently un-self-aware. i always imagined “let them eat cake” was some 6 standard deviation black swan of ill chosen speech.
i never realized it could be a whole ill-begotten ethos and misjudged pathos."
If she was "making a statement," please let us know who paid her entrance fee? I understand this was a $30,000.00 per person event. Perhaps she used her sizable campaign fund account? Or did she charge it to the taxpayers as a government expense? Inquiring minds want to know.
1. Perfect NY. Everything's about They not Us.
2. She looks stunning.
The constitution prohibits taxing the "rich"
Only income may be taxed and it took an amendment to do that.
So does she plan on doing the work to pass an amendment allowing a wealth tax?
John Henry
For AOC and her ilk, we're all rich, right?. Just ask the mom and pop landlords who aren't getting rent money because AOC thinks they should have no problem carrying their tenants indefinitely.
But I don't think she is advocating for tax the rich by wearing a dress with this crayoned message on it. I think it's the opposite, it's openly signaling that her persona is just a shtick, so the dress is a joke, her way of poking fun at herself, that she has successfully created this image as being all about the wretched poor and being an enemy of the wealthy...wink wink...not really ha! ha!
Um, I think the question about AOC's venture wasn't about how "brave" it was, but about how anyone attending what I understand to be a $30K/person event (sounds excessive to me -- I reviewed the SFOpera opening gala -- once -- but I was there as a journalist, so didn't pay nuthin') while wearing that garment. Anyone who can actually pay that to get into any event is "rich," obviously. So is AOC "rich," or did she just smarm her way in as a Very Important Person, as I did?
Of course, the garment itself didn't come cheap, either. I remember scrounging department stores before that gala, trying to find something that wouldn't be too grotesque to wear in front of all those $8K gowns. But then I'm not the Notorious AOC. No doubt someone gave it her for free.
The top 1 percent of taxpayers account for 20 percent of all income (AGI). They pay 40 percent share of all income taxes, twice their share of the nation’s income. And the top half of income earners pays 97% of all federal income taxes.
The left never defines "fair share." If they think the top 1 percent should pay 60 or 80 percent of all income taxes, they should say so.
https://taxfoundation.org/rich-pay-their-fair-share-of-taxes/
Along with others, I'm noticing these high-profile gigs where the rich and famous can go mask-free while all the little people have to wear a face diaper. Don't expect media types to point this out, but the commoners notice.
AOC makes me want to vomit.
It's the economic illiteracy that ought to be attacked, probably of AOC, but equally her target audience.
Make the holders of seed corn give it away as food for the hungry.
No matter their intention, those who aim tax increases at the rich always end up hitting the middle class. Because that's where the money is.
I love the views of the masked ‘help’ serving the glamorous, unmasked Nobles. Such as it was at Pelosi’s Napa event, Newsom’s French Laundry dinner, and scores of other shows of the Nobility being served by their masked help. We are just here to serve our massas. Please, take my money along with my business, my job, my kids, my dignity.
The time comes very soon when the people push back. It is at a hard boil now.
What an ass!
The truly rich don't pay taxes. They pay accountants and lawyers. The whole tax the rich is just for the stupid, I mean, lefty democrats to keep them in line.
I TOTALLY AGREE with AOC! Make THE RICH, Pay Their FAIR SHARE!
Let's Not Stop, until until the top 1%, pay 30% of income taxes !!!
Let's STICK IT TO THEM! STICK IT TO THEM, HARD!!!
https://www.ntu.org/foundation/tax-page/who-pays-income-taxes
The point is that AOC is functionally rich, and in due time will be actually rich while her polcies impoverish most of us--all while she promotes herself as a tribune of The People. That's what makes her a hypocrite. I've read elsewhere that a ticket to this event costs at least $30,000. If AOC didn't pay this herself, some modern-day Medici paid it for her. Did AOC attend this event to rebuke the rich, or wink-wink rebuke the rich while using it to strenghten her brand and deepen her ties to the elite for the usual congressional path to wealth? We're all familiar with wealthy socialist leaders. Poverty for most, dachas for the elect.
Too bad Tom Wolfe isn't around any longer to comment about AOC. Or he'd say that he already wrote the story over 50 years ago in his article These Radical Chic Evenings in New York Magazine.
Her attendance at a 30k a plate fundraiser while claiming to be a "democratic socialist" (which is the latest veneer for the neo-Communists) is where the hypocrisy lies.
It is a rather ordinary hypocrisy of socialist leaders to rub elbows and hobnob with wealthy people, rather than with the working class they claim to champion. So, it's no real surprise that AOC does this.
To bad Tom Wolfe isn't around any longer to comment on AOC. Or he'd just say he already wrote about it over 50 years ago in his article These Radical Chic Evenings in New York Magazine.
The rich already pay the vast majority of taxes.
The NY Post covered the event. Lots of of eye catching gowns and the attention whores who wear them. Congratulations to AOC for upstaging them all. She captured more attention than a Kardashian in a domination outfit. That's some trick.
How much does the dress cost?
Where are the raw materials from?
Where was the dress made?
What was the sales tax on the dress?
Why aren’t fancy dresses excise taxes at 200%?
Who paid for her $30,000 ticket to the ball?
After publicly vowing to continue mask wearing despite vaccination, she clearly doesn't believe it applies to her when hanging out with rich friends.
Some good questions might be how she got a ticket to the Gala (apparently they're QUITE expensive) and how she afforded a custom dress?
Beyond that wouldn't she accomplish her mission more effectively by working to craft and introduce legislation that would do what she says she wants to do? She did vote against repealing the cap on SALT deductions so that's a point in her favor. Beyond that there appears to be a fair amount of criticism that she spends her time generating publicity instead of trying to legislate.
All socialist girls still want their Cinderella moment.
That said, she should have gone DIY: an affordable dress from Target* with the message spray-painted on the back** would have better hit the us-against-them wage-slave tuning fork, and have allowed her followers to more accurately play dress-up, too.
(*I'm assuming a white off-shoulder gown by Aurora James' label ‘Brother Vellies’ plus a Grande Mocha is not under a hundred bucks)
(**Also, the lettering is too big for the canvas: hard to get all the text readable in a single photograph -- 'TA The RIC' indeed. Maybe a wider socialist could've done the job.)
I am Laslo.
. I'm sure that socially these rich folk would endorse the notion that they ought to bear a heavy burden of taxation.
There are some that verbalize the notion. The fail to submit additional $ to the IRS, State, and local taxing authorities.
Warren Buffet has been lobbying for decades to raise taxes on the rich(who defines that term?), while at the same time spends $millions employing tax attorneys and CPA's to assure he pays the legal minimum amount of tax. Ditto for Oprah.
"While AOC's revolutionary and subversive socialist gown generated buzz, the normalization of maskless elites attended to by faceless servants is grotesque." Glenn Greenwald https://greenwald.substack.com/p/the-masking-of-the-servant-class
Let her eat cake.
What's the clearest and best articulation of the view that "Qu'ils mangent de la brioche" was a revolutionary stance?
The soaking would only affect people who have big salaries. The really wealthy, the ones who fund the Democrat party, won't be hurt.
So much Joy Reid, Kamala Harris and AOC lately!
Its like a LLR / NeverTrump Dream Come True!
Every single person at that event was a Democrat and every single one of them supports the idea of taxing the living shit out of anyone too stupid to not figure out how to avoid paying them.
AOC, the belle of the cabal.
When I see a gown like that, I ponder who was the person who made it? Did the designer actually sew it?
Not as arresting as the corn husk dress. (Nothing ever will be).
Currently Walkaway Joe has an ad drumming up support for his policies, and one of them is something like "Make the rich pay their fair share." Maybe Howard and Chuck or some other State fellators can answer this question, but what is a "fair share" of someone else's money?
Althouse writes, "I'm sure that socially these rich folk would endorse the notion that they ought to bear a heavy burden of taxation."
What burden? Don't they realize taxation only exists to punish people for not being social parasites, because...?
If we talked honestly about private wealth then the fact that all the wealth of all the American billionaires would not even cover this year’s Democrat budget that Bernie is flogging. Government is a drag on the economy even without socialism dialed up to eleven.
That makes her more brave than hypocritical. But it still wouldn't be especially brave. I'm sure that socially these rich folk would endorse the notion that they ought to bear a heavy burden of taxation.
Which is why she's more hypocritical than brave--she is pretending to bravely speak truth to power when in reality, the people around her publicly cheer her message. As she knew they would when she put on the dress. Privately, of course, they will protect their loopholes. And she will help them do it.
The criticism quickly moved on from the irony of her wearing a "Tax the Rich" dress in front of an adoring crowd of rich who have no intention of paying more taxes to how all the staff, but none of the guests, are masked. Lest the hoity toity be forced to see the faces of the hoi polloi.
Woman of the people, indeed.
The photo perfectly captures the real dynamic of why, despite 100 years of Democratic rhetoric about using the estate and income taxes to make the richest people pay the biggest share, the richest evade the most taxes. They can afford the $35000 per ticket to events where they mingle with the political powers drafting the tax legislation. Hypocrisy is the least of the problem.
Best example: restoring full deductibility of State and Local Taxes benefits the wealthiest NY, NY and Cal classes, yet is at the heart of AOC's "Tax the Rich" program.
"they ought to bear a heavy burden of taxation"
The rich-rich will find a way out. The not-so-rich-rich will be stuck. And the rest will get more of other people's money.
Friedman was wrong: there is a free lunch. In America anyway: Europeans have the decency to make everyone pay. Solidarity and all that.
What America needs is an honest left.
Tax the rich! (But bring back the deduction for interest on state and local bonds.)
Christopher said...
The point is that AOC is functionally rich, and in due time will be actually rich
I'd say, she's actually Rich, NOW
AOC is making (base Salary) $174,000 per year, plus benefits.
This is MORE THAN twice what i EVER made as a database admin (and i was able to retire @56)
HELL! $174,000 per year, plus benefits; is pretty good money, even for a welder!
I've said it before, if all these people sued their own money for the purposes they claim are absolutely necessary, they could change the world they way they claim. But they don't want to change the world (at least not in the way they claim), they just want useful idiots to keep giving them wealth and power. It works, too.
"Which is why she's more hypocritical than brave--she is pretending to bravely speak truth to power when in reality, the people around her publicly cheer her message."
It's not that brave (as I said) but it's not hypocritical. If you're just saying the bravery value is zero... well, I still disagree with you, because that would only put hypocrisy and bravery at the same level, zero.
I don't see the hypocrisy.
Is it that she went to a gala? But wanting rich people to be taxed doesn't mean you don't want them to have fancy parties anymore. AOC isn't advocating taxing them into poverty or even taxing them back to the middle class level. They can still do galas.
The Met gala charges guests (though not political guests like her) tens of thousands of dollars. But it's a charity affair, raising money for the Metropolitan Museums Costume Institute. I've never seen that she's opposed to beautiful museums. And money going to museums is a bit like taxation. You've got a big institution that needs a lot of money to do work that we as a group supposedly support.
"Always attack the rich
Everyone will support you. The rich first of all." -- Ellsworth Toohey.
Ann Althouse said...It's not that brave (as I said) but it's not hypocritical. If you're just saying the bravery value is zero... well, I still disagree with you, because that would only put hypocrisy and bravery at the same level, zero.
I don't see the hypocrisy.
Here's the hypocrisy: "Privately, of course, they will protect their loopholes. And she will help them do it."
I only watched the first installment of "The Hunger Games"
AOC is the swank elite costumed hypocrite in The Hunger Games.
Bilwick said...
but what is a "fair share" of someone else's money?
I actually asked my bleeding heart liberal mother this; actually, i asked her...
"Mom, What's a fair share of income taxes to be coming from the top 1%?
Of All the income taxes collected, how much of the total should come from the top 1%?"
And she said; "I don't know, maybe we should 20% of income taxes from them"
I told her that the top 1% currently pay 40% of income taxes, and she said
"No they don't"
I asked the same question to my socialist fishing buddy Ben, and his answer was...
"They should have to pay at least some, not like now."
Before you think it's just crazy leftists that are clueless, consider this;
Mike (MJB Wolf) said...
We don’t tax the rich. We don’t tax wealth at all. We tax income. So the burden always falls on the working man and woman
MJB, i'm sure you're a nice person, and i mean No Disrespect; But
PUT THE PIPE DOWN, YOU'VE SMOKED ENOUGH, STONER
The top 1% pay FORTY PERCENT OF ALL INCOME TAXES
That's a LOT, for you to think "we don't tax the rich"
Do YOU think the 'working man and woman' are in the top 1%???
PUT THE PIPE DOWN!!
Ann Althouse said...
Is it that she went to a gala? But wanting rich people to be taxed doesn't mean you don't want them to have fancy parties anymore. AOC isn't advocating taxing them into poverty or even taxing them back to the middle class level. They can still do galas.
Um. That's wrong.
She clearly and explicitly states that they have too much money and that everyone needs to be more equal. The goal these people constantly spew out is income equality.
Bill Crawford said...
Is the $30,000 ticket price tax deductible?
With free food to boot.
But wanting rich people to be taxed doesn't mean you don't want them to have fancy parties anymore. AOC isn't advocating taxing them into poverty or even taxing them back to the middle class level. They can still do galas.
If we were to truly tax the rich, there would be plenty of unintended consequences depending on tax laws. We once had high marginal rates, e.g. 90% for over $200,000 earnings back in 1960. This doesn't lead to massive increases in government tax revenue. Indeed, the galas will continue if pre-tax money is used, i.e. the cost of the gala is tax deductible. As a matter of fact, the more progressive the tax rate, the more of the giving will be done by the top tier, as it would go to the government anyway.
Now, if you have high taxes, but less regressive, what you will see is less charitable giving, as the lower net income of the professional and working class will produce less discretionary income. This is what you see in high tax European countries. E.g. the government send Tsunami relief as opposed to individuals.
This also ignores the gaming theory of taxation in which those high income earners would legally avoid taxes anyway. Google's Schmidt has already become a citizen of Cyprus.
Lastly, if you combine high marginal rates and also limit charitable deductions, expect a major impact to charitable giving.
So, yes, taxing the rich will not eliminate charity galas, but it may have a big impact.
Ann,
It absolutely is hypocritical if she didn't even have to pay to attend, as you say. She's not even putting her money where her mouth is.
Like I said, I went to a gala once -- a much, much cheaper one -- and I also got in free. But there was an actual event to be covered (music) and I was writing about it for a respected publication. What's AOC's excuse?
She's a hypocrite for being at a social celebration of the 1%. $30k tickets? Who paid? What does she owe to the person / corporation who paid for her ticket?
Pretending to be "anti-rich" while hanging out with the rich and enjoying their pastimes is inherently hypocritical.
Are you "concerned about climate change"? Then don't ever fly on a private plane, or 1st Class on a non-private one. No, you don't get to buy "carbon indulgences" and do it anyway.
If you want people to stop doing something, you must never yourself do it. It doesn't matter how rich, politically connected, or otherwise "special" you are.
Big Mike said...
"Good thing she has such a broad fundament to write out the word “Rich” so largely.
But a true socialist would never be anywhere near a Met gala, except perhaps to picket it."
It's not really about taxing the rich. Socialism requires a massive surrender of individual rights for the sake of the collective (i.e., the State).
Will there still be culture? Sure, but only that which serves the interests of the State. Museums? Yes, after all vestiges of the former capitalist system are purged. And the rich? Expect many, if not most of them to be frogmarched for public display before their executions on TV, as traitors to the Revolution. Yeet the Rich, indeed.
Ann Althouse said...
I don't see the hypocrisy.
Is it that she went to a gala? But wanting rich people to be taxed doesn't mean you don't want them to have fancy parties anymore.
You can't be the "opponent" of the people you hang out with, who's attention you crave.
She claims to be the opponent of the rich. if that were true, she wouldn't be there wearing dress that cost some multiple of $1,000
The Met gala charges guests (though not political guests like her) tens of thousands of dollars.
Her message: "tax the rich, while giving me all the benefits they get, for free, because I'm politically connected"
Are we going to tax her for all her political benefits? No?
So she is the real out of touch and untouchable "rich".
Another interesting bit of Met hypocrisy. Someone tweeted a picture of unmasked AOC with a whole row of masked servants behind her. I couldn't help noticing that every one of the servants was young, female, slender, white, and beautiful. Even with the masks, you could see that all of them were in the top 10% or at most 15% of women their age and weight for looks. Whoever did the hiring for the gala seems to have done some serious discrimination against the old, the fat, the ugly, and (I think) the non-white. (It looked like there were one or two blacks among the male servants, but they too were all young, tall, slender, and handsome.) Is this kind of discrimination even legal? Of course, rich people who fondly think of themselves as The Beautiful People, whatever their actual looks, do expect to be surrounded by genuinely beautiful people when they party.
MadisonMan (12:14pm):
I don't know who actually sewed the dress, but AOC bragged in a tweet that the designer was an immigrant, and someone reply-tweeted that she is indeed an immigrant - from Toronto.
I don't see the hypocrisy.
She demands that we wear masks, but she's out in public, not wearing one.
Worse, she's around a whole bunch of other people who also aren't wearing masks.
If she believed what she claims about Covid, she wouldn't be there
I guarantee you Melania Trump's raising a glass to AOC. Both women have dress trolling down to a science- AOC's actually better at it, given that she can flaunt her ass WHILE decrying men for focusing on that instead of on "the message."
Still, it's a little odd that I've never seen Socialist Barbie wear the same $30000 dress twice. Is some millionaire playing a demented game of dressup with her? Getting her in a tickle trunk? You'd be surprised how angry leftists like Greenwald and Jimmy Dore are about it. Further proof that the convenient lines are being erased.
But wanting rich people to be taxed doesn't mean you don't want them to have fancy parties anymore. AOC isn't advocating taxing them into poverty or even taxing them back to the middle class level. They can still do galas.
Yes. And AOC can still wear designer dresses that show off her nice buns.
She’s taking a page out of Melania’s playbook, sartorially speaking….to different effect. (Remember “I really don’t care” on the green jacket?)
I see writing on high fashion, and I can't help but compare the treatment of AOC at the Met Gala with Melania wearing a certain jacket onto Air Force One.
I really don't care, do you?
There are two tiers of rich. The top tier are the people who revolutionize society with an idea - the robber barons - like the steel, oil, and railroad barons a century ago, today these are the Bezos-Zuckerberg-Gates-types who are rich enough to disdain the second tier down.
The second tier are the nouvos like AOC, the scrabbling rich - they may start as bourgeois upper middle class like she did, but they crack the code and enter the club of people that get rich by being underwritten by captured institutional systems, both governmental and publicly traded. Interest-free loans, super-low rate mortgages, benefactors buying gifted estates at inflated prices, other methods of insider wealth transfer - all those system perks that are available on a discretionary basis as honorariums from one inside player to another, but within a supposedly egalitarian system. That's why AOC is a hypocrite, comfortable with parking her Tesla in a No Parking Fire Zone in front of Whole Foods. She's one of the Entitled: comfortable with Taxing the Rich because the cost is already covered in another column.
I suspect that the "Trumpers" recognize that the "Davos Billionaires" will move their operations offshore and use their accountants for all their worth, and the ones who suffer most from "soaking the rich" may be ordinary Americans. AOC is selling overpriced merchandise online. She recognizes that those in power, like the very rich can always stay a step a head of the tax man.
*
AOC at the Met Gala certainly has comedy potential -- our era's answer to Jean Harlow and Marie Dressler. Unfortunately, grande dames aren't what they used to be and might not look down their noses at Alexandria.
robother said...
The photo perfectly captures the real dynamic of why, despite 100 years of Democratic rhetoric about using the estate and income taxes to make the richest people pay the biggest share, the richest evade the most taxes. They can afford the $35000 per ticket to events where they mingle with the political powers drafting the tax legislation. Hypocrisy is the least of the problem.
*************
Despite 100 years of data, some people still think the richest evade the most taxes.
Not so: the top 1% t0 5% earners pay 59% of all federal income taxes.
The bottom 50% pay 3.1%.
https://www.thebalance.com/breakdown-of-who-pays-most-taxes-4178924
But the envy of the progs is limitless. They want more and more and more....it's never enough.
I followed the sound of a jukebox coming from up the levee
All of a sudden, I could hear somebody whistling from right behind me
I turned around, and she said
"Why do you always end up down at Nick's Cafe?"
I said, "Uh, I don't know, the wind just kinda pushed me this way"
She said, "Hang the rich"
Catch the blue train
Places never been before
Look for me
Somewhere down the crazy river... ~ Robbie Robertson
I followed the sound of a jukebox coming from up the levee
All of a sudden, I could hear somebody whistling from right behind me
I turned around, and she said
"Why do you always end up down at Nick's Cafe?"
I said, "Uh, I don't know, the wind just kinda pushed me this way"
She said, "Hang the rich"
Catch the blue train
Places never been before
Look for me
Somewhere down the crazy river... ~ Robbie Robertson
AND is rich, now.
Work out the NPV of her congressional pension if you doubt this.
AOC is rich, now.
Work out the NPV of her congressional pension if you doubt it.
'She looks stunning.'
Mr. Ed agrees...
She hates Davos billionaires as much as Trumpers, yet to a man, they hate her and her plan to tax the ever living shit out of them.
There's a perfect ambiguity in your sentence. Who is "them"? AOC plans to spend a shitload of money and tax the Davos billionaires. But Trumpers know that's not how it works. Davos billionaires have many ways of evading taxes and there aren't that many billionaires so it doesn't get made up in volume. AOC will spend her shitload of money, that part is non-negotiable, and the Trumpers will end up paying the bill. Trumpers mostly just make wages, can't evade taxes, and there are a lot of them. That's the way it works. The middle class *always* gets stuck with the bill.
the top 1% t0 5% earners pay 59% of all federal income taxes. The bottom 50% pay 3.1%.
Guess how much the taxes of the top 5% impact their daily lives. Guess who pays the remaining 38%. Guess how much it impacts their daily lives.
Did she pay anything out of her own pocket towards the cost of the dress, or did the designer just get "exposure"? Will it somehow be a tax write-off...or better yet, a campaign expense?
Did she pay anything out of her own pocket towards the cost of the dress, or did the designer just get "exposure"? Will it somehow be a tax write-off...or better yet, a campaign expense?
At first I thought there was hypocrisy, but changed my mind. State socialism requires two types of elites: captive or suborned wealth creators and the ruling oligarchs. AOC is one of the latter, she is more equal than others, and she is there to remind the captive wealth creators who is top pig at the trough.
I'm sure after the gala she climbed into her Zil limousine and sped off to her dacha to further entertain various moguls who hung - or are hanged - on her every word.
I want to know if she paid for the ticket. Congressional rules prohibit taking gifts. Same for the dress, did she buy it? Good for her. Because if she borrowed it that would be another gift, and against the rules.
What is with Titania McGrath’s completely inane comment “ The most effective way to tackle economic inequality is through the medium of haute couture”? First off, is is completely ineffective as absolutely nothing will change. Nothing. But more importantly, why is income inequality a problem anyway? We live in a capitalist system which rewards better ideas, hard work, merit, skill and a dozen other factors. Yes even good luck sometimes. But any attempt by government to get to equal outcomes is better known as communism and results in equal poverty at best and total loss of freedom always. It is a stupid goal and needs to be denounced strongly every time.
I associate AOC with climate change issues, not taxation rhetoric, though that’s a factor of climate change. She should have emblazoned something like “Cool your Jets” or “Halve your Homes” on her butt. But that’s just me.
“The only real problem with AOC (and her ilk) is that no one ever engages with her ideas--they are swept away by her "glamour".”
With a sniffer that looks like the “parson’s nose” on a 20lb. tom turkey, Occasional-Cortex has a ways to go before the word “glamour” should be used.
What would be especially brave for AOC to do?
Another caged kids photo op at the border, while her party is in charge?
She wont, of course. AOC is not a Democrat McCainiac. Not even close.
A bunch of low-class people at “high-class event.”
Most of the people in the highest 1% of income are not there for very long. A lot of them are people who sold a business they (and their spouse) spent a life time building sometimes under the pressure of punitive gift/estate taxes if they passed the business to their children or long term illness.
Wealthy people don't need income. They don't need to sell their assets at a gain, since they can borrow against them or execute complex transactions that minimize their taxable income.
Serious Question
Who pays MORE, in taxes? Warren Buffet? Or his Secretary?
NOTE: I'm NOT asking,
"who is taxed at a greater rate?" or
"which has a higher percentage of their income as taxes??"
I'm Asking "Who pays MORE, in taxes? Warren Buffet? Or his Secretary?
Bonus Question: How many orders of magnitude larger is it?
AOC makes me want to vomit.
So she's nauseous?
"She's telling the rich folk to their face that they ought to be taxed."
And they are. From the Tax Foundation, 2015 -- New Treasury Data Shows How Progressive America’s Tax Code Really Is
Looking specifically at income taxes, we can see that families below the 50th decile have a negative tax burden.
...
At the other end of the income spectrum, it is clear that families above the 90th percentile pay proportionately more in taxes compared to their share of the nation’s income. Collectively, these 16.7 million families earn 43.5 percent of the nation’s income, but pay 81 percent of all income taxes and 61.2 percent of all federal taxes.
At the top, the 1.5 million families in the 99 to 99.9 percentile group, earn 9 percent of the nation’s income and pay 21 percent of income taxes and 14 percent of all federal taxes. The wealthiest 0.1 percent of families (roughly 200,000 in number), earn 8.7 percent of the nation’s income, but pay nearly 24 percent of all income taxes and 16.5 percent of all federal taxes.
https://taxfoundation.org/new-treasury-data-shows-how-progressive-americas-tax-code-really/
AOC, Deblasio, and their posse. Free 30k tickets. Normally that money goes to charity, but not if theyre just given away. Thats 5 people, multiplied by 30k, and 180k not going to charity. What is the salary of a congressxer and the mayor of NYC? Hypocrites got to hypocrit.
Again and again and again.
Heatshield (4:35pm):
Titania McGrath is a humor account, designed to mock idiot lefties. But she (actually he) is constantly overtaken by events, as real lefties say the same things seriously that T.M. had said jokingly.
Apparently not everyone realizes that Titania McGrath is a satiric, not a real person, in the same way that Babylon Bee isn't real news.
Nonetheless, Heatshield got the point without knowing that. So Titania is extremely effective satire.
I'm waiting for a Democrat to say what most Democrats are thinking.
That ALL of us have to be taxed more.
AOC gets people riled up because people think she has high SMV.
Trust me, she doesn't. She oozes something selfish from her pores that no acceptable male wants to be around. I mean, if she knew she were doing it, she would stop. But she doesn't know, because the ideologues who entranced her won't let her know.
Neither does Trump by the way (that is, neither does Trump have high SMV - for God's sake, how can a man in his 70s have high SMV???)- if people had just realized he was this lucky little guy with a wife 20 years younger than him, and not some guy who thought he had high SMV, they would not have hated on him so much. But jealousy, particularly jealousy for those people think of as having higher SMV than them, is just about the most powerful emotion among the sheeple of today ....
And MPAI.
I don't see the hypocrisy.
Is it that she went to a gala? But wanting rich people to be taxed doesn't mean you don't want them to have fancy parties anymore. AOC isn't advocating taxing them into poverty or even taxing them back to the middle class level. They can still do galas.
What I get from this statement is that I would have been infuriated at Prof. Althouse as a student (not that I studied ltaw, though my husband, equally cinfuriated, has frequently urged such upon me) for her careful and, it does seem, gleeful, parsing of the obvious. My husband often accuses me of cagily talking around the point that is obviously on the table.
How are you a "Democratic Socialist" while believing that $30k-a-plate galas are dandy? This is the French Revolution redux. I'm on the side of the "brioche-eaters" because of the grossness of AOC and her ilk, but I'm scared because we're not as poor as we need to be to escape the guillotine.
If the Constitution were still the basis for the law of the land, I would sleep easy.
I think the real issue is that she markets herself as a proponent of the working class, while attending parties that cost $30,000 per ticket and wearing a dress that I read cost $12,000. That might not be fair, Trump is a billionaire and nobody gives him guff about being a proponent of the working class. But, consider this, Trump hangs out with blue collar types and proposes policies that most of the working class thinks will actually help them. AOC gives of a condescending air.
The working class would be a step up. AOC is a proponent of the non-working class. Her core constituency is the Occupy crowd.
Post a Comment