CRAZINESS HAS GONE MAINSTREAM

The rage of the rich has been building ever since Mr Obama took office.

At first, however, it was largely confined to Wall Street.

Thus when

Now, however, as decision time looms for the fate of the Bush tax cuts — will top tax rates go back to Clinton-era levels? — the rage of the rich has broadened, and also in some ways changed its character.

For one thing, craziness has gone mainstream.

It’s one thing when a billionaire rants at a dinner event.

It’s another when

When it comes to defending the interests of the rich, it seems, the normal rules of civilised (and rational) discourse no longer apply.

At the same time, self-pity among the privileged has become acceptable, even fashionable.New York magazine published an article titled The Wail of the 1 Per Cent, it was talking about financial wheeler-dealers whose firms had been bailed out with taxpayer funds but were furious at suggestions that the price of these bailouts should include temporary limits on bonuses. When the bi l l ionaire Stephen Schwarzman compared an Obama proposal to the Nazi invasion of Poland, the proposal in question would have closed a tax loophole that specifically benefits fund managers like him.Forbes magazine runs a cover story alleging that the President of the United States is deliberately trying to bring America down as part of his Kenyan, “anti-colonialist” agenda, and that “the US is being ruled according to the dreams of a Luo tribesman of the 1950s”.

A BELL IGERENT SENSE OF ENTITLEMENT

Tax-cut advocates used to pretend that they were mainly concerned about helping typical American families.

Even tax breaks for the rich were justified in terms of trickle-down economics, the claim that lower taxes at the top would make the economy stronger for everyone.

These days, however, taxcutters are hardly even trying to make the trickle-down case.

Yes, Republicans are pushing the line that raising taxes at the top would hurt small businesses, but their hearts don’t really seem in it.

Instead, it has become common to hear vehement denials that people making US$400,000 ($534,000) or US$500,000 a year are rich.

I mean, look at the expenses of people in that income class — the property taxes they have to pay on their expensive houses, the cost of sending their children to elite private schools, and so on. Why, they can barely make ends meet.

And among the undeniably rich, a belligerent sense of entitlement has taken hold: It’s their money, and they have the right to keep it.

“Taxes are what we pay for civilised society,” said Oliver Wendell Holmes — but that was a long time ago.

The spectacle of high-income Americans, the world’s luckiest people, wallowing in self-pity and self-righteousness would be funny, except for one thing: They may well get their way.

Never mind the US$700 billion price tag for extending the high-end tax breaks: Virtually all Republicans and some Democrats are rushing to the aid of the oppressed affluent.

You see, the rich are different from you and me:

They have more influence.

It’s partly a matter of campaign contributions but it’s also a matter of social pressure, since politicians spend a lot of time hanging out with the wealthy. So, when the rich face the prospect of paying an extra 3 or 4 per cent of their income in taxes, politicians feel their pain – feel it much more acutely, it’s clear, than they feel the pain of families who are losing their jobs, their houses and their hopes.

And when the tax fight is over, one way or another, you can be sure that the people currently defending the incomes of the elite will go back to demanding cuts in Social Security and aid to the unemployed.

America must make hard choices, they’ll say; we all have to be willing to make sacrifices.

But when they say “we,” they mean “you.”

Sacrifice is for the little people.

THE NEW YORK TIMES

The writer is a professor of economics and international affairs at Princeton University.

He received the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2008.

True, this white-hot rage is a minority phenomenon, not something that characterises most of our fellow citizens.

But the angry minority is angry indeed, consisting of people who feel that things to which they are entitled are being taken away. And they’re out for revenge.

No, I’m not talking about the Tea Partiers. I’m talking about the rich.

These are terrible times for many people in this country.

Poverty, especially acute poverty, has soared in the economic slump; millions of people have lost their homes. Young people can’t find jobs; laid-off 50-somethings fear that they’ll never work again.

Yet if you want to find real political rage — the kind of rage that makes people compare President Barack Obama to Hitler, or accuse him of treason — you won’t find it among these suffering Americans.