That Wealth Spreader

[one...two...tree 2,762]

By Michael Kinsley, Time

In the 1943 movie Tender Comrade, Ginger Rogers utters the words "Share and share alike--that's democracy." Nobody objected at the time, but four years later, Rogers' mother complained to the House Un-American Activities Committee that her daughter had been forced to express a communist sentiment. The scriptwriter, Dalton Trumbo (who actually was a communist), went to jail for refusing to testify and then spent years on the Hollywood blacklist, unable to get work. But "share and share alike" has been rehabilitated and restored to its place of honor as one of America's finest bromides.

So what future awaits "spread the wealth," a similar bromide uttered by Barack Obama to Joe the Plumber at a rally in Ohio? The history of this expression can also be traced to a movie: Hello, Dolly, released in 1969 and never before now regarded as subversive. But perhaps it deserves a closer look. It starred Barbra Streisand, a notorious Hollywood lefty who also starred in The Way We Were, the 1973 weepie that glamorized frizzy-haired communists and left-wing agitators from New York City and derogated real Americans like handsome blond Robert Redford. In Hello, Dolly, Streisand plays a professional matchmaker who has her eye on Walter Matthau, playing a "well-known unmarried half-a-millionaire." At a key moment, she declares, "Money, pardon the expression, is like manure. It's not worth a thing unless it's spread around." Where was Streisand's mother while this outrage was being perpetrated?

Wait. It gets worse. Hello, Dolly is one of many versions of The Matchmaker, a play by Thornton Wilder, author of Our Town and other treacly warhorses of the American theater. Over the years, millions of American children have had to sit through what once was viewed as sentimental propaganda and therefore good for them. Many impressionable young people have even been forced to say the line about spreading money around in student productions of The Matchmaker, taking innocent pleasure in the joke about manure while their little minds were being polluted with redistributionist propaganda. While I remember Wilder's plays as being flag-draped, I read in Wikipedia that his major theme was "the universality of the simple yet meaningful lives of all people in the world." Also, he was gay. So much for him.

John McCain thinks Obama's "spread the wealth" comment is a major gotcha. He has locked his chops around this remark like a terrier around Obama's ankle and keeps repeating it. He regards it as self-evidently self-damning. On Meet the Press, McCain ducked Tom Brokaw's invitation to agree or disagree with Sarah Palin that Obama is a "socialist." But a day later McCain brandished a radio interview from seven years ago in which Obama had used the term redistributive change.

Seven years ago, as Brokaw pointed out, McCain himself was sounding redistributionist, complaining about President Bush's tax cuts. Campaigning against Bush in 2000, he said that "when you ... reach a certain level of comfort, there's nothing wrong with paying somewhat more." Obama has said no more than this, except to set the "level of comfort" at $250,000, which is pretty comfortable. McCain is free to argue that Obama will raise taxes on people making less than $250,000. My bet is that whoever wins the election will be forced to. But his apparent belief that the very expression "spread the wealth" puts Obama beyond the pale is so out of touch that it's almost touching. It belongs on the golf courses of Arizona, not on the campaign trail.

We may disagree on how much to spread around and how to go about it. We all tend to think that it's someone else's wealth that needs to be spread around and that it ought to be spread in our direction. But the principle that the unequal distribution of wealth is a legitimate concern and government policies should mitigate it has been part of American democracy since at least the New Deal. In fact, it is a commonplace that the moderate wealth-spreading of the New Deal saved American democracy. Today collecting checks from people and issuing checks to other people--or the same people--is the government's main domestic activity.

Although it was an off-the-cuff remark and one that Obama probably regrets, he actually put it well, avoiding the suggestion of envy or class war, which are the usual accusations about such talk. Spreading it around is "good for everybody," he says. And who disagrees? Or would you like to live behind locked gates and hire guards to protect your family from kidnapping, as in places where they spread it around even less than here?

http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,1855360,00.html

[Sofiyya 1,687]

I've got a wealth spreader. It's the same one Warren Buffett has. The Rotary Wealth Spreader has a 5ft wide opening to more easily accomodate a front end loader for all that cash! The larger width also provides a greater surface area enabling more wealth to be distributed during each rotation, thus cutting your wealth spreading time. It's made in China, another great selling point!

[SaadBell 0]

[one...two...tree 2,762]

[Ban Hammer 13,352]

I've got a wealth spreader. It's the same one Warren Buffett has. The Rotary Wealth Spreader has a 5ft wide opening to more easily accomodate a front end loader for all that cash! The larger width also provides a greater surface area enabling more wealth to be distributed during each rotation, thus cutting your wealth spreading time. It's made in China, another great selling point!

[Brad and Vika 129]

I've got a wealth spreader. It's the same one Warren Buffett has. The Rotary Wealth Spreader has a 5ft wide opening to more easily accomodate a front end loader for all that cash! The larger width also provides a greater surface area enabling more wealth to be distributed during each rotation, thus cutting your wealth spreading time. It's made in China, another great selling point!

[one...two...tree 2,762]

The point of the article deliberately ignored...nice.

[Ban Hammer 13,352]

The point of the article deliberately ignored...nice.

no, just you

[IAMX 3,055]

This is the problem with locking onto stump speeches. When your speech backfires, your inability to talk about useful sh!t means you look like a retard. Wonder why the McCain and Palin ticket are getting parodied the most? I sure don't.

Edited November 2, 2008 by SRVT

[Sofiyya 1,687]

This is the problem with locking onto stump speeches. When your speech backfires, your inability to talk about useful sh!t means you look like a retard. Wonder why the McCain and Palin ticket are getting parodied the most? I sure don't.

No secret. Obama dominates the Kool Aid market.

Edited November 2, 2008 by Virtual wife

[Danno 1,228]

There is an argument to be made that spreading the wealth around on a global scale

is actually counter productive.

The rulers, war-lords and mafia types take most of the loot, making them even stronger

the people who need help get just enough to get by and nothing changes.

These people need REVOLUTION (worked pretty good for the USA and many other countries)

Some say we should stop sending money and start sending arms.

As I say, thats one argument, one that might have "some" truth to it.

On a national level, we had a "war on poverty" which began under Johnson.

at some point in time we need to see what the body count is.

What was the poverty rate then and what is it now?

If not much has changed, I propose a cease-fire in this war.

Washington has this unique ability of throwing money at social problems and making them worse.

Wouldn't it be a great idea if all this money we are taking from "producers" to give to

the "less able"

never even got to washington DC, why not form private boards to monitor where this money goes and the success of these programs. I think a large part of the problem is Gov't is involved.

If we are going to confiscate peoples money, lets at least do all we can to put it to good use. with real results.

[Sofiyya 1,687]

[Brad and Vika 129]

There is an argument to be made that spreading the wealth around on a global scale

is actually counter productive.

The rulers, war-lords and mafia types take most of the loot, making them even stronger

the people who need help get just enough to get by and nothing changes.

These people need REVOLUTION (worked pretty good for the USA and many other countries)

Some say we should stop sending money and start sending arms.

As I say, thats one argument, one that might have "some" truth to it.

On a national level, we had a "war on poverty" which began under Johnson.

at some point in time we need to see what the body count is.

What was the poverty rate then and what is it now?

If not much has changed, I propose a cease-fire in this war.

Washington has this unique ability of throwing money at social problems and making them worse.

Wouldn't it be a great idea if all this money we are taking from "producers" to give to

the "less able"

never even got to washington DC, why not form private boards to monitor where this money goes and the success of these programs. I think a large part of the problem is Gov't is involved.

If we are going to confiscate peoples money, lets at least do all we can to put it to good use. with real results.

You are correct up until that last little point. Confiscating peoples property (or the fruits of their labor) makes them much less productive. Even Marx knew that.

Government interference in markets and social welfare is always good intentioned, but seldom productive. Here are two examples:

1) No child left behind - the most noble of programs in its intent. Lots of paperwork, oversight, and effort. Not much in terms of measurable improvement in kids education (arguably).

2) A better example is the new government program to take equity stakes in financial institutions to promote increased liquidity in the markets. The idea is to increase inter-bank lending, and in turn free up more capital for consumers and businesses. The banks are taking the billions offered in some cases because they cannot afford to turn down the cheap money. Most of the recipient banks are then using the money to pay incentive bonuses and purchase other banks, brokers, etc. This does NOTHING to increase liquidity, although it does save politicians from having to explain a multitude of bank failures.

Just my opinion.

[Danno 1,228]

We agree.

My post was made with the reality that "income redistribution" is a practice that will increase rather than decrease in the foreseeable future.