RISK: Rich v. poor

I opened The Press and thought that someone had hacked into the editing computer and inserted a page from Pravda. There it was: faked quotations, guilt by association, and the Evil Empire. Then, I looked at the byline; Jon Keith, again.

He had used a Gorbachev speech, inserted a few words and deleted the inconvenient. Mr. Keith took a post-Stalinist Communist speech and added the word “Democratic” to Socialism. This is as dishonest as taking a speech about the wonders of Capitalism and adding the words “Robber Baron.”

Mr. Keith then defines the rich as “the risk taking class.” Risk-taking: I have friends, one works two jobs; her husband, who is quite ill, but still working. They took a medical bankruptcy; it wiped out their savings, their credit, and their equity in their home. Donald Trump has taken bankruptcy four times. Forbes Magazine of April 29, 2011 says, “He’s insulated.” At present, also according to Forbes, he’s worth $4.5 billion. Whose wealth was at risk?

Fortune Magazine on Oct. 31, 2014 wrote “extreme levels of [income] inequality are bad for business.” In the same article they quote the historian Tony Judt saying, “in contrast to their parents and grandparents children today … have very little expectation of improving the economic situation they were born into. The poor stay poor.” Later Fortune says, “Not only is rising inequality bad for business, it’s bad for society, as well.” The same article points out that the top 160,000 families own as much as the remaining 145 million combined.

We are not in a capitalist democracy. We are in a plutocratic oligarchy. The only player left that can balance the scales is government. Let’s return to the godless days of Eisenhower and return the top tax bracket and the top capital gains bracket to 90 percent.

JEFF BOURGET

Coeur d’Alene