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Re: Completely Unwoven: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 4.0
Hmm...by missing the author's point, you do a great job of proving it for him at the same time.
The author's point, it seemed to me, is that members of the 20% themselves bear primary responsibility for preserving their own status at the expense of everyone else, and the mechanism that allows them to do so with impunity is their facility in finding other people to blame for the problem. You want other people to pay for low-income housing, as long as that low-income housing is not sited in your own neighborhood, for example; you want other people to pay for food assistance for the poor, as long as you yourself never have to meet any of the people actually receiving assistance face-to-face.
You even come close to that by noting that both parties perpetuate those policies (e.g., mortgage interest deduction for homeowners; charitable deductions for gifts to college endowment funds). Yet somehow you yourself maintain your illusion of moral purity by blaming all of the problem entirely on others.
That's exactly what the author of the article was describing.
Originally posted by Kepler
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The author's point, it seemed to me, is that members of the 20% themselves bear primary responsibility for preserving their own status at the expense of everyone else, and the mechanism that allows them to do so with impunity is their facility in finding other people to blame for the problem. You want other people to pay for low-income housing, as long as that low-income housing is not sited in your own neighborhood, for example; you want other people to pay for food assistance for the poor, as long as you yourself never have to meet any of the people actually receiving assistance face-to-face.
You even come close to that by noting that both parties perpetuate those policies (e.g., mortgage interest deduction for homeowners; charitable deductions for gifts to college endowment funds). Yet somehow you yourself maintain your illusion of moral purity by blaming all of the problem entirely on others.
That's exactly what the author of the article was describing.
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