Can We Afford the Rich?

    The other day someone said, " We can no longer afford the rich."  I thought it was a pretty good throw away line in the current debate about taxes.  Clever but no more than a throw away.  I did notice and comment that it certainly could be a dangerous thought.  It IS the kind of thought that can be associated with the French Revolution and the attendant  excesses.
    Then I started to think about it.  What, exactly, do these guys do?  Well, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs started the computer revolution.  Yeah, that's what made them rich.  I don't know that Micro Soft or Apple continues with any significant input from either one . And, yes, I am aware Jobs is dead.  Kinda makes my point.  What does the co-founder of Home Depot do?  Nothing.  He was in on the idea of consolidating the distribution of building products but that was 40 years ago.  Sam Walton?  Same story.  There's no ongoing innovation, no new, fresh ideas.
    Then you have a second tier of individuals that never had an original idea but managed to work themselves into positions of exploiting going concerns.  The Kochs and Romneys of the world.  They never did toil but they sure do reap.  At the bottom of this well fed food chain you have people like the Bushs who have augmented fortunes by nothing other than influence pedaling.  It was said of Prescott Bush, he had the remarkable talent of walking thru a room and millions in public funds would disappear.  His offspring have maintained the talent.  Look into the RTC and the Enron mess.
    Almost without exception these people have stepped far away from the fruits of their talents or any real contact with the original talents that built the wealth.  What exactly are they good for?  So many of them have devoted efforts  to rearranging society to meet personal ends.  To be blunt, so many have simply become malefactors of great wealth  who mistake personal interest for the greater good and they don't seem to be very smart about it.
    They have just managed to add 1.5 trillion to the national debt.  At this minute the debt service on the national debt is the second largest annual cash outlay we have behind defense.  Without the recent fiddling with the marginal tax rates, in 5 years it will be our largest annual expense at well over a trillion yearly.  Compound interest is relentless and cuts both ways.  The majority of the tax money to meet those expenses is going to come from the one percent as it always has.  That looks pretty dumb to me.  Now we see two reasons we might not be able to continue to afford the rich.  They really don't do anything and they seem to be really dumb.  Revolutions have been based on less.
    I don't think we can afford either the ultra rich or revolution.  Better get a handle on this mess now.