My grandfather, a Hawai'ian judge, and the 1%

My grandfather was born in California in 1872.  He had probably a third grade education, but was a very successful businessman in the San Fernando Valley.

I admired my grandfather for all sorts of reasons.  He taught me that moss grows on the north side of a tree so I would know which direction to go.  Taught us how to make cuts on trees which he called blazes so we could always find our way home if we got off of the beaten path.  Blazing a trail he called it. He taught us responsibility toward guns and animals. And to always leave a gate the way you found it because you had to trust that the person before you knew what he or she was doing.  Lots of good stuff like that.  One thing that he taught us that I have thought about a lot these days is that there is nothing wrong in making money, but there is a lot wrong with making money on someone else’s neck. 

A newscast one evening when we were vacationing a couple of years ago in Hawai’i had a similar perspective.  A local entertainer had not paid his taxes, totaling some $15,000.  I assumed it was both federal and state taxes.  He had been found guilty of tax evasion, and I caught the sentencing segment wherein the judge fined him the same amount and sentenced him to many, many hours of public service as well.  But then the judge said, and I paraphrase, “You should be ashamed of yourself.  You have stolen from your neighbors.  You have stolen food from the hungry, good roads for all, medical care for some, police and fire protection for your neighbors.  This is what your tax dollars would have purchased.  This is not the aloha spirit, and if you are not ashamed of yourself, I am ashamed for you.”  I was truly shocked by that statement.

I am really glad I have these two memories these days when accusations of class warfare get bandied about so casually.  Few in these United States “envy” the rich.  We all would like to be rich.  What we don’t like, and I use Mitt Romney as a prime example, is when the rich take their millions and put those dollars in tax exempt bank accounts in Bermuda, the Cayman Islands and Switzerland, all the while telling us we can’t raise taxes on the “job creators”.  What jobs?  What jobs have these millions in overseas accounts created?  What has happened to those millions by not being taxed is what the judge said in Hawai’i.  The owner of those millions has stolen from his neighbors, the citizens of the United States. 

When Bain Capital used its millions in private equity speculations, putting some businesses in bankruptcy, and causing hundreds of people to lose their jobs, but making even more millions in the process, was making money on the necks of other people.  Mitt Romney is one of hundreds of private equity manipulators in the 1%.  Everything he did was legal, probably, although one wonders.  But that aside, these manipulations of the so-called “free market” are not what made this country great or my grandfather so successful. 

As the judge In Hawai’i said, “If you are not ashamed of yourself, I am ashamed for you”.