Yo, top 1%: shut the fuck up

[ChuckF]

I get that the furor over AIG bonuses was driven largely cheap economic populism. I really do. I understand that that kind of populism isn't always constructive. And I also understand that people, including myself, are angry, and that the very wealthy are attractive targets for that anger. But I want to offer some free advice to the nation's very rich: shut the fuck up. You are only making it worse for yourselves.

Remember Jake DeSantis' AIG resignation op-ed in the NY Times? Yeah, he had some people until he mentioned the $740,000 after-tax bonus.

An anonymous "TARP wife" has written her confessions in an editorial for the not-quite-working-class Condé Nast Portfolio. Haha, no not really anonymous, it was Liz Peek, wife of Jeffrey Peek, CEO of CIT Group. I think it probably took about 12 hours for the Internets to blow her cover.

She seems to recognize the new need to be more discreet about consumption. She describes in detail her struggles to find a suitably undecadent Manhattan restaurant for her husband's birthday party, a task she compares to "Choosing Versailles to host World War I peace negotiations." And she even "get[s] it that I may not win much sympathy." That's probably a good thing, especially when she talks about government bailouts in terms like this:

It also means we’re part of the community of more than 400 companies that have received government bailout funds, whose fall from grace has been swifter and harsher than any since Mao frog-marched intellectuals into China’s countryside.

Nice analogy.

But how fucking tone deaf do you have to be write paragraphs like this:

In an effort to conserve cash, we are eating out less frequently, meaning that I’ve been turning out some pretty dreadful lasagna. Actually, staying home and watching Law & Order reruns has become our new guilty pleasure. It’s a far cry from opening night at the Metropolitan Opera, but it’s not bad. I drive the family crazy by switching off the lights every time we leave a room. Needless to say, we fly commercial. Using the company plane is now out of bounds; we’ve heard there are reporters staking out the private airports.

Goodness me, flying commercial (note, not "coach," just commercial), watching Law & Order, and driving your family crazy by not wasting energy. And, uh, way to avoid the nosy media by writing a column for a magazine. This is just like the liquidation of the kulaks!

So top 1%, stop talking. Nobody wants to hear it. There are tens of millions of American families who would switch places with you in a New York minute. Granted, you, with a little help from Ronald Reagan, have hoodwinked a lot of those very same people into defending your incredible wealth. Be content with the hugely disproportionate share of wealth that you control and stop trying to pacify the little people with your tales of deprivation. You are only making it worse.