Rich. People. Don't. Lose. Money.

This article struck a chord with me.

“A 2 percent GPT didn’t save my job or the jobs of thousands of others in the industry. A 2 percent GPT sure as hell didn’t stop oil and gas executives from giving themselves bonuses or raises the past two years.”

Rich. People. Don’t. Lose. Money.

They protect it. Even if it means spending gobs of money on lawyers and lobbyists to keep from losing even bigger gobs of money later. If they see money losses on the horizon, the first thing they do is pull out their calculators and figure out if it’s worth paying these expensive lawyers and lobbyists to fight for saving their precious money. And of course they have their image to worry about. They can’t actually come out and say “gosh, I’ll lose millions, and I don’t want that.” So they start fishing for sympathy and shifting blame. “We’ll have to layoff people to pay for the tax raises.” Don’t fall for this crap. The handful of super rich people at the top are yelling this at the top of their lungs with crocodile tears while they try to avert your attention away from the closets behind them overflowing with more money than you can imagine. Enough to pay each and every teacher in the state a decent salary and they would still be billionaires. No, I’m not suggesting that as a solution. Just pointing out how much money they are protecting so we all know how much rich people will “suffer” if they had even that crazy notion forced on them.)

“trickle-down-economics simply doesn’t work because you are relying on businesses reinvest in their businesses and communities voluntarily.”

Rich. People. Don’t. Lose. Money.

I’ve always hated the term “trickle down”. I have better term for it: feast on scraps. “Trickle down” is a made up term to make the 99% feel at ease that the rich, if left alone to their greed, will take care of us all with their overflowing wallets. Yeah, right. If the money were flowing like the 99% were meant to think it were flowing, you best believe rich people would “fix the leak” and fast. And how does trickle down work when the stuff hits the fan? You think rich people are going to continue to trickle down? Ha, what a joke. “Voluntarily” is the key word here. Nobody likes paying taxes. But most of us can’t afford to buy lobbyists and lawyers (and he’s, politicians) to keep “the trickle” at a minimum. That’s where government and taxes come in.

“Oil and gas leaders, it’s time to step up (again) and decide — are you a part of this community or are you here for the “shareholder value?””

Rich. People. Don’t. Lose. Money.

This is what I really like about this article. It gets down to brass tax (yes, I know it’s “tacks”, but it was a funny pun to me and I need a laugh today). No matter what you think about who is evil, irresponsible, whatever, the bottom line is this: we need a big shift towards restoring balance right now. So what is oil and gas – the industry that claims to be Oklahoma’s godsend, who has been sitting pretty with huge discounts that now come at the cost of education and others – going to do about it?

They will fight tooth and nail before having to dip into their savings accounts. Because it’s worth it to them. They’ll threaten to leave the state. (Why anybody would move from one house to another house of equal value but still have to pay moving the costs and headache of moving is beyond me.) They’ll try to come up with any and all options that are as far away from their stacks of cash as possible. They’ll even pay for commercials that say that a raise in taxes that leads to revenue will actually hurt education. This is where I draw my moral line. I don’t think rich people are responsible for taking care of us all. But when you try to convince people of crap like that, when you keep politicians in your pocket by dangling money in heir face or the promise of a career boost, when you get tax breaks and then claim that you are responsible for Oklahoma’s prosperity and should be exempt from paying the taxes that the rest of the industry pays, you’re on my “evil by greed” list. I can’t blame rich people for protecting their money. Who of us wouldn’t protect our money? But that’s what a democracy is for. It’s a way for the people as a whole to keep the balance. If democracy fails to keeps the rich in check, what will?

All that’s required of oil and gas right now is that they pay their fair share and help stop the bleeding. And they can still stay filthy rich while doing it.

Also, this is just the start. Oil and gas is just Oklahoma’s version of the super rich. There’s oodles and oodles of money in the currently top-heavy world. Google “wealth inequality perception”.