Just how liberals can be rich when they're anti-business and anti-
capitalism is amazing.....
[This item, by the MRC's Scott Whitlock, was posted Monday afternoon
on the MRC's blog, NewsBusters.org: newsbusters.org ]
ABC's Bianna Golodryga Wages Class Warfare on 'Super Rich'
On Friday's Nightline, ABC re****ter Bianna Golodryga filed a
segment on the "super rich" who are untainted by the tough economic
times and once again highlighted left-wing investor Warren Buffett's
calls for more taxation. Without ever labeling Buffett as liberal (he
has endorsed Democrat Barack Obama for President), Golodryga
cheerfully proclaimed that the billionaire is "concerned about the
burgeoning wealth gap." The ABC re****ter then parroted Buffett's claim
that his cleaning lady is paying more in payroll taxes then he does on
capital gains. "She doesn't have a lobbyist," the investor
complained.
Of course, neither Buffett nor Golodryga pointed out that the top
one percent of earners pay 39.4 percent of all federal income taxes.
See the Tax Foundation's re****t: www.taxfoundation.org
In fact, Golodryga has touted Buffett's liberal economic policies
before. On November 15, 2007, on Good Morning America, she lauded the
investor for coming out "on behalf of fairness in taxes," in relation
to his calls to retain the estate tax and (liberally) reform capital
gains tax policy. She rhapsodized to viewers that Buffett was on "your
side over taxes and fairness." See a November 16, 2007 CyberAlert
posting for more on Golodryga: www.mrc.org
On Friday's Nightline, Golodryga also surveyed the lifestyle of
investor Paul Parmar and attempted to deride wealth creators as out of
touch: "As many Americans watch personal investments like their homes
go belly up, many of the super rich have seen their fortunes only
grow." After noting the gourmet tastes of Parmar's dogs, she whined,
"What about people that may be looking at you and saying how is it
fair that I'm sup****ting a family of five and this guy's five dogs
live better?"
Golodryga talked with Wall Street Journal re****ter Robert Frank,
author of "Richistan," about the current economic situation. She
allowed him to deride the "super rich" and dismiss the idea that they
create wealth by spending. After asking her one tough question, what's
wrong with the wealthy enjoying their money, Frank condescendingly
responded this way:
ROBERT FRANK (Author, "Richistan"): If you're a self-made guy and
you made your money honestly, then you should enjoy it. What's wrong
about it is when you say, well, I'm buying this to benefit the larger
economy. Or look at all the jobs I sup****t. Forget it. You know,
trickle down has its limits. And if you're living in a 45,000 square
foot house, you're doing it for yourself, not for the rest of us.
Becoming more extreme, Frank later speculated that the rich
should be "concerned" about revolution. He alarmingly speculated, "If
you don't want a revolution in America, you should be quiet about your
wealth." Of course, Nightline spent much of the segment touring
investor Parmar's mansion, so maybe that criticism should be directed
at ABC.
A partial transcript of the May 16 segment:
CYNTHIA MCFADDEN: Good evening, I'm Cynthia McFadden. We begin
tonight with a question. Do you think the country is in a recession?
Ask economists and CEOs and you'll get a lot of different answers. But
if you put the question to the people, how are you doing, well,
according to a new ABC News poll of consumer confidence out just this
week the people are pessimistic, more so than at any time in the past
15 years. Lots of people are struggling to keep their homes and fill
their gas tanks. But not all people. Bianna Golodryga re****ts.
PAUL PARMAR [Taking Golodryga around his house.]: That ceiling
was done maybe three times. These are all one of a kind made.
GOLODRYGA: Wow. That is quite some fish tank. Wait a minute here.
What about all this recession talk? Are you affected at all by the
current economic times that we're facing right now?
PARMAR: Not really.
GOLODRYGA: You probably don't recognize this man. His name is
Paul Parmar and he is one of the fresh new faces of the super rich.
PARMAR: We're selling to all their doctors.
GOLODRYGA: How often do you check your own net worth?
PARMAR: It's because I'm so invested in private equity it's very
difficult to check it.
ROBERT FRANK (WALL STREET JOURNAL): Since the 1930s, more than
half of America's wealth came from inherited wealth. So we all know
about the Rockefellers and the Astors and the DuPonts. But in the last
ten years, it's all new money.
GOLODRYGA: Robert Frank is the personal wealth columnist for the
Wall Street Journal and the author of 'Richistan.'
FRANK: The super rich are unaffected. They truly live in their
own world or their own country that I call Richistan. And even I
underestimated the degree to which the wealthy are almost oblivious to
the fact that we are in a recession.
GOLODRYGA: Paul Parmar is an example of this modern-day
multimillionaire. He lives a life many of us can only dream of.
[Referring to bowling alley.] How much does this cost to put in?
PARMAR: It's not that bad. I designed it like a Roman ruins.
GOLODRYGA: And how often do you come here?
PARMAR: To this bedroom?
GOLODRYGA: Yeah.
PARMAR: Probably never.
GOLODRYGA: Parmar's fortune is spread across a diverse ****tfolio
of investments, from finance--
PARMAR: My private equity fund, we haven't raised anybody's money
so it's my own wealth that I have invested in companies.
GOLODRYGA: -to aviation-
PARMAR: We have a very large charter company.
GOLODRYGA: -and movies. Both Bollywood and Hollywood. Most
recently, he produced the movie "Before the Devil Knows You're Dead."
["BEFORE THE DEVIL KNOWS YOU'RE DEAD" clip)
GOLODRYGA: His new area of investment - healthcare.
PARMAR: What segment can we make a major impact in? And if you
look at healthcare, it's completely broken. It's fragmented. It's
inefficient. So we see us as somebody that can -- if we can make an
impact on that inefficiency-
GOLODRYGA: We tagged along on a recent weekend with Parmar and
his girlfriend Amanda. A whirlwind trip, both business-
PARMAR: You need to, like, have fun with your business and
stuff.
GOLODRYGA: -and pleasure. His private jet took us to Orlando. We
were picked up by a Rolls Royce. And stopped at an exotic car club
where you can rent a car so rare you can't even fill it up with
regular gasoline.
PARMAR: You can definitely put jet fuel in these cars and you'll
be fine.
GOLODRYGA: Then it was off to Anguilla for a two-hour business
meeting, all before returning back home to New York. As many Americans
watch personal investments like their homes go belly up, many of the
super rich have seen their fortunes only grow. FRANK: The median
income in America is still around $48,000 and that's been flat for
about the last ten years. Meanwhile the top one percent of Americans
own $17 trillion in wealth, which for perspective is greater than the
GDP's of Japan, Germany, the U.K. and France combined.
GOLODRYGA: Even the top one percent's dogs live well. Parmar's
five pure-breds are fed chicken and steak. What about people that may
be looking at you and saying how is it fair that I'm sup****ting a
family of five and this guy's five dogs live better?
PARMAR: I just think it comes back to core fundamentals of how I
invest. I didn't go rob a bank. But you have somebody that has immense
wealth and he keeps growing and then somebody that has, let's say,
$100,000 and it keeps shrinking. The guy that has immense wealth is
very confident about himself and knows what they're doing. So they
will not put it into savings. The $100,000 guy, his best investment is
a savings account. So he's trying to protect it while it shrinks.
GOLODRYGA: But even the world's richest man is concerned about
the burgeoning wealth gap.
WARREN BUFFETT: My tax rate is courtesy of the United States
Congress. And the people that pay very - the high taxes, like my
cleaning lady who pays more on her payroll tax than I pay on capital
gains. She doesn't have a lobbyist.
GOLODRYGA: Warren Buffett's estimated wealth hovers around $60
billion.
BUFFETT: This has been a prosperity that's been great for the
super rich and it's been bad for the middle class. And, you know, I
think that should be changed.
GOLODRYGA: So Buffett has lived in the same modest house for more
than 50 years and has pledged to give most his fortune to charity.
Here is someone who is giving his money away at the end of the day,
most of it.
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