[Summer 2009. Unemployment is soaring. Across America, millions of terrified people are facing foreclosure and getting kicked to the curb. Meanwhile in sunny California, the hotel-heiress Paris Hilton is investing $350,000 of her $100 million fortune in a two-story house for her dogs. A Pepto Bismol-colored replica of Paris’ own Beverly Hills home, the backyard doghouse provides her precious pooches with two floors of luxury living, complete with abundant closet space and central air.
By the standards of America’s rich these days, Paris’ dogs are roughing it. In a 2006 article, Vanity Fair’s Nina Munk described the luxe residences of America’s new financial elite. Compared with the 2,405 square feet of the average new American home, the abodes of Greenwich Connecticut hedge-fund managers clock in at 15,000 square feet, about the size of a typical industrial warehouse. Many come with pool houses of over 3,000 square feet...
In 2005, the 25 hedge-fund managers averaged $363 million. In cash. Paul Krugman observes that these 25 were paid three times as much as New York City’s 80,000 public school teachers combined. And because their pay is taxed as capital gains rather than salary, the teachers paid a higher tax rate!] (Double double emphasis added because this really angers me.)
http://www.alternet.org/story/156143/the_great_capitalist_heist%3A_how_paris_hilton%27s_dogs_ended_up_better_off_than_you_?akid=9050.203331.AfNcIW&rd=1&t=2
Does this explain why public schools struggle, paying teachers pennies compared to billions made by vulture capitalists through preferential tax code treatment?
Ya think?
Not if your're a RepublicKant ideologue. Then destroying teachers' unions, public school systems, and putting kids into clutches of corporate charter schools seems better to them.
Freakin' Great Jumpi' Jehosapat's dog.
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