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I was just doing some reading in the books typical of the left-wing propaganda I read, and came across a succinct argument in favor of a tax system based upon class envy. I’m going to provide the quote. Your job is to guess who said it.

Mystery Socialist wrote:Where God parachutes us is a matter of luck. Nowhere is that more true than Wall Street. There are more mediocre people making more money on Wall Street than any other place on earth. Sure, there are some stars and some earn every nickel they make. The crowd they carry along with them is something else. Wall Street might be the only place in the world where a $100,000 raise is considered a tip. When you handed someone a check for $10,000,000, they’d look you in the eye and say ten? The guy down the street just got twelve!

Which socialist is it that thinks that “where God parachutes us is a matter of luck” and thinks Wall Street is brimming with mediocre folks that make seven and eight figure incomes, but don’t actually earn what they make? Is it Keith Olbermann? Ed Schultz? Rachel Maddow? Barack Obama?

Who is it that demonstrates such disdain and envy of America’s wealth creators?

I believe the left is relying on things being out of context with regards to Jack Welch's point - he clarifies the contrast he is evoking with -

"Wall Street had to have been better when the companies were private and the partners were playing with their own money rather than "other people's money."

now that is 'straight from the gut'

Analytics wrote:I was just doing some reading in the books typical of the left-wing propaganda I read, and came across a succinct argument in favor of a tax system based upon class envy. I’m going to provide the quote. Your job is to guess who said it.

Mystery Socialist wrote:Where God parachutes us is a matter of luck. Nowhere is that more true that Wall Street. There are more mediocre people making more money on Wall Street than any other place on earth. Sure, there are some stars and some earn every nickel they make. The crowd they carry along with them is something else. Wall Street might be the only place in the world where a $100,000 raise is considered a tip. When you handed someone a check for $10,000,000, they’d look you in the eye and say ten? The guy down the street just got twelve!

Which socialist is it that thinks that “where God parachutes us is a matter of luck” and thinks Wall Street is brimming with mediocre folks that make seven and eight figure incomes, but don’t actually earn what they make? Is it Keith Olbermann? Ed Schultz? Rachel Maddow? Barack Obama?

Who is it that demonstrates such disdain and envy of America’s wealth creators?

It's too easy to Google. The original quote comes from none of those. Since it's an easy cheat, I will refrain from giving the answer, unless a cash prize is offered.

subgenius wrote:I believe the left is relying on things being out of context with regards to Jack Welch's point - he clarifies the contrast he is evoking with -

"Wall Street had to have been better when the companies were private and the partners were playing with their own money rather than "other people's money."

now that is 'straight from the gut'

"Out of context with regards to his point?" It's true that his point wasn't the inherent fairness of a progressive tax scheme.

But I wasn't talking about his point--I was talking about his observation about the relationship between luck, making money and earning money. That observation is precisely the same observation that is incessantly derided here as being socialist and envious.

Some facts about Jack Welch:

Welch grew up in a blue-collar neighborhood in Salem, Massachusetts. His father was a railroad conductor on a New England commuter line.

After finishing his Ph.D. in Chemistry and the University of Illinois in 1960, his first job was at GE as a Chemical Engineer making $10,500 a year.

He quickly rose through the ranks of GE, and was named CEO and Chairman of the Board in 1981 at the age of 45. He preferred calling himself Chairman rather than CEO.

When he became Chairman, the market capitalization of GE was $14 billion.

Once chairman, he immediately began streamling the GE corporate bureaucracy. He aggressively closed plants—even profitable ones—if they weren’t highly profitable. Because of this, he was given the nickname “Neutron Jack.” (Neutron bombs are nuclear weapons designed to maximize human death with minimal damage to buildings and infrastructure).

He was famous for implementing a "vitality curve" at GE. Every manager was required to rank his employees value to the company in order from most valuable to least. The top 20% received lavish opportunity, raises, and benefits, the middle 70% were given cost-of-living raises, and the bottom 10% were fired.

He stayed on as Chairman for 20 years. Over that time period, the size of GE’s workforce shrunk by about 25% (or 100,000 workers), and shifted oversees. The market value of GE grew from about $14 billion to about $410 billion.

When he retired in 2000, he was given a retirement package with an estimated value of about $420 million. It was at that time when he wrote what I quoted above in his autobiography Jack: Straight from the Gut.