Affluent Fear

Member Group : Lincoln Institute

When I see that Wall Street and the power brokers are placing their bets on Hillary Clinton with donations to her campaign as well as the unsavory pay to play of the Clinton foundation and the State Department under Hillary Clinton, I become skeptical of the motives of those in the establishment – the elite as much as I disdain that word.

Why Hilary rather than a member of their own financial elite? Why?

My skepticism is that perhaps our sensibilities are under assault.

The acclaimed author, Dr. Seuss wrote about the "Sneetches" and the analogy of the dispute between those with stars and those without stars and the financial gain that was made in adding stars and removing stars "upon thars"!

Are we the "Sneetches"? Are we being played by the political elite to battle one another rather than to take on the system to force the system to finally serve the people who elected them?

I have spent my entire adult life in the system. I am a retired Marine reserve Colonel. Recently, in 2016 I won the primary election for state House of Representatives seat in Pennsylvania. At age 65, I decided to make a difference.

In my lifetime I have been very fortunate to be on both sides of our society meaning those who have done well and those who have not. I started out in a very poor family after our dad passed away leaving our mom with five children and little income.

Our family struggled and due to our faith, a wonderful mom, a memory of a loving dad, and hard work all five of us prevailed and became successful financially.

In my success I have seen the other side of the tracks. The establishment lives differently than you and I. They have the proverbial stars upon thars. They live differently but it is clear that we are not one of them.

Those of us born on the wrong side of the tracks struggled to do well and help our children succeed so that our children could experience a better life. Our parents wanted the American dream for our children and it was attainable. I am an example.

With that as background, I noticed during this election cycle when I was going door to door in my campaign that there were not significant differences between those who supported Donald Trump, Bernie Sanders, or even Ted Cruz. They were all disenchanted with the system albeit in different ways. Their anger was somewhat haphazardly organized but it was not as different as one might think.

So when I read the establishment disdain for Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, and even Bernie Sanders I wonder if it is because the establishment realizes that perhaps the sole survivor, Donald Trump is wise to their game.

For example, so many of our laws and in particular our tax code are geared to protect the elite and the establishment at the expense of those trying to get ahead.

The media and to a large extent, the American people have successfully accepted the fantasy that surrounds the debate about the unfair tax code. Unfortunately, the debate is centered in two absolutely flawed assumptions.

The first assumption is that to cure the wealth gap between the richest and poorest of society, increasing income taxes will solve the problem.

The second assumption is that the deficit can only be cured by raising taxes rather than cutting spending.

Both Democrats and Republicans in office have an incentive to keep the debate going about income inequality as being the culprit. While the public at large seems to relish getting into the debate of raising or not raising taxes on income, the very wealthiest supporters of both parties know that by keeping us distracted about income taxes their wealth will remain intact.

Liberals and conservatives, better yet anyone of substantial wealth, uses these tax shelters, just ask Donald Trump. If this very wealthy population can keep us distracted on income inequality they never have to be concerned about their ruse been uncovered. One way to keep us distracted is to make the tax code so complicated that no one can understand the discussion. Candidly, it is simpler for the media to describe the argument as "taxing income".

In reality than is this tremendous anger at Donald Trump and previously Ted Cruz and Bernie Sanders because they understand the game of the establishment and planned to end the "star upon thars" perks and privileges.

Is the disdain of the establishment against Donald Trump now, the sole survivor, really because the game will be up if he is elected.

Unfortunately I do not know Donald Trump’s real motives but I do have to question that when that many people of similar wealth are against him are they rebelling against a traitor to their cause which is the protection of their establishment at our expense.

Perhaps the establishment is fearful that the Coliseum that they have been having us all play is going to be turned on them and the game will be up. Perhaps in this election, Pokémon go will give way to establishment gone.

Col. Frank Ryan, CPA, USMCR (Ret) and served in Iraq and briefly in Afghanistan and specializes in corporate restructuring and lectures on ethics for the state CPA societies. He has served on numerous boards of publicly traded and non-profit organizations. He can be reached at [email protected] and twitter at @fryan1951