Another Stupid Liberal Assumption Dies: Top 1% NOT Made Solely of Bankers

-By Warner Todd Huston

One of the favorite memes of these Occupy-Whatever events is that the “top 1%” is made up of those evil, rich bankers and Wall Street tycoons. This, they feel is why they need to “occupy Wall Street” in the first place, right? Wrong again.

Like most left-wing memes, this one is also horribly wrong. It turns out that it should have been Occupy a hospital instead of occupy Wall Street because it turns out that bankers and denizens of Wall Street barely represent a blip on the radar of the “1%.”

A report on CNN Money notes that the finance sector only makes up 14% of the folks that sit in that top 1% of the nation’s wealthy.

It turns out that medical professionals clock in at 15.7%, while lawyers represent 8.4%.

So, why aren’t these Occupy folks mad at doctors, hospital administrators and other healthcare professionals? They are a larger part of the top 1%, after all.

Still, let’s say we are mad at all the top 1% medical professionals or no. Let’s say we act as the Occupy-Whatevers want and we simply confiscate what these people earn. That would net the government a one-time benefit of a combined gross income of $1.3 trillion.

That is a drop in the bucket of the $4 trillion that Obama has put us in debt for.

So, as it turns out we shouldn’t be “occupying” wither Wall Street or medical professional’s offices. The problem lies elsewhere. Turns out we should be “occupying” the White House.

Imagine that?
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“The only end of writing is to enable the reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.”
–Samuel Johnson

Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer. He has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and before that he wrote articles on U.S. history for several small American magazines. His political columns are featured on many websites such as Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com, BigHollywood.com, and BigJournalism.com, as well as RightWingNews.com, RightPundits.com, CanadaFreePress.com, StoptheACLU.com, AmericanDaily.com, among many, many others. Mr. Huston is also endlessly amused that one of his articles formed the basis of an article in Germany’s Der Spiegel Magazine in 2008.

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