"Where gonna fuel the fire and stoke it up, we're drink this wine...and pass the cup.."

"Neither a borrower nor a lender be;
For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
 

Shakespeare wrote that.  Of course the great bard also invented words at will, and was convinced that dogs could not look up.  

In President Obama's weekly radio address he raised the spectre of borrowing in context to the issue of the Bush tax cuts extension.  President Obama makes a case that if we extend the tax cuts for all we would have to borrow to make up for the deficit impact.  And we might oft lose both the loan and our dear friends the Chinese (notwithstanding a sketchy human rights record, but who are we to point fingers??).

Now if the Bush tax cuts are extended to all, including the 2% of the population considered millionaires/billionaires, it would add $4 trillion to the deficit.    And while the Republicans deplore the deficit, they feel that any tax raise in a recession is a bad idea.  It's a double edge sword, as the tax cut vitiates both deficit reduction and recovery theory.

If the cuts are extend to only people making $250k or less it would raise the deficit by $3 trillion.  $4 trillion everyone; $3 trillion everyone but the super-rich.    Put that way, it seems like in for measly $1 trillion we give the wealthy 2% a much deserved break.

Seriously at the end of the day, a trillion a schmillion, does it matter?? And if the enviable 2 percent is happy with the $160,396 (per household) tax break, aren't we all happy?  I mean it trickles down right?  Noblesse Oblige and all that?  Not exactly, you say?   But we still should believe in that right?   Up there with Santa Clause, the Easter Bunny, a Peter Jackson production of the Hobbit???  
Truth is we've got a special place in our hearts for the rich...in America.  We all want to be rich, and our collective conscious might dictate that whatever is good for them, is eventually good for us.  The crumbs from their table might just fall to the 98% of the rest of us.

"Poor men wanna be rich, rich men wanna be kings.." That's what Bruce said.  But of course he is part of the 2% (Still writes songs like a blue-collar man though, God bless him).  And Bruce never wanted to be king... just the boss. 

Bottom line is to even indulge in class consciousness is so....well classless.    Our culture doesn't celebrate being poor, nor questioning the rich.  And while we tend to redistribute the well every 30 years (Great Society, New Deal, TR, etc)....suggest that now and you're a radical socialist.  Of course, left unchecked and you have Rome under Valentinian.  I digress.

I dare say our culture doesn't seem to celebrate being blue-collar or middle class anymore (not since King of Queens was cancelled).  If you're pulling yourself up by your boots now, they better be Jimmy Choo damnit, (or right out of the box Timberlands).  Granted, it is a good sign that Mtv (the cultural bellwether) no longer heavily promotes shows that place a high premium on conspicuous consumption.  Shows like Cribs, and Sweet Sixteen have been replaced with Teenage Mom and Jersey Shore.  Maybe that's not a good example.   But overall, American cultural cues still place a heavy emphasis on wealth and the trappings of the upper class.  And this gives us the impression that it is the life worth having, as opposed to the live we are living.  Hence the conflict.  

When presented with an opportunity we are preprogrammed to give deference to the rich.  We might feel on an unconscious level that they deserved the benefit, having worked hard for wealth, or been blessed in some neo-Calvinist sense.  Personally, I tend to find comfort in the paraphrased Balzac (giggidy) quote "Behind every great fortune, there is a crime.".   And so, as odd as it may seems in the next few weeks the country will be arguing about giving a large tax cut to the rich, despite it's negative effect on the deficit and corresponding effect on US borrowing.  A large number of people in the 98%, who are unhappy with the growth of the deficit, will be compelled to side with the republicans and favor extended all of the tax cuts.

Perhaps this all harkens back to high school, where in order to belong, we sided with the popular kids, in the hope that we'd get invited to the proverbial keg party of social acceptance.   It didn't matter that in the end we only got invited because we had a station wagon big enough to fit the keg.  We glad made our sacrifice in order to share in the rarified air of the entitled.  And to deny ourselves that fantasy and delusion is to come to terms with our economic limitations.  No one wants to come dare admit that we might be at best, the working class.  Even John Lennon didn't have nice things to say about working class heroes.  And until Mtv comes up with a show called "Bridge and Tunnel", we lack meaningful reinforcements on  the virtues of middle class.  
But we are good at borrowing and cling to the belief that dogs can look up.  So we can definitely help the government there.