Eat the Rich? It Seems the 1% Are Starting to Fear Just That

Way back when the Occupy Movement first started I had a fear that they would morph into something like the rich are fearing in this article.

President Barack Obama and the Democrats have pivoted to income inequality ahead of the midterm elections. Pope Francis has strongly warned against the dangers of wealth concentration. And all of this follows the rise of the Occupy movement in 2011 and a bout of bank-bashing populism in the tea party.

The collective result, according to one member of the 1 percent, is a fear that the rich are in deep, deep trouble. Maybe not today but soon.

“You have a bunch of people who see conspiracies everywhere and believe that this inequality issue will quickly turn into serious class warfare,” said this person, who asked not to be identified by name so as not to anger any wealthy friends. “They don’t believe inequality is bad and believe the only way to deal with it is to allow entrepreneurs to have even fewer shackles.”

Okay maybe they have their fear in the right place. Think about a bunch of 20-somethings that have been sold a bill of goods by their parents that college is the ticket to a good job. They have now graduated with no job in sight and they are fearing that their future has been stolen by the 1% percent and their mortgage crisis.

The banksters and the bling-bling crowd were all bailed out but the the middle class and the poor paid the bill for the Great Recession. These 20-somethings are mired in student loan debt and no possibility to pay it back in 20 years or more. Maybe they feel helpless and taken advantage of and will lash out violently against the 1% who he perceives as the cause of his problems.

Maybe that 20-something might throw a brick through the window of a Mercedes or punch a rich guy in the face a la "the knockout game?" The "Knock out the Monopoly Guy" game per se. They won't steal the guy's wallet but just commit violence for violence's sake. There might be a very thin line between someone breaking the window at the Gucci store to a Wall Street guy being pushed onto a subway track simply for wearing a $2k suit. After all the French Revolution started in part because of extreme income inequality. The rich and the powerful were murdered because too many people were starving and blamed the rich for what was happening. Hmm, maybe some bodyguards will not go astray if you are part of this 1%.