The Jeneane Garofalo Windfall Fortune Tax

Proposed at Big Hollywood.

Seems true. I've often thought this was 75% at the root of Hollywood liberalism.

[T]he A, B, C, and D list is 80% comprised of people who feel deep in their soul that they haven’t really earned all they have.

And deep in their soul, that does something to people. When you look in the mirror and feel you haven’t earned what you have, you feel guilty, more than that, you feel like a poodle. You feel like a kept poodle, coiffed and coddled and carried, without any satisfaction of having truly earned your success.
That’s a problem.

...

Which brings me back to Janeane.

Read her bio.

...

Let me be clear: Janeane is correct to be liberal. She hasn’t earned her money. If you haven’t earned your money, be liberal… with your money.

...

So I’m proposing a Celebrity Windfall Tax… It should be easy to pass. Actors, Authors, Painters, Poets, TV Newsmen, and Athletes shall pay double. They have fun jobs, fun jobs that aren’t hard work. They make windfall profits. Let’s tax the shit out of them.

Very true. People in unconventional careers often have no earthly idea why they're successful and someone else isn't. It's either some weird, unteachable advantage they possess -- natural talent, good looks, incredible athletic prowess -- or pure luck or a combination of both. It's never something tangible they can point to -- going to business school three nights a week while already holding a 60+ hour a week job, risking their family's money in a start-up business they then work 100 hours a week at, etc. -- and say "Right there, that work is the reason I got ahead."

It's always this mystical whim of fortune. No wonder they feel guilty.

But, being insatiable narcissists, of course they generalize -- or universalize, really -- from their own narrow experience and assume that everyone who's had some success owes it to simple chance and fate alone, whether inborn talent or just catching a lucky break.

Thanks to JayA.

And While You're There: An Iraq vet declares war on Hollywood.

Thanks to Pat Dollard for that.

posted by Ace at 02:27 PM

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