Perception of wealth is a crazy thing. We just had to deal with it here in Wisconsin where a state representative (Sean Duffy, R) was talking to a laid off truck driver and explained that he, too, found it tough to make it on his congressional salary ($174,000). The constituent nearly popped his cork.

Note to medical practioners. One thing you probably should not say out loud while examining a conscious patient. "What the hell is that? I've never seen a growth like that before. Nurse have you ever seen a growth like that before?"

That's right up there with "Oops!" during surgery with local anesthesia.

Tip of the hat to Bill Cosby

That wasn't my intent. I'm sorry if I wasn't as exact as you'd have liked. I still don't think it's appropriate to equate that with sexual assault.

The constituent nearly popped his cork.

I hope he laid into Duffy with a vengeance. I've got no problem with people having the gall to be rich, and I accept that being rich brings with it legitimate problems that "the rest of us" don't have to deal with. And I know that it's all relative; I have a friend who, between her and her husband, make over $170k/year, but they're struggling due to unfortunate circumstances; I can't begrudge her the occasional complaint. But. When someone who makes so much more than the average family, who's never had to deal with the problems of being poor, tries to commiserate with someone who is living in or on the edge of poverty, as if their circumstances are in any way comparable, I want to smack them. Not because they're rich, but because they're an arrogant thoughtless asshole.

We just had to deal with it here in Wisconsin where a state representative (Sean Duffy, R) was talking to a laid off truck driver and explained that he, too, found it tough to make it on his congressional salary ($174,000). The constituent nearly popped his cork.

That's pretty messed up. I make a quarter of that and am very conscious that it would not be tough to make ends meet at all if, for example, I chose to live in cheap housing rather than a nice apartment that's super convenient. I realize until you get past about 7 zeroes you can always find stuff to spend money on (and Elton John can apparently do so past 8), but try to have some awareness of how much of what you buy is actually necessary as opposed to luxury.

In defense of the people in the articles, it does sound like they were specifically asked, "What problems do you have when you have insane amounts of money?"

The constituent nearly popped his cork.

They posted a video of this at some Republican website. Then liberals started linking to it so they took the video down. Then they threatened to sue some liberal blog that still had the video on their site. The blog refused to take the video down.

So at first they thought it was a good idea to make the video available. Weird.

The guy nearly lost it. I just went back and reviewed the video. He's a bus driver (used to be a construction worker). But his wife is a teacher who is facing a pay cut with the recent collective bargaining/benefits battle in WI. Duffy had to explain that he quit his job as a DA to run for congress so he went without a paycheck for six months (and he has six kids).

The man was angry because Duffy's salary is THREE times what the guy and his wife TOGETHER make. It ended up being Duffy explaining how much better the WI public employees have it than most people--including Duffy, who gave up their excellent health insurance when he quit as a DA and has to muddle through on Congressional Healthcare.

He's a douche.

Yeah, the GOP MADE the video and posted it on their website. Then freaked out as they tried to scour it from the internets.

That's right up there with "Oops!" during surgery with local anesthesia.

Tip of the hat to Bill Cosby

Hee!

"Hemostat...clamp...oops..."
"'Oops'? Whaddya ya mean, 'oops'? I know what I'm talking about when I say 'Oops,' what are you talking about?!?"