Norman Lizt Fat Cat Instructs: Petulance Unbound

As a primer on Tea Party psychopathology, nothing could be more succinct and instructive than a paid advertisement in today's New York Times by a self proclaimed "fat cat" named Norman Lizt. 

He must have paid the Times a lot for this full page paean of self aggrandizement--they didn't even print the usual "Paid Advertisement," notice, so you are tricked into reading halfway through it,  before you realized you'd been suckered into reading this looney tune. 

Before I get to Mr. Lizt, a brief story. I knew three men in Washington, DC who were real estate developers who bought up several blocks of territory intending to develop them,  but then a huge corporation bought them out and built its headquarters where they were planning on building. They each became multimillionaires overnight, in their early forties. One retired to an estate in hunt country, Virginia. The other two continued their development company. I asked the one I knew best why he continued to work, when it actually put him at risk, as many businesses do. He shrugged and said, "Well, I could go sailing  and play golf and travel, I guess. But, it's just, we've got about 40 employees and I figure, I can do this for them, and for their families."

Then there is my father, who was born in a cold water flat on the lower East Side of Manhattan and who, sitting in his lovely home in Bethesda, Maryland, wrote out his check to the IRS every April 15th with a grin, saying, "I never thought I'd make so much money I'd have to pay this much in taxes. But I'm a closet patriot.  Real patriotism is never painless."

So now, to Mr. Litz. What he tells us in his full page of the New York Times is: 1/ He has  made "eight figures" for the past seven years, so much money he could never spend it all, as a "private equity investor."  2/ He is an admirable man in that he does not live lavishly and he plans to give $50 million to charity.  3/ He has a fiancee who wants him to stop working so hard for other people, and for charities and to "smell the roses" with her.  (I suppose, that means spending money on her.)

But all Mr. Litz's plans to do good for others, for the charities he plans to patronize, for his six employees, are going to be derailed by that nasty, radical President Obama who wants to raise Mr. Litz's taxes to 39%. So, just to spite President Obama, Mr. Litz will close his company, send his 6 employees out to look for jobs which Mr. Litz says happily will never be as good for them as his company has been, and Mr. Litz will put his money in US Treasuries, and let the government support him with their low yield.

Those employees, those charities, all the people who have benefited by this major six job creator be damned, Mr. Litz will show President Obama a thing or two about re distributing wealth. Cross Mr. Litz, will you? He'll show you scorched earth.

What do you think will happen with Miss Rachel, the finacee? Will she stick by her man, who is no longer making "eight figures?"  Will President Obama phone Mr. Litz right away and promise not to re distribute wealth?  Will the Democratic party admit the folly of caring more about the 99% than it cares about Mr. Lintz and  other wealthy men who will  wind up paying 4% more in  taxes if the Democrats win?
Will the rich creator of 6 jobs, the petulant Mr. Litz sink the futures of his 6 employees and invest the $50 million he would have given to charity in US Treasury bonds?

Stay tuned. 

PS: What I really like about Mr. Litz is the six employees. I mean, just think how the President is destroying those job creators who really keep this economy going.