Their Modus Operandi

Headline: AP reported late Wednesday morning that

"... Chase Card Services, a unit JPMorgan Chase $ Co., said Wednesday it will now offer a rewards card designed for wealthy customers.

The new card, called Chase Sapphire, is designed for the top-earning 15 percent of U.S. households. It offers travel services, access to round-the-clock customer service and a rewards program."

The entire story, which can be found here, is a stunning 72 words. I found it on the front page of Yahoo. You might ask why I find this relevant; I ask why the Associated Press finds this relevant. This is not directly related to any contemporary event, nor can the majority of folks in America be concerned with it because most people are not relatively wealthy.

But we know why AP headlines such a story. It is how the news media operates, how they get a rise out of "the proletariat." This story is a paragon of the wealth envy that pervades the general public. There is no doubt in my mind that this story serves to piss people off. Consider that SafeLink Wireless, a program that was created by the government to provide discounted or free telephone service to income-eligible consumers, has been available for tens of months now and has yet to receive front page coverage, though such press would undoubtedly make indignant tax-paying citizens. But because SafeLink is for poorer individuals, there's no fun in making a ruckus out of it, lest ye be known as uncompassionate and a capitalist pig.

Wealth envy is painstakingly obvious when it comes to America's democratic processes. It is why the 'rich' are soaked with most of the public debt in this country, year over year. Our founders knew of wealth envy, hence why originally states were allowed to discriminate voters based on property holdings; it was a system that sought guidance by the most productive of citizens, contrary to what your history teacher might have told you back in the eighth grade. But today, wealth is taboo, in a country where the poor are exalted and the word 'rich' is a pejorative.

"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves money from the public treasure. From that moment on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most money from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy followed by a dictatorship."

-Alexander Tyler