The Sin of Hypocrisy

I was reading my stack of newspapers from the past week this morning while having a fine cup of black coffee. Lo and behold, I see a bit in the WSJ that is one of those glaring examples of hypocrisy that infuriates most of us. And it's coupled with my annoyance with the "rich & powerful" trying to force their ideas on the public. And with unfair taxation. A triple play - hat trick - third strike ;-)

Peter Peterson is a founder of Blackstone and stands to cash in about $2 billion on the Blackstone public offering. He's gotten most of that from "carried interest" aka the incentive fees he received as compensation for doing a good job running the fund. He's also a founder of Concord Coalition, an activist group that wants to raise taxes to eliminate the Federal deficit. I remember him as speaking out to raise taxes for years - maybe almost 20 years or more. He's a plain old country club Republican and served under Nixon as Secretary of Commerce. He also served on Clinton's "tax reform" commission in 1994. Hmm, soon after that taxes were raised on middle income retirees.

So his COMPENSATION at Blackstone has been largely tax sheltered to many years and now he's cashing out and going to pay only the 15% long-term capital gains tax rate. All while Joe Retiree pays a 45% marginal rate on his wages bagging groceries for extra income. And that JERK has been "speaking out" about the need for "all Americans" to pay more in taxes and having his butt kissed by the rich & powerful & the press & the black tie set all the time.

That's a five gold star gold hypocrit !!! Sheesh. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

See why I distrust the rich & powerful trying to run the country?

Notes:
1. Being a confirmed anachronist, I still receive PAPER newspapers !
2. I've never considered hypocrisy to be the worst evil or sin that a public figure can do, but the modern press seems to consider it a mortal sin - at least for a Republican.
3. I did a little research on how hypocrisy is classified as a sin in various religions. It does seem to be there in writings of early Christian church fathers and in Islam. Here's an interesting list: "Barnabas 20:3-5 arrogance, hypocrisy, rape, haughtiness, deceit, malice, self-sufficiency, poisoning, magic, having no fear of God, hate truth & love falsehood, don’t take care of the widow and orphan, impatience, abortion, partiality" [ from http://www.biblefacts.org/bible/sin.html ]. Also, from Islam: "Some of the major sins are held to be legally punishable in an Islamic state (for example, murder, theft, adultery, and in some views apostasy; see sharia). Most are left to Allah to punish (for example, backbiting, hypocrisy arrogance, filial disrespect, lying)." [ from http://www.answers.com/topic/sin ]. Interesting how "hypocrisy" is grouped with other sins, eh?
4. "eh", is "Canadian" for the Frenchism, "..., no?" or other usages of "..., yes?" ;-)