Article: For Labor Day: A Look At America's Upper Class

In celebration of Labor Day, here is vital new data about the American Upper Class. A new study provides details about a very special segment of the super-rich in America, the people owning jet airplanes outright or fractionally. The New Jet Set "are super-rich, big-time spenders - and this is the first time the details of their spending activities have been available to the public," boasts the report. Some 661 of these people were interviewed, giving us fascinating information on how the super-rich spend their money. These are the upper crust of the huge number of wealthy Americans - the elitists that also control our political and economic system. Their average annual income was $9.2 million in 2005, and their average net worth was $89.3 million.

My objective in presenting this data is to add some punch to the message of gross economic inequality that is a scourge on American society. Millions of working- and middle-class Americans should seriously think about these people and their big-spending ways. This Upper Class is doing everything they can to increase their obscene wealth at the expense of the vast majority of Americans. So, here goes - the following are the average amounts of money spent in 2005 by America's economic aristocracy, with the number of people reporting spending in a category given in parentheses:

Jewelry (588) $248,000
Watches (214) $147,000
Clothes and accessories (592) $117,000
Personal stays at hotels and resorts (432)$157,000
Events at hotels/resorts (485) $224,000
Spa services (381) $107,000
Cruises (136) $138,000
Villa/chalet rentals (183) $168,000
Experiential travel (109) $98,000
Home improvements (494) $542,000
Wines and spirits (563) $29,000
Luxury cars (104) $226,000
Fine art (200) $1,746,000

The report was careful to emphasize that all of its figures were probably too low, because the super-rich economic royalists are unlikely to know the specific amounts they spend on things. They just spend, without dwelling on costs.

Personally, I look forward to a sorely needed Class War right here in the land of lost opportunity. That's what Labor Day should become: A lament about ordinary Americans laboring in a system diseased by economic inequality. Celebrations should become neighborhood and town meetings where people discuss and plot the overthrow of our nation's economic aristocracy. Our enemies are not just overseas, they are our homegrown economic elites and royalists. Let's put some fear into their plump bodies and bloated minds. We're fed up and we're not going to take it anymore - that's what Labor Day should be about.