Barrel Strength

Lately there has been a great degree of schadenfreude in relation to the fact that the rich donated substantial amount of money to the Obama campaign and are now on the receiving end of class warfare.  TigerHawk captures the spirit well when he states the following:

When it comes to politics, the “rich” will sell you the votes to hang them by. Exhibit A: “Barack Obama’s rich supporters fear his tax plans show he’s a class warrior.” What was their first clue? It is not as though he is doing anything differently than he had promised (other than using the economic crisis as a reason to accelerate federal spending to escape velocity).

I have no problem with rich people who supported Barack Obama, but those who express surprise at his class warfare political chatter and passion for the regulation of business simply were not paying attention.

Your correspondent has some difficulty with this reasoning and posted earlier on this point.  That post noted the following.

One of the key factors that has transformed this class of “professionals” is the increasing government regulation, which has led to increase in requirements for lawyers, accountants and other assorted hanger-ons. They do not add value to any process, but serve as leeches and parasites, who take a tiny bite out of production. Lawyers in US are a solid Democratic constituency as they know where the money comes from. An increasing number of professionals are catching on to this, as government spreads its tentacles. This is merely an extension, in a roundabout way, of the majority taxing the rich minority or majority relying on government for their welfare.

The question is what percentage of the rich really rely on government, directly or indirectly, for their welfare?  We might have an answer to that question via this WSJ post which notes:

Hedge-fund managers are showing rare public outrage against the Obama administration, saying that it has wrongly rebuked investors necessary to salving the financial crisis…. They have been disappointed by the Obama administration, left detached from a leader to whose party they gave 70% of their overall campaign donations during the 2008 election.

Is it possible that 70% of the fund managers, the supremely rational thinkers that they are, were really looking after their own interests when rooting for Obama?  It is a surprise that liberals of the world are yelling for more and more?  They know where their bread comes from.