When Class War Is NOT Class War - Millennial Money with Cliff Mason

BIO

Cliff Mason is the author of Millennial Money. He is the Senior Writer of CNBC's Mad Money with Jim Cramer, and has been that program's primary writer, in cooperation with and under the supervision of Jim Cramer, since he began at CNBC as an intern during the summer of 2005. Mason was the author of a column at TheStreet.com during 2007, which he describes as "hilarious, if short-lived." He graduated from Harvard College in 2007. It was at Harvard that Mason learned to multi-task, mastering the art of seeming to pay attention to professors while writing scripts for Mad Money. Mason has co-written two books with Jim Cramer: Jim Cramer's Mad Money: Watch TV, Get Rich and Stay Mad For Life: Get Rich, Stay Rich (Make Your Kids Even Richer). He is 100% responsible for any parts of either book that you did not like. Mason has also had a fruitful relationship with Jim Cramer as his nephew for the last 23 years and will hopefully continue to hold that position for many more as long as he doesn't do anything to get himself kicked out of the family.

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Feb.04

1:33 PM ET

Wednesday, 4 Feb 2009

When Class War Is NOT Class War

Posted By:Cliff Mason

Topics:Stock Market

Class war?

That's what lots of people are calling this move to limit executive compensation at companies that are on the Federal dole.

Oh, please! That's not class war, it's barely a class skirmish.

When it comes to the real class war, the stuff that matters, not just optics about CEO earnings, the rich are thrashing the rest of us, just like they always do.

It's class war when Washington passes a $700 billion TARP bailout for Wall Street with feverish haste, but struggles to pass an $800 to $900 billion stimulus package for everybody else.

Think about that for a second.

Bail out the banks, no problem! But give a helping hand to poor, working class, and middle class people? That we have to debate endlessly. Washington knows how to bail out the rich, but our incredibly popular President is having trouble bailing out the other 99% of the country.

That, my friends, is class war. And it's so institutionalized that we don't even realize it's going on. The establishment in this country is so tilted in favor of the folks at the top, that we scream "socialism" when executives at banks that have taken billions of dollars of bailout cash from the government because they ran their companies into the ground aren't allowed to earn more than $500,000 a year.

As far as I'm concerned, that's not a real victory for the proletariat, or the middle class, as everyone in this country likes to think of themselves. It's totally symbolic.

When you go below the symbolism and look at the substance—sure there are salary caps, because we already gave these banks hundreds of billions of dollars—it's pretty clear which side is winning this war.

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