The really angry 53%
There’s a lot of really angry people out there. The assorted collection of Occupy Wall Street-types around the world are getting all the media attention. Nobody’s quite sure what they really want or what would make them fold away their spiffy tents. Something about socking it to the 1% of the population in order to satisfy the other 99%.
Well, now there’s another percentage movement underway – The 53%. Launched earlier this month in the U.S., it’s a grass roots bunch purporting to represent the 53% of Americans who actually pay federal taxes. Their website is just a collection of individual testimonials in a photograph about working hard, saving and eschewing handouts to the other 47%. Like this.
If the Occupy crowd are hoping to do for the Democrats what the Tea Party movement did for The Republicans, then The 53% have just upped the ante.
Here in the U.K., HMRC estimates there were 30.2 million income tax payers in 2010 in a country of some 62.3 million people as just reported by the ONS so any such movement here would be The 48%. But they’ll have to be flexible on the name. HMRC forecasts 29.9 million tax payers for 2012 while the ONS forecasts annual population growth of 500,000, putting the number of people in the UK in 2012 at 63.3 so the movement would need to change its name to The 47%.
What are the chances of a British The 48%? Well, as the Lib Dems’ Chris Huhne so clearly warned the Conservatives last month (“We need no tea party tendency in Britain), not much. Right?
What about The 47%? Or The 46%? Or the 45%.....