American values

By Libby

Via Avedon, here's some cheery news for a change. The filthy rich get caught red-handed.

Hundreds of super-rich American tax cheats have, in effect, turned themselves in to the IRS after a bank computer technician in the tiny European country of Liechtenstein came forward with the names of US citizens who had set up secret accounts there, according to Washington lawyers investigating the scheme.

Liechtenstein wants to arrest him "for violating the country's bank secrecy laws." I want to give the guy a medal myself.

On a related note, I wonder if this guy is on the list. Fox Business Channel analyst Jonathan Hoenig, who manages a hedge fund and wrote the book Greed is Good, had this to say about working for the common good of society.

"We're in this culture of altruism now which worships self-sacrifice." Hoenig concluded scornfully. "Anything you do for yourself is bad. Any time you sacrifice your own wants or desires to help someone else, well that's inherently good. I just think there's something unbelievably un-American about that. People should pursue their own wants."

There you have it. The personification of the "I got mine, too bad if you didn't get yours" creed. Greed as the new defining American value. I don't know what's worse. That Hoenig would feel free to say that on television or that it's likely a lot of people would agree humanitarian values are for losers.