$34,000? You're in the World's Top 1%. Congratulations from the Charles Koch Foundation. Insulted yet?

This Koch brothers ad is so offensive that...well, I don't know what to say, except this might just change a lot minds. It's called Economic Freedom 101. Really. The Charles Koch Foundation had to compare our wages to the "World's" wages, to come up with this one. There's really nothing like this and never will be. Are the teabillies watching....:

Here are a few of the comments...the last one is my favorite:

1. You're so damn lucky to be poor -- now make me another hamburger! Love, Papa Koch

2. You neglected to mention that it's things like excessive CEO pay and a low minimum wage that have reduced the US's ranking.

3. Anyone have an idea why this guy hates poor people so much?

4. Fascist Propaganda bar none

5. You end poverty... by giving people less money for their work? Did you guys fail basic math?

6. Talk about moving the fucking goalposts: So because the poors of, say, Singapore, have more money than the poor in Zimbabwe, they are not poor, worked to death, or deprived of civil liberties? This foundation is a disgrace to all thinking people.

7.Charles Koch is a super villain. 

Wealthy 1 % earnings climb, while Middle Class declines.

The frustrating thing about listening to whiny conservative voters who are angry over lousy wages, higher bills and job insecurity, is that they're only making things worse for themselves. That in turn makes them even more angry and self destructive...you get the picture. So things never will get better. Oddly, all this does is make the Republican Party stronger.

So far so good. The great news for Republicans is that they've taken our economy back to the early 1900's. Who knows how long it'll be before we're ushering in the age of the 21st century Robber Barons.  

According to the latest research, we won't have long to wait:

NY Times: Emmanuel Saez, an economist at the University of California, Berkeley, a wide gap between the top 1 percent, whose earnings rose by 11.2 percent, and the other 99 percent, whose earnings declined by 0.4 percent. Excluding earnings from investment gains, the top 10 percent of earners took 46.5 percent of all income in 2011, the highest proportion since 1917.

After accounting for inflation, median family income has declined over the last two years. In 2011, it stagnated for the poorest and dropped for those in the middle of the income distribution … Median household income is about 9 percent lower than it was in 1999, after accounting for inflation.

The disparity: The wealthy have benefited from a four-year boom in the stock market, while high rates of unemployment have continued to hold down the income of wage earners.

Republicans often point to another way of looking at wealth, where the poor take full advantage of all the social safety net programs. They gleefully proclaim that poverty never looked so good. 

At the same time ironically, they’re trying to get rid of our social safety nets, negating any point they were making.  

Research led by the Cornell economist Richard V. Burkhauser, said his numbers measured “how are the resources that person has to live on changing over time” … whereas Saez’s numbers measure “how are different people being rewarded in the marketplace.

The steady decline of middle class wages tells us we've been fighting the wrong battle.

Notably, many of the Obama administration’s progressive policies have been aimed at blunting the effects of income inequality, rather than tackling income inequality itself. 

Vilified Wealthy now Hiding in the Shadows, Afraid and Embarrassed. Won't someone help them please...

The most surreal commentary appeared in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel over the weekend, that is funnier than it is offensive, and it’s really, really offensive.

Christian Schneider may have to hide who he is in public after this editorial:

jsonline: Somehow, beef jerky has become the snack of kings; walking down the street while munching on dried meat is suddenly an indicator of vulgar opulence.

In a way, the rise of beef jerky as status symbol reflects how public attitudes have changed toward wealth in general. Wealthy people, once proud of their success, now try to hide it out of embarrassment. For instance, the upper class used to have an agreed-upon dress code; now, the ideal is to be filthy rich and dress like a hobo. Gone is the grace and elegance of the upper class - they have been so vilified, they now must walk among us in disguise.

Feeling sad for the rich yet? Schneider apparently didn’t get the Frank Luntz memo that replaced “wealthy,” with the middle class friendly term “job creator.” But there’s more laughs…I mean sadness to follow:

I would argue the Occupy ethos has something to do with rich people masquerading as the middle class. Nobody wants to be derided as a "one percenter," or have to defend their success on a daily basis to a bearded guy who has all his mail delivered to a tent.  

Oops, I forgot to grow the beard. Ron Johnson’s meal ticket into the millionaires club through marriage if often ignored, like in this passage that forgets about such minor details:

Mayor Rahm Emanuel referred to rich people as "the most fortunate," as if they just sat around, waiting for the money stork to drop a million bucks down their chimney.

Schneider reflects the greedy daydreams of conservative voters who think that someday they too, will be outrageously rich, instead of comfortable middle class (who wants that?). In one fell swoop, Schneider says a lot about who these people are:

As someone who can currently barely afford to pay attention, I am an aspiring one-percenter. And when the world opens up the money spigot to me, I will be wholly unapologetic for my wealth. I will dress like Mr. Peanut, buy sweaters for rescue dogs and purchase Miller Park just so I can watch What's Happenin' reruns on the big screen by myself. And most important, I will laugh maniacally while walking down the street and shoving beef jerky into my mouth.

After reading this conservative tripe, is there anything funnier than the use of the word “nonpartisan:” Christian Schneider is a senior fellow at the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute, a nonpartisan conservative think tank.