$230,000 For a Guard Dog: Why the Wealthy Are Afraid Of Violence
From Below
As inequality in the US grows, the ultra-rich are pouring
their spare cash not just into private jets, but into private security.
Think there's a connection?
July 29, 2011 |
Photo Credit: Fubar843 via
Flickr
“Violence in the streets, aimed at the wealthy. That’s what I worry
about.”That was what an unidentified billionaire told Robert Frank of the Wall
Street Journal
a while back. Rich people are scared of global unrest, Frank reported,
citing a survey by Insite Security and IBOPE Zogby International of
people with liquid assets of $1 million or more (translation: folks who
have or can get their hands on $1 million in cash fairly easily) that
says 94 percent of the wealthy are concerned about “global unrest”
around the world.He noted:Of
course, Insite has an interest in getting the paranoid rich to beef up
their security. Still, the numbers are backed up by other trends seen
throughout the world of wealth today: the rich keeping a lower profile,
hiring $230,000 guard dogs, and arming their yachts, planes and cars with
military-style security features.John Johnson, the owner of the $230,000 dog
featured in the New York Times,
is a former debt collector. (You can't make this stuff up.) He sold his
debt collection company three years ago, but still has not just one,
but six highly—and expensively—trained “executive protection dogs.”
Harrison K-9 services, the trainers behind Johnson's pricey protection
dogs, used to train dogs for elite military units like the Navy Seal
team that raided Osama bin Laden's compound. The article doesn't say
exactly how many dogs Harrison K-9 has provided for the world's rich and
famous, but it does feature a quote from their head trainer saying
she's trained “a thousand” dogs.In addition to security systems, dogs and armed
yachts, the security-conscious oligarch can hire a private spy
company—Jellyfish, a spinoff of the notorious private security company
Blackwater. Or what about their own personal drone? “Smaller, private versions
of the infamous Predator” may be coming to well-heeled private citizens near
you, according to the UK's Daily Mail. So far the private drones appear to only
be for spying, but former Navy fighter pilot Missy Cummings told the Daily Mail,
“It doesn't take a rocket scientist from MIT to tell you if we can do
it for a soldier in the field, we can do it for anybody.”So
why are the rich getting paranoid? After all, here in the U.S. it looks
like they don't even have to worry about their taxes returning to
Clinton-era levels, let alone cope with a truly significant change to
their lifestyles. Still, as the rich get richer, it seems, they get more
and more worried about the rest of us coming for their wealth—and
they're out to protect it by any means necessary.David Sirota has
noted that “we're fast becoming a 'let them eat cake' economy,” where
ostentatious displays of wealth and arrogance seem to be an everyday
occurrence as the rest of the country suffers. A private jet traffic jam
was big news in the New York Times
last week, because the children of the uber-rich have to get to a Maine
summer camp, and driving just won't do. Maine's Tea Party governor,
Paul LePage, took some time off from limiting access to the vote and
picking fights with organized labor to gloat over the jet traffic:“Love
it, love it, love it,” Mr. LePage said of the private-plane traffic
generated by summer camps. “I wish they’d stay a week while they’re
here. This is a big business.”While
the private jet crowd is “big business,” the rest of Maine—and the
country—is still suffering. And maybe that's where the fear comes in.We've
seen revolution in Tunisia and Egypt, attempts in Libya, Syria, Yemen,
unrest in Greece and Spain, student protests in England, and here at
home the occupation of the capitol in Madison, Wisconsin. While nothing
yet in the U.S. has approached the level of organized attacks on the
wealthy by the have-nots, since the financial crash even the hint that
perhaps private jet owners could pay a few more dollars in taxes has
been decried as class war. A few protests that actually dare approach the
doorsteps of the bankers appear to be all it takes to stoke paranoia among the
super-rich.
>>> More at
http://www.alternet.org/story/151837/%24230%2C000_for_a_guard_dog%3A_why_the_wealthy_are_afraid
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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