That's why they call it capitalism

I'm really kind of shocked to hear how shocked-shocked the world has been by the news that Willard Mitt Romney pays an effective tax rate of 15% on his vast income. What on earth did they expect? It's been taken as a fundamental and unarguable principle for decades now that investment income--essentially, rent--is in some way better than working income; that rent money creates jobs, while all we ever do with our working money is to throw it away maintaining our pathetic little worker lives--it really eats jobs. So rent is taxed at a lower rate than work. And as far as I know a Warren Buffet rule is not going to change this; it will just demand that executives admit that they are sort of workers too, and take more of their compensation in the working money form.

That's why they call it Capitalism, sunshine--it's a religion. Pay no attention to all that talk about Jesus and the Ten Commandments and the Sacredness of Life. The real conservative religion is the worship of capital, as the burnt-offering smoke that feeds the Invisible Hand, and I don't know what we're going to do about it, but we should start by getting over the surprise.

Cross-posted at Daily Kos.