[reggieband]

I am reminded of the story of the fat cat that I recently read in a Brothers Grimm collection. In case it is not familiar to you:

A cat and a mouse decide to team up and store up some surplus food for hard times. They agree during abundant times to both put a little extra fat into a shared pot. They then store the pot in a safe place. The cat, however, is overcome by hunger even in the abundant times. Every few weeks the cat sneaks to the pot and takes just a little bit, maybe just a few licks at a time. Over the course of a couple of years of sneaking and small stealing the cat manages to completely deplete the pot. Then hard times hit, as both expected. The cat and the mouse both go to the pot together to divide their savings. But when they lift the lid they both gasp in surprise that the pot is empty. The mouse slowly realizes what must have happened. The cat is guilty but won't stand being accused and so it turns on the mouse and eats it.

My whole life I had heard of the rich upper-classes described as "fat cats" but I didn't really understand the message until I read the story. From at least 2008 we were supposed to be saving for the next crisis. Yet here we are at the next crisis and low and behold the pot is empty.

The reason we fall for this over and over again is that the short-term memory of civilization is shorter than the cycles these things happen over.

[jacobn]

I read something slightly different into your metaphor: it's about pro-social, positive sum games vs zero/negative sum games.

The mouse is participating in the positive sum game of joint savings, and the cat is robbing it blind (very negative sum as it's also robbing its future self).

There's a lot of that happening across society (healthcare, education, addiction-fueled tech companies, ...), and the people who do it oftentimes do end up (at least short term) better off (= rich), but we as a nation end up poorer (the whole negative sum thing).

There are however plenty of ways to become rich doing positive sum things (though lord knows it's harder than it looks), so there will be rich people who don't deserve the blame so to speak.

But the clearly visible, media-amplified cases will of course be cartoonish villains, all too eager to sell you the rope to hang them with so to speak.

[catsitter]

How are „the rich“ bringing the crisis about, in your opinion?

[usgroup]

Are you talking about the budget deficit? It’s not really like a pot you only look into when times are hard since it’s constantly known.

I really like your metaphor, but it is misleading.

[banannaise]

It's not the budget. It's the hidden cuts to services, the declining maintenance to infrastructure, the privatization of essentials. Those are the licks they take from the pot, while they tell you the pot is still full.

[mhuffman]

Exactly! Shrinkflation, wage suppression, union busting, dynamic pricing of medications, etc -- lick, lick, lick!

[1]https://etc.usf.edu/lit2go/175/grimms-fairy-tales/3068/cat-a...

(edit, this isn't for the UK, but fat cats abound!)

[usgroup]

Apologies but what money is spent on in the UK is public information —- it is part of the budget. The fat cat and the hoodwinked mouse is a poor metaphor.

[cassianoleal]

The pot in the parable is also public information - the mouse could have just opened the lid every now and then to check the levels.

It doesn't matter how public it is. It matters whether the public actually knows about it and understands it.

[catsitter]

The money to pay for those things would have to come from you, the people. They are not taking it away, there is nothing to distribute.

[binbashthefash]

Profit of corporations is the stole surplus value of the workers. And there's been plenty of it

[null4bl3]

The world needs more guillotines

[MrRiddle]

Eh, we have something similar, the problem seems to be we’re not putting those who deserve it in them.

[euroderf]

Eh, sorry. Under Anglo-Saxon neo-feudalism (UK, US, others), there is a widespread grant of sovereign immunity to sizable swathes of the monied classes.