Anjinanhut of Deviant Art imagines billionaire Bruce Wayne pulling a Warren Buffet, and supporting the Occupy movement in his hometown of Gotham City.
Oct 11th 2011 By: Laura Hudson
Parting Shot: Bruce Wayne For Occupy Gotham
Anjinanhut of Deviant Art imagines billionaire Bruce Wayne pulling a Warren Buffet, and supporting the Occupy movement in his hometown of Gotham City.
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Stick
C'mon. A comic book website talking up this ****? You geek shave got to be kidding me...
October 14 2011 at 9:52 PM Report abuse Permalink -1 rate up rate down Reply
Billie
Bruce Wayne didn't earn his money, he inherited it. Lex Luthor built Lexcorp from the ground up.
October 12 2011 at 4:48 PM Report abuse Permalink -1 rate up rate down ReplyNothing is stopping Bruce Wayne or any other person who feels that they are being not being taxed enough from writing a big fat check to the Treasury Dept. Personal responsibility and living within your means is the way to go. If ordinary people live this way, so should the government.
October 12 2011 at 1:52 PM Report abuse Permalink -1 rate up rate down Reply
TheMonitor514
1 reply to TheMonitor514's comment
Yes, but a government and "ordinary people" are hardly the same now are they? Completely different responsibilities, manners of making decisions, means of raising capital, etc etc. Not to get all accurate or anything.
Also, though I know this is belaboring the point, an "ordinary" American person has significant debt, on average, so the government is hardly that out of step.
China (the largest holders of US debt) told Washington to “cure its addiction to debts” and “live within its means,” after the S&P downgraded our credit rating. So if China is saying that our government needs to be more responsible and live within its means, how am I wrong?
October 12 2011 at 4:18 PM Report abuse Permalink -1 rate up rate downBatman is already a form of protest, one that doesnt involve getting high in central park while standing around with nothing to do.
October 12 2011 at 12:48 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply
g-fan
1 reply to g-fan's comment
Bruce Wayne would have let the corrupt banks and Wall Street firms fail in 2008. Lehman Bros, Goldman Sachs, AIG etc should have all been allowed to go under. On FOX NEWS, their representatives always scream "Free Market, Market Forces...!" but when the so-called market forces decided to bitch-slap these corrupt pieces of ***t, they went crying to the government to bail them out. So much for being proponents of the so-called "Free Market". Keep in mind that at the time of the biggest case of larceny in the history of history (aka the Bailout) took place, HANK PAULSON was Treasury Secretary. And Hank Paulson had most recently then been the CEO of GOLDMAN SACHS.
So ,yes, Bruce Wayne would definitely be on the side of the protesters on Wall Street.
Those banks & firms are called "too big to fail" for a reason; if the gov't just let them go under in 2008 the ripple effect would've been felt all the way through the US & world economies. We would've been put in a depression. The bailouts, TARP, stimulus, public ownership of auto industry--all of those actions were necessary, if painful, actions.
The problem, then, is not the bailouts; the problem is the lack of accountability & reform. Nothing's changed. We paid a price for allowing these institutions to become too big to fail & operate with no oversight, and we continue to pay the price. They're still behaving recklessly, they've recovered financially (if they "suffered" at all), & no one has been prosecuted. So *that's* the problem.
The insistence (from Tea Parties & OWS) that these firms & banks should've collapsed under their own weight shows how, in a strange way, conservative libertarianism & anarchism are mirror images.
g-fan
No one to this day has gone to jail for the OUTRAGEOUS financial practices that Lehman Bros, Goldman Sachs, AIG etc were engaged in. The Deregulation that the Republicans are so fond of is responsible for Wall Street's appalling crimes. I can't believe the Republicans regained the house in 2010. Do people even pay attention to what's going on?!
Also, don't you ever call me a Teabagger or Teapartier. I don't ascribe to their so-called political philosophies, such as they are.
I was making the point that Wall Street and the Financial Conservatives are completely bull****ing everyone when they constantly spew their mantras of "Free Market Economics". CLEARLY, because of all the major Republican Presidential Candidates' support for TARP(The criminal bailout of Wall Street), AND THEIR SUPPORT FOR RECKLESS DEREGULATION, means that the Republicans are all a bunch of crooks who don't even believe their own rhetoric. What they've done is Socialize Wall Street's losses and Privatized all Wall Street's profits.
It's a complete disaster.
Does it even matter what stance Bruce Wayne would take in the Occupy movement? The Joker would have obviously gassed them all by the second day.
October 12 2011 at 9:24 AM Report abuse Permalink +2 rate up rate down ReplyI always pictured Bruce Wayne as socially progressive but leaning republican on economic issues. Just about everything that happens in Gotham is privately funded by him, or he makes specific donations for specific causes in government.
Rich people can choose to pay more taxes and Bruce does it by getting more personally involved on a local level, especially in the DCU where corruption in the government outstrips our already horrible real life corruption problems
Road Flare
But, if we're using in-universe justifications, aren't the vast, vast majority of Gotham businessman portrayed as selfish, heartless or engaged in outright villainy? How many "Bruce Wayne does good" stories revolve around the character stepping up because absolutely no other business interest in the city will?
October 12 2011 at 12:48 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyWhy would Bruce Wayne ask for a tax increase? He already funds everything in Gotham if the federal government raised his taxes that would be less money for Gotham and maybe more money for a lunch program in San Francisco
October 11 2011 at 10:50 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply
Thad
1 reply to Thad's comment
And why would Bruce Wayne be opposed to more money for a lunch program in San Francisco?
October 12 2011 at 11:53 AM Report abuse Permalink +2 rate up rate down Reply
Mitch H.
Because batmobile research doesn't fund itself.
I wonder if WayneTech spends thousands of tax-lawyer man-hours trying to dodge taxes like Berkshire Hathaway? Ironically enough, even Buffet doesn't support the Buffet Rule.
Warren Buffet's paradoxical pro-tax stances make much more sense when you realize that his economic empire's entire business plan is built on the perverse incentives created by a substantial estate tax - a third of Berkshire Hathaway's holdings are in insurance groups whose main business is selling pricy business insurance, and another third of the business is a particularly predatory M&A operation aimed at privately-owned companies in distress because of the recent or impending death of theirs founders or primary owners.
Do we know if WayneTech is privately-held, closely-held, or a publicly traded corporation? If it's anything other than the latter, how did Bruce end up with an intact corporation when his parents died? The estate taxes in operation at the time should have put Thomas Wayne's estate under hundreds of millions of dollars of tax distress, unless he had the mother of all business insurance policies. It's pretty obvious that the company isn't protected behind a trust fund, Bruce has direct control over operations, and doesn't even seem to have much if any hassle from his board of directors. Half the time it sounds like he's acting as his own CEO with Lucius as his COO.
G
I heard that because of gov't cutbacks they had to remove that street light at Crime Alley that Bruce used to brood under.
October 11 2011 at 10:17 PM Report abuse Permalink +2 rate up rate down Reply
JonnyC
1 reply to JonnyC's comment
Yeah, I doubt that. Bruce already puts his money where it should directly getting involved with the development of his city rather than handing it over to the Government to just pass over to those corporations the OWS movement is fighting against.
I don't think that DA artist really understands either situation and he is fooling himself if he thinks Batman would ever take any sort of political stance over his own actions.
translation: I am a conservative who reads Batman comics
October 11 2011 at 11:00 PM Report abuse Permalink +2 rate up rate down ReplyFollow Us
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