Rich Support Wealth Tax

A group of wealthy Germans, throwing fake bank notes in the air, showed their support of higher taxes for the rich on Wednesday.

No really.

The gathering followed the signing of a petition by 44 people (OK, not a lot, but give them credit) who not only had the gumption to declare that they're flush with money, but also recognized that social programs could use the extra cash these days.

One signatory of the petition, Peter Vollmer told AFP news agency he was supporting the proposal because he had "inherited a lot of money I do not need."

The demonstrators feel the tax for the rich is the only constructive way to aid economic and social programs that are suffering in the current economic climate. According to the BBC, the groups says that Germany could raise 100 billion Euros if the richest people paid a five percent wealth tax for two years. They say there are 2.2 million people in Germany with a fortune of more than 500,000 Euros.

Dieter Lehmkuhl, a retired doctor and heir to a brewery told the German paper, Tagesspiegel: "It made me mad to think that we suddenly found all this money for the banks, money that we did not have before for urgent programs like education and the environment."

More power to ya.

Photo courtesy Andres Rueda via Flickr.