Wishful thinking in the MSM

Here is a great headline from the BBC:

"Rich Germans demand higher taxes"

Wow, is Germany a great country or what?

and the particulars:

A group of rich Germans has launched a petition calling for the government to make wealthy people pay higher taxes. Germany could raise 100bn euros (£91bn) if the richest people paid a 5% wealth tax for two years, they say.

Then however, we get to the pithy essence: not too bloody many rich Germans are demanding higher taxes!

The petition has 44 signatories so far, and will be presented to newly re-elected Chancellor Angela Merkel.

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

He said the tax would be "a viable and socially acceptable way out of the flagrant budget crisis".

The group held a demonstration in Berlin on Wednesday to draw attention to their plans, throwing fake banknotes into the air.

Mr Vollmer said it was "really strange that so few people came".

As my good friend Mark Perry is fond of pointing out, you can always voluntarily pay more taxes. Mr. Vollmer and his 43 BFFs could simply hand over their dough to Angela and be done with it.

What's that you say? maybe 44 isn't such a small number? 

Ummmm...

The man behind the petition, Dieter Lehmkuhl, told Berlin's Tagesspiegel that there were 2.2 million people in Germany with a fortune of more than 500,000 euros.

so a more accurate headline would actually have been: 

"0.002 percent of rich Germans demand higher taxes on themselves".

Time to have Roseanne Rosannadanna make a guest appearance on the BBC, no?