There are plenty of reasons why the rich are not spending money like they have in previous years, including investment losses and poor-performing businesses, writes entrepreneur Dan Kennedy. More than half of all households earning $250,000 or more annually are spending less this year than in 2008, he cites, while arguing that the biggest reason for holding back has to do with President Barack Obama’s demonizing the rich and going after them with tax increases. “The resistance is well underway,” says Kennedy, adding that the affluent “are retaliating with their most powerful and damaging weapon: not spending. It is a quiet, deliberate, determined, very real resistance.”