WEALTHY – IS THE RESENTMENT ENVY OR JUSTIFIED?

It all depends on how you accumulated that wealth

hen someone comes up with an invention, an idea and has it patented and then manufactures it and markets it and makes a lot of money with it…I applaud it; if you work your ass off and save then start a small business that is successful…kudos to you. If you provide a service that everyone needs, or make available something you do that everyone wants…as for example entertainers or athletes, and make tons of money…then you deserve praise.

But if you were born into wealth and you either kept the wealth or multiplied it then there is no merit in that.

I should think that if you made a shitload of money trafficking in illegal substances or booze that would not only be illegal but not worthy of any medals. Then if you made your fortune by being a parasite…that is, you didn’t really provide a service or made a product but you became a middle man that just skimmed the profits then you should be ashamed of yourself. In this category one should include the corporate raiders, Wall Street speculators, insurance companies and all the other leeches in our society.

You see, if a small businessperson ever tries to gain entrance into that 1% he/she will meet so many hurdles, so many barriers, so much red tape that it would be a miracle to succeed. I know this first hand because in more than one instance I owned a small business; yet, there were so many permits, so many inspectors, so much red tape and there wasn’t a week that went by when I didn’t have some local, state or federal representative wanting to exact some tax or make me comply with some absurd regulation.

But make no mistake about it, it is not coincidence nor is it justified in terms of safety and ethical behavior…it is designed that way by the very wealthy to keep anybody else from entering that privileged class…that 1% that lives a lofty life without worrying about regulations because they have so few…to fret about taxes because they pay so little and to abide by safety and ethical rules because those are not important…they are but obstacles that prevent the super wealthy from making a bigger profit.

So that the answer to the question: “Is it envy from those who are not rich?” is very obvious…no, we are not envious, but we do resent your immunity from the rules the rest of us have to adhere to and we abhor the idea that you pay less than your share of taxes…much lower than the rest of us do.

The wealthy that are worthy of admiration and should be congratulated are those with a social conscience, those who have not forgotten where they came from, those very people who worked their asses off to be what they are…people like Oprah Winfrey, Warren Buffett or Bill Gates…a Mitt Romney, not so much.

Photo source: http://www.ideachampions.com/weblogs/archives/2012/01/everything_begi.shtml