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Originally Posted by shakran
This country's attitudes are so fucked up it's not even funny. On the one hand we embrace capitalism. TV shouts at us all day to consume consume consume! And the richer you are the more respect you get. But then if you get TOO rich, you're expected to switch over to socialism and give it all away, or you're stingy.
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You got it. It's a crock. It's impossible for 99 percent of us to be truly rich -- there's not enough wealth for everybody to have a mansion and two airplanes, even if they're all smart and driven and educated. The economy grades on the curve.
But the media keeps the dream alive in _everyone_ so we'll respect the rich instead of eating them (who, after all, controls the media?), and will spend a lot of $$$ to emulate them.
But again, it's not just about socialism. It's about the creative use of $$$. Pouring a lot of cash into a huge house is not creative. If I had huge money, I'd do something with it: help the poor, sure, but also pour a lot of cash into research of various types, fund the right venture capitalists, bring some cool technology in the world, and who knows, maybe end up ten times richer than I was. There's more ways of helping the world than just giving $$$ to help get homeless kids off the street. Though that's pretty important, too.