Originally Posted by Rodney

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.