at least, that is the attitude I experience with those "richer" than me.

Sorry, if being rich means I have to lie, cheat, etc., then what exactly is the point of being rich if you can't respect yourself or your fellow human beings?

It was early one mornin', Playa del Carmen
That's when I first met Jose
He had a 12 foot Schooner, a 3 foot cooler
Full of the catch of the day

And he was wrinkled from grinnin'

From all of the sun he had been in

He was barefoot, cerveza in hand

He said gracias senor when I paid him too much for

All of the Snapper he had


Now I told him my friend it ain't nothin'

In the best broken Spanish I knew

I said I make a good livin' back home where I'm from

He smiled and said amigo me too


He said I fish and I play my guitar

I laugh at the bar with my friends

I go home to my wife, I pray every night

I can do it all over again


Somewhere over Texas I thought of my Lexus

And all the stuff I work so hard for

And all the things that I've gathered from climbing that ladder

Didn't make much sense anymore


They say my nest egg ain't ready to hatch yet

They keep holding my feet to the fire

They call it paying the price so that one day in life

I'll have what I need to retire


And just fish and play my guitar

And laugh at the bar with my friends

Go home to my wife and pray every night

I can do it all over again


And to think that I thought for a while there that I had it made

When the truth is I'm really just dying to live like Jose


And just fish, play my guitar

And laugh at the bar with my friends

Go home to my wife and pray every night

I can do it all over again

Yes I could work double shifts at work and make more money and spin the hamster wheel yet faster like many of my stressed out exhausted coworkers who seem to be barely getting by despite their larger paychecks, but I don't always need the long end of stick to be happy.

My status seeking ambitious father used to chafe at my apparent laziness for my lack of desire to be some mover and shaker, and did successfully succeed in convincing my brother into being the businessman like the one depicted in your story above. Trouble is, he never gets to enjoy life peacefully because I guess the more you make, the more you want and he's a stressed out, burnt out rat race participant, but "on paper" he looks more "successful" than I do. I feel bad for him; I really do.

Some folks will never 'get' the difference between satisfaction and excess.

Think about that

In their world it's the poor that are the unethical lawbreakers while they and their fellow rich folk are blessed by God.

Unfortunately many who were born fortunate don't feel that way.

on a regular basis, because he's a white man. Here to save all the women and people of color, apparently.
I too, think he read one too many comic books.

Something the current rich and their mindless followers feel is "commie".

Instead of corporations trying to show their benevolence by sponsoring programs that help their community the new paradigm is "Just how much of MY MONEY do you feel you are entitled to?"

Which inspired me to do this:

stood up for the common man.

you'd go into peoples' houses in Ireland you'd find pics of both Kennedy and Martin Luther King in every one. The Irish struggle for independence regathered steam in the sixties because of both of those two. They were a huge influence on two generations.

Asmara is now the capital of Eritrea. When I was there is was under Haile Selassie's thumb.

I stumbled across a Haile Selassie bio and didn't pick it up because I think I'd like to read something broader- or recommended by someone I respect. Any thoughts?

that the poor always cheat and game any program to help them - because that's what the rich people would do in their place.

....they would have claimed the poor would test worse than them. Meanwhile, all through the test they would knowingly break the law and figure it would be okay because the poor were doing it more.

I know some relatively poor people with expensive cars, and some relatively rich people with inexpensive cars. I am sure there is some correlation between wealth and owning expensive cars, but this is far from a perfect correlation. For some people, owning an expensive car is extremely important (whether rich or relatively poor), and those may be the type of drivers that will cut people off.

Study 4 about the candy??? Since they weren't doing anything unethical in that case, I am not sure what it shows. Rich people have more of a sweet tooth? Maybe they didn't want the kids to get cavities so they threw it away? I mean, who knows>

Majority of the time rich people will drive expensive cars, poor will drive modest cars.

Second part: look at what you wrote, and look at the study "Made excuses for their behavior" "I'm gonna take a bunch of this candy for myself so they don't eat too much and get sick"

It was really a stupid thing to try to measure.

I'm also not convinced about the cars. I would like to see the types of cars--SUVs vs. sports cars, etc.

so I'm going to take a bigger portion for myself to save you from getting sick" while factually true, it's using it as an excuse to take a larger portion for yourself. If you really believed what you were saying, in this example, you'd take none. Think of it in a different term like "They aren't smart enough to run this business, so I'll take over" or "They aren't good with money, so I'll just handle it for them"

It's rationalization, and my friend once told me "If you have to rationalize, you know you're wrong."


the second part is a bit more subjective, but read into the study, they'll explain it.

And they seem like such nice folks.

throw a cow on your land and poof, you're a farmer worthy of an AG tax credit.

It was determined that camels have more ethics than rich people. Or something like that.

and more and more to the point where it's psychotic, is destroying people's lives. And I'm not talking about the lives of the wealthy.

was honest or ethical. My father included. he was EVIL. I got screwed five years ago by a bible toting rich fuck who made his first fortune selling pot and now supports stricter laws against it. And he flat out fucked me out of a good deal. and the rich guy that he used to fuck me fucked me as well.

about an experiment conducted at a university:

Person walking in public accidentally drops a couple of dollars when he pulls his keys from his pocket. Of the people nearby who saw that, most either picked up the money and ran to give it back, or they called out to alert him to his loss. A few pocketed the bills. The team casually interviewed the bystanders after their actions and determined that those who were more financially fit were the ones who kept the money, stories ranged from "been there, done that, know what it's like" to "if you snooze, you lose".

Sorry, it was about twenty years ago and I don't recall more details. But I do remember the class discussion about the unscientific nature of the experiment, even though most of the students claimed to know people of the type who would keep the money and that they were considered to be "well off".