Rich People Behaving Badly: Waiting For Our Marie Antoinette Moment

[Blue_Tires]

There is in info meme gaining increasing clarity, and it has three threads: rich people behaving badly, oblivious to their context; poor people getting angry and more vocal about it by the day; and media egging them on.

Looking at the motivations, we can tease out what each group is doing.

Rich people want to keep their money and continue to enjoy it, but they are aware, to varying degrees, that too much flaunting will get them in trouble. They fight redistributive schemes, but the less contextually aware among them still do silly things like buy up oceanfront property and build a castle that blocks the view that everyone else had been enjoying up until then.

Poor people, well, it’s hard not to see why they’re angry and growing angrier. They’ve been good Joes, paid their taxes, put in their time, and their gruel is getting thinner with each passing day. And their information sources keep telling them how the rich are living, which creates a truly unpleasant dissonance.

http://news.yahoo.com/rich-people-behaving-badly-waiting-marie-antoinette-moment-160146998.html

[Doc_Technical]

1. Don't forget about Leona Helmsley

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leona_Helmsley

[LongTomH]

2. JFK once said...

"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible make violent revolution inevitable!"

Time to take up knitting?

[riverwalker]

3. that no "eye-balling" thing

in the article has a ring of truth. I was in the elevator once with a hospital CEO and looked him in the eye and said "good-morning" (I was an obvious employee in uniform). He responded with stone silence like I stepped in doggie doo doo. Must be a rich person thing, but disappointed in Ben Stiller. It's like 19th Century India or something, no eye contact, WTF?

[Blue_Tires]

4. I thought that was par for the course in Hollywood

I've heard about *much* weirder/more dickish antics from movie/music superstars in the past

[Warpy]

5. Most people on food stamps now have JOBS

They sweat their lives away at jobs that don't pay them enough for FOOD!!

Back when the minimum wage was instituted, it was meant to provide the minimum a family needed for food and shelter. Now it won't allow a single person to EAT!

This is what has gone so wrong in this country. In their desperate attempt to fill the emptiness within themselves with money, the wealthy have robbed us of everything and work no longer has anything much to do with supporting the workers expected to do it.

THIS is our Marie Antoinette moment and it's been happening for years!

[ZenaD]

10. People lump all public assistance into "welfare" even that which goes to working people

Also, I think a lot of people confuse disability (SSDI) with welfare (AFDC) when they are totally different things. First of all, hardly anyone is on welfare anymore since it was reformed and disability by definition means you aren't capable of working so it's not a matter of "able bodied people laying around on the dole" as many people think.

[PETRUS]

6. One correction

"They fight redistributive schemes."

This is false. They are aggressive promoters of redistributive schemes - schemes that redistribute wealth upward.

[redqueen]

8. A most important distinction.

Thank you for that very meaningful correction.

[EC]

7. Maybe some of those reality shows have value after

all. With all those "Housewives" shows and others on Bravo, we see how they waste money and act like the parodies of the rich blue nose.

[redqueen]

9. K&R, but I take issue with this:

An engine can’t run with some of its bolts and washers banging around in its oil pan, and a society can’t run while some — even many — people are near desperation while others are complaining that their fois gras hasn’t been prepared properly.

Society can run without desperate people, and it can definitely run without over-privileged people demanding more and more for themselves.

[hootinholler]

11. Am I the only one who finds it ironic that...

An article complaining about how the press covers the rich and famous then goes directly on to catalog behavior of the rich and famous?

[HughBeaumont]

12. Ben Stiller's a marginally talented Ovarian Lottery Winner.

Let's not pretend this guy got where he is completely on his own. What a high bunch of classless bullshit - firing someone who looks at you. Someone has it WAY too good in life.