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I noticed that with some of the Facebook IPO coverage. NPR did a story on people who had been roommates with someone years ago, or who had spray-painted murals at Facebook HQ in the early days. These folks had been paid in Facebook stock. Now -- suddenly -- they were worth tens of millions of dollars.

The message was pretty clear: all rich people are lucky. Hard work has nothing to do with it. Mitt Romney? Donald Trump? Just luck. You know, I could be a billionaire too, if a billion dollars fell into my lap. But, sadly, the billion dollars didn't fall into my lap, it fell into someone else's lap.

Much Liberal thinking is that "no one deserves to be rich", and the other component is "My family is better than your family, I attended better schools than you did, I have super cool friends -- that's why I should be the boss of you."

Donald Trump wasn’t the best choice for your post, but I understand what you were saying.

Trump is the punchline to the old Steve Martin joke...
Remember that old Steve Martin joke about the secret formula for becoming a millionaire? “First, get a million dollars ...”

I’ve met some people worth high 8 fiugres or even 9 figures in my life, most of which have no real power in DC or Wall St/London banking world. They grumble about most of the same stuff you see posted on FR, and have no effective means to move the national debate.

I’ve met a few people worth only low 8 figures or high 7 figures who have exceedingly large amounts of elitist power/pull due to things like having a father who was a senior State Dept employee under Eisenhower, having a father who was the Shah of Iran’s financier planner, or being the grandson of a Arab sheikh who attended US Ivy Leagues and made connections.

Screwed up world where the entrenched power has become obsessed with building up the entrenching defenses more than any other policy goal.

We see in Greece this week what happens when the entrenchments collapse inward. In my life we’ll see the same in the USA unfortunately for all of us.

I noticed that with some of the Facebook IPO coverage. NPR did a story on people who had been roommates with someone years ago, or who had spray-painted murals at Facebook HQ in the early days...this has always been the argument for the Ivies and other top-notch schools - it's not what you learn there, but the contacts you make - I don't think it's considered to be a matter of "luck", but rather that those contacts help you know where the good jobs are, know people on the "inside" who help land the jobs, help bring whatever particular skills you might have to the attention of potential employers, and so forth. Even in our so-called entertainment business these days I'm always amazed to learn how many stars are related to established players - John Voight's daughter, Broderick Crawford's son, Tim McGraw's son etc. With so much technical assistance like editing and pre-recording available again it's probably more the contacts one has to get into the business than raw talent that's important - only when the performance goes live, like say the Super Bowl Halftime Show, does the real dearth of class and ability show itself - otherwise as in the rest of the culture unfortunately it's not necessarily the most skilled, responsible and competent who make it, but those with the best contacts......