Sharing the Wealth: I Give You Money and You Give Me Cool Stuff

Tinker, tailor...rich man, poor man.

The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. The ambitious get ahead and the clueless get left behind. The smart ones do it sooner and the dumb ones don't do it at all. Capitalism is the best of times and the worst of times, depending on whether you're rich or poor, ambitious or not, clever or just plain stupid. Or is it just the best of times?

No matter how poor, unmotivated, or dim-witted one is, thanks to the rich, ambitious, and smart, it is evident to me that the poor, unmotivated, and dim-witted get really cool things as society advances.

We poor and blasé need the rich. We bumble aimlessly behind them in their capitalistic wake. If someone steps on my toes in their frenzied ambition and greed on his way to finding more clever ways to make me poorer, I am comforted because I know I will get all the cool things in exchange. It is an equitable trade. It's copecetic.

I like my streaming media, my iPhone, and my rack-and-pinion steering. Thanks to the rich, cathode ray tubes are an old forgotten joke. I can have chocolate chip cookies at my door the next day if I want. I don't even have to be rich, smart, or ambitious to live the sweet life, because I let the elite--those who can afford to take the hit in R & D--get wonderful things into my life. I gladly pay for them. With a smile. Am I hypnotized? You bet! Because compared to a hundred years ago, I am in the dream I'm living.

I remember the 5-year plans created every 4 years in communist Russia. I am ROTFLMFA'ing because each 5 year plan was as short as the TV run of the original Star Trek's 5-year mission. Communism just didn't work. Name me three communist inventions, other than food lines, substandard housing, and propaganda.

Profit may be a dirty word to the Wall Street "occupiers," but it moves Mankind. The greed gene--autosomal dominant--enlarged our craniums and got us out of the dirt and into the megalopolis. Communism and sharing the wealth engender the Luddite society, still tilling the soil by hand. I prefer to share the wealth by rewarding those who deliver to me state-of-the-art.

Greed and profit motive engender microwave ovens.

If the world had waited for me to be liquid enough to develop the USB port, it would still be communicating with two cans and a string. I look at my steak and I think about medicine. Five years ago it was the same steak. But five years ago was not the same medicine. Now I can have my coronary arteries vacuumed, buffed, and opened with just a little balloon. And five years from now, thanks to the rich, I'll have nano-bio-bots do it as I sleep.

Do I resent the rich? Not really. Do I really want to make the effort they did so that my GPS directions can be spoken to me as I cruise on in my blue-toothed car to Best Buy? No, certainly not. In fact, definitely not. Can't. I've got plans. They're stupid plans, but they're what I want to do. Should the guy who runs GM make the same as me? If so, why the hell should he want to run GM? And would CEO job performance move the industry if it were on a timeclock only? Most of the rich work longer hours. Their divorce rate is higher and their happiness is lower. Their kids are more screwed up and, of course, they have to constantly watch their stuff. Sure, they "win," but what? I say the joke's on them!

So the rich can get richer. If what I do to contribute to society, working a job I love, means I barely eke above the poverty level, but it also means I can still have LED TVs and AirDrop photo albums on my own private cloud--my FREE cloud, then I say poverty ain't so bad.

Looking back hundreds of years ago, the rich and the poor led the same lives. Sure the rich could afford a bath once a week and have fashionable clothing, but everyone--rich and poor--still lived in the squalor of an unpowered world, riding on animals, eating only what they had for the day, using leeches for therapy, and were only one whooping cough away from the grim reaper who began his shift half a century ealier than today. Today's rich and poor may be living the same lives, too, since we both have all the cool things the rich have made possible. The rich get them sooner, but we both can afford to shower daily. The only difference, if I'm to believe tabloid journalism, is that the rich get to hobknob with the other rich folks as they delude themselves into thinking they're the beautiful people. Show me someone poor who has the world's knowledge delivered to him on a silver Wikipedia platter, and that's very beautiful, too.

Blessed is me, for I shall inherit the Earth. It's 21st Century Earth, and it keeps getting better. As the income divide between the rich and the poor widens, the quality of life divide between them is shrinking. The rich give and I take. It's a pretty good arrangement.

It's the retired rich I resent. They can't help me at all.