robot-heart-politics:

““I find the one thing [the protesters] have in common revolves around the human emotions of envy and entitlement,” he said. “What you have is more than what I have, and I’m not happy with my situation.” Cain seems like a nice enough guy, but I nearly blew my stack when I heard this. When you take into consideration all the theft and fraud and market manipulation and other evil shit Wall Street bankers have been guilty of in the last ten-fifteen years, you have to have balls like church bells to trot out a propaganda line that says the protesters are just jealous of their hard-earned money.”

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Wall Street Isn’t Winning It’s Cheating | Matt Taibbi | Rolling Stone

You want to talk about entitlement? An incredibly small number of people thinking it’s not only reasonable, but a good thing, that they own more than 40% of the wealth in the country and actively lobby for the government to pass laws and regulations that make it easier for them to own an even larger slice of the pie. They actually sit around and bitch about how unfair (Will Cain’s words!) it is that they have an effective tax rate of 17%.

And we’re the ones with the entitlement problem? Seriously? HOW MUCH DO THESE FUCKING PEOPLE WANT? We hear all the time in these conversations about how the ultrawealthy “deserve” every penny that they have and that all the greedy poors should back the fuck off. So far, I’ve seen very little that convinces me that there is anyone in this country who has done such incredible work that they deserve to own that much of a percentage of the wealth in this country while the bottom 80% scrapes by on a meager 7%. The bottom 80% consist of our country’s teachers, nurses, firemen, military, and a whole host of other people who have devoted their lives to helping other people. They work hard. They work long hours. They make sacrifices. Who is to say that these people don’t deserve a larger slice of the pie? And who is to say that the ultrawealthy deserve to just keep growing their share, until there’s nothing left for anyone else? What makes the rich so deserving and the rest of us just a bunch of greedy, entitled assholes?

Entitlement? Fuck. You.