I know what you're thinking right now.  You would like to take a trip into the mind of someone who just can't stand the fact that there are people out there who have worked smarter, harder and longer and in the process have become very successful.  Yeah .. how dare these people work that hard and earn that much money?  Don't they realize they're making me look bad? 

Have you ever tried to noodle out the thought processes behind wealth envy?  Here, let me help you.  Nobody likes to be told that they just haven't worked smart enough or hard enough to become wealthy.  People don't want to accept the fact that they've made some pathetic decision in their lives that stood in the way of success and wealth.  They don't want to be told they didn't pay attention to their education. They don't want to hear that they took a dead-end job and hung with it for years. They don't want to hear that they were too eager to punch out and head home after their required eight hours every day .. eschewing a bit of extra work that might have moved them ahead a few squares.  People don't want to hear that all of the money they spent on booze, partying, bass boats, vacations, car payments and lifestyle might have been better invested for future returns. 

In short .. so many people just can't bring themselves to accept the fact that it is they who have held themselves back.  No.  No way.  It's not their fault they aren't rich.  You can hear the thought process:  "I'm a good person.  I work hard.  I put in my 40 hours a week.  I pay my taxes.  I coach little league.  It's not my fault I'm not rich.  Those rich people cheated.  They have crooked lawyers.  They cheat on their taxes.  They've exploited people like me.  They're may be poor but at least I'm honest.  Those rich people are all crooks and they're holding the rest of us down.

Now ... an object lesson.  Here is an excerpt from delightful little email I got from some lady named Joy of Bradenton, Florida. She is more than a little upset about a conversation last week with a caller. The caller and I were wondering where the good investment bargains might be right now ... a question that many are asking.  Here you go:

"Don't you think that the fact that people like you with in your words " lots of money to invest" need to actually pay the taxes that they owe? My daughter is a CPA, so I know that most wealthy people use so many loopholes that they end up paying less tax percentage than the working poor. (BTW, she will not let her clients take questionable deductions although the most wealthy of them are always trying to find new ways to cheat. It is her license on the line if they lie on a tax return so she tells them to find another CPA if they insist on shady accounting practices.)

"Isn't it time for the people who use the system against the interests of the country by cheating on their taxes pay their actual tax liability? Isn't that the real Patriotic thing to do?  You profess to be a Patriot, don't you?

"The auto unions are not the enemy, the illegals are not the enemy, the greedy are the enemy.

"Sell your private jet and pay someone's mortgage that is being thrown into the street because their minimum wage job (that they were forced to take after they were laid off as the stockholders and CEOs steal their pension money) won't let them hold on to their home.  Lose your cushy transportation and save your soul."

Yeah, that's it.  People earning minimum wage are being foreclosed on because of corporate stockholders and CEOs.  It couldn't possibly have anything to do with the fact that they just aren't worth more to an employer than a few bucks an hour.  Oh well ... forget it.  To Joy and to people like her the rich are evil, and there's no changing that.  The poor are only poor because rich people made them that way.  Joy will remain poor .. she's programmed that way.  Sad.  She could change, but I don't see it.