Mo' Money

There's an article at Salon today 8 Signs the Rich Have Way Too Much Money. One of its points is that billionaires aren't always the "best and the brightest":

Billionaires love to believe our society is a meritocracy, where the most talented become the most wealthy and successful. Of course, they would say that...There’s “You didn’t build that,” and now we can add “You didn’t think of that.” And even the brightest billionaire’s success includes a lot of lucky accidents. (And we haven’t even begun to talk about the heirs and heiresses yet.) 

Of course this echos what I said years ago myself:

...the need to feel like an oppressed underdog who has succeeded against all odds is as American as apple pie.  Nobody likes to admit out loud "part of my success is due to economic and social conditions cemented long before I was even born"; we must be made to believe that Successful Person X was left to die in a dumpster, then pulled himself up by his own bootstraps. Nobody inherited money or their company, everybody started out the same as everyone else, with nary an advantage, be it the color of their skin or the crotch they were torn out of.

Another point in the article is that the ultra-rich don't understand why people resent them. In the same Xmastime post, I wonder why rich people even feel the need to haves some publicity campaign:

One thing America is fascinated by is the ruling class of the uber-wealthy, and the more uber-wealthier they get the more we're fascinated by them, and yet they always feel like they have to win some public relations war for our affection that doesn't exist, be it corporations crying foul on being asked to pay taxes, or NFL owners having to swallow only making a trillion dollars a day. 

To me, the one thing that shows we have too much money is our toilet paper:

2) I think a good barometer of how much money we misspend in this country is the fact that toilet paper has different colors and patterns. What is this for? You know there’s some companies whose sole job is to spend millions on figuring out the market etc “people like blue”. What the fuck. I mean, is there anything else we have ever created that has a more ignominious ending as a piece of toilet paper? You spend your life in the dark, rolled up tight with the other guys, and then the second you finally see the light of day BAM!!! You’re being scraped against someone’s asshole having shit smeared on you. The bottom line is always the same, yet for some reason we’re compelled to have different colors/patterns etc. “I’ll spend the extra 20 cents a roll if there’s sailboats on my tp.” Camon.