[archhn]

This attitude is the product of an insanely competitive and violent environment. People have learned that this is how you have to be to make it to the top. Also, what's the fun of being rich if nobody else is poor? The lower the low, the higher the high. People enjoy feeling the power of crushing others. Putting your boot on the throat of the weak makes you feel intoxicatingly strong. I'm convinced this is why the rich turn to philanthropy. Instead of helping make a system where the poor and needy don't exist, they rather make charities that transmute their greed into benevolence. There's some truly sick psychological stuff going on in this country.