Nitro, you are missing a very important point. Yes, I agree with you that we are ALL hypocrites on some level and on some level we all want to be independent financially. Here is where you are misguided. These leaders are getting their wealth through power. And power is a tricky thing. You see, to get it and hold on to it, you have to kill people. And many of these so called "socialists" have killed millions all in the name of socialism. So yes, I'm sure you are a good guy. I believe that actually. But I don't think you or anyone on this board would kill and destroy or pillage for an extra buck or two. The streets around the world are flooded with the blood left behind from the socialists who are fighting for the common man. If you truly stepped back and looked at the damage left behind of these people, I think you would have a change of heart. It reminds me of those murder suicides you see on the news where a husband and father kills his wife and kids before killing himself and leaves a note behind saying, I killed them because they would have suffered without me in the world. THAT is your socialist.
Ironically, nitro is actually just paraphrasing the traditional objection of old money to the nouveau riche. Gratuitous displays of money, think Larry Eliison, were mocked as vulgar and classless. Living with style but below one's means was the ideal. Now we have raised a generation of ignorant, uncultured people who worship the idol of celebrity. They truly lack the capacity to discern the difference between American Idol and reality. We need look no further than their mindless voting for an unqualified presidential candidate who somehow became an officialy media-endorsed celebrity.
I completely agree about old money vs new. Out here in CA I do not see too many people sporting old money ideas... But out here I might know now the truly wealthy. When I moved out to San Diego in the late 80s... The tennis pro drove a Mercedes. Where I left--- Greenwich... the really wealthy drove Fords and wore Khakis. They really did not want people to know they had money.
People being people, they seek to concentrate power, and since money is a means to that, they seek to concentrate it as well. Do those in position of power/money game the system when they can? Would you if in a similar position? It is not even a question if being honest about human nature. During the 1990's the computer/internet boom cause a centrifugal affect on wealth, with a larger number of people employed and their increased income fueling the spending that lifted others. Unfortunately, that was also when a lot of jobs started being moved overseas, so the feedback loop had already sprung a leak, but was noticed less because of the magnitude of the economic rise. Since then it has all been about centripetal concentration, and the aim is to keep it that way. The Constitution has been shredded to accomplish that. "WE THE PEOPLE" are the largest words in the Constitution. The founding fathers displayed that in the largest "font" not on a whim, but because nothing was to supersede that. No monarch or aristocracy (corporate, political, or otherwise) was to replace what they had freed themselves from via the American Revolution. Every time you see something that will concentrate power, whether by individual or groups, it is a blatant warning sign.