kane

For the most part you are correct. Someone who is smart, better, faster, more capable or more accomplished should be paid higher than someone who isn't. Someone who took a risk and started a business and worked their ass off should be rewarded accordingly for doing so. However, there are certain advantages our government gives you once you reach a certain level that can allow you to line your pockets for doing nothing.

Let's look back during the bank bailouts. The Fed was loaning money to big investment banks through their discount window at a rate that was so small it was almost non-existent. Those banks borrowed the money and used it to buy treasury bonds from the government that paid out an interest rate that was at least three times higher than the interest rate they were paying on the loan. So the bank got the money, bought the bonds then sold the bonds and repaid the loans and kept what was left as profit. So essentially the fed was selling a $1 bill to the banks for 97 cents then later buying it back from the bank at $1 or $1.01. Since these investments had a guaranteed returned rate there was no way the banks could lose. The fed gave out 7.7 trillion in these loans that accounted for roughly $10 billion in profit to the banks that received them. They could have saved a lot of time, effort and money had the government just wrote them a check for $10 billion.

Having access to that is something you or I don't have. We can't borrow money from the discount window. If we start a business and it fails, it goes out of business and we are shit out of luck. We don't get huge bailouts to keep us afloat

These are advantages that the top 1% have that the rest of the 99% don't.

I'm not saying most rich people don't deserve what they have nor am I saying they should be punished for being rich, but to say that nobody gives free money is just flat out wrong.