ENTITLEMENTS. STILL ENTITLED

 I'm being pulled in two directions. The American Civil War of the nineteenth century and the Latin American civil wars of the from the fifties up to the turn of the last century. Fallout we're still seing at our southern border. So, please bear with me. I'm likely to bounce back and forth depending what my brain can absorb. And I'm not quite as flexible as I used to be. Sorry.

I don't know the name of the commenter who posted this on a Huffington Post entry nearly a decade ago. It was originally aimed at Mitt Romney. The gap has only gotten worse, much much worse. 

Romney’s entitlements:                            
I am entitled to complain about the economy even when my stock price, my portfolio and my profits are at record levels.

I am entitled to a healthy and well-educated workforce, a modern and efficient transportation system and protection for my person and property, just as I am entitled to demonize the government workers who provide them.

I am entitled to complain bitterly about taxes that are always too high, even when they are at record lows.

I am entitled to have my earned income taxed as capital gains and my investment income taxed at the lowest rate anywhere in the world — or not at all.

I am entitled to inside information and favorable investment opportunities not available to ordinary investors. I am entitled to brag about my investment returns.

I am entitled to pass on my accumulated wealth tax-free to heirs, who in turn, are entitled to claim that they earned everything they have.

I am entitled to use unlimited amounts of my own or company funds to buy elections without disclosing such expenditures to shareholders or the public.

I am entitled to provide political support to radical, uncompromising politicians and then complain about how dysfunctional Washington has become.

I am entitled to publicly criticize the president and members of Congress, who are not entitled to criticize me.

I am entitled to fire any worker who tries to organize a union. I am entitled to break any existing union by moving, or threatening to move, operations to a union-hostile environment.

I am entitled to load companies up with debt in order to pay myself and investors big dividends — and then blame any bankruptcy on over-compensated workers.

I am entitled to contracts, subsidies, tax breaks, loans and even bailouts from government, even as I complain about job-killing government budget deficits.

I am entitled to take credit for all the jobs I create while ignoring any jobs I destroy,

I am entitled to claim credit for all the profits made during a booming economy while blaming losses or setbacks on adverse market or economic conditions.

I am entitled to deny knowledge or responsibility for any controversial decisions made after my departure from the company, even while profiting from such decisions if they enhance shareholder value.

I am entitled to all the rights and privileges of running an American company, but owe no loyalty to American workers or taxpayers.

 I am entitled.

I can think of a few current oligarchs who still claim that they created it all by themselves. If they mention their workers lately one complaint is that more than a few have discovered they can do their jobs almost as well from home courtesy of the internet, video conferencing. I'm betting they don't miss the office politics at all, wondering who was going to get stabbed in the back this or how much time would be wasted on whatever brihght idea that will improve morale and productivity the managers have grabbed onto like a leach with a new blood supply.