>What I don't "get" is why people who otherwise seem intelligent, don't grasp that the only reason they enjoy their presumably privileged lifestyle is because physically stronger and more numerous others are willing to allow it. The idea that transferring money to symbolize transfer of value is somehow "fairer" than pillage, only works if everybody believes that there is advantage for them. Why should the so-called "undeserving' buy into such a system if they are stronger and more numerous? Why shouldn't they simply Storm the Bastille if they are sick of being told to eat cake, or toss tea chests off a ship if the privileged want to perpetuate a system that advantages only them? The fact is that millions of able-bodied people who were productive last year are unproductive today through no fault of their own. Telling them to be a Walmart greeter or wait on tables is unworkable when those jobs can't possibly use millions more people. All that would achieve is to shunt poorer/less attractive/whatever people out of their existing jobs, accentuating the underclass. You really can't expect those people to stay meek, hungry and subservient forever, especially if well-fed people keep scoffing at them.

Something I've become familiar with lately (having friends who moved their money off-shore previously and now want to leave the country) is that it is very difficult to do:

http://www.harpers.org/archive/2004/10/0080240

It's amazing how willing this country is for others to arrive and how difficult it is to leave.

And THAT article is now outdated. The U.S. has since started to prevent people from leaving this country unless you leave your money here. There are folks whose job it is simply to make sure that any citizen leaving the country does not take their money with them. And what money you do leave with, you must pay taxes on in order to leave with it. Then there is that pesky problem of having to renounce your citizenship immediately in order to expatriate... It's getting scary folks.