Apple Inc. (AAPL), Google Inc (GOOG): The Kind of Money Americans Hate

Meanwhile, as Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB)‘s Mark Zuckerberg put it in February: “Our policy is literally to hire as many talented engineers as we can find. The whole limit of the system is just that there just aren’t enough people who are trained and have these skills today.”

The reason the inequality debate strikes a nerve with many is that an inordinate amount of our country’s brain power has gone toward financing stuff, rather than designing, engineering, and making stuff. No one wants fewer rich people. Instead, I think more people just wish the next billionaire made their fortune from engineering iPhones instead of engineering mortgage fraud.

Josh Brown summed it up best:

It is not that Americans hate successful people or the wealthy. In fact, it is just the opposite. We love the success stories in our midst and it is a distinctly American trait to believe that we can all follow in the footsteps of the elite, even though so few of us ever actually do.

So, no, we don’t hate the rich. What we hate are the predators.

What we hate are the people who we view as having found their success as a consequence of the damage their activities have done to our country. What we hate are those who take and give nothing back in the form of innovation, convenience, entertainment or scientific progress. We hate those who’ve exploited political relationships and stupidity to rake in even more of the nation’s wealth while simultaneously driving the potential for success further away from the grasp of everyone else.

That’s all there is to it.

The article The Kind of Money Americans Hate originally appeared on Fool.com and is written by Morgan Housel.

Fool contributor Morgan Housel has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool recommends Apple, Facebook, Goldman Sachs, and Google. The Motley Fool owns shares of Apple, Facebook, and Google.

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