In our neighboring community, during these hard times, some practices of the county are coming into question. Some very well-paid high-level administrators are retiring at near full salary - and then coming back at close to those same figures over again as "consultants." A fire captain is up over $400k per annum with double-dipping. People are mad.
The county has a point. Lookahere, they say, when we hire back these high rollers, they are not authorized health care, for that's provided for retirees. And so we have a work force at the upper-echelon costing nothing in medical expenses, which are otherwise quite costly, were we to continue and expand the practice. What say you?
Nuts, say they.
Some tests have demonstrated a human feature which somehow managed to surprise the clinicians. Simply put, studies were conducted which offered a sum of currency to Subject 1 on the condition he offer any part of it, at his sole discretion, to Subject 2, and neither would receive anything unless both agreed to the amount of the split. Thinking of his own position, Subject 1 invariably would offer less than 50% to #2, and that worthy would just as often reject the deal.
This is not by any means a test of "fairness," for that's certainly not the motivation for Subject 1. And Subject 2 also has proven one of the main forces driving our society at this point.
Personal resentment.
Consider this proposition being offered to the electorate during any campaign season: "Lookahere, unemployment is right now at 10%. We have college tuition grants and work study and OJT and training programs all over the place, and at the end of the day, the unemployment rate is and shall remain 10%. So, why not allow the natural order to sustain itself, and let those with the work habit continue as they are and the same without job prospects or conditioning? Think of the savings to the taxpayer!"
The reply would be: "You mean I trudge off to the warehouse every morning while some clown sits on his keester all day long swilling brew and playing on his Wii?"
We are at the point just before the rampage of the paranoid gold seeker in The Treasure of Sierra Madre:
"Fred C Dobbs ain't a man likes to be taken advantage of."