The rich guy in the story owns a business at which all the others are employed. During the time that the bartender dropped his price of beer by 20%, the rich guy’s profits increased 25%, boosting his net worth commensurately. He applauded himself for his business acumen and rewarded himself with a 15% raise, a 50% bonus, a company car, fully paid health insurance, and $1 million in stock options. He gave his right-hand man, the second richest of the lot, a 10% raise, a 20% bonus, and a promotion. That didn’t leave much, so the others were asked to understand that because stock prices had been shaky and return on equity was below target, there just wasn’t enough to give them more than a 3% increase. But really, wasn’t it his brilliance that had made the business successful, not the mindless gruntwork of his ignorant laborers?

Meanwhile, unbeknownst to the others, the rich guy periodically had an escort service ensure the bartender remained a happy camper, at least on the days when he wasn’t availing himself of their services. So when the opportunity arose to drop the price of beer, it wasn’t difficult to persuade the majority of the people with any real stake in the decision to ignore the grossly inequitable redistribution of wealth that had occurred in the days leading up to the adjusted bar tab. The rich guy rightly argued, both to his friends at the bar and through his buddies at Fox News, that he would be shouldering a bigger percentage of the load going forward, but not that he was now in a significantly better position to do so.

Eventually, however, word got around that the rich guy’s disposable income and net worth had both actually increased by a significantly larger percent than that of his poorer colleagues, so despite shouldering the bigger portion of the bar tab, he was still better off by a bigger percentage than they were. Once his drinking buddies saw the light, they took him outside and beat him senseless.

Realizing that the level of education and understanding of his less fortunate colleagues had caught up with him, the rich guy relocated to one of many countries in the world where the quality of education and level of desperation of the average potential bar buddy was low enough to protect him from retribution (for a while). Once there, the rich guy found the situation to be more imbalanced in his favor than it had ever been in his home country, so he rejoiced mightily and became keynote speaker at several conventions where he convinced other “captains of industry” to join in the unbridled exploitation.

He is expected to be pummeled to death by his new buddies at some point in the next 10-20 years.

The End