Study: Rich people are greedy, value cheating as a virtue

UC Berkeley recently did a study that found rich people are more likely to "commit unethical acts because they are motivated by greed." Anyone who has ever worked in retail responded with a "No shit" so deafening that the universe itself shuddered down to its smallest quark.

The researchers found that "people driving expensive cars were more likely than other motorists to cut off drivers and pedestrians at a four-way-stop intersection," as anyone who has lived in an area with lots of Range Rover-piloting soccer moms has known since approximately forever. The motorists of the highest-end cars were four times most likely to enter an intersection when they didn't have a right of way. This happened even more when they were going up against a pedestrian, the inner monologue obviously being, "Oh, if I'm involved in a collision with this pedestrian pedestrian, my more valuable life will be safe, and I'll only have to worry about cleaning commoner blood off of my bumper."

People of higher socioeconomic status were also more likely to cheat to win a prize, or pocket extra change that was given to them by accident. Best of all, the rich were also most likely to literally "take candy from children," which isn't a good idea because I'm pretty sure (spoiler alert) that's how Mr. Burns got shot. (Side note: this study proves that Mr. Burns is the most realistic portrayal of the rich to ever appear on television.)

The study also questioned those who were falsely given a higher grade on a test: those of higher socioeconomic ranks were less likely to tell the professor if they were unfairly given an A instead of a B.

Apparently these phenomena can be traced back to people of higher social class being more likely to have more "favorable attitudes toward greed." Basically, they see cheating, stealing, and putting one's self before others as virtues. And that's why they're rich — or that's the behavior and worldview they were taught by those they inherited their riches from.

Or not. The researchers "also discovered that anyone's ethical standards could be prone to slip if they suddenly won the lottery and joined the top 1%," which sounds like the moral to a shitty children's book. It seems like "money is the root of all evil," doesn't mean "pursuing riches will make you evil," but more like "people with a lot of money are inconsiderate jerks." 

If your personal goal during your limited time as a sentient being on this Earth is to accumulate as much material shit as possible, then the moral of the story can be summarized by Michael Douglas below: