Billionaire's Perspective: "Why the Rich deserve to be Richer"

AMERICAN billionaire Sam Zell says the 1 per cent earn more money because they work harder than everybody else.
The investor and chairman of Equity International said America's rich should be emulated, not criticised.
"The quote '1 per cent' are being pummelled because it's politically convenient to do so," Mr Zell said in an interview with Bloomberg.
"The problem is that the world and this country should not talk about envy of the 1 per cent it should talk about emulating the 1 per cent.
"The 1 per cent work harder. The 1 per cent are much bigger factors in all forms of our society."
Mr Zell, who is worth $US4 billion ($4.46 billion) according to Forbes, was asked how he thought a person on minimum wage would be able to emulate the richest people in society.
He said lots of people have come from nowhere and become part of the 1 per cent.
"The stories are rampant of people who started with a candy store and took it from there," he said.
"There are lots of people who have the ambition and have the motivation and have succeeded."
Mr Zell was also asked to comment on billionaire venture capitalist Tom Perkins' recent controversial comment that the criticism of America's rich was comparable to the persecution of Jews in Nazi Germany in the 1930s.
"The word persecution is not the right word," he said.
"I think that the politics of envy, the politics of class warfare are what has separated America from many parts of the rest of the world. And we have benefited dramatically from not having class warfare, from not having envy."
Earlier in the interview Mr Zell spoke about things that have contributed to his success, including his tendency to act rather than overthink.
"It's all about what's simple. What's the shortest distance between two points. People tend to overthink," he added.
"There are no formulas. Success and failure are a combination of judgments and external events. But it starts and ends with a simple idea."
He also said he followed his gut.
"I think that I have been willing to have opinions and then execute accordingly," he said.

source"news.com