Britt Combs: Thanks, Rich People

It's Thanksgiving, folks. I have been so busy enjoying the fruits of kindness and blessings received in the course of the past year that I have hardly had time to ponder how fortunate I am, and how appropriate it is to express gratitude.

Some people get praised all the time. They are magnets for praise and no one ever mentions their names without commenting how wonderful and giving they are. I'd like to express thanks to some folks who almost never have their efforts acknowledged.

In the coming months and years, the rich are going to take it on the chin. A new president campaigned and won on a stick-it-to-the-rich platform. Their party is going to be seriously interrupted. I think it's appropriate, at the start of this new wave of class warfare, to thank the rich people for what they do for us all.

Thanks, rich people. Where would we be without you? We poor people sometimes get caught up in feeling left out. We know we only have one go around in this life, and it's a drag to know that we are never gonna be rich, never know what it's like to enjoy a weekend golfing at Hilton Head, or attend a black tie party on a yacht with Donald Trump, or a White House gala dinner, or win first place at a Pebble Beach car show.

That can really get under our skin. Some of you rich people were once poor, so you know what I'm driving at. We don't like wondering what we'll do when the transmission falls out of our car, or when the furnace needs to be repaired. We see nice things and wish we could enjoy them too. We see you folks smiling and spending thousands upon thousands of dollars on perfect bodies and gleaming teeth and enjoying kicks and adventures, and it frosts us.

But it shouldn't. A lot of you are wonderful people, and you do nice things for us poor people all the time.

One of you took care of me when I was an errant teenager. He could have really stuck it to me, but instead he gave me a lot of honest work to do and paid me well even though I was completely unskilled. He told me how he had had to struggle to get up from poverty to his exalted station, and inspired me that I could have a happy and peaceful life by working hard and being honest and law-abiding.

He advised me to avoid being friends with criminals, which is one of the four best pieces of advice I have ever received. In short, he spent his time and money letting me in on some of the secrets of a rich man's success when there was nothing in it for him but to help out a confused young kid.

Poor people have given me food and clothing and even a couple of days' cash work, but only rich people have ever hired me to full time work with benefits.

Thanks, Bill Gates. People have picked on you for many years now. You built not only an empire, but practically created an industry where there was none. You had vision and creativity as well as the ability to see it through. In so doing you created jobs and opportunity for vast throngs of people.

When Janet Reno's Justice Department came after you, you could've become bitter. You could've washed your hands of humanity and focused on enjoying yourself. Instead, you established the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. You have provided relief, comfort, treatment and hope to millions of AIDS sufferers. Some of the poorest people in the world know a little comfort, thanks to you.

You made a fortune in your business and you spent that fortune making life better for millions of people who never lifted a finger to help you.

Thanks, Warren Buffett, for supporting the Gates Foundation with vast sums of your own money.

Thanks, Bono, Brad Pitt and Oprah Winfrey. No one made you care so much about the desperately poor people in Africa. You gave your money, your time and your attention to people who had nothing at all to offer you in exchange.

Rich people pay a vast portion of the taxes, both corporate and personal, that fund public services the poor so desperately need. From food stamps to subsidized housing to job training and college tuition money, millions of poor people enjoy the fruit of rich men's labor everyday.

There are an awful lot of rich people who do not follow those examples of giving. Some of them are mean and a lot of them are terribly dishonest. But you could say that about poor people too.