Netflix Documentary Contrasts Wealth and Poverty

The Netflix documentary "Park Avenue: Money, Power and the American Dream" is a vulgarly blunt portrayal of modern-day America and its distribution of wealth.
The one-hour documentary emphasizes how only a ten-minute trip across a bridge, from 740 Park Avenue, Manhattan, to the South Bronx, can clearly reveal how the line between wealth and poverty in America is becoming more emboldened than ever. While those on the Manhattan side enjoy all sorts of luxuries, on the South Bronx side, 19 percent of the population are unemployed and in need of food stamps.
The Park Avenue apartment complex is divided into 31 units, many being duplexes, and the building can be summed up with one very specific number: one, as in, the one percent. Some have referred to it as the "one percent of the one percent."
It houses stock market tycoon Stephen Schwarzman, as well as Koch Industries vice-president and multi-billionaire David Koch. A point emphasized in the documentary is that many GOP politicians, such as George H.W. Bush, have gone into the "740" and, 15 minutes later, come out over $1 billion richer in campaign finances.
As part of the documentary, an anonymous bellboy agreed to be interviewed. A rendering of this billion-dollar stained portrait was this: in his time being a bellboy for men such as Schwarzman and Koch, life on the job was consistently high-stress and low-reward-meaning, any small slip-up may be reason for immediate disqualification from ever coming back to work again.
Minute details such as not remembering who liked to get their own door or who liked to sit in the front seat rather than back was reason enough to be fired immediately, without any possibility of unemployment benefits.
In other words, their job security rested quite literally on the shoulders of these men in very unimaginably high power. The point was also brought up that Koch did not go through any route of extravagance for his subordinates for Christmas. To the contrary, he wrote each employee a $50 check for the holidays, and that was the extent of it.
Again, to the contrary some residents would have a Christmas tree placed into each room of their property for the holidays. Such expenditures, being examples of the less charitable display of wealth and power, were never spared.
Possibly the most intellectually stimulating point raised by the documentary regarded the young children of the residents. The former bellboy pointed out that the younger children seemed to possess a certain innocence about them, one that disappeared with age. He said upon return from sporting events, many of the younger children would give "hi-fives" and sport with the staff of 740. However, it was ascertained that at a certain age, these same children would one day fail to make eye-contact with the staff, would act as if they were no longer in existence to them, and would "walk like their fathers."
The interviewee said he theorized that at a certain age the fathers would sit their children down and say, "Son, you are a billionaire. You are not like them. They are not people, and you do not have to treat them like they are anything. They are nothing to us. They are our servants, and that is it. Treat them as such."
Wow. What an impactful statement. And really, could anyone disagree with idea that the fathers make this a priority, a "barmitzvah" of sorts in that top one percent?
An experiment was also conducted using the game of Monopoly. In this experiment, the money was not distributed evenly at the start of the game, and as it proceeded and the disadvantaged player was routinely "raped" of money and property, the player at advantage did not exhibit any signs of regret or remorse for what was done.
The lesson here: entitlement. People born into wealth have an innate sense of entitlement, and this entitlement seems to act as a desensitization ploy for those in such a position of economic hierarchy. It did not matter the sex, race or religion of either player. Whoever was dealt the more advantageous hand at the beginning of the game of Monopoly sat higher on a white horse.
Source: http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/park-avenue-money-power-american-dream/.