An interesting book that jives with this is Plutocrats: The Rise of the New Global Super-Rich and the Fall of Everyone Else. One of the interesting things the

An interesting book that jives with this is Plutocrats: The Rise of the New Global Super-Rich and the Fall of Everyone Else. One of the interesting things the author finds about the nouveau rich is that they are typically more dismissive of the poor and less charitable than the "old money." Probably in large part because they think "I made it because of my own merits - if you don't have the things I have, it's because you are lazy or incompetent." As for trashing a redwood forest, not sure what makes that seem OK. :)