Joel Stein pokes a bit of fun in his latest TIME column at the Occupy movement’s claims to represent 99 percent of Americans.

It’s not just that we admire the 1%. We need them. The 1% started Time Inc., creating my job. They founded Stanford, where I went to college. They funded Facebook and my mortgage. They created the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, bankrolled most great art, paid for medical research and created genius grants. No one has ever woken up early to gather around a TV to watch a wedding of two 99 percenters.

Part of the reason I’m defending the 1% is that while all the other journalists waste their time with the Occupy Wall Street losers, the 1% are available for some serious networking. But when I started talking to them, I learned that for all their supposed power, they are now too afraid to stand up for themselves. …

… So I guess it’s up to me to point out that all this anger about income inequality is misplaced because, unlike any other time in history, these days the 1% don’t live that differently than the middle class does. Never before has $10 wine tasted so much like $1,000 bottles–and the $10 bottles come with pictures of cute animals! A $15,000 car breaks down as rarely as one that costs $250,000 and has far more cup holders. The middle class and the rich watch the same stuff on TV and in movie theaters, have equal access to Wikipedia and pay the same college graduates to do nothing but make us complicated coffee drinks. It is so difficult for the 1% to live differently that they have to collect art. Collecting art is so boring, there aren’t any reality shows about it.