It continually amazes me that so many people think they are entitled to so much.
From the rich to the poor, including those in the middle, the world has never seen so many people, so entitled to so much. Ever.

From the very top of the food chain comes the entitlement to pay less tax. There are many ways to do this and there are now so many actually doing it, that everyone else thinks they're entitled to do it, as well.

Entitlement has been so popular it has seeped into the middle classes who, if they can get away with it, now behave in a similar fashion. It has become so natural to think like this, that most people don't even blink when they do it.

Look at Gareth Morgan, the Opportunities Party leader.

This individual is a millionaire many times over, but he openly admits to paying the tax to the equivalent of someone earning $70,000 a year. He admits it's morally wrong, and then does it anyway. Why? Because it's legal. Meanwhile, down at the other end of the ranch, in amongst the scrub where the rats and wildcats live, the poor are paid with billions of dollars of welfare - read handouts - every year and they too believe it is their entitlement.

‘I'm entitled to this welfare. It is my right'.

Of the $70-something billion it costs to run the New Zealand government and public services every year, well over 30 per cent of that, some $25 billion, is spent on the young and the useless, the pregnant, the sick, the painfully unemployed and the elderly.

Now the elderly part I can live with, as they've earnt - in theory - their pension. The jury is still out on the sick and the sorry, with the rest being freeloaders.

Each and every one of them are encouraged to apply because they are, yes you guessed it, entitled to it. Entitled, by law, to suck on the teats of the state. So, what have we got?

We have the top 30 per cent arranging things with their accountants so they minimise their tax paying responsibilities, and the bottom 30 per cent who are either sucking the state dry, or if paying any tax at all, are entitled to apply for other forms of state support, making their nett contribution to the country zero or thereabouts.

What's left in the middle is the remnant of the once-famous middle classes, most on salaries paying PAYE as they go.

So amazing are these entitlements, mainly found in western cultures, that they attract millions of other people who want to be a part of such a ‘wonderful' system, to the point where the queue to receive these benefits is now longer than the queue to create them.

How much longer can this carry on?

G Martin, Otumoetai.