Fascinating how much we worship wealth in America: here is a guy who became a billionaire largely by investing in banks -- which, as he recently commented, were bailed out by taxpayers who need to "suck it up" for the good of western civilization itself -- and yet we look to him for wisdom AND morality.

Have wealth and wisdom always been conflated in America or is that a more recent phenomenon?

There may be earlier examples, but I think we can mostly thank Andrew Carnegie's philanthropy for that conflation.

Several of the robber barons of Carnegie's day took up philanthropy to shape their image.