Work harder, people!

Unemployed Americans who were hoping to keep getting their checks are just about out of luck. The U.S. Senate came up one vote short of ending the Republican filibuster over unemployment benefits.

Democrat Dick Durbin let ’em have it: “Very basic and simple decision by the Republicans not reward those they think are lazy.”

But one prominent Wall-Streeter, Sam Zell, has argued that cutting off benefits might do the unemployed some good.

“The world and this country should not talk about envy of the 1 percent. The should talk about emulating the 1 percent,” said Zell.

Zell is a billionaire investor who told Bloomberg TV that the secret, is simple. You must work harder, and don’t make excuses.

“The stories are rampant of people who started with a candy store and took it from there,” said Zell.

Sam Zell himself is still working hard at age 72.

But how do you define working hard?

The average executive makes something like 250 times what the average worker makes. Even if your average employee works only an hour a week and spends the rest of the time high on weed, how is it possible for an executive to work 250 times harder? A week has only 168 hours.

But no more excuses. Let’s take Sam’s challenge. Starting now, all of us are going to work 250 times as hard, starting candy stores if we have to – so that in five years, so many of us become members of the top 1 percent that they’ll have to rename it! In fact – if every NFL team resolved today to work as hard as the Seahawks did, in five years, why shouldn’t every team win the Super Bowl?

That felt good!