Mishlei 18:23 - The Supplications of the Poor and the Brazenness of the Rich

משלי יח:כג

תַּחֲנוּנִים יְדַבֶּר רָשׁ וְעָשִׁיר יַעֲנֶה עַזּוֹת:

Mishlei 18:23
A poor man speaks [with] supplications, and a rich man responds with brazenness.

Major Questions / Difficulties

1. Why does the first half of the pasuk have to tell us that a poor man will speak with supplication? Isn't this obvious? What is the chidush (new insight)?
2. What, exactly, does the pasuk mean by "responds with brazenness"? 
3. Why does the rich man respond with brazenness? 
4. What scenario is the pasuk talking about? Mishlei usually compares two individuals' decisions in the same decision-making scenario. If that is the case here, what is that scenario? Or is this pasuk describing an interaction between the poor man and the rich man - as it would seem from the use of the word "responds"?
5. Which consequences/benefits is Mishlei pointing out here? Remember that Mishlei is a book about how to make good decisions and avoid bad ones. This pasuk doesn't spell out the ramifications of the decisions being made here. 
6. To whom is this pasuk addressed? Is it giving advice to the poor man about how to speak to the rich man? Is the pasuk rebuking the rich man for how he treats the poor? 
7. What is the subject of this pasuk?

Four Sentence Summary of the Main Idea (According to Rabbeinu Yonah)

When performing a cost/benefit analysis of wealth and poverty, it is easy to focus exclusively on the financial dimension and lose sight of the fact that wealth and poverty have a detrimental effect on a person's middos (character traits) as well. Poverty often spawns detrimental middos, such as subservience (since he is dependent on them for his livelihood), fear of people (insofar as he feels that his fate is in their hands), flattery (since he constantly needs to beg for money), and other degenerate qualities. Likewise, the rich man becomes brazen, arrogant, harsh in his speech, wise in his own eyes, stubborn, and all of the other negative traits which arise from an inflated ego. For this reason, the wise man will pray: "give me neither poverty nor wealth, but provide me with my daily allotment of bread" (Mishlei 30:8) - not only because this makes sense in its own right, but because he is concerned about the harmful ethical effects of wealth and poverty on his character.  

Four Sentence Summary of the Main Idea (According to Us)

A poor man thinks that the best way to ask a rich man for money is to supplicate, in order to awaken the rich man’s mercy and arouse his pity. This is a mistake which will likely backfire: pity stems from identification with the other person, and if the poor man makes himself seem too wretched and needy, the rich man will be repelled, for it he will find it too painful, frightening, and abhorrent to see himself in the poor man’s shoes, and all hope of empathy will be lost. On the other hand, if the poor man is too assertive and demanding, he is sure to tread on the rich man’s ego, and once that happens, there is no way that the rich man will want to help him. The key is to strike a perfect balance: to cater to the rich man’s ego by making him feel like a proud and powerful benefactor, while being careful not to make himself seem too pitiful or too bold – both of which would pose a threat to the rich man’s ego.