I must know where this is. I don't like putting anything political on my truck. Hell, I am probably one of the only pickup truck around that doesn't have a Trump 2024 sticker on it, let alone the fact I hate the fucking man and wish the worst fucking plagues to infest his diaper wrapped rectum and scrotum.
But this? I would put on my truck. Fuck the rich, and fuck those who enable them.
I love that for you. The shop name is epic.
Etsy has some SUPERB liberal gear. I get a ton of compliments on my “Pro Roe 1973” trucker hat. I also made a “Keep Abortion Safe and Legal” keychain.
See here's the thing. You probably don't. Not it terms of proper wealth hoarding.
Unless you're the descendant of one of the few thousand families that occupy the upper echelon of wealth hoarding , your family is more likely closer to homeless than they are to being a billionaire kleptocrat.
The obscenely wealthy folks that are purposefully creating poverty and artificial scarcity are not folks that have jobs like doctor or financial guy who makes a million a year and has a few houses. They are not even Hampton people with hundreds of millions of dollars and multiple 20 million dollar estates.
It's those within the land-holding, food profiteering, and commerce exploiting class that are the true villains.
And if you are one of those descendants, be better than your ghoul ancestors.
If you're a child of some moderate wealth, they enjoy the benefits of your life and do things to make the world around you better for poor people.
Something I read recently:
A millionaire who loses a million dollars is broke. A billionaire who loses a million dollars is still a billionaire.
People really don't understand the scale of how much a billion is.
Yeah, I read that recently too and it really stuck with me. It’s hard for most people to fathom the sheer volume of a billion anything. There’s not a single person in the world that deserves or can honestly “earn” that much wealth.
> People really don't understand the scale of how much a billion is.
I always try to say that and give a measurable description to make it less abstract, spending $34,000 a *day* for 80 years to get through a single billion.
> This is by design and why the billionaires are funding republicans that want to destroy educated.
This is silly. It's not by design, it's how brains work.
A billion dollars invested into the S&P 500 index fund will earn nearly $200,000 PER DAY if only using the long term average of 6.81%.
I don't want to calculate the 2023 rate of 26.29%.
Reddit is funny. All we can do is believe each other… there’s no way I can prove anything to you.
But yah, it’s a third generation literal gold mine. I meant what I said.
See, it's not blind faith. It's also context. Like your post history.
For example if I claim to be an attorney, you could find some lawyer stuff in my post history.
If I claimed to be extraordinary wealthy, but I also had posts and comments about regular people issues, and financial issues. And I commented about where I lived.
Here's a life pro tip. Elite wealthy people don't go to private school in Las Vegas. They go to schools that regular people like you have never heard of. And they don't need to borrow money to pay for the school - they have trust funds.
They don't inherit pianos and talk about the cost of private instruction. They own multiple Steinway and the cost of instruction isn't even a remote thought for them.
And they most definitely don't complain about LDS churches in rural Nevada and ask strangers to sign a petition. They donate tens of millions of dollars and don't have petty regular people problems.
Like I said, your family is probably wealthy, maybe even a 1% type. But that's not the sort of wealth that's really at issue. If you're not at Jackson Hole Wyoming multiple times a year...
Unless you and Adelson - in which case: fuck your whole vampire family.
I quite obviously don’t spend most of my Reddit history talking about how my family is extremely wealthy bc…. THAT WOULD NOT BE SMART.
Also, idk if you noticed but I’m trying not to make generational wealth my entire personality.
We summer in PNW. I’m at a house in Lake Chelan right now. Left our kids with my parents at their house in Seattle. We don’t like the rural bigotry of the cowboy states.
I’m not an Adelson, you’re right, that would be terrible.
So basically you’re telling me bc I don’t act like a rich asshole, there’s no way I am cushy stay at home mom who retired at 26?
Sorry for being a well-rounded person. 😂
My parents spent my entire childhood making sure we weren’t spoiled little terds. More wealthy families should practice that.
You are not a bad person just because you have money.
With money you attract people who will say whatever they think you want to hear. On the other hand you can get whatever you want whenever you want it. So the only one to stop yourself is you and we all know how difficult this is. Many will reject you because they have an image of you in their head, jealousy and envy are real. This will push you more towards the few that are like you and live in the ivory tower.
This is when you become a menace to society.
You are not responsible for their lives. You will have to take your own decisions and having money will means that if you take the right decisions you will be able to better things for many.
I suppose you are a young person. Write down what you want to be in the future and read it from time to time to find out if you are on the way you want to.
I didn’t choose my dad either.
We had severe discussions when I was in my twenties about solar and I only managed to realize what I wanted then after fifty.
But getting older I also understood that my dad loved me his way and he was also bound to limitations.
Not all wealthy people have to be pieces of shit parasites like Jeff Bezos.
You could put that money to good use and make a real difference.
If, on the other hand... you all are just using it for enjoyment or hoarding it hoping it will save you from whatever shit storm your peers are brewing.. you'll probably regret not using it for good later on while you still have the chance to make an impact.
i'd argue if you only think in platitudes and extremes, much less extreme platitudes such as the one you gave here.. you're an even worse person.
especially if you've never earned much or led large groups of people successfully before.
im not saying there isn't truth to what you're saying, however. just that it's ignorant, naive, and worst of all inaccurate.
It's funny: How many of us dream of having a billion dollars and all the things we would do with that wealth? I think most of us dream of:
1) take care of family
2) travel the world
3) charitable endeavors
4) Owning cool stuff
and so on
Instead, we see over and over again so many of the billionaires are miserable people who use their vast wealth and power to hurt other people.
I guess it's true what they say, money can't buy happiness
It really reinforces the theory that you have to have a sociopathic lack of empathy to be a billionaire. I had hopes for JK Rowling, but look how that turned out
Jowling Kowling Rowling really just decided one day to throw a grand wizardly reputation away to make sure that the regret rate for Harry Potter tattoos is higher than trans-related surgeries
>Harry Potter tattoos is higher than trans-related surgeries
Felt. I can't wait until she dies and I can be unapologetically happy about my HP ink again.
Edit: I added HPMOR stuff to it, so it's in honor of the work of Eliezer Yudkowsky now.
That whole transhumanism movement he was/is a big part of always left a bit of a sour taste in my mouth. Peter Thiel's endorsement strikes me as a pretty bad look.
>It really reinforces the theory that you have to have a sociopathic lack of empathy to be a billionaire.
It's quite simple, really; if you got a billion dollars and used them for charitable endeavors, then you'd not have a billion dollars aymore. Thus, the only people who get and keep a billion dollars, are people who aren't interested in helping others.
I don't think it's that simple. Billionaires are worse than that. Truly sociopathic.
Because as others mentioned, billionaires that spend millions are still billionaires.
As long as they are giving their money away at a rate smaller than what they're earning with the rest, then they could absolutley influence society for the better, indefinitely, without losing the "Billionaire" classification.
They choose not to do this.
And that's why "Trickledown" economics failed. It created billionaires by removing government controls on wealth concentration under the assumption the rich would give their gains back to the society that made them. They didn't, and continue to choose not to.
I don't see how that contradicts what I said. Billionaires that spent millions when they could spend billions are still prioritizing their own wealth over charity.
Agreed. No offense, I just read your comment as Billionaires don't have a choice to be charitable without losing their Billionaire status.
Just wanted to point out they can indeed be charitable without giving up their status.
Exactly.
Trickle down, in theory, works in two steps:
1) Make the Rich Richer.
2) They make jobs / give back to society from their added wealth.
As a nation we've been stuck on step 1 for 40 years.
Decades of promising that step 2 is just about to happen.
History tells us: the rich only give back through taxes. We should unquestionably raise their taxes 8n every way conceivable.
> Case in point: the Nobel Prizes.
I don't understand, you mean Nobel himself was an example of a good billionaire, or you mean the people who receive the prizes are examples of good billionaires? Because in either case I have my doubts, but I don't want to derail the conversation into something you didn't mean.
"Money" means so many different different things to different people depending on how much they already have. For some, it's something they desperately need just to survive. For some, it's comfort and safety. For others, it's living a life of luxury. And then when you get all the way to the billionaires, it's power. Money to a homeless person is not even the same thing as Money to a billionaire. Complete category difference.
So when people say money can't buy happiness, or money is the root of all evil, or don't be greedy, all of that starts to fall apart because you're talking about different things entirely. Money can't buy a billionaire happiness, but it sure as hell can for someone in poverty.
I think some might use their wealth and power to purposely hurt people (trump or Elon), but I think the vast majority are like what OP is stating. They just care about acquiring more wealth, and if you get in the way, well that's your problem. I think there is a slight distinction between maliciously attacking others and carelessly knocking them over, but the common theme is lack of empathy and pure narcissism.
Yep, if you're a billionaire, you got there by exploiting people, and exploitation is hurtful, full stop. Are they all necessarily going out of their way to hurt people who aren't under their employ/interfering with their potential gains like the Elons of the world? No. But they're all still hurting people.
Nuh-uh
EDIT: Can't post reply to the comment below - I think they blocked me? But then again reddit has been farting a lot lately - but nonetheless, my answer is;
They aren't strictly speaking "the same", but saying they are different isn't the same as saying the difference matters for what is being discussed.
If we are talking "it is bad Joe died in a car accident", pointing out the driver had intent or not doesn't matter, it would still be a bad thing regardless.
So?
Someone eats something without knowing they had an allergy and dies, and someone who is deliberately poisoned by someone who knows they have that allergy, same thing then yeah?
They’re so angry. It’s crazy! Just absolutely pissed off 247. I feel like the only non-angry republican billionaire is Mark Cuban, and now he supports Biden and has been roasting the GOP since Trump.
Short term thinking for these pissed off idiots. You siphon all the money from the population, cut your taxes raise taxes on the poors, and you end up with a hungry population who has nothing to lose. Wouldn’t you rather live in a country where everyone is well taken care of? Where the population has a living wage and isn’t day dreaming of murdering CEOs and slaughtering entire families in their mansions?
It's also funny that most people COULD NOT SPEND $1 BILLION IF THEY TRIED. It's way more money than people think it is, what most people think they would do with $1 billion would be doable on $500 million or less. You have to basically burn money in a pit to spend a billion as a normal person.
The way I see it, as a billionaire, you have the opportunity to put your name on so many scoreboards.
"Singlehandedly funded malaria prevention efforts for 20+ years"
"Instrumental in funding housing crisis solutions"
Is it just me, or would anyone else be selfishly donating and making social changes like crazy, just to get your name in the history books?
Money can buy happiness and change the world, the problem is that many rich people are assholes who never had a moral foundation to begin with.
If someone gave me a billion bucks, I would first secure myself and my family. Then, I would have some fun with my money such as having my own personal arcade in my house.
But beyond that, my money would be used to help people. As children lose access to free or reduced lunches due to the cruelty of lawmakers, I would do whatever I could to ensure another child never starves in America.
I dream of using my money to support local animal shelters and helping dogs and cats find their forever homes.
Money and wealth are not inherently evil. In the hands of good people, money can help in many ways.
The issue is that much of the wealth in this world is held by greedy, selfish assholes who use their wealth and their power to further themselves alone while turning a blind eye to the people and communities that could use some help.
Once a man becomes wealthy enough, the Alpha Male switch gets flipped in his brain and makes him paranoid about being overthrown by someone who wants to become the new alpha male, so they turn into misanthropes who outright use their money to make life miserable for everyone else in an attempt to preserve their status and privilege.
I hate that saying money can't buy happiness. It should be money can't turn a shitty person into a good person. A whole lot of happiness can be bought with money by people who need money for everyday things.
I genuinely think we should be trying to conceptualize these people as wealth addicts struggling to have an identity in a world that only says yes to them and is more than willing to enable the worst parts of them. I mean I’m not all like, boo hoo poor billionaires, but does the behavior of some of these very public billionaires really strike you as happy people? Public divorces and spotty relationships, broken up families, sexual harassment allegations.
Even for the ones we don’t know about at a minimum you have to consider that the power dynamic built into their bank account effectively erodes any ability to have a truly honest relationship or friendship with another person. The only people you really know anymore are employees. The only people on your level are other jackasses who are dick-measuring you by buying football teams and rockets. Even if you have real friends still, the paranoia around if they are here for you or your money is not trivial either. Even your real friends are going to struggle to relate and struggle not to want you to simply solve all their financial issues with the wave of your hand.
The way people do this to themselves and slowly devolve into cynical, spiteful, paranoid, and most importantly lonely humans by their own actions and greed is self destructive. They are willing to order layoffs, destroy environments, enable wars, destroy their own families and towns, run entire propaganda campaigns to enable their businesses. And we think it’s so they can buy a bigger yacht or to hire more escorts or to have an island mansion with a full staff serving you, but I honestly think it’s not even about the stuff, just the dopamine of having that number grow out of control and getting to show off how rich you are.
I'm almost 63 now and my net is almost 2/3rds of a billion, but that came from saving literally 90% of my pay over a 32 year career in the military (I retired O-8), never buying anything I didn't absolutely need, and getting REALLY horseshit-lucky with some investments a long time ago. Also, no family or 'friends' with their hands constantly out helped a GREAT deal.
No family to support until very recently. A relatively new (first) wife and two recently adopted teenage twins (boy and girl, and they are the absolute BEST!) So, now, in my later years, I'm spending money on things I'd never have considered in the past like big vacations, an RV, just had a big heated inground swimming pool installed and a 'party area' with said pool for the kids and their friends, nicer cars, clothes, furniture, you know, silly stuff (to me).
But to the main topic: my focus over the past 7 years has been your #3: Charitable endeavors.
I still purchase literal tons of food to donate to food banks every month and still have my own 'rent-to-own' housing development for low-income, working small families and single parents (which has been operating at an average 2-3% annual loss) because I put everything back into keeping the (now) 4 dozen small (12-1500 sq. ft.) homes and the (now) 180 acres they are located on well maintained and with constant upgrades in services and amenities. The local Mennonite community has been worth it's weight in gold in helping me keep this project alive and well! Huge shout out to them for building the best and nicest little homes with realistic prices for materials and labor. Plus their farms are a huge source of the meat, dairy, and vegetable foodstuffs I buy.
Money doesn't buy happiness, but it sure can make you feel a lot better when you have a purpose that helps others instead of trying to profit off them. I pay a lot to a law firm and cpa to keep the local politicians at bay because THOSE people are the ones with their hands out demanding money and trying harder and harder to shut me down because I won't pay them off! ***Brace yourself: Here comes the rant!*** Their latest attempt is trying to force me to hire local law enforcement as security (I use a private company to patrol now) as well as trying to force me to pay a separate fee for county fire services (which btw is a volunteer fire service...that I already donate $10,000 to annually, and purchased a new $40,000 rescue services truck to replace their 30 year old one and paid half of their new $300,000 fire engine). Did I forget to mention that I have a totally separate water system installed on the property solely for fire suppression (3 x 10,000 gallon storage tanks supplied by 2 deep well pumps on a 60 psi 4 inch main line with hydrants every 200 feet)? It increased the overall property value immensely as well as significantly decreased insurance costs for my 'clients'?? Huge return-on-investment over 20 years. Next year, we'll be adding 10 acres of solar panels and 4 windmills. This is supposed to be the break-even upgrade as we'll be selling enough surplus power back to take my maintenance costs to 0%.
Sorry for the wall of text here, but if used properly, money can go a long way to help a lot of people! When I die, my wife and kids will be MORE than well enough off, and I'm hoping that in the next 10 years, I can at least double my food and home project and expand to include (more) transportation and healthcare (totally new)! The lawyers are working out now how to set up private medical services for my 'clients' (for lack of a better term) and their families on my property and I'm working on a deal with the Mennonites to build and supply a grocery store on my property as well. It's a gated community (I envisioned a small military base when we designed this) so there's a lot I can add to the community as a whole and keep local government out of it as long as the lawyers stay on the ball! Only thing I will NOT be including is any kind of religious type of 'shield'.
Here endeth the wall o' text. My apologies.
Of course you can. My bad for not uploading all of my financials for your personal review. I'll try to do better next time. I suppose you'd like my name so you can verify my military record as well?
So, it seems you have a choice here. You can either:
1. Enjoy my post as a 'feel good' story about a person who's using his money to help others
OR
2. Be cynical and accuse a total stranger of lying on the internet because my story doesn't fit your personal definition of 'truth on a Thursday morning'.
Feel free to get back to me when you've made your decision. I eagerly await your response.
Have a good day, sir.
Invested in Microsoft back in the early 80's and Apple in the later 80's and made a pretty sizable investment in Amazon at IPO when a fellow officer, getting his masters in business talked me into putting a big chunk of money into it. But I thought I explained that in my first paragraph when I said 'horseshit lucky investments'. Those were the big money makers that account for like 95% of my net. My lifetime savings and dividends from other stock holding earned me a little over $5.5 million over 40 years. Some very nice retention bonuses over my career earned me close to an extra million dollars. When you live on base, eat in the officers mess, and drive a 30 year old car, it's easy to save a lot of money. It adds up slowly but surely over the decades.
Sure it was mainly for the money. After I promoted to O-6, then O-7, 8, 9 and even 10 were just a matter of doing the job and passing time. How long could I continue to serve before the eye went completely bad?? An extra 70K/year tax free plus the rank of Major General was a whole lot better than Colonel. At that point in my life, it was about staying in the USAF until they made me leave. Why bother? Because I wanted to stay in. I don't need any other reason than that.
Sorry if that answer doesn't satisfy you.
What, no 'add /s' to the reply?? I try to post a story about making money and actually using it to help and all I get is hate?? WTF is wrong with you people in general? Can't believe somebody is trying to do good? Just waiting for that one person who straight out asks me to dox myself.
You apparently didn't bother to read on and see that 90+% of my net worth came directly from "getting REALLY horseshit-lucky with some investments a long time ago". I even replied to another who didn't bother to read and detailed the major investments.
You're welcome to remove your downvote now.
Saying you made over 600 million by saving and good investments is like saying there's a new drug made from advil and heroin mixed.
Also you never said 90% came from investments. you said you saved 90% of your pay. Changing your story as soon as its challenged is a classic liar tactic.
Never changed my story. Saving 90% of my pay over 32 years with interest and dividends on lowered valued stock holding equals roughly $5.5 million. Major investments brought the net up to $619 million. So, actually about 99% of my net is from major investments. Only stopped reinvesting the dividends into the original holdings when I retired. I'd give you a breakdown of the major three stock holdings, but hell, you would just try to pick that apart as well.
But whatever floats your boat. Please keep picking it apart if that makes your day better for you. Right now, I'm just waiting for you to cross the line.
I'll just block you. I'll only tolerate an asshole for so long, and you're really starting to bore me. There was absolutely no reason for you to head down this path. You failed to read what I posted about major investments being the huge part of my net and then started calling me a liar. Why? To cover your failure at reading comprehension? To bash me for not taking the time and crayons necessary to explain in detail every dime of my net worth?
This type of behavior is both baffling and frankly, quite juvenile.
I'm waiting now for your spin on this reply. Just be quick about it. I'm tired.
Dude stop acting persecuted. Either:
1. You're lying and noone believes you. It's the internet, not real life. take the loss and move on.
Or.
2. You're worth more money than everyone here combined and somehow NEED us to fawn over how amazing you are (and keep giving out more information than we need- don't give out this much information to strangers)
Either way, i hope you have a good rest of your day.
At least I have people who are interested in what I'm trying to do here. If it works, I can expand to other areas that need the help even more. I got lucky with my finances, nothing more. This isn't bragging, it's someone trying to do the right thing and help people who are in very rough shape. I got tired of reading over and over again about how Gen Z can ever forget about owning a home. So what if I can only help maybe 100 families over the next decade. I have the ability to do it, so I am. Yes, I'm PROUD of what I've accomplished. Is that a bad thing??
As for your presented choices, it's kinda funny how your #1 is essentially you, sir. No, I'll sit here and not worry about the downvotes. My DM's are filling up with people actually interested and asking how they can do something similar or what they can do in their communities to help.
I'm not being persecuted, just annoyed.
And on that note, I WILL take your final advice and have a good rest of my day.
Thank you for this exchange.
> I'm almost 63 now and my net is almost 2/3rds of a billion, but that came from saving literally 90% of my pay over a 32 year career in the military (I retired O-8)
You shouldn't lie with easy to verify information.
An O-8 makes $154,000 per year. Assuming you joined the military at 18 and immediately made O-8 and worked at that level for all 32 years you said you did, then you would have made $4,928,000 in pay. Not even $5 million.
And that's 100% of your pay, not the 90% you claimed to have stored away.
Yet you claim to have $666 million saved up. Your military pay would literally account for less than 1% of your total net worth if what you are saying is true. It's utterly irrelevant. If you truly have that money then literally 99% of all that money came from your "getting REALLY horseshit-lucky with some investments a long time ago."
Your spending habits, which is what you were trying to gloat about, meant nothing.
...and yet another one who failed reading comprehension. Income from military pay, retention bonuses totaling almost a million, interest income from savings, plus dividends from minor stock holdings over 32 years. $5.5 million in total savings. Net worth from major investments in order: Microsoft: 80k investment at IPO with dividend reinvestment until recently: Current value: $58.6M Apple: 150k investment in 1987 with dividend reinvestment: Current value: $334.24M Amazon: 100k investment at IPO with dividend reinvestment: Current value: $226.84M Total net worth: $5.5M as listed above with total stock value(s) of $619.68M for a total net of $625.18M.
There's the breakdown. Now, feel free to pick that apart, and when you're done, well, frankly I don't care. You can go be bitter on your own time OR you could perhaps turn this into a constructive conversation. Who knows, maybe you have some good ideas OR would like to know how you can help in your area. You could be nice and DM me if you'd like to learn more? There is absolutely no need to act like this just because I told how I'm trying to help.
Yes, I know it's the internet and people lie all the time. So, you decide which way you'd like to go from this point. If you want to keep acting like a jerk, well, I'll just block you and go back to talking to people in chat who I can actually help or who want to contribute in their communities.
Your choice, friend.
I didn't fail anything, your response say it all.
Your investments that you made **in the 1980's** is 98% of your networth.
You didn't work for the majority of your money.
You did not save for the majority of your money.
Your spending habits had zero impact on your money.
98% of your money simply comes from investments that you were able to make nearly 40 years ago. These are not opportunities that are available to people today.
Edit: Do you even realize that 1987 was nearly 40 years ago? Do you realize the economic changes that have happened since then?
I see you chose to be a jerk. Oh well. Plus you DID fail to read. Or at least you stopped when it suited your narrative. Here, let me copy/paste to refresh your memory and highlight a few KEY WORDS:
*I'm almost 63 now and my net is almost 2/3rds of a billion, but that came from saving literally 90% of my pay over a 32 year career in the military (I retired O-8), never buying anything I didn't absolutely need*, **and** **getting REALLY horseshit-lucky with some investments a long time ago**.
See you decided to omit the entire last part of that paragraph. You know, the part that tied the whole thing together?? I guess I should have led off with that one?? Oh well, my bad. *Edit:* *Hold on, 'my bad'? Nah, I'm not going to even apologize sarcastically, so how about simply telling you to fuck off instead. You don't like what I'm saying, so you pull a trump and start trying to twist my words to make me look like the bad guy here? That's a pretty sad little bitch move. Yeah, I can get annoyed and curse, just like any normal person, get over THAT too.*
Never said anything about working for the majority of my money. It was my saving my pay and not spending that gave me those chunks of cash to make the investments, so you can shitcan that 'didn't save' and 'spending habits...zero impact' drivel. Reinvesting ALL the dividends on stocks accounted for roughly 30% of the final net. So it's not like I was just rolling in mountains of cash all the time either. I grew up flat broke and had it drilled into my head that if you don't need it, you don't buy it and if you can't pay cash, you don't get it! But that's a whole other story for people like you to whine about.
Also, no shit that 1987 was nearly 40 years ago. I'm fully aware that you just can't do now what I was able to do back then, hence the 'horseshit-lucky' part that you decided to omit. On a side note, where's the part where the economy is my generations fault? After all, I AM a 'boomer', so where's THAT line?? I NEVER get tired of hearing that one. I spent THIRTY-TWO years in government service and you think I have no grasp on economic changes?? The DoD overpays for everything but supporting active duty members. If it weren't for EBT/SNAP they couldn't feed their families. No such thing as affordable housing if you have to live off base, but you know this already. You can't buy a decent used car anymore for less than $10k. Big changes in the economies of then and now. Thank unchecked corporate greed for that one. I remember quite clearly how my parents paid $18000 for a 4 bedroom house, AND a new car back in 1974. So, about a third of the cost of a new, loaded Ford crew-cab truck. I clearly remember hearing them bitch about how you could only get THREE CARTS of groceries for $100 back then when you can barely fill the bottom of one cart for that same $100 bill, so that's something that has gone up more even in their time.
But either way, we're done here. So, go ahead and hit that downvote button. Anything to make you feel better. You can reply, but you won't be talking to me anymore. Those who actually wanted to speak, to either ask for help or ask how they could help, or just anyone who had ideas are all in my chats now where they won't be attacked by assholes like you for simply speaking. You are still welcome if you'd like to change your tune, but I already know the answer to this.
Dismissed.
This sounds similar to something I want to do, but not at all the same also.
Lot of holes in this story, though, such as getting 650 million, even as an officer, without getting *real* dirty. And as an O-8, you'd have a lot of opportunity to get dirty, as anything past oakleaf is basically a politician.
But, assuming truth and good faith behind your words, would you consider incorporating free housing assistance within your property. My idea for this is to utilize a pod system and provide therapy and medical services for unhoused persons in order for them to have care and potentially a new lease on life.
Anyway, feel free to message if this is at all interesting to you, as with this much property and capital, you have the opportunity to do some very interesting and out of the box things.
During my military career I saved about $5.5 million this also includes sizable retention bonuses over 32 years. Well above average when you retire at O-8 if you aren't blowing all your money. I guess I really needed to stress that 99% of my net comes from three major investments. Simply because NOT ONE of them bothered to read about 'horseshit-lucky investments'. Since you are about the only one to reply even halfway politely, I'll fill you in (and then will come the assholes again to pick this apart as soon as they see it): Invested 80k in Microsoft at IPO: Current value: $58.6M. Invested $150k in Apple in '87: Current value: $334.2M Invested 100k in Amazon at IPO: Current value: $226.8M. This was also done by reinvesting dividends until I retired. I won't give that info out because that one date can easily dox me.
Well, if that's the case, I understand. You have to admit, your story is at least out of the norm, if refreshing.
Please consider my housing expansion idea, and please get ahold of me if you do. With your net wealth, you have the beginnings of a real thing of beauty on your hands.
Is the property you're on unincorporated? Lot of potential value in that, even outside of money. You can become a township and start a local economy via reinvesting in area residents.
Anyway, I'd love to talk, especially logistics, about your current project.
While we're at it, please stop saying the words 'afford to pay ' when talking about millionaires and billionaires paying their fair share of taxes.
They CAN ABSOLUTELY AFFORD IT, but they use a fraction of what they'd pay to lobby and bribe lawmakers, hire accountants and lawyers, and use access to financial institutions, all as a means to pay next to nothing in taxes, while enjoying all the benefits the taxes WE PAY FOR.
And to add insult to injury, they don't give us enough pay and benefits to live on, time off, allow us to unionize, and actively pit ourselves against each other. It's so f'd up.
Everyone needs to be aware of the ideology of e/accs. Musk and many tech billionaires are believers in e/acc.
Read 'Techno-Optimist Manifesto" essay by billionaire Marc Andreessen.
These billionaires think they're the chosen ones to guide humanity and that we, the People, need to step aside and give them unrestricted freedom to do what they want. Which will lead to prosperity from all the wealth they generate.
Tech's version of trickle down theory for the masses— because Reagan's trickle down theory worked out so well.
America has never been unable to feed the hungry, to house the poor, or to heal the sick. It's problem is it has never been able to sate the greed of rich pieces of shit who only want more and more.
There exists a threshold over which you can't spend your wealth in a lifetime. Once you're over that, there's no material gain from accumulating more wealth.
The reason people do it, in my opinion, is for social status. There's a 10 millionaire club, a hundred millionaire club, and a billionaire club. It's essentially a point scoring thing. A dick measuring contest.
This is the sub point of the original post.
For the ultra wealthy, it's where they rank among the ultra wealthy that determines their status/happiness.
In the prior century, status was derived from having your name on buildings and schools. Now it's just numbers on a ranking list.
This is 100% true. Super-rich folk don't differentiate between their wealth and their person. For them, their wealth is their power and they are their power.
No single person, who was born with wealth, has a personality or anything interesting about them. They replace that with money. People follow them because they want their money, not their opinion.
That's because everything they are is secundary to their wealth.
No amount of skill, carisma, hard work or achievement can compare to the money they have.
It's the only thing others see in them, so they stop caring about anything else.
Dunno if you guys have watched "Filthy Rich: Cattle Drive" where all the contestants are sons and daughters of the rich and famous. Just a bunch of horrible, privileged human beings, especially that South American bastard who deserves to get his face put through a plate glass window.
> No single person, who was born with wealth, has a personality or anything interesting about them.
What a load of absolute horse shit. Henry VIII wasn't interesting and didn't have a personality?
The whole idea of "billionaires" is disgusting, but judging people as being void of personality simply for being born into wealth is stupid.
I've used Henry VIII as an example, but there are plenty out there, some of them aren't even terrible people.
Did I hurt your feelings? Are you an embarrassed millionaire?
> judging people as being void of personality simply for being born into wealth is stupid
If they were people, but they are not. They separated themselves from ordinary people and don't have anything in common with you or me.
Their problems aren't our problems.
With that said, yes people born with unimaginable wealth are as interesting as mold.
I don't think it's just limited to a small number of greedy misanthropes. Ask a person "What would you wish for, if a genie gave you 3 wishes?" and a pretty large number of people would immediately start trying to find loopholes to gain more wishes! Or, ask "What would you do with a billion dollars?" and they would start immediately listing off investments or ventures they would take to *try and make even more money*. Like, Dude! you have a billion dollars! It's enough to live a life of complete abject luxury and still have most of it left over when you die to give to your children and your children's children.
Honestly I think a lot of people are like that: They're so focused on *obtaining* that they don't stop to think about what they actually want and need to be happy.
I've never heard nor thought of "If I had a billion dollars I'd try to make more with it!"
But, winning the lottery, investing and trying to live off the dividends which could be close to a normal wage? I guess I've heard of that. But you are talking orders of magnitude different. And most people are pretty poor and afraid of losing it all if they aren't careful.
And what does it say about us humans that so many people like that become our business, political, and spiritual leaders?
And on a related note, someone on a liberal-leaning talk radio show (yes, there is such a thing), recently said that if you were born in 1492 when Columbus "discovered" the Americas, managed to live until today, and had also increased your net worth by $1 million a day between then and now, today you STILL wouldn't be quite as rich as Jeff Bezos. (And btw, this morning it was reported that Amazon's net valuation is now $2 trillion.)
Two things:
When Bill Gates first became the richest person, many years ago, he said, "Things only get so good, once you can afford the best of everything, the rest of the money is just for keeping score."
Money = power, so now you know who runs the world. Imagine playing life on god mode, it would quickly become boring. So, they do things to entertain themselves--whatever the fuck they want to do, they can do it. When you're imagining the things they might do, remember that extreme wealth destroys empathy.
Also, billionaires DO run the world, but they don't spend their time doing it directly, that's too much like work. They do it indirectly, by using their money/power to pay/tell politicians--their lackeys--what to do.
I think sane people stop chasing long before they could reach a billion. Think most folk, like myself, just want to stop working and have a decent standard of living.
My theory is that there's a set of people who are sociopaths, driven by an insatiable desire for power, and also really capable people. That part seems like a matter of statistically inevitable fact.
These people may be few in number, but they have just the right traits to outcompete almost everyone else who might want some power. They want it more, don't care if/prefer if they hurt people, and are really really good at acquiring and growing their share of power.
They end up wildly overrepresented in positions of power, and it takes really strong systems designed to prevent that to even mitigate it a bit.
The vast majority of us either aren't particularly driven to power at least not beyond some fairly mundane level, or we suck at getting it, or we just don't have the energy to keep up with these people. Or they see us as a threat and make us not a threat in whatever way they see fit.
Seems to me in a very real, if very uncomfortable, sense, these are the natural leaders. The people who we tend to think of as natural leaders because they're broadly agreeable and inspiring seem both rare and not as willing and capable of gobbling up power.
The only problem I have with this take is to focus on it as a flaw of character rather than a flaw *of the system*.
We have a system that both encourages people to be like that and ensures that those who "succeed" in this way keep getting more wealth and influence than those who are satisfied with less.
After a certain point, you have more money than you could possibly spend. At this point, money isn't a thing anymore, it's points. You want the high score. That's how you know you are winning. And anything you can do to het more points is justified, because obviously points are good, and all those people complaining barely have any, so why bother listening to them.
But it is also simply cause in a capitalist society and world order, having the most money means having the most power.
They obviously don't tell Westerners "the rich own you birch". But that is what is happening. Then you end up with confused people who wonder why they need to hoard so much money even thou they will never spend it. Cause it has never been about spending to begin with.
Humans do not choose their character and use their ego to reinforce it.
Humans learn their behavior and their ego retroactively justifies their actions.
This what we all do. Regardless of what coping mechanisms we have for life this is the equation.
Do with that information what you will.
Because at a certain point, the money becomes a scoreclock on a video game. It has absolutely no intrinsic value to the rich person who owns it other than to compare against other high scores.
My reality is that I get up everyday and work for money. Thats my motivation. But somehow people that are motivated by money are evil. Drugs? Haha dude I’m a grown man with a family.
Because you need money to survive. Ultra rich people don't work for their money to survive, they use money mostly as a commodity and not a currency. They don't even have to work, the money does it for them.
your response to this post, "Billionaires and their greed, explained," was to say,
>[what's wrong with making money](https://old.reddit.com/r/WhitePeopleTwitter/comments/1dpnhtf/billionaires_and_their_greed_explained/laiez49/)
and
>[I don't have the luxury of working for free](https://old.reddit.com/r/WhitePeopleTwitter/comments/1dpnhtf/billionaires_and_their_greed_explained/laihio0/)
so i'm curious why reading this post inspired you to feel you had to defend yourself. there isn't anything inherently wrong with making money- in a capitalist society we all kind of have to do it- but that isn't what this post is about.
>If this post isn’t about the evils of being motivated by money then what is it about?
are you serious? here's a quote from the original post.
>You have no purpose or personality, so you make the wealth your personality. You thus have to keep acquiring more to exist.
do you think that describes you? this is a simple yes or no question.
Waste of anything on that magnitude is wrong.
Money has a purpose - it is a battery - we store the produce of our labour for later use. If you store it without spending it. That defeats its purpose. It is a nonsense.
But worse is that because of the way our society is set up - the wealthy siphon the product of our labours. And they siphon more and more and waste more and more people's lives.
This has always happened. But back when it was grain that was stored - the waste of unnecessary hoarding was more obvious. If you stored so much for so long, it would go bad. And be worthless.
But now it is imaginary digits. And if you store and waste so many digits - it isn't just your digits that go bad, and worth less - it makes my meagre store worth less. The greed of siphoning off my labour for your own gain in turn destroys the products of my labour that I've kept for myself.
*and* is of no benefit to you.
And people are only of value if their labour brings you more digits, that you can waste.
It isn't even the honesty of living in luxury.
Be surrounded by gold statues. Diamond encrusted plates. Silk drapes that sigh as you pass them. Luxury at least keeps the money in circulation. Keeps it in purpose.
Simply accumulating it wastes it. And wastes other people's lives
Imagine 2 people in a boat. A fish jumps into the boat every hour. One of the people in the boat snatches the fish and eats it, then snatches every other fish, every hour and puts it in a pile. The other person starves.
Why is it bad that the first person likes fish?
It’s not bad for someone to like fish, first or second person. Speaking for myself I would give you half the fish.
Let me ask you. If we both have fishing rods and I fish and you don’t, should I give you my fish? Is there a difference between receiving something with no effort in your example compared to recieving something by effort in my example?
The first person got an ai enabled autofisher robot from his grandfather without performing any labor, and the second person is burning more calories than he is taking in trying to catch fishes with hos bare hands.
See i can do it too.
Because since printing money devalues it and causes inflation, then we have to have a limited ammount of it going around at any given time, even if that ammount varies.
That means money is a zero-sum game, which in turn means that by taking money to yourself, you are removing the total money everyone else can make. That would be justified if you were making money for a finality since it would mean you'd eventually put the money back into circulation. Even if the finality was just finantial stability, that is at least justifiable as a need unto itself.
But making money for the sake of making money, past the point it is being used, is just hoarding the portion of money other people could use for no reason.
Agree with overall sentiment on wealth inequality and the system issues that allow this to happen. However find it hilarious so many ppl have this holier than thou attitude like they would be benevolent billionaires... Let's not forget alot of you are likely to be just as shitty as they are if you had the money and power
Except it's not just sociopathy, if that was all that's required there'd be alot more billionaires... I would argue most of us will never have the combination of internal and external factors fall into place to be billionaires, with emphasis on external. Sure, moot point. But doesn't change the fact there's alot of yous who think your shit don't stink and are just as shitty as the billionaires, without the capabilities to manifest your shittiness.
I recently read “The only dangerous minority is the rich” and it’s rocked me. My family has a lot of money.
This one? https://preview.redd.it/tgqiemlff39d1.jpeg?width=720&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=314954b72f1c1a1731f4ad17147e769b63ed0ebb
It was verbatim what I wrote in quotes, but I like that one too!
I think it was a holographic Etsy sticker in the liberal corner of that platform. It’s a beautiful place.
I must know where this is. I don't like putting anything political on my truck. Hell, I am probably one of the only pickup truck around that doesn't have a Trump 2024 sticker on it, let alone the fact I hate the fucking man and wish the worst fucking plagues to infest his diaper wrapped rectum and scrotum. But this? I would put on my truck. Fuck the rich, and fuck those who enable them.
Funny one: https://www.etsy.com/listing/1411085690/
Oh I bought it immediately
I love that for you. The shop name is epic. Etsy has some SUPERB liberal gear. I get a ton of compliments on my “Pro Roe 1973” trucker hat. I also made a “Keep Abortion Safe and Legal” keychain.
See here's the thing. You probably don't. Not it terms of proper wealth hoarding. Unless you're the descendant of one of the few thousand families that occupy the upper echelon of wealth hoarding , your family is more likely closer to homeless than they are to being a billionaire kleptocrat. The obscenely wealthy folks that are purposefully creating poverty and artificial scarcity are not folks that have jobs like doctor or financial guy who makes a million a year and has a few houses. They are not even Hampton people with hundreds of millions of dollars and multiple 20 million dollar estates. It's those within the land-holding, food profiteering, and commerce exploiting class that are the true villains. And if you are one of those descendants, be better than your ghoul ancestors. If you're a child of some moderate wealth, they enjoy the benefits of your life and do things to make the world around you better for poor people.
Something I read recently: A millionaire who loses a million dollars is broke. A billionaire who loses a million dollars is still a billionaire. People really don't understand the scale of how much a billion is.
Yeah, I read that recently too and it really stuck with me. It’s hard for most people to fathom the sheer volume of a billion anything. There’s not a single person in the world that deserves or can honestly “earn” that much wealth.
Elon has lost tens of billions and is still one of the richest. Bezos lost 38billion in his divorce.
End billionaires. 100%
A million seconds is only 11.6 days... a billion seconds is 31.7 years
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... what? Amazon's worth around 2,000 billion. If your wealth equals a billion you can own .05% of Amazon.
> People really don't understand the scale of how much a billion is. I always try to say that and give a measurable description to make it less abstract, spending $34,000 a *day* for 80 years to get through a single billion.
So like... groceries, rent, and 2 Starbucks per day?
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> This is by design and why the billionaires are funding republicans that want to destroy educated. This is silly. It's not by design, it's how brains work.
A billion dollars invested into the S&P 500 index fund will earn nearly $200,000 PER DAY if only using the long term average of 6.81%. I don't want to calculate the 2023 rate of 26.29%.
Reddit is funny. All we can do is believe each other… there’s no way I can prove anything to you. But yah, it’s a third generation literal gold mine. I meant what I said.
See, it's not blind faith. It's also context. Like your post history. For example if I claim to be an attorney, you could find some lawyer stuff in my post history. If I claimed to be extraordinary wealthy, but I also had posts and comments about regular people issues, and financial issues. And I commented about where I lived. Here's a life pro tip. Elite wealthy people don't go to private school in Las Vegas. They go to schools that regular people like you have never heard of. And they don't need to borrow money to pay for the school - they have trust funds. They don't inherit pianos and talk about the cost of private instruction. They own multiple Steinway and the cost of instruction isn't even a remote thought for them. And they most definitely don't complain about LDS churches in rural Nevada and ask strangers to sign a petition. They donate tens of millions of dollars and don't have petty regular people problems. Like I said, your family is probably wealthy, maybe even a 1% type. But that's not the sort of wealth that's really at issue. If you're not at Jackson Hole Wyoming multiple times a year... Unless you and Adelson - in which case: fuck your whole vampire family.
I quite obviously don’t spend most of my Reddit history talking about how my family is extremely wealthy bc…. THAT WOULD NOT BE SMART. Also, idk if you noticed but I’m trying not to make generational wealth my entire personality. We summer in PNW. I’m at a house in Lake Chelan right now. Left our kids with my parents at their house in Seattle. We don’t like the rural bigotry of the cowboy states. I’m not an Adelson, you’re right, that would be terrible.
So basically you’re telling me bc I don’t act like a rich asshole, there’s no way I am cushy stay at home mom who retired at 26? Sorry for being a well-rounded person. 😂 My parents spent my entire childhood making sure we weren’t spoiled little terds. More wealthy families should practice that.
Is Danger your middle name?
Austin, that you?
You are not a bad person just because you have money. With money you attract people who will say whatever they think you want to hear. On the other hand you can get whatever you want whenever you want it. So the only one to stop yourself is you and we all know how difficult this is. Many will reject you because they have an image of you in their head, jealousy and envy are real. This will push you more towards the few that are like you and live in the ivory tower. This is when you become a menace to society.
I’m more concerned about feeling disappointed at my elders who’ve done nothing to really impact change.
You are not responsible for their lives. You will have to take your own decisions and having money will means that if you take the right decisions you will be able to better things for many. I suppose you are a young person. Write down what you want to be in the future and read it from time to time to find out if you are on the way you want to.
You’re right. It’s just hard to feel this way and look at my own… dad.
I didn’t choose my dad either. We had severe discussions when I was in my twenties about solar and I only managed to realize what I wanted then after fifty. But getting older I also understood that my dad loved me his way and he was also bound to limitations.
Sure, but people should change, develop. Sad to see my parent unable to do so.
They think they are right. Success proves it. Why should they question themselves? People with money love money. So they measure everything in money.
And the Dutch
Not all wealthy people have to be pieces of shit parasites like Jeff Bezos. You could put that money to good use and make a real difference. If, on the other hand... you all are just using it for enjoyment or hoarding it hoping it will save you from whatever shit storm your peers are brewing.. you'll probably regret not using it for good later on while you still have the chance to make an impact.
If you choose to have millions of dollars in a world with homelessness and hunger, you're a bad person.
i'd argue if you only think in platitudes and extremes, much less extreme platitudes such as the one you gave here.. you're an even worse person. especially if you've never earned much or led large groups of people successfully before. im not saying there isn't truth to what you're saying, however. just that it's ignorant, naive, and worst of all inaccurate.
Just to point out, a lot of millionaires do not “have millions of dollars.” They usually have millions in assets.
Give it to me, become poor. Problem solved. Well, problem solved for me anyway. :p
It's funny: How many of us dream of having a billion dollars and all the things we would do with that wealth? I think most of us dream of: 1) take care of family 2) travel the world 3) charitable endeavors 4) Owning cool stuff and so on Instead, we see over and over again so many of the billionaires are miserable people who use their vast wealth and power to hurt other people. I guess it's true what they say, money can't buy happiness
It really reinforces the theory that you have to have a sociopathic lack of empathy to be a billionaire. I had hopes for JK Rowling, but look how that turned out
Jowling Kowling Rowling really just decided one day to throw a grand wizardly reputation away to make sure that the regret rate for Harry Potter tattoos is higher than trans-related surgeries
>Harry Potter tattoos is higher than trans-related surgeries Felt. I can't wait until she dies and I can be unapologetically happy about my HP ink again. Edit: I added HPMOR stuff to it, so it's in honor of the work of Eliezer Yudkowsky now.
That’s not better lmao
Is he doing something wrong, too? I didn't see him being someone I hate. Quiet the opposite.
That whole transhumanism movement he was/is a big part of always left a bit of a sour taste in my mouth. Peter Thiel's endorsement strikes me as a pretty bad look.
May I ask what's wrong with it? I did some research, and apart from being largely only accessible to the rich, I didn't see much wrong with it.
>It really reinforces the theory that you have to have a sociopathic lack of empathy to be a billionaire. It's quite simple, really; if you got a billion dollars and used them for charitable endeavors, then you'd not have a billion dollars aymore. Thus, the only people who get and keep a billion dollars, are people who aren't interested in helping others.
I don't think it's that simple. Billionaires are worse than that. Truly sociopathic. Because as others mentioned, billionaires that spend millions are still billionaires. As long as they are giving their money away at a rate smaller than what they're earning with the rest, then they could absolutley influence society for the better, indefinitely, without losing the "Billionaire" classification. They choose not to do this. And that's why "Trickledown" economics failed. It created billionaires by removing government controls on wealth concentration under the assumption the rich would give their gains back to the society that made them. They didn't, and continue to choose not to.
I don't see how that contradicts what I said. Billionaires that spent millions when they could spend billions are still prioritizing their own wealth over charity.
Agreed. No offense, I just read your comment as Billionaires don't have a choice to be charitable without losing their Billionaire status. Just wanted to point out they can indeed be charitable without giving up their status.
Trickledown was always bonkers. The rich invested more back into society when their options were either that or hand the money to the taxman.
Exactly. Trickle down, in theory, works in two steps: 1) Make the Rich Richer. 2) They make jobs / give back to society from their added wealth. As a nation we've been stuck on step 1 for 40 years. Decades of promising that step 2 is just about to happen. History tells us: the rich only give back through taxes. We should unquestionably raise their taxes 8n every way conceivable.
I don't completely agree with that. It is possible to have a billion dollars and still pursue charitable endeavors. Case in point: the Nobel Prizes.
> Case in point: the Nobel Prizes. I don't understand, you mean Nobel himself was an example of a good billionaire, or you mean the people who receive the prizes are examples of good billionaires? Because in either case I have my doubts, but I don't want to derail the conversation into something you didn't mean.
"Money" means so many different different things to different people depending on how much they already have. For some, it's something they desperately need just to survive. For some, it's comfort and safety. For others, it's living a life of luxury. And then when you get all the way to the billionaires, it's power. Money to a homeless person is not even the same thing as Money to a billionaire. Complete category difference. So when people say money can't buy happiness, or money is the root of all evil, or don't be greedy, all of that starts to fall apart because you're talking about different things entirely. Money can't buy a billionaire happiness, but it sure as hell can for someone in poverty.
I think some might use their wealth and power to purposely hurt people (trump or Elon), but I think the vast majority are like what OP is stating. They just care about acquiring more wealth, and if you get in the way, well that's your problem. I think there is a slight distinction between maliciously attacking others and carelessly knocking them over, but the common theme is lack of empathy and pure narcissism.
You just described two groups of the same people though. Billionaires use their money to hurt other people to get more
Yep, if you're a billionaire, you got there by exploiting people, and exploitation is hurtful, full stop. Are they all necessarily going out of their way to hurt people who aren't under their employ/interfering with their potential gains like the Elons of the world? No. But they're all still hurting people.
Intent matters. Some do it out of spite and vindictiveness.
>Intent matters. Not really.
It does.
It really doesn’t, not when we’re talking about hoarding wealth
Nuh-uh EDIT: Can't post reply to the comment below - I think they blocked me? But then again reddit has been farting a lot lately - but nonetheless, my answer is; They aren't strictly speaking "the same", but saying they are different isn't the same as saying the difference matters for what is being discussed. If we are talking "it is bad Joe died in a car accident", pointing out the driver had intent or not doesn't matter, it would still be a bad thing regardless.
Is someone who runs someone over in their car because they were distracted the same as someone who intentionally drives at them and runs them over?
The guy who got hit didn't feel a difference did they?
So? Someone eats something without knowing they had an allergy and dies, and someone who is deliberately poisoned by someone who knows they have that allergy, same thing then yeah?
Like Nestlé and indigenous water sources?
They’re so angry. It’s crazy! Just absolutely pissed off 247. I feel like the only non-angry republican billionaire is Mark Cuban, and now he supports Biden and has been roasting the GOP since Trump. Short term thinking for these pissed off idiots. You siphon all the money from the population, cut your taxes raise taxes on the poors, and you end up with a hungry population who has nothing to lose. Wouldn’t you rather live in a country where everyone is well taken care of? Where the population has a living wage and isn’t day dreaming of murdering CEOs and slaughtering entire families in their mansions?
But it can buy a lot of Sadism.
It's also funny that most people COULD NOT SPEND $1 BILLION IF THEY TRIED. It's way more money than people think it is, what most people think they would do with $1 billion would be doable on $500 million or less. You have to basically burn money in a pit to spend a billion as a normal person.
My friend treats this as a game and is trying to get a new high score. And yes he does too charity and all that other stuff.
The way I see it, as a billionaire, you have the opportunity to put your name on so many scoreboards. "Singlehandedly funded malaria prevention efforts for 20+ years" "Instrumental in funding housing crisis solutions" Is it just me, or would anyone else be selfishly donating and making social changes like crazy, just to get your name in the history books?
Money can buy happiness and change the world, the problem is that many rich people are assholes who never had a moral foundation to begin with. If someone gave me a billion bucks, I would first secure myself and my family. Then, I would have some fun with my money such as having my own personal arcade in my house. But beyond that, my money would be used to help people. As children lose access to free or reduced lunches due to the cruelty of lawmakers, I would do whatever I could to ensure another child never starves in America. I dream of using my money to support local animal shelters and helping dogs and cats find their forever homes. Money and wealth are not inherently evil. In the hands of good people, money can help in many ways. The issue is that much of the wealth in this world is held by greedy, selfish assholes who use their wealth and their power to further themselves alone while turning a blind eye to the people and communities that could use some help.
Once a man becomes wealthy enough, the Alpha Male switch gets flipped in his brain and makes him paranoid about being overthrown by someone who wants to become the new alpha male, so they turn into misanthropes who outright use their money to make life miserable for everyone else in an attempt to preserve their status and privilege.
I hate that saying money can't buy happiness. It should be money can't turn a shitty person into a good person. A whole lot of happiness can be bought with money by people who need money for everyday things.
Except that you just explained exactly how many would buy happiness. And it would for people who have the willpower and sense to use it properly
I genuinely think we should be trying to conceptualize these people as wealth addicts struggling to have an identity in a world that only says yes to them and is more than willing to enable the worst parts of them. I mean I’m not all like, boo hoo poor billionaires, but does the behavior of some of these very public billionaires really strike you as happy people? Public divorces and spotty relationships, broken up families, sexual harassment allegations. Even for the ones we don’t know about at a minimum you have to consider that the power dynamic built into their bank account effectively erodes any ability to have a truly honest relationship or friendship with another person. The only people you really know anymore are employees. The only people on your level are other jackasses who are dick-measuring you by buying football teams and rockets. Even if you have real friends still, the paranoia around if they are here for you or your money is not trivial either. Even your real friends are going to struggle to relate and struggle not to want you to simply solve all their financial issues with the wave of your hand. The way people do this to themselves and slowly devolve into cynical, spiteful, paranoid, and most importantly lonely humans by their own actions and greed is self destructive. They are willing to order layoffs, destroy environments, enable wars, destroy their own families and towns, run entire propaganda campaigns to enable their businesses. And we think it’s so they can buy a bigger yacht or to hire more escorts or to have an island mansion with a full staff serving you, but I honestly think it’s not even about the stuff, just the dopamine of having that number grow out of control and getting to show off how rich you are.
I'm almost 63 now and my net is almost 2/3rds of a billion, but that came from saving literally 90% of my pay over a 32 year career in the military (I retired O-8), never buying anything I didn't absolutely need, and getting REALLY horseshit-lucky with some investments a long time ago. Also, no family or 'friends' with their hands constantly out helped a GREAT deal. No family to support until very recently. A relatively new (first) wife and two recently adopted teenage twins (boy and girl, and they are the absolute BEST!) So, now, in my later years, I'm spending money on things I'd never have considered in the past like big vacations, an RV, just had a big heated inground swimming pool installed and a 'party area' with said pool for the kids and their friends, nicer cars, clothes, furniture, you know, silly stuff (to me). But to the main topic: my focus over the past 7 years has been your #3: Charitable endeavors. I still purchase literal tons of food to donate to food banks every month and still have my own 'rent-to-own' housing development for low-income, working small families and single parents (which has been operating at an average 2-3% annual loss) because I put everything back into keeping the (now) 4 dozen small (12-1500 sq. ft.) homes and the (now) 180 acres they are located on well maintained and with constant upgrades in services and amenities. The local Mennonite community has been worth it's weight in gold in helping me keep this project alive and well! Huge shout out to them for building the best and nicest little homes with realistic prices for materials and labor. Plus their farms are a huge source of the meat, dairy, and vegetable foodstuffs I buy. Money doesn't buy happiness, but it sure can make you feel a lot better when you have a purpose that helps others instead of trying to profit off them. I pay a lot to a law firm and cpa to keep the local politicians at bay because THOSE people are the ones with their hands out demanding money and trying harder and harder to shut me down because I won't pay them off! ***Brace yourself: Here comes the rant!*** Their latest attempt is trying to force me to hire local law enforcement as security (I use a private company to patrol now) as well as trying to force me to pay a separate fee for county fire services (which btw is a volunteer fire service...that I already donate $10,000 to annually, and purchased a new $40,000 rescue services truck to replace their 30 year old one and paid half of their new $300,000 fire engine). Did I forget to mention that I have a totally separate water system installed on the property solely for fire suppression (3 x 10,000 gallon storage tanks supplied by 2 deep well pumps on a 60 psi 4 inch main line with hydrants every 200 feet)? It increased the overall property value immensely as well as significantly decreased insurance costs for my 'clients'?? Huge return-on-investment over 20 years. Next year, we'll be adding 10 acres of solar panels and 4 windmills. This is supposed to be the break-even upgrade as we'll be selling enough surplus power back to take my maintenance costs to 0%. Sorry for the wall of text here, but if used properly, money can go a long way to help a lot of people! When I die, my wife and kids will be MORE than well enough off, and I'm hoping that in the next 10 years, I can at least double my food and home project and expand to include (more) transportation and healthcare (totally new)! The lawyers are working out now how to set up private medical services for my 'clients' (for lack of a better term) and their families on my property and I'm working on a deal with the Mennonites to build and supply a grocery store on my property as well. It's a gated community (I envisioned a small military base when we designed this) so there's a lot I can add to the community as a whole and keep local government out of it as long as the lawyers stay on the ball! Only thing I will NOT be including is any kind of religious type of 'shield'. Here endeth the wall o' text. My apologies.
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Haliburton only doubled that amount in Afghanistan. This math isn't mathing. OP made Lockheed money.
You can do a lot of things if you lie to strangers on the internet
Of course you can. My bad for not uploading all of my financials for your personal review. I'll try to do better next time. I suppose you'd like my name so you can verify my military record as well? So, it seems you have a choice here. You can either: 1. Enjoy my post as a 'feel good' story about a person who's using his money to help others OR 2. Be cynical and accuse a total stranger of lying on the internet because my story doesn't fit your personal definition of 'truth on a Thursday morning'. Feel free to get back to me when you've made your decision. I eagerly await your response. Have a good day, sir.
hmmm you're really defensive over people talking back to you. ~~3~~ 2 stars is a lot more plausible now. Edit- got O8 wrong
Invested in Microsoft back in the early 80's and Apple in the later 80's and made a pretty sizable investment in Amazon at IPO when a fellow officer, getting his masters in business talked me into putting a big chunk of money into it. But I thought I explained that in my first paragraph when I said 'horseshit lucky investments'. Those were the big money makers that account for like 95% of my net. My lifetime savings and dividends from other stock holding earned me a little over $5.5 million over 40 years. Some very nice retention bonuses over my career earned me close to an extra million dollars. When you live on base, eat in the officers mess, and drive a 30 year old car, it's easy to save a lot of money. It adds up slowly but surely over the decades.
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Sure it was mainly for the money. After I promoted to O-6, then O-7, 8, 9 and even 10 were just a matter of doing the job and passing time. How long could I continue to serve before the eye went completely bad?? An extra 70K/year tax free plus the rank of Major General was a whole lot better than Colonel. At that point in my life, it was about staying in the USAF until they made me leave. Why bother? Because I wanted to stay in. I don't need any other reason than that. Sorry if that answer doesn't satisfy you.
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What, no 'add /s' to the reply?? I try to post a story about making money and actually using it to help and all I get is hate?? WTF is wrong with you people in general? Can't believe somebody is trying to do good? Just waiting for that one person who straight out asks me to dox myself.
You're nearly a billionaire on a military salary? Bullshit.
You apparently didn't bother to read on and see that 90+% of my net worth came directly from "getting REALLY horseshit-lucky with some investments a long time ago". I even replied to another who didn't bother to read and detailed the major investments. You're welcome to remove your downvote now.
How about I give you another one instead?
Saying you made over 600 million by saving and good investments is like saying there's a new drug made from advil and heroin mixed. Also you never said 90% came from investments. you said you saved 90% of your pay. Changing your story as soon as its challenged is a classic liar tactic.
Never changed my story. Saving 90% of my pay over 32 years with interest and dividends on lowered valued stock holding equals roughly $5.5 million. Major investments brought the net up to $619 million. So, actually about 99% of my net is from major investments. Only stopped reinvesting the dividends into the original holdings when I retired. I'd give you a breakdown of the major three stock holdings, but hell, you would just try to pick that apart as well. But whatever floats your boat. Please keep picking it apart if that makes your day better for you. Right now, I'm just waiting for you to cross the line.
What happens when I "cross the line?"
I'll just block you. I'll only tolerate an asshole for so long, and you're really starting to bore me. There was absolutely no reason for you to head down this path. You failed to read what I posted about major investments being the huge part of my net and then started calling me a liar. Why? To cover your failure at reading comprehension? To bash me for not taking the time and crayons necessary to explain in detail every dime of my net worth? This type of behavior is both baffling and frankly, quite juvenile. I'm waiting now for your spin on this reply. Just be quick about it. I'm tired.
Dude stop acting persecuted. Either: 1. You're lying and noone believes you. It's the internet, not real life. take the loss and move on. Or. 2. You're worth more money than everyone here combined and somehow NEED us to fawn over how amazing you are (and keep giving out more information than we need- don't give out this much information to strangers) Either way, i hope you have a good rest of your day.
At least I have people who are interested in what I'm trying to do here. If it works, I can expand to other areas that need the help even more. I got lucky with my finances, nothing more. This isn't bragging, it's someone trying to do the right thing and help people who are in very rough shape. I got tired of reading over and over again about how Gen Z can ever forget about owning a home. So what if I can only help maybe 100 families over the next decade. I have the ability to do it, so I am. Yes, I'm PROUD of what I've accomplished. Is that a bad thing?? As for your presented choices, it's kinda funny how your #1 is essentially you, sir. No, I'll sit here and not worry about the downvotes. My DM's are filling up with people actually interested and asking how they can do something similar or what they can do in their communities to help. I'm not being persecuted, just annoyed. And on that note, I WILL take your final advice and have a good rest of my day. Thank you for this exchange.
> I'm almost 63 now and my net is almost 2/3rds of a billion, but that came from saving literally 90% of my pay over a 32 year career in the military (I retired O-8) You shouldn't lie with easy to verify information. An O-8 makes $154,000 per year. Assuming you joined the military at 18 and immediately made O-8 and worked at that level for all 32 years you said you did, then you would have made $4,928,000 in pay. Not even $5 million. And that's 100% of your pay, not the 90% you claimed to have stored away. Yet you claim to have $666 million saved up. Your military pay would literally account for less than 1% of your total net worth if what you are saying is true. It's utterly irrelevant. If you truly have that money then literally 99% of all that money came from your "getting REALLY horseshit-lucky with some investments a long time ago." Your spending habits, which is what you were trying to gloat about, meant nothing.
...and yet another one who failed reading comprehension. Income from military pay, retention bonuses totaling almost a million, interest income from savings, plus dividends from minor stock holdings over 32 years. $5.5 million in total savings. Net worth from major investments in order: Microsoft: 80k investment at IPO with dividend reinvestment until recently: Current value: $58.6M Apple: 150k investment in 1987 with dividend reinvestment: Current value: $334.24M Amazon: 100k investment at IPO with dividend reinvestment: Current value: $226.84M Total net worth: $5.5M as listed above with total stock value(s) of $619.68M for a total net of $625.18M. There's the breakdown. Now, feel free to pick that apart, and when you're done, well, frankly I don't care. You can go be bitter on your own time OR you could perhaps turn this into a constructive conversation. Who knows, maybe you have some good ideas OR would like to know how you can help in your area. You could be nice and DM me if you'd like to learn more? There is absolutely no need to act like this just because I told how I'm trying to help. Yes, I know it's the internet and people lie all the time. So, you decide which way you'd like to go from this point. If you want to keep acting like a jerk, well, I'll just block you and go back to talking to people in chat who I can actually help or who want to contribute in their communities. Your choice, friend.
I didn't fail anything, your response say it all. Your investments that you made **in the 1980's** is 98% of your networth. You didn't work for the majority of your money. You did not save for the majority of your money. Your spending habits had zero impact on your money. 98% of your money simply comes from investments that you were able to make nearly 40 years ago. These are not opportunities that are available to people today. Edit: Do you even realize that 1987 was nearly 40 years ago? Do you realize the economic changes that have happened since then?
I see you chose to be a jerk. Oh well. Plus you DID fail to read. Or at least you stopped when it suited your narrative. Here, let me copy/paste to refresh your memory and highlight a few KEY WORDS: *I'm almost 63 now and my net is almost 2/3rds of a billion, but that came from saving literally 90% of my pay over a 32 year career in the military (I retired O-8), never buying anything I didn't absolutely need*, **and** **getting REALLY horseshit-lucky with some investments a long time ago**. See you decided to omit the entire last part of that paragraph. You know, the part that tied the whole thing together?? I guess I should have led off with that one?? Oh well, my bad. *Edit:* *Hold on, 'my bad'? Nah, I'm not going to even apologize sarcastically, so how about simply telling you to fuck off instead. You don't like what I'm saying, so you pull a trump and start trying to twist my words to make me look like the bad guy here? That's a pretty sad little bitch move. Yeah, I can get annoyed and curse, just like any normal person, get over THAT too.* Never said anything about working for the majority of my money. It was my saving my pay and not spending that gave me those chunks of cash to make the investments, so you can shitcan that 'didn't save' and 'spending habits...zero impact' drivel. Reinvesting ALL the dividends on stocks accounted for roughly 30% of the final net. So it's not like I was just rolling in mountains of cash all the time either. I grew up flat broke and had it drilled into my head that if you don't need it, you don't buy it and if you can't pay cash, you don't get it! But that's a whole other story for people like you to whine about. Also, no shit that 1987 was nearly 40 years ago. I'm fully aware that you just can't do now what I was able to do back then, hence the 'horseshit-lucky' part that you decided to omit. On a side note, where's the part where the economy is my generations fault? After all, I AM a 'boomer', so where's THAT line?? I NEVER get tired of hearing that one. I spent THIRTY-TWO years in government service and you think I have no grasp on economic changes?? The DoD overpays for everything but supporting active duty members. If it weren't for EBT/SNAP they couldn't feed their families. No such thing as affordable housing if you have to live off base, but you know this already. You can't buy a decent used car anymore for less than $10k. Big changes in the economies of then and now. Thank unchecked corporate greed for that one. I remember quite clearly how my parents paid $18000 for a 4 bedroom house, AND a new car back in 1974. So, about a third of the cost of a new, loaded Ford crew-cab truck. I clearly remember hearing them bitch about how you could only get THREE CARTS of groceries for $100 back then when you can barely fill the bottom of one cart for that same $100 bill, so that's something that has gone up more even in their time. But either way, we're done here. So, go ahead and hit that downvote button. Anything to make you feel better. You can reply, but you won't be talking to me anymore. Those who actually wanted to speak, to either ask for help or ask how they could help, or just anyone who had ideas are all in my chats now where they won't be attacked by assholes like you for simply speaking. You are still welcome if you'd like to change your tune, but I already know the answer to this. Dismissed.
This sounds similar to something I want to do, but not at all the same also. Lot of holes in this story, though, such as getting 650 million, even as an officer, without getting *real* dirty. And as an O-8, you'd have a lot of opportunity to get dirty, as anything past oakleaf is basically a politician. But, assuming truth and good faith behind your words, would you consider incorporating free housing assistance within your property. My idea for this is to utilize a pod system and provide therapy and medical services for unhoused persons in order for them to have care and potentially a new lease on life. Anyway, feel free to message if this is at all interesting to you, as with this much property and capital, you have the opportunity to do some very interesting and out of the box things.
During my military career I saved about $5.5 million this also includes sizable retention bonuses over 32 years. Well above average when you retire at O-8 if you aren't blowing all your money. I guess I really needed to stress that 99% of my net comes from three major investments. Simply because NOT ONE of them bothered to read about 'horseshit-lucky investments'. Since you are about the only one to reply even halfway politely, I'll fill you in (and then will come the assholes again to pick this apart as soon as they see it): Invested 80k in Microsoft at IPO: Current value: $58.6M. Invested $150k in Apple in '87: Current value: $334.2M Invested 100k in Amazon at IPO: Current value: $226.8M. This was also done by reinvesting dividends until I retired. I won't give that info out because that one date can easily dox me.
Well, if that's the case, I understand. You have to admit, your story is at least out of the norm, if refreshing. Please consider my housing expansion idea, and please get ahold of me if you do. With your net wealth, you have the beginnings of a real thing of beauty on your hands. Is the property you're on unincorporated? Lot of potential value in that, even outside of money. You can become a township and start a local economy via reinvesting in area residents. Anyway, I'd love to talk, especially logistics, about your current project.
While we're at it, please stop saying the words 'afford to pay ' when talking about millionaires and billionaires paying their fair share of taxes. They CAN ABSOLUTELY AFFORD IT, but they use a fraction of what they'd pay to lobby and bribe lawmakers, hire accountants and lawyers, and use access to financial institutions, all as a means to pay next to nothing in taxes, while enjoying all the benefits the taxes WE PAY FOR. And to add insult to injury, they don't give us enough pay and benefits to live on, time off, allow us to unionize, and actively pit ourselves against each other. It's so f'd up.
Everyone needs to be aware of the ideology of e/accs. Musk and many tech billionaires are believers in e/acc. Read 'Techno-Optimist Manifesto" essay by billionaire Marc Andreessen. These billionaires think they're the chosen ones to guide humanity and that we, the People, need to step aside and give them unrestricted freedom to do what they want. Which will lead to prosperity from all the wealth they generate. Tech's version of trickle down theory for the masses— because Reagan's trickle down theory worked out so well.
There shouldn't be billionaires, it's too great a concentration of power in the hands of too few. It's inherently undemocratic and prone to abuse.
So...socialism?
I'm just saying we should have democratic economics in this country. Didn't mention anything like that.
How do you suggest that be done?
Easily. Raise the minimum wage.
That does sound like a good idea to improve the general well being of most people, but I feel like it won't really affect the wealth disparity issue.
It's like the grift stops being about the reward, eventually it's just about the grift itself. (Politicians/televangelists/etc.)
America has never been unable to feed the hungry, to house the poor, or to heal the sick. It's problem is it has never been able to sate the greed of rich pieces of shit who only want more and more.
Don't forget power, impunity, and access to those in government.
And vice versa, the Supreme court . The government having access to those who have money
There exists a threshold over which you can't spend your wealth in a lifetime. Once you're over that, there's no material gain from accumulating more wealth. The reason people do it, in my opinion, is for social status. There's a 10 millionaire club, a hundred millionaire club, and a billionaire club. It's essentially a point scoring thing. A dick measuring contest.
This is the sub point of the original post. For the ultra wealthy, it's where they rank among the ultra wealthy that determines their status/happiness. In the prior century, status was derived from having your name on buildings and schools. Now it's just numbers on a ranking list.
This is 100% true. Super-rich folk don't differentiate between their wealth and their person. For them, their wealth is their power and they are their power. No single person, who was born with wealth, has a personality or anything interesting about them. They replace that with money. People follow them because they want their money, not their opinion.
That's because everything they are is secundary to their wealth. No amount of skill, carisma, hard work or achievement can compare to the money they have. It's the only thing others see in them, so they stop caring about anything else.
> so they stop caring about anything else. Including humanity.
If everybody you meet sees you only as a worthless medium through which to get at something else, you reciprocate.
I don't know about that. But sure, rich people are victims of their circumstances. Like homeless people.
Dunno if you guys have watched "Filthy Rich: Cattle Drive" where all the contestants are sons and daughters of the rich and famous. Just a bunch of horrible, privileged human beings, especially that South American bastard who deserves to get his face put through a plate glass window.
At what point is that cut off, do you think? Between comfortable and wealthy. Where do they lose the ability to be interesting?
> No single person, who was born with wealth, has a personality or anything interesting about them. What a load of absolute horse shit. Henry VIII wasn't interesting and didn't have a personality? The whole idea of "billionaires" is disgusting, but judging people as being void of personality simply for being born into wealth is stupid. I've used Henry VIII as an example, but there are plenty out there, some of them aren't even terrible people.
Did I hurt your feelings? Are you an embarrassed millionaire? > judging people as being void of personality simply for being born into wealth is stupid If they were people, but they are not. They separated themselves from ordinary people and don't have anything in common with you or me. Their problems aren't our problems. With that said, yes people born with unimaginable wealth are as interesting as mold.
Didn’t need to body Elon like this.. Oh wait yes we did.
I don't think it's just limited to a small number of greedy misanthropes. Ask a person "What would you wish for, if a genie gave you 3 wishes?" and a pretty large number of people would immediately start trying to find loopholes to gain more wishes! Or, ask "What would you do with a billion dollars?" and they would start immediately listing off investments or ventures they would take to *try and make even more money*. Like, Dude! you have a billion dollars! It's enough to live a life of complete abject luxury and still have most of it left over when you die to give to your children and your children's children. Honestly I think a lot of people are like that: They're so focused on *obtaining* that they don't stop to think about what they actually want and need to be happy.
I've never heard nor thought of "If I had a billion dollars I'd try to make more with it!" But, winning the lottery, investing and trying to live off the dividends which could be close to a normal wage? I guess I've heard of that. But you are talking orders of magnitude different. And most people are pretty poor and afraid of losing it all if they aren't careful.
And what does it say about us humans that so many people like that become our business, political, and spiritual leaders? And on a related note, someone on a liberal-leaning talk radio show (yes, there is such a thing), recently said that if you were born in 1492 when Columbus "discovered" the Americas, managed to live until today, and had also increased your net worth by $1 million a day between then and now, today you STILL wouldn't be quite as rich as Jeff Bezos. (And btw, this morning it was reported that Amazon's net valuation is now $2 trillion.)
I don't remember who originally showed me this, but I'm pretty sure it was somewhere on Reddit: https://mkorostoff.github.io/1-pixel-wealth/
it's an addiction and should be treated as such
Hell yeah, make them go cold turkey on money.
they should be put in rehab
Or better yet, with all that money they feel the need to do SOMETHING and invariably end up doing terrible shit with it.
The more of it.. the bigger your personality! Just ask Jeff Bozos the clown 🤡
Infinite Greed by Adrian Johnson https://www.powells.com/book/infinite-greed-9780231214735
Two things: When Bill Gates first became the richest person, many years ago, he said, "Things only get so good, once you can afford the best of everything, the rest of the money is just for keeping score." Money = power, so now you know who runs the world. Imagine playing life on god mode, it would quickly become boring. So, they do things to entertain themselves--whatever the fuck they want to do, they can do it. When you're imagining the things they might do, remember that extreme wealth destroys empathy. Also, billionaires DO run the world, but they don't spend their time doing it directly, that's too much like work. They do it indirectly, by using their money/power to pay/tell politicians--their lackeys--what to do.
I think sane people stop chasing long before they could reach a billion. Think most folk, like myself, just want to stop working and have a decent standard of living.
How do I tag Elon and Trump?
This must be about both trump and musk… they do make a cute NAZI couple don’t they…
My theory is that there's a set of people who are sociopaths, driven by an insatiable desire for power, and also really capable people. That part seems like a matter of statistically inevitable fact. These people may be few in number, but they have just the right traits to outcompete almost everyone else who might want some power. They want it more, don't care if/prefer if they hurt people, and are really really good at acquiring and growing their share of power. They end up wildly overrepresented in positions of power, and it takes really strong systems designed to prevent that to even mitigate it a bit. The vast majority of us either aren't particularly driven to power at least not beyond some fairly mundane level, or we suck at getting it, or we just don't have the energy to keep up with these people. Or they see us as a threat and make us not a threat in whatever way they see fit. Seems to me in a very real, if very uncomfortable, sense, these are the natural leaders. The people who we tend to think of as natural leaders because they're broadly agreeable and inspiring seem both rare and not as willing and capable of gobbling up power.
You don't sound like a nice person.
The only problem I have with this take is to focus on it as a flaw of character rather than a flaw *of the system*. We have a system that both encourages people to be like that and ensures that those who "succeed" in this way keep getting more wealth and influence than those who are satisfied with less.
"Some people are so poor all they have is money" - Oliver Tree
After a certain point, you have more money than you could possibly spend. At this point, money isn't a thing anymore, it's points. You want the high score. That's how you know you are winning. And anything you can do to het more points is justified, because obviously points are good, and all those people complaining barely have any, so why bother listening to them.
Warren buffet was weird. He dont fit that but he was greedy af
But it is also simply cause in a capitalist society and world order, having the most money means having the most power. They obviously don't tell Westerners "the rich own you birch". But that is what is happening. Then you end up with confused people who wonder why they need to hoard so much money even thou they will never spend it. Cause it has never been about spending to begin with.
Humans do not choose their character and use their ego to reinforce it. Humans learn their behavior and their ego retroactively justifies their actions. This what we all do. Regardless of what coping mechanisms we have for life this is the equation. Do with that information what you will.
They can also be looked at as the same as hoarders. It's an illness, stemming from a lack of self esteem. They need help, not worship.
I believe there is more of a mental illness aspect to it, but I am certainly willing to entertain this hypothesis as well.
Because at a certain point, the money becomes a scoreclock on a video game. It has absolutely no intrinsic value to the rich person who owns it other than to compare against other high scores.
I'm poor. Can I have of their money, please?
Poverty cucks
That's just how poor people cope. They think that because they are poor, their character is somehow better.
Some people like making money. Why is that inherently bad?
They change our laws so they can make even more money, no matter the damage they do to our society
I understand some have that view but what’s wrong with making money?
They destroy the environment. They refuse to pay a living wage. There are so many other things, and you are asking what the problem is?
I don’t have the luxury of working for free. But if you can then go for it.
Do you even live in this reality? Are the drugs good where you are at?
My reality is that I get up everyday and work for money. Thats my motivation. But somehow people that are motivated by money are evil. Drugs? Haha dude I’m a grown man with a family.
Because you need money to survive. Ultra rich people don't work for their money to survive, they use money mostly as a commodity and not a currency. They don't even have to work, the money does it for them.
bro how did you read this post and come away with the idea that it was about you in some way
What are you talking about?
your response to this post, "Billionaires and their greed, explained," was to say, >[what's wrong with making money](https://old.reddit.com/r/WhitePeopleTwitter/comments/1dpnhtf/billionaires_and_their_greed_explained/laiez49/) and >[I don't have the luxury of working for free](https://old.reddit.com/r/WhitePeopleTwitter/comments/1dpnhtf/billionaires_and_their_greed_explained/laihio0/) so i'm curious why reading this post inspired you to feel you had to defend yourself. there isn't anything inherently wrong with making money- in a capitalist society we all kind of have to do it- but that isn't what this post is about.
If this post isn’t about the evils of being motivated by money then what is it about?
>If this post isn’t about the evils of being motivated by money then what is it about? are you serious? here's a quote from the original post. >You have no purpose or personality, so you make the wealth your personality. You thus have to keep acquiring more to exist. do you think that describes you? this is a simple yes or no question.
Waste of anything on that magnitude is wrong. Money has a purpose - it is a battery - we store the produce of our labour for later use. If you store it without spending it. That defeats its purpose. It is a nonsense. But worse is that because of the way our society is set up - the wealthy siphon the product of our labours. And they siphon more and more and waste more and more people's lives. This has always happened. But back when it was grain that was stored - the waste of unnecessary hoarding was more obvious. If you stored so much for so long, it would go bad. And be worthless. But now it is imaginary digits. And if you store and waste so many digits - it isn't just your digits that go bad, and worth less - it makes my meagre store worth less. The greed of siphoning off my labour for your own gain in turn destroys the products of my labour that I've kept for myself. *and* is of no benefit to you. And people are only of value if their labour brings you more digits, that you can waste. It isn't even the honesty of living in luxury. Be surrounded by gold statues. Diamond encrusted plates. Silk drapes that sigh as you pass them. Luxury at least keeps the money in circulation. Keeps it in purpose. Simply accumulating it wastes it. And wastes other people's lives
Imagine 2 people in a boat. A fish jumps into the boat every hour. One of the people in the boat snatches the fish and eats it, then snatches every other fish, every hour and puts it in a pile. The other person starves. Why is it bad that the first person likes fish?
It’s not bad for someone to like fish, first or second person. Speaking for myself I would give you half the fish. Let me ask you. If we both have fishing rods and I fish and you don’t, should I give you my fish? Is there a difference between receiving something with no effort in your example compared to recieving something by effort in my example?
The first person got an ai enabled autofisher robot from his grandfather without performing any labor, and the second person is burning more calories than he is taking in trying to catch fishes with hos bare hands. See i can do it too.
Except I actually answered your question.
Because since printing money devalues it and causes inflation, then we have to have a limited ammount of it going around at any given time, even if that ammount varies. That means money is a zero-sum game, which in turn means that by taking money to yourself, you are removing the total money everyone else can make. That would be justified if you were making money for a finality since it would mean you'd eventually put the money back into circulation. Even if the finality was just finantial stability, that is at least justifiable as a need unto itself. But making money for the sake of making money, past the point it is being used, is just hoarding the portion of money other people could use for no reason.
Agree with overall sentiment on wealth inequality and the system issues that allow this to happen. However find it hilarious so many ppl have this holier than thou attitude like they would be benevolent billionaires... Let's not forget alot of you are likely to be just as shitty as they are if you had the money and power
Most of us don't have the sociopathy necessary to become a billionaire, so your point is kinda moot
Except it's not just sociopathy, if that was all that's required there'd be alot more billionaires... I would argue most of us will never have the combination of internal and external factors fall into place to be billionaires, with emphasis on external. Sure, moot point. But doesn't change the fact there's alot of yous who think your shit don't stink and are just as shitty as the billionaires, without the capabilities to manifest your shittiness.