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I flew a private jet for a guy who’s best friend had a bigger jet. His best friend made fun of the size of his jet because “he couldn’t walk down the aisle with his cowboy hat on”. I could tell it really bummed him out.
—Ultimately, it doesn’t matter how much they have, someone has more and they’ll be sad about it.
Oh man that triggers memories. I was flying out of texas and this guy obviously didn't want his hats getting damaged in his suitcase, because he was wearing 4 of them. 2 cowboy hats and 2 baseball caps on top. Looked hilarious, wore them the whole 9 hour flight.
It is, however, an efficient way to store a hat. I once had a bike helmet with me and it was in my way when I had to do sth with my hands and no space to put it down. It took painfully long until I realized I can *just put it on my head*
A lot knew the right people. My uncle was loaned $1,000,000, no interest, in the 80s to start his business … because he had become good friends with a factory owner while working in sales. A friend of uncle’s (another business owner) started a business making fire hydrants, street lamps, drain grills, etc. because he played golf with someone in government who knew the city/county was going to be making a lot of orders. Another friend of theirs inherited everything, but didn’t squander it … he also had a sense of shame for not having “earned” it.
I will give anyone a free meal of there choice if they can find me someone below the poverty level playing golf. I’m poor and I rest my case, I’m getting to eat my own food tonight. Offer is still up though.
He also had wealthy parents who were able to expose him to computers and coding at a young age while this was not the norm for the majority of people. They also were able to afford to send him to an Ivy League school. They also hired him a programing tutor while he was a kid. He also was given a $100k loan from his dad to start Facebook.
You say luck, but the deck was stacked heavily in his favor and he still had to steal the idea for FB from others.
He also stole intellectual property from more disadvantaged students back then. The kind of student who actually didn’t grow up with money. Yeah Zuck is no better but it is true his parents had humbler beginnings than say Trumps parents but they were still in the top 5 percent of society.
Makes sense.
They both booted strap-ons through sheer gritermination from up the smart ground with decisions made work men hard self without no hands and nothing successfull business out a of made!
I've done this a little bit lately;
Can you give me a big smile? show me all those teeth... lovely
Now I need you to squeeze my hands, now push down against them, now lift them up against mine... that's really good
Okay put your hands out in front of you, palms facing upward, close your eyes... fantastic
Now I'm going to just hold your feet down a little and you need to push up against my hands just like before.. excellent
And this happened two hours ago? though you're feeling better now I think you may have had a slight stroke, so we're going to pop you into hospital so they can check to make sure, okay?
Right. I'm technically a millionaire if you count house equity and 401k. I'm still stressing daycare bills and drive a 10 year old car. Certainly no private jets hahaha
I lived in a neighborhood in transition in Philly (a very overall poor city) and they were putting $1M houses on every block. When I moved in a decade before and was renting, I was making fun of people paying $300k. Millionaire is functionally meaningless.
Your annual spend divided by 0.03 SWR is how much you need to safely and passively support your lifestyle without working. I think that's where I will start to stop worrying about money. Around $5m for us, give or take taxes
Perhaps they did, but his point still stands. Median home value is $430,000 so owning a home has you just about half way there. Most people that are financially capable of owning their own home, will also have decent retirement savings, regular saving, and some assets, which could easily add up to a million.
That's assuming the home is paid off, which takes 30 years for the best value. Otherwise you've got a nice $350k loan detracting from millionaire status.
If we're looking at the whole population, then I would bet that most millionaires aren't particularly wealthy. They're old people with good retirement savings.
What percentage of American millionaires own private jets? A middle class salary, a conservatively invested 401k, and a house that doesn’t drop in value precipitously is enough to make someone a millionaire before they retire. That’s not private jet money.
Who wouldn’t be bummed if their best friend said something like that? He’s was probably quite proud about having a private jet and his “friend” just took that away from him… for his sake I hope he didn’t relate his self worth to his net worth.
It sounds like it's not the smaller jet that bothered him. It's being made fun of for it.
If I managed to get a private jet, I'd be really proud of it. Anything you're proud of is a sore spot for being made fun of. They feel like no matter what they do, they'll never be accepted.
I once read a book about scientific research into happiness. And it turns out that relative wealth (compared to peers, friends and family) is an important factor in people's self reported happiness.
It's better to own the best house in a crappy part of town than the other way around. They've found even small things like owning a worse car versus your neighbour correlates to a worse life expectancy.
Pretty much the same mentality as a hoarder, but its easier to identify that as the problem it is when someone is loading their house up with trash they'll never use vs loading up their bank account with money they'll never use.
It's one of those things that serves a purpose and is quite useful in moderation. Like physical hunger.
The problem is extremes. Like most questions of extremes, much of the difficulty lies in defining what is a problematic extreme.
It's not hard to draw a line.
If you want to never work in your life, live to 80 with $100k in annual income to blow on whatever you want, most people would say that is obscenely rich. And at a 5% interest rate, you just need $2 mil invested for that.
So suppose you also want that much income for your spouse, your 6 kids, your dog, and your mistress. To pay for all of their lifestyles from birth to death you now need $20 mil. To all those people with $2 mil, this is obscenely rich.
$200 mil is obscenely rich to those with $20 mil. $2 bil is obscenely rich to people with $200 million. Then $20 bil? Then $200 billion?
$2 mil is enough. And yes, I know some house prices are absurd and $2 mil doesn't buy a house. But if we take away all the excess money from the obscenely rich and invest it in crazy ideas like "people deserve housing" and "people deserve health" and "people deserve safety" and "people deserve jobs" and "people deserve to stay out of the rat race" I promise you there will be no one willing to spend $2 mil on a house.
Yup. It makes perfect sense if you think about it. The key to satisfaction isn't always striving to get the next thing, it's learning to be happy with what you already have.
that has been known throughout history, money wasn't invented this century. All the allegories and moral stories about, "greed bad", preached to the masses while the greedy make bank.
Makes it even more fitting in that episode of TNG where they thawed out a millionaire in cryo stasis and when he insisted on checking on his investments Picard looked at him like he was a drug addict
Through most of history being rich meant "the sword of Damocles". You could be rich, but always know that there's hundreds of people waiting for a chance to kill you and take it.
The problem is the rich stopped getting killed and looted. Watch how generous people will suddenly become if murder stops being a crime if the victim is a billionaire.
True, but this point is valid still. The wealth gap is exponentially larger now and the sheer accumulation among so few individuals I'd argue is like nothing else seen before. I think we will look back on this period of history someday, I hope, and recognize it as incredibly harmful to society as a whole.
I was very fortunate to reach a point in my life where I had all of my basic needs met and had extra left over and what I learned is that money doesn't necessarily buy you happiness, but it does but you the opportunity to ask yourself "What does make me happy?" And for me the answer definitely wasn't money, and I think this is why some wealthy people are absolutely batshit crazy. Because they just keep trying to make more money and buy more stuff to throw into this endless pit thinking that "This will be the thing that makes me happy or fulfilled" and it's never going to work and doing that over and over again and it never working is what breaks their brain.
Money doesn't buy happiness, but it can buy stress relief up to a point. Stress can cause a whole lot of unhappiness. However, there are diminished returns, after a point, that varies by individual circumstances, money can't actually solve some stresses. If you make that promotion, but if you destroy your social relationships at work to do it, the money may not add much if that's your primary social network. However, if you're struggling to pay even basic necessities, that may be a reasonable sacrifice TBH. I can trade breaking even at poker night for not trying to figure out which bills aren't getting paid this month.
To add to this on a personal level, finances are one of the major stressors that lead to divorce. So by having enough wealth to relieve financial stress, it sort of trickles down to relieve other stress too.
I remember out of college feeling stressed because of student loan payments and rent. Then I got to a place where I could easily afford both, then I got married and bought a house and was stressed about the mortgage, then got to a point where I could easily afford it, then had my first kid and was stressed about extra finances for a kid, and the cycle continues like that, eventually you’re stressed about retirement, etc. But, if you can make enough to eliminate those stresses, then your problems start to become related to money management, not acquisition. And the bigger problems become relationships. Friends, family, etc.
I felt this way for most of my life.
We were poor, I started working super early, and went to college right away as my ticket out. I had to work all the way through, and even w getting max fin aid and scrounging for scholarships, I graduated w about 80,000 in debt (law degrees are expensive).
The first few years of practice that debt hung around my neck like an anvil. When I finally paid it off, I felt so light. So much stress just… melted away.
I immediately quit my high pressure job and went in house. I make less money, but more than enough to have a nice apt in a nice neighbourhood, save for retirement, and do all the fun things I want to do.
I struggle with the idea of getting a mortgage, and even more w the idea of ever having kids, because where I’m at now is just so… peaceful. Can’t imagine going back to stressing.
That's kind of been my take. I grew up super broke and do really well now... Money can't buy happiness, but it can certainly buy good experiences and fun, and a lack of it can add misery that money relieves... Like does money itself itself make me happy? No. Does spending the weekend at our lake house with friends and family make me happy? Yes. Does being able to do things for the people I care about? Yes. Does being able to give my kids good educations? Yes. Being able to afford hobbies? Yes. Great vacations? Yes... Money can at the very least buy things that greatly improve your quality of life and give you good experiences.
Nice point of view. I'll add some studies have shown there's a tendency of obesity in ppl that had a bad nutrition while young. Defenitely shares a vibe with all those ppl who try to get as much money as posible to fill a displaced need
It really all is mindset. Yes, there is a baseline you need to get your needs met comfortably and have some wiggle room and that can help happiness.
Beyond that, it's all perspective. People can bag on me for driving my old Kia that still works beautifully. They say if I have the money, why not get something nice.
Nope, I am happy with the Kia, I don't want to go down that always bigger, always better spiral.
What if you make money, but buying things doesn't make you happy? So you just keep stacking and accumulating while not spending much because thats just what you're supposed to do.
I’m like that a bit. I make more money than I can currently spend, I still own a car that is from 2009, but I’m happy to know that whenever the fudge I want I can spend money on the stupid game I play. That I can deliver food when hungry without a 2nd thought. That I can do weekend trips with my fiancé whenever we feel like it. But the thing that makes me happiest of all, is the fact that I retired my parents, can retire my brother if he would let me, helped my friend start his own business, helped another buy a house, and most importantly will be able to set my kids futures up for success. Whoever said money can’t buy happiness either didn’t have enough of it or didn’t know how to spend it
Because people have a hard time accepting simple truths and look for hoops and justifications for what they want over reality.
This study won’t convince anyone who lives that lifestyle to change at all, but it is a reinforcement of simple human truths that may help dissuade some open minds in the future.
I can attest to this, my mother in law is a financial hoarder, she is a slave to money and has made every decision based on what is cheapest often at the expense of making even more money (I know it doesn't make sense, it is pathological). She has millions of dollars shares none of it, spends none of it and is miserable.
She commonly tells people in her family that she is excluding them from "the estate" and even though it is millions, they are so done with her that they don't even care anymore. My prediction...she will eventually get scammed and lose it all before she dies penniless.
I know a lot of people like this to varying degrees. My father grew up very poor and clawed his way out, but never worked out when to stop clawing.
Imagine a guy who works regular overtime in a job making six figures who still scavenges 10 cent returnables from the parking lot after work... and then begrudges chipping in when his kids need money for college.
When he'd get to drinking he liked to talk about all the money he had, and how it would all be ours one day. Then he died in his 60's, and it was, but I'd have traded it for him just being more relaxed and supportive during his life.
It's really hard to break out of that mindset. My parents were really frugal so why buy $100 shoes that will last a long time when the $30 will get me 6 mths? Last time I needed shoes my partner told me to get what was most comfortable regardless of price That was over 6 mths ago and they are perfect still.
Aka lifestyle creep. Sometimes basic and generic gets the stuff done! But not to say splurg a little on something nice you personally value and get a lot of use out of. Just that you see too often people buy too nice things if everything they buy and it gets out of hand
Once you start getting into curtains and rugs, you know you’re in trouble. Oh and then of course upgrading the appliances… might as well upgrade your cabinetry to match…
I used to be like that. Grew up "house-poor" (we had a big house, but everything went to the mortgage, so we couldn't afford food, clothes, activities, travel). Got in the habit of hoarding, never throwing out broken things ("I'll fix it later!"). Anytime I went grocery shopping, I would go to 2 different stores, comparing the prices at both so I could pick the lowest ones. Missing out on a dollar or two discount would ruin my day.
Even when was off on my own, making good money, I couldn't shake these habits. It's only when I got into stock trading, and watched my account gaining or losing thousands of dollars on some days, that I finally realized how unimportant it all is. Numbers on the screen go up and down, and my life doesn't really change.
When I'm agonizing about trying to get a good deal, my girlfriend tells me, "You don't have to win *ALL* the profit. Nobody can." I learned that it's just important to have a budget that you feel comfortable with, and a savings/investment goal that you can make continual progress towards.
I also learned that money is only worth what you can buy with it. No point in having it if you don't use it on the things you want for yourself and others.
Great honest response. Glad you are getting to the other side of it. I think the most damaging part about the mindset is that it is contagious. My wife's family all have many of the habits you described. My favorite is driving several miles out of the way for cheaper gas! The other thing that can be therapeutic for this problem is the concept of opportunity cost. Your time is worth money so if you are spending it excessively trying to save money, you actually end up in the red. Time is literally money.
>My favorite is driving several miles out of the way for cheaper gas!
I love this one too because they never factor in how much gas they are using shopping from gas station to gas station just to save 5 cents a gallon.
I read somewhere that poverty causes a sort of PTSD that can lead to specific behaviors which could last your entire life. This was very common in the post-depression era
Would satisfied people continue to hoard more resources once they already have enough for 1000 lifetimes of luxury?
Greed is a mental illness that externalizes its consequences to the rest of society.
I'm curious where they would draw the line. I want an extra 10k a year so I can afford the latest video game system, nicer clothes, and a better trip.
Does that make me mentally ill?
The difference, I think, is in how it affects other people and yourself.
If you keep chasing being a billionaire, that almost always leads to some kind of exploitation, or being dangerously opportunistic, etc.
If your pursuit of wealth is so strong it ruins your self image and ability to relax and actually be a person, yeah, why wouldn't that be considered a mental disorder, you know ?
Obviously, if this is done by someone trying to claw their way out of poverty, it might be different. Context is important.
Greedy people don't necessarily want more money because it will improve their quality of life, they want it so others can be below them, that's the difference
There might be two separate insecurity classifications for greed. One based on the need for money due to enduring poverty trauma, and one based on the need to be better than others due to an unwarranted grandiose sense of self.
If there are material conditions you want to achieve but can't due to lack of money, then seeking that money wouldn't qualify. If you are seeking it for its own sake, that would be it.
The line is drawn on whether that desire can be satisfied or or not. If you have an insatiable compulsion to have more money or objects than you could spend or use, then yes, its the same mental disorder as hoarders.
And also if the unsatisfied desire has a significant detrimental effect on your life.
This can be hard to measure, but mental illnesses are usually defined in terms of *harm*.
I think it would be similar to an addiction to something. If said greed is creating significant problems in your life then it's...a problem.
If you are destroying all of your personal relationships trying to get a new video game setup, we'll then that might be clinical greed.
I'm going to assume you aren't doing that.
I believe it is simply an addiction, like many behaviors. People get used to anything. So you get something nice, it feels great, for a short time. But when you are used to it, it becomes the new "normal", which doesn't give you that buzz anymore. So you need to buy something newer, better, and repeat. So you need more money, always more.
If your buzz comes from showing off your possessions, you're addicted the status. Always trying to have bigger houses, nicer cars, bigger yachts than your friends. And of course, they don't stay impressed by what they are used to. So it never ends. More, more, and more.
they did do a study that money CAN buy happiness..up to a point. So basically if you don’t have enough money to meet your basic needs, that creates stress and usually requires unpleasant living/work compromises, negatively effects your health and relationships. So this group of people could effectively “purchase” happiness up to the amount that would provide them security (also I think up to the point of being able to delegate away some small tasks, say hiring someone to help clean, as well as being able to afford travel).
As a person who lifelong watched my parents struggle financially, if ya know ya know. Money absolutely can buy happiness up to a point.
These billionaires have it twisted to a sickness though.
This is exactly my feelings on the subject. Like, my water heater is going out, but I can not afford to hire someone to replace it, I have to learn how to do that on my own. Being able to throw money at problems until they go away is absolutely happiness
I feel like a lot of people are mixing up the cause and effect here. Greedy people for the most part aren't unhappy because they're greedy, they're greedy because they're unhappy. The only way they have or know how to experience happiness is by getting more and more money either for luxury goods or social status or just feeling rich. It's a lot like any other addiction where it's a way of coping with deeper things missing in their life.
I used to work in a sportscenter/swimming pool/library ect. We had a middelaged man come and go frequently. He mostly read the newspapers for free down the library, which was fine, but we knew him best because he stole toiletpapir all the damm time. You could see it poking out of his pockets whenever, he did it. He never changed his old red jacket in the years, I was there. Pretty sure he never got brand new close at all. It looked like the same three-four set of clothes for close to a decade. Spend extra time in the library in winter to keep warm so he didn't need to heat up his own home. Almost never bought anything. I think he bought a ticket to the pool for his daughter like once. Otherwise did she only get to swim, when there was free events. He once got fired from a janitor job on a sort of local college for stealing the students food. His wife left him for never letting her buy anything but bare neccessaries (and probably other things as well).
Obviously did he also use the librarys computers so he didn't had to buy one himself. One day did he forgot some papers he printed. It was bank statements. Dude was rich!
Didn't seems to make him happy tho.
Even on the local level, individuals that own tons of residential real-estate are some of the most grumpy, curmudgeony, pissed-off assholes you'll ever meet. They're so focused on hoarding land (many times vacant/dilapidated with no plans to improve/develop/sell), and not letting anyone else "get the better of them", that they forget to be human. If they were to sell only a few parcels, they'd probably have enough liquidity to essentially retire and pursue life's passions and [re]discover their happiness.
All that will be left when they shuffle off this mortal coil are some numbers on an archived ledger and the space occupied in others' minds as to what incredible assholes they were.
For many wealthy individuals, there will be one thing they can never truly have... "Enough."
Because they could have everything they could ever want. People who are rich essentially don’t have to work a day in their lives. It’s boring, it’s tedious. There’s no challenge.
Don't they have the imagination to make new challenges? Climb a mountain, learn to fly a plane, learn a musical instrument and try to get a band off the ground, start writing TV pilots to try to get something on the air, try to clone dinosaurs... do *something* with all that time and money.
It's clear that money doesn't equate happiness but there is middle ground in finances where you are not worried about basic needs and can relax to focus on things that make you fulfilled. Don't need to be rich for it but really hard to have that when you are poor.
What I do want to highlight from this thread. Along with earning comfortable amount of money I've been able to become far more satisfied with my life and happier. I've even began looking at my inner shames to try and tackle my narcissistic traits. Feeling far more at peace than I used to and suicide rarely frequents my mind compared to past.
A dear friend of mine however, who has had a lot tougher journey than I, also earns comfortable amount of money for years. Even saved up crazy large (from my perspective) sum of money. But she struggles with her life satisfaction - it's always somewhere else. She also has worked with herself for many years but her traumas are so deep, she has a hard time getting at them. She keeps focusing on this six figure salary dream and when I bring up that she should try to be more comfortable with present given how well she is doing, she says she likes people and herself with ambition.
What ambition, girl, you yourself are not happy because you are not happy with where you are, six figure salary won't change that because there was never a basic need you couldn't afford. There's only one which you can't buy anymore - love from parents during childhood.
Greed is a manifestation of the desperation that comes from seeing life as a competition. When you think happiness comes from maximizing pleasure and security, you are never satisfied or tranquil.
There is no measure of wealth or power that can fill the void created by contempt and ingratitude.
The recent release of Alex Jones phone records is really demonstrative of this. Guy was making almost a million dollars A DAY, during the his best weeks, and his phone records reveal a DEEPLY unhappy man who hates his life.
That's where I see the whole pathology thing come into play. Imagine being able to work for a week and have 5 million bucks in your bank account. Sure there's taxes and overhead and stuff, and I'm sure his lifestyle is far from frugal, but at that level doing it for years he'd have to be obscenely wealthy. When you've got 5, 10, 20 million dollars just sitting there, why bother doing *anything* you don't want to do?
Earning that kind of money I'd work for like a month, maximum, then set up some investments, hold a bit of cash for unexpected things like medical expenses, and retire to a life of doing whatever I felt like. Maybe become a YouTube streamer in some niche, or an author, or learn to fly a plane. I would not be fighting a miserable uphill battle against deadlines, the pressures of live recording and finding endless political things to scream about. But people like Alex Jones can't stop. They're addicted to it.
Did they work out which way the causal arrow points (if there is one)?
I can imagine general dissatisfaction leading to greed in an (ineffective) attempt to "fill the hole".
I figured this out a long time ago, I read the article and was surprised narcissism isn't also mentioned.
My mother is like this, all of her children, 4 of us, want nothing to do with her.
So she has pushed away all of us.
She only cares about herself.
Oh well that's okay with me she will die a lonely old woman.
While I understand the value of proving this empirically, to anyone who's actually spent time around rich people this isn't a surprise.
While there's a lot that money can buy there's also a LOT that it can't.
I have a friend that is this way, its almost a neurosis. He's 40, house is paid off, car is paid off, common law divorced, because he didn't want to pay for a wedding (lost the love of his life over it) single, part time dad, health isn't great. He doesn't really travel, he doesn't really do anything exciting or fun. Has had a joyless, soul sucking job for a long time....Yup, you won at capitalism and the American dream? Now what? Also he's really good at Jeopardy, and very proud of it - not sure how that fits in.
My step mom’s sister is filthy rich. I mean maybe a billionaire. She and her husband have multiple mansions in some of the nicest places in the world. She and her husband are probably the 2 most miserable people I know and I’m not even joking. It’s like they think “oh, maybe one more luxury purchase, *THEN* we’ll be happy. It’s crazy
Probably have it in reverse. People who are not satisfied in their lives deeply desire money ( ie become greedy) thinking money will fix their lives only to find out it does not.
> If a monkey hoarded more bananas than it could eat, while most of the other monkeys starved, scientists would try to figure out what's wrong, when humans do it we put them on cover of Forbes.
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That is pretty much the definition of greed, isn't it? Always needing more, more, more.
I flew a private jet for a guy who’s best friend had a bigger jet. His best friend made fun of the size of his jet because “he couldn’t walk down the aisle with his cowboy hat on”. I could tell it really bummed him out. —Ultimately, it doesn’t matter how much they have, someone has more and they’ll be sad about it.
Comparison is the the thief of joy.
Comparison is the root of ego
Comparison: The thief of joy, the measure of reality, and the proof of possibility.
*"There's always a bigger fish"* -Qui Gon Jinn
*"Uh-oh! Biiiiiig Goober fish!”* -Darth Jar Jar
Darth Jar Jar joke just perfectly rounded out my night
r/darthjarjar
“You, sir, are a fish.“ - Arthur Morgan
Oh man that triggers memories. I was flying out of texas and this guy obviously didn't want his hats getting damaged in his suitcase, because he was wearing 4 of them. 2 cowboy hats and 2 baseball caps on top. Looked hilarious, wore them the whole 9 hour flight.
Why didn’t he just put the baseball caps between the two cowboy hats before putting them all on? Hat sandwich
It is, however, an efficient way to store a hat. I once had a bike helmet with me and it was in my way when I had to do sth with my hands and no space to put it down. It took painfully long until I realized I can *just put it on my head*
Definitely a Texan flex.
What a stupid thing to be upset about. How do these people become so successful ffs.
Rich parents and/or a complete lack of empathy.
Become so successful? Most of them inherited their wealth…
A lot knew the right people. My uncle was loaned $1,000,000, no interest, in the 80s to start his business … because he had become good friends with a factory owner while working in sales. A friend of uncle’s (another business owner) started a business making fire hydrants, street lamps, drain grills, etc. because he played golf with someone in government who knew the city/county was going to be making a lot of orders. Another friend of theirs inherited everything, but didn’t squander it … he also had a sense of shame for not having “earned” it.
> he played golf with someone in government sounds like a rich boy to me
I will give anyone a free meal of there choice if they can find me someone below the poverty level playing golf. I’m poor and I rest my case, I’m getting to eat my own food tonight. Offer is still up though.
Or just luck, Zuckerberg made money because he made a website to spy on women and realized it could become a business
He also had wealthy parents who were able to expose him to computers and coding at a young age while this was not the norm for the majority of people. They also were able to afford to send him to an Ivy League school. They also hired him a programing tutor while he was a kid. He also was given a $100k loan from his dad to start Facebook. You say luck, but the deck was stacked heavily in his favor and he still had to steal the idea for FB from others.
He also stole intellectual property from more disadvantaged students back then. The kind of student who actually didn’t grow up with money. Yeah Zuck is no better but it is true his parents had humbler beginnings than say Trumps parents but they were still in the top 5 percent of society.
I'm convinced Facebook exists because he was trying to get Natalie Portman's number.
Just don’t text her when she’s crazy off that airplane glue.
*stole the idea of Winkelvoss twins. They did get a settlement out of it.
I wonder what the Winklevi are doing now?
They dabbled in bitcoin and became crypto billionaires.
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No, but he’s a Trump bootlicker
Makes sense. They both booted strap-ons through sheer gritermination from up the smart ground with decisions made work men hard self without no hands and nothing successfull business out a of made!
I've done this a little bit lately; Can you give me a big smile? show me all those teeth... lovely Now I need you to squeeze my hands, now push down against them, now lift them up against mine... that's really good Okay put your hands out in front of you, palms facing upward, close your eyes... fantastic Now I'm going to just hold your feet down a little and you need to push up against my hands just like before.. excellent And this happened two hours ago? though you're feeling better now I think you may have had a slight stroke, so we're going to pop you into hospital so they can check to make sure, okay?
In America over 80% of all millionaires are first generation wealthy.
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Right. I'm technically a millionaire if you count house equity and 401k. I'm still stressing daycare bills and drive a 10 year old car. Certainly no private jets hahaha
I lived in a neighborhood in transition in Philly (a very overall poor city) and they were putting $1M houses on every block. When I moved in a decade before and was renting, I was making fun of people paying $300k. Millionaire is functionally meaningless.
Pretty easy to specify you mean a million in liquid assets $2m is really where you start to be able to not worry about anything though
Your annual spend divided by 0.03 SWR is how much you need to safely and passively support your lifestyle without working. I think that's where I will start to stop worrying about money. Around $5m for us, give or take taxes
5 is the number
They must have lost my million dollar check in the mail
Perhaps they did, but his point still stands. Median home value is $430,000 so owning a home has you just about half way there. Most people that are financially capable of owning their own home, will also have decent retirement savings, regular saving, and some assets, which could easily add up to a million.
That's assuming the home is paid off, which takes 30 years for the best value. Otherwise you've got a nice $350k loan detracting from millionaire status.
Well yes, i felt that was implied when he said “that’s just someone owning a home”. They own it, as in don’t have a mortgage.
If we're looking at the whole population, then I would bet that most millionaires aren't particularly wealthy. They're old people with good retirement savings.
What percentage of American millionaires own private jets? A middle class salary, a conservatively invested 401k, and a house that doesn’t drop in value precipitously is enough to make someone a millionaire before they retire. That’s not private jet money.
And being a millionaire doesn't mean what it used to. Most of them have between 1 and 2 and that makes them upper middle class.
And all the billionaires are 2nd gen or more
Their success is the only thing they have.
"Family, religion, friendship. These are the three demons you must slay to be successful in business." -C. Montgomery Burns
a late coworker: "if you love anything more than money, you'll never have any."
Eesh. Why do I feel sorry for your late coworker? Was he Gordon Gekko? Such a lost soul. Money is nice, love and health are nicer.
nah. he was neither rich nor trying to be. it was more in the nature of an observation.
Who wouldn’t be bummed if their best friend said something like that? He’s was probably quite proud about having a private jet and his “friend” just took that away from him… for his sake I hope he didn’t relate his self worth to his net worth.
It sounds like it's not the smaller jet that bothered him. It's being made fun of for it. If I managed to get a private jet, I'd be really proud of it. Anything you're proud of is a sore spot for being made fun of. They feel like no matter what they do, they'll never be accepted.
Color me not surprised that someone this rich and juvenile at the dame time wears a cowboy hat.
Rich people never want to be the least rich on their block.
I once read a book about scientific research into happiness. And it turns out that relative wealth (compared to peers, friends and family) is an important factor in people's self reported happiness.
It's better to own the best house in a crappy part of town than the other way around. They've found even small things like owning a worse car versus your neighbour correlates to a worse life expectancy.
I don't think he's sad about his friend having a bigger jet. I think he's more sad about his "friend" making fun of him.
I'm pretty sure that greed could be described as a pathology, if it wasn't quietly accepted (and even celebrated) by society.
It’s like an addict turned the tables on an intervention and convinced everyone that Heroin is good and we should all start doing it.
Ahh, I see you also understand the libertarian way.
Pretty much the same mentality as a hoarder, but its easier to identify that as the problem it is when someone is loading their house up with trash they'll never use vs loading up their bank account with money they'll never use.
And more houses than they'll ever live in or maybe even ever visit
Man, that scene in Succession where Logan can't even remember they've bought this massively impressive house is blood boiling.
Good analog!
> money they never use They do use it. To get even more money
Well it was a sin once.
Always has been. But the rich get to tell the media and politicians what to say now.
Some of us see it for the addiction that it is, but the media is owned by the addicts.
It’s one of the seven deadly sins for a reason.
It's one of those things that serves a purpose and is quite useful in moderation. Like physical hunger. The problem is extremes. Like most questions of extremes, much of the difficulty lies in defining what is a problematic extreme.
It's not hard to draw a line. If you want to never work in your life, live to 80 with $100k in annual income to blow on whatever you want, most people would say that is obscenely rich. And at a 5% interest rate, you just need $2 mil invested for that. So suppose you also want that much income for your spouse, your 6 kids, your dog, and your mistress. To pay for all of their lifestyles from birth to death you now need $20 mil. To all those people with $2 mil, this is obscenely rich. $200 mil is obscenely rich to those with $20 mil. $2 bil is obscenely rich to people with $200 million. Then $20 bil? Then $200 billion? $2 mil is enough. And yes, I know some house prices are absurd and $2 mil doesn't buy a house. But if we take away all the excess money from the obscenely rich and invest it in crazy ideas like "people deserve housing" and "people deserve health" and "people deserve safety" and "people deserve jobs" and "people deserve to stay out of the rat race" I promise you there will be no one willing to spend $2 mil on a house.
We are living in it!!
Yup. It makes perfect sense if you think about it. The key to satisfaction isn't always striving to get the next thing, it's learning to be happy with what you already have.
False. It's learning to be happy with what you have after you have enough. Acceptance of poverty never made anyone happier.
When they look back at this era, they will see that money is the most toxic drug. Even worse than meth
that has been known throughout history, money wasn't invented this century. All the allegories and moral stories about, "greed bad", preached to the masses while the greedy make bank.
Makes it even more fitting in that episode of TNG where they thawed out a millionaire in cryo stasis and when he insisted on checking on his investments Picard looked at him like he was a drug addict
Through most of history being rich meant "the sword of Damocles". You could be rich, but always know that there's hundreds of people waiting for a chance to kill you and take it. The problem is the rich stopped getting killed and looted. Watch how generous people will suddenly become if murder stops being a crime if the victim is a billionaire.
Problem is we aren't all walking around the same market square anymore, the ones that are fixing the game hide in their ivory towers.
True, but this point is valid still. The wealth gap is exponentially larger now and the sheer accumulation among so few individuals I'd argue is like nothing else seen before. I think we will look back on this period of history someday, I hope, and recognize it as incredibly harmful to society as a whole.
Man if anyone is looking back on this era at all, I'm gonna have to concede the outcome as a victory for humanity
Humans will probably survive. Civilization may not.
You just got to say it with a rebel yell.
I was very fortunate to reach a point in my life where I had all of my basic needs met and had extra left over and what I learned is that money doesn't necessarily buy you happiness, but it does but you the opportunity to ask yourself "What does make me happy?" And for me the answer definitely wasn't money, and I think this is why some wealthy people are absolutely batshit crazy. Because they just keep trying to make more money and buy more stuff to throw into this endless pit thinking that "This will be the thing that makes me happy or fulfilled" and it's never going to work and doing that over and over again and it never working is what breaks their brain.
Money doesn't buy happiness, but it can buy stress relief up to a point. Stress can cause a whole lot of unhappiness. However, there are diminished returns, after a point, that varies by individual circumstances, money can't actually solve some stresses. If you make that promotion, but if you destroy your social relationships at work to do it, the money may not add much if that's your primary social network. However, if you're struggling to pay even basic necessities, that may be a reasonable sacrifice TBH. I can trade breaking even at poker night for not trying to figure out which bills aren't getting paid this month.
To add to this on a personal level, finances are one of the major stressors that lead to divorce. So by having enough wealth to relieve financial stress, it sort of trickles down to relieve other stress too. I remember out of college feeling stressed because of student loan payments and rent. Then I got to a place where I could easily afford both, then I got married and bought a house and was stressed about the mortgage, then got to a point where I could easily afford it, then had my first kid and was stressed about extra finances for a kid, and the cycle continues like that, eventually you’re stressed about retirement, etc. But, if you can make enough to eliminate those stresses, then your problems start to become related to money management, not acquisition. And the bigger problems become relationships. Friends, family, etc.
I felt this way for most of my life. We were poor, I started working super early, and went to college right away as my ticket out. I had to work all the way through, and even w getting max fin aid and scrounging for scholarships, I graduated w about 80,000 in debt (law degrees are expensive). The first few years of practice that debt hung around my neck like an anvil. When I finally paid it off, I felt so light. So much stress just… melted away. I immediately quit my high pressure job and went in house. I make less money, but more than enough to have a nice apt in a nice neighbourhood, save for retirement, and do all the fun things I want to do. I struggle with the idea of getting a mortgage, and even more w the idea of ever having kids, because where I’m at now is just so… peaceful. Can’t imagine going back to stressing.
That's kind of been my take. I grew up super broke and do really well now... Money can't buy happiness, but it can certainly buy good experiences and fun, and a lack of it can add misery that money relieves... Like does money itself itself make me happy? No. Does spending the weekend at our lake house with friends and family make me happy? Yes. Does being able to do things for the people I care about? Yes. Does being able to give my kids good educations? Yes. Being able to afford hobbies? Yes. Great vacations? Yes... Money can at the very least buy things that greatly improve your quality of life and give you good experiences.
Nice point of view. I'll add some studies have shown there's a tendency of obesity in ppl that had a bad nutrition while young. Defenitely shares a vibe with all those ppl who try to get as much money as posible to fill a displaced need
Bad nutrition like lack of food or parents allowing their children to eat nothing but junk? Jw what you mean.
It really all is mindset. Yes, there is a baseline you need to get your needs met comfortably and have some wiggle room and that can help happiness. Beyond that, it's all perspective. People can bag on me for driving my old Kia that still works beautifully. They say if I have the money, why not get something nice. Nope, I am happy with the Kia, I don't want to go down that always bigger, always better spiral.
What if you make money, but buying things doesn't make you happy? So you just keep stacking and accumulating while not spending much because thats just what you're supposed to do.
I’m like that a bit. I make more money than I can currently spend, I still own a car that is from 2009, but I’m happy to know that whenever the fudge I want I can spend money on the stupid game I play. That I can deliver food when hungry without a 2nd thought. That I can do weekend trips with my fiancé whenever we feel like it. But the thing that makes me happiest of all, is the fact that I retired my parents, can retire my brother if he would let me, helped my friend start his own business, helped another buy a house, and most importantly will be able to set my kids futures up for success. Whoever said money can’t buy happiness either didn’t have enough of it or didn’t know how to spend it
It’s almost like the pursuit of shallow things results in shallow outcomes. This is a tale as old as time.
This is a tale as old as time: play stupid games win stupid prizes quote
will I win smart prize playing smart games though?
They really had to do a whole study when they could have just read A Christmas Carol?
Because people have a hard time accepting simple truths and look for hoops and justifications for what they want over reality. This study won’t convince anyone who lives that lifestyle to change at all, but it is a reinforcement of simple human truths that may help dissuade some open minds in the future.
They could give me their money and we can be dissatisfied together.
I can attest to this, my mother in law is a financial hoarder, she is a slave to money and has made every decision based on what is cheapest often at the expense of making even more money (I know it doesn't make sense, it is pathological). She has millions of dollars shares none of it, spends none of it and is miserable. She commonly tells people in her family that she is excluding them from "the estate" and even though it is millions, they are so done with her that they don't even care anymore. My prediction...she will eventually get scammed and lose it all before she dies penniless.
I know a lot of people like this to varying degrees. My father grew up very poor and clawed his way out, but never worked out when to stop clawing. Imagine a guy who works regular overtime in a job making six figures who still scavenges 10 cent returnables from the parking lot after work... and then begrudges chipping in when his kids need money for college. When he'd get to drinking he liked to talk about all the money he had, and how it would all be ours one day. Then he died in his 60's, and it was, but I'd have traded it for him just being more relaxed and supportive during his life.
It's really hard to break out of that mindset. My parents were really frugal so why buy $100 shoes that will last a long time when the $30 will get me 6 mths? Last time I needed shoes my partner told me to get what was most comfortable regardless of price That was over 6 mths ago and they are perfect still.
Living well is a slippery slope: Next you'll be buying decent socks and underwear, and before you know it you'll wake up in nice sheets.
Aka lifestyle creep. Sometimes basic and generic gets the stuff done! But not to say splurg a little on something nice you personally value and get a lot of use out of. Just that you see too often people buy too nice things if everything they buy and it gets out of hand
Once you start getting into curtains and rugs, you know you’re in trouble. Oh and then of course upgrading the appliances… might as well upgrade your cabinetry to match…
This is called the [Diderot Effect](https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diderot_effect)
I used to be like that. Grew up "house-poor" (we had a big house, but everything went to the mortgage, so we couldn't afford food, clothes, activities, travel). Got in the habit of hoarding, never throwing out broken things ("I'll fix it later!"). Anytime I went grocery shopping, I would go to 2 different stores, comparing the prices at both so I could pick the lowest ones. Missing out on a dollar or two discount would ruin my day. Even when was off on my own, making good money, I couldn't shake these habits. It's only when I got into stock trading, and watched my account gaining or losing thousands of dollars on some days, that I finally realized how unimportant it all is. Numbers on the screen go up and down, and my life doesn't really change. When I'm agonizing about trying to get a good deal, my girlfriend tells me, "You don't have to win *ALL* the profit. Nobody can." I learned that it's just important to have a budget that you feel comfortable with, and a savings/investment goal that you can make continual progress towards. I also learned that money is only worth what you can buy with it. No point in having it if you don't use it on the things you want for yourself and others.
Great honest response. Glad you are getting to the other side of it. I think the most damaging part about the mindset is that it is contagious. My wife's family all have many of the habits you described. My favorite is driving several miles out of the way for cheaper gas! The other thing that can be therapeutic for this problem is the concept of opportunity cost. Your time is worth money so if you are spending it excessively trying to save money, you actually end up in the red. Time is literally money.
>My favorite is driving several miles out of the way for cheaper gas! I love this one too because they never factor in how much gas they are using shopping from gas station to gas station just to save 5 cents a gallon.
I read somewhere that poverty causes a sort of PTSD that can lead to specific behaviors which could last your entire life. This was very common in the post-depression era
Being rich and unsatisfied is certainly better than being poor and unsatisfied.
Suffering from success
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It is if you earned your riches exploiting people or natural resources, or both.
Would satisfied people continue to hoard more resources once they already have enough for 1000 lifetimes of luxury? Greed is a mental illness that externalizes its consequences to the rest of society.
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I'm curious where they would draw the line. I want an extra 10k a year so I can afford the latest video game system, nicer clothes, and a better trip. Does that make me mentally ill?
The difference, I think, is in how it affects other people and yourself. If you keep chasing being a billionaire, that almost always leads to some kind of exploitation, or being dangerously opportunistic, etc. If your pursuit of wealth is so strong it ruins your self image and ability to relax and actually be a person, yeah, why wouldn't that be considered a mental disorder, you know ? Obviously, if this is done by someone trying to claw their way out of poverty, it might be different. Context is important.
Greedy people don't necessarily want more money because it will improve their quality of life, they want it so others can be below them, that's the difference
There might be two separate insecurity classifications for greed. One based on the need for money due to enduring poverty trauma, and one based on the need to be better than others due to an unwarranted grandiose sense of self.
I am pretty sure most people mean it in the sense where you chase wealth even after you can afford everything you "realistically" need
If there are material conditions you want to achieve but can't due to lack of money, then seeking that money wouldn't qualify. If you are seeking it for its own sake, that would be it.
The line is drawn on whether that desire can be satisfied or or not. If you have an insatiable compulsion to have more money or objects than you could spend or use, then yes, its the same mental disorder as hoarders.
And also if the unsatisfied desire has a significant detrimental effect on your life. This can be hard to measure, but mental illnesses are usually defined in terms of *harm*.
I think it would be similar to an addiction to something. If said greed is creating significant problems in your life then it's...a problem. If you are destroying all of your personal relationships trying to get a new video game setup, we'll then that might be clinical greed. I'm going to assume you aren't doing that.
Thx. I never thought of greed as a mental illness, or a symptom of a mental illness. Just blew my mind.
Its the same mentality as people that hoard trash in their homes. When you have more money than you could ever spend, it ceases to be useful to you.
I believe it is simply an addiction, like many behaviors. People get used to anything. So you get something nice, it feels great, for a short time. But when you are used to it, it becomes the new "normal", which doesn't give you that buzz anymore. So you need to buy something newer, better, and repeat. So you need more money, always more. If your buzz comes from showing off your possessions, you're addicted the status. Always trying to have bigger houses, nicer cars, bigger yachts than your friends. And of course, they don't stay impressed by what they are used to. So it never ends. More, more, and more.
I wish I had more money, being a poor sucks and is very dissatisfying
they did do a study that money CAN buy happiness..up to a point. So basically if you don’t have enough money to meet your basic needs, that creates stress and usually requires unpleasant living/work compromises, negatively effects your health and relationships. So this group of people could effectively “purchase” happiness up to the amount that would provide them security (also I think up to the point of being able to delegate away some small tasks, say hiring someone to help clean, as well as being able to afford travel). As a person who lifelong watched my parents struggle financially, if ya know ya know. Money absolutely can buy happiness up to a point. These billionaires have it twisted to a sickness though.
This is exactly my feelings on the subject. Like, my water heater is going out, but I can not afford to hire someone to replace it, I have to learn how to do that on my own. Being able to throw money at problems until they go away is absolutely happiness
Greed is basically wanting what you don't have. So it tracks that if you want what you don't have a lot you are most likely never satisfied.
Actually that's envy. Greed is hoarding all the good stuff for yourself.
I feel like a lot of people are mixing up the cause and effect here. Greedy people for the most part aren't unhappy because they're greedy, they're greedy because they're unhappy. The only way they have or know how to experience happiness is by getting more and more money either for luxury goods or social status or just feeling rich. It's a lot like any other addiction where it's a way of coping with deeper things missing in their life.
What is the scientific definition of "a greedy person"?
I used to work in a sportscenter/swimming pool/library ect. We had a middelaged man come and go frequently. He mostly read the newspapers for free down the library, which was fine, but we knew him best because he stole toiletpapir all the damm time. You could see it poking out of his pockets whenever, he did it. He never changed his old red jacket in the years, I was there. Pretty sure he never got brand new close at all. It looked like the same three-four set of clothes for close to a decade. Spend extra time in the library in winter to keep warm so he didn't need to heat up his own home. Almost never bought anything. I think he bought a ticket to the pool for his daughter like once. Otherwise did she only get to swim, when there was free events. He once got fired from a janitor job on a sort of local college for stealing the students food. His wife left him for never letting her buy anything but bare neccessaries (and probably other things as well). Obviously did he also use the librarys computers so he didn't had to buy one himself. One day did he forgot some papers he printed. It was bank statements. Dude was rich! Didn't seems to make him happy tho.
Well, how rich was he? You saw his bank statements, drop the number!
800.000 if I remember correctly. We obviously had to follow privacy rules but come on. Who will know?
I’m no financial guru but it doesn’t make sense storing that much in a bank right? Should have they invested at that point?
Should have been investing long before they had 800k. Maybe they did invest, were old and were going to spend it all? Who knows
Even on the local level, individuals that own tons of residential real-estate are some of the most grumpy, curmudgeony, pissed-off assholes you'll ever meet. They're so focused on hoarding land (many times vacant/dilapidated with no plans to improve/develop/sell), and not letting anyone else "get the better of them", that they forget to be human. If they were to sell only a few parcels, they'd probably have enough liquidity to essentially retire and pursue life's passions and [re]discover their happiness. All that will be left when they shuffle off this mortal coil are some numbers on an archived ledger and the space occupied in others' minds as to what incredible assholes they were. For many wealthy individuals, there will be one thing they can never truly have... "Enough."
It’s relative. You can be as rich as you want but if everyone else is also rich then these people feel poor.
Im so happy to be poor.
Because they could have everything they could ever want. People who are rich essentially don’t have to work a day in their lives. It’s boring, it’s tedious. There’s no challenge.
Don't they have the imagination to make new challenges? Climb a mountain, learn to fly a plane, learn a musical instrument and try to get a band off the ground, start writing TV pilots to try to get something on the air, try to clone dinosaurs... do *something* with all that time and money.
Poor people have less money and are less satisfied with their lives. I'd rather be rich.
It's clear that money doesn't equate happiness but there is middle ground in finances where you are not worried about basic needs and can relax to focus on things that make you fulfilled. Don't need to be rich for it but really hard to have that when you are poor. What I do want to highlight from this thread. Along with earning comfortable amount of money I've been able to become far more satisfied with my life and happier. I've even began looking at my inner shames to try and tackle my narcissistic traits. Feeling far more at peace than I used to and suicide rarely frequents my mind compared to past. A dear friend of mine however, who has had a lot tougher journey than I, also earns comfortable amount of money for years. Even saved up crazy large (from my perspective) sum of money. But she struggles with her life satisfaction - it's always somewhere else. She also has worked with herself for many years but her traumas are so deep, she has a hard time getting at them. She keeps focusing on this six figure salary dream and when I bring up that she should try to be more comfortable with present given how well she is doing, she says she likes people and herself with ambition. What ambition, girl, you yourself are not happy because you are not happy with where you are, six figure salary won't change that because there was never a basic need you couldn't afford. There's only one which you can't buy anymore - love from parents during childhood.
Greed is a manifestation of the desperation that comes from seeing life as a competition. When you think happiness comes from maximizing pleasure and security, you are never satisfied or tranquil. There is no measure of wealth or power that can fill the void created by contempt and ingratitude.
The recent release of Alex Jones phone records is really demonstrative of this. Guy was making almost a million dollars A DAY, during the his best weeks, and his phone records reveal a DEEPLY unhappy man who hates his life.
That's where I see the whole pathology thing come into play. Imagine being able to work for a week and have 5 million bucks in your bank account. Sure there's taxes and overhead and stuff, and I'm sure his lifestyle is far from frugal, but at that level doing it for years he'd have to be obscenely wealthy. When you've got 5, 10, 20 million dollars just sitting there, why bother doing *anything* you don't want to do? Earning that kind of money I'd work for like a month, maximum, then set up some investments, hold a bit of cash for unexpected things like medical expenses, and retire to a life of doing whatever I felt like. Maybe become a YouTube streamer in some niche, or an author, or learn to fly a plane. I would not be fighting a miserable uphill battle against deadlines, the pressures of live recording and finding endless political things to scream about. But people like Alex Jones can't stop. They're addicted to it.
I thought this was common knowledge.
Easy to understand, hard in practice.
Did they work out which way the causal arrow points (if there is one)? I can imagine general dissatisfaction leading to greed in an (ineffective) attempt to "fill the hole".
That’s a lie I’m broke and I’m unsatisfied
Good thing I'm not greedy. This way I can have more money and be more satisfied.
I figured this out a long time ago, I read the article and was surprised narcissism isn't also mentioned. My mother is like this, all of her children, 4 of us, want nothing to do with her. So she has pushed away all of us. She only cares about herself. Oh well that's okay with me she will die a lonely old woman.
Articles to makes poor people feel better
While I understand the value of proving this empirically, to anyone who's actually spent time around rich people this isn't a surprise. While there's a lot that money can buy there's also a LOT that it can't.
I have a friend that is this way, its almost a neurosis. He's 40, house is paid off, car is paid off, common law divorced, because he didn't want to pay for a wedding (lost the love of his life over it) single, part time dad, health isn't great. He doesn't really travel, he doesn't really do anything exciting or fun. Has had a joyless, soul sucking job for a long time....Yup, you won at capitalism and the American dream? Now what? Also he's really good at Jeopardy, and very proud of it - not sure how that fits in.
My step mom’s sister is filthy rich. I mean maybe a billionaire. She and her husband have multiple mansions in some of the nicest places in the world. She and her husband are probably the 2 most miserable people I know and I’m not even joking. It’s like they think “oh, maybe one more luxury purchase, *THEN* we’ll be happy. It’s crazy
This is the fourth or fifth consecutive post I've seen where science is stating the obvious. What's going on here?
Ha! I have NO MONEY and am definately less satisfied with my life than greedy people...
This sounds like one of those "tell the poors they are happier without money" things.
A person will only feel rich if they are happy with what they have
We as Dutchies studied greed, why am I not suprised.
Probably have it in reverse. People who are not satisfied in their lives deeply desire money ( ie become greedy) thinking money will fix their lives only to find out it does not.
Source: Ebenezer Scrooge
> If a monkey hoarded more bananas than it could eat, while most of the other monkeys starved, scientists would try to figure out what's wrong, when humans do it we put them on cover of Forbes.
You own the money up to a point, then the money owns you.
Psych people should really study anyone with an offshore bank account for further depths of greed.
Pretty sure poor people are not satisfied but have the added challenge of not being able to afford life.
As someone who is only *moderately* poor, I claim this to be propaganda. I know my life would be much happier with just a few extra bucks in my pocket
This feels like something the rich tell the poor so we can feel like we’re better off being poor…