If I allowed myself to, I could feel resentment about a few people who have so much money, yet try so hard not to share any of it.
Let's begin with the fantasy that in 1492 Columbus became the first to discover America. Indigenous Native Americans had already lived here for at least fifteen thousand years.
If you made (and kept) $5,000 every day since then, you would have less than a billion dollars today.
MATH:
Year 1492 until year 2020 = 528 years
528 years times 365 days per year = 192,720 days
192,720 day times $5,000 each day = $963,600,000 (nine hundred sixty three million, six hundred thousand dollars)
That is SHORT of a billion dollars by $36,400,000 (thirty six million, four hundred thousand dollars)
That’s how big a sum one billion dollars is . . . .
When I took the "rich homes on the water" tour in. Ft Lauderdale...I came to a shocking realization; those rich folk were more stressed out...more just "not well" or "not happy" people than you ordinary folk.
Lots of "smokers". Lots of people "embarrassed" that "ordinary folk" were touring to "look at them".
I came to the realization that being rich is the result of an "addiction" to greed - and those "addicts" were not happy people.
Now greed isn't a bad addiction. Nothing to snort, smoke, nor shoot. Clever greed addicts don't even have to use their own money. Your family loves the greed addiction, but fear/loath the drug addiction.
But it is an addiction. You do suffer "withdrawal symptoms" if you're suddenly "without" your fix of cash flow.
So I've learned not to count to a billion, nor envy billionaires...or even millionaires.
They're suffering.
Very insightful assessment!
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Sorry ... it should be worded it like this:
"Let's begin with the fantasy that in 1492 Columbus became the first to discover America. Indigenous Native Americans already had lived in the Americas for at least fifteen thousand years."
I'm told that billionaires don't think of their fortune as additive, like adding $5,000 a day to increase their fortune. If they think of their dollar amount at all it's apparently more in terms of zeros. But what gives them most satisfaction is the game of accumulating more and more hand over fist, like a game of Monopoly but with real money. Even if they lose most of their fortune in the coronavirus panic, in their own heads they will still be more important than normal people because the gap in status is still there. Look at the overwhelming hubris of Bloomberg -- blowing at least half a billion dollars on a pointless exercise, and he won't even miss it because the game amused him for a while.
I agree that the playing a game is probably how billionaires think about their outrageous wealth.
@AnonySchmoose Then it is up to society/government to ensure that assets are more evenly distributed.
The French had a revolution in 1789 in part because of the greed of the Monarchy and disparity between those in the wealthy class and the poor.
Could we do that if the gap in wealth ownership continues to grow and our Democratic Republic becomes a monarchy - a place that it seems to be headed
Don't count on society to do anything about it soon. (We could do it if the half of the people eligible to vote who don't vote - would vote). We know, that as long as the majority of people being elected believe in unregulated free market capitalism and convince their constituents that wealth will trickle down to them someday, they will not change the way they rig the system, (Tax Cuts & Jobs Act).
I hear billionaires has a saying, "He who dies with the most toys wins"
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