I’m not afflicted with wealth envy, because I’m not a Communist. I do get upset, however, when the rich leverage their wealth to become still richer (as opposed to creating more wealth through productivity), or when people such as the late Senator Harry Reid become wealthy by abuse of their position, or by fraud (like this asshole, this asshole and this tart).
I’m also not envious of people who become rich by pure luck: lottery winners, or people like the Sultan of Brunei, whose country just happens to be sitting on an ocean of oil and natural gas — and who went and created a $5 billion (with-a-B) collection of cars, supercars, bespoke supercars and so on, as discussed here. I’m not upset that most of the cars have never been driven, or that they’re falling apart and becoming unrecoverable. Rich people do stupid shit, and that’s the way of the world.
As is the case with people who spend over $100 million to own apartments in New Yawk fucking City that they’ll never visit.
The difference between them and the idiotic Sultan is that their spending is an investment, whereas the Sultan’s spending is just money thrown away, as befits so much of this kind of thing in the Third World. The latter is similar to inheriting ten million bucks from Aunt Ethel, spending $1,000 on handmade chocolate bars, and never eating any of them. That kind of spending is actually symptomatic of a psychological defect — but still, I don’t care.
The point about those real estate buyers is that if the real estate market crashes, and it will, the value of their investment will plummet — and they still won’t care too much, because they have that much money. And remember the truism: in five generations (or less), all fortunes, no matter how vast, are dissipated.
Which brings me back to my opening statement: I really don’t care how much money people have, nor how it’s spent.
What does get up my nose is when governments do the same kind of thing as the Sultan of Brunei does: only with our money and not their own.
I don’t care about them being rich although I disdain people who inherited wealth. But too many of them seem to think that their wealth lets them tell me how to live. And that seems to be most of them, especially among the tech and finance oligarchs. For this reason, I stay neutral when the commies try to expropriate them and try to come up with ideas to break their power.
Along this vein, I’m vastly less annoyed at the notion of the rich entering politics than politicians becoming rich selling favors.
wealth flees from the imbeciles or completely eludes them.
You’re absolutely right about government. Government using tax payer money to be an investment firm is against good government and utterly wrong. Too bad politicians think of taxpayer money as their endless slush fund.
JQ
I agree with you about generational wealth. The normal progression is that the first generation creates the foundations of wealth, The 2nd generation builds it, the third generations enjoy it. and by the time it gets to the fourth and fifth generation it’s been so diluted, Taxed and used up it’s no longer big numbers.
Now about those $100 million apartments in NYC. It’s all hype and marketing. That’s “Greater Fool Pricing”, every now and again there’s a greater fool ( or Sultan ) who might actually pay that much, but most of the time it will sit empty. or be rented out for some movie or TV show. There are enough people who will pay $20 million for properties.
Now what’s this real estate crash of which you speak?? Do you mean every 20 years or so when real estate goes on sale for 25 – 30% off? Those are buying opportunities, just don’t sell at that time.
But what annoys me the most the most is when politicians speak about how are we going to PAY FOR A TAX CUT. No, a tax cut is when you don’t take from me as much as you did before. It’s not your money, it’s mine.
It’s about 20 years since I visited Brunei. I had a short stay at the Empire – https://theempirebrunei.com/ – and it was utter luxury. Judging by the current website it hasn’t changed much. It is one of Prince Jeffrey’s indulgences. Never have I seen so much marble. The beds were huge – just about large enough for a man to sleep with all of his four wives in the same bed. You need to have a room on the 4th floor or above so you can see over the palm trees.
With regards to the value of real estate, if the value crashes you still have the land. And they’re not making any more of that.
I honestly don’t give a right royal rat’s rump how rich anybody is or what they buy with their money, just so long as they do not disturb me or use it to influence public policy that will steal from me or diminish my rights. Wanna built a 30,000 square foot mansion behind my back yard? Great. If it’s fugly (as it undoubtedly will be) I’ll just landscape my own property such that I don’t have to look at it. But I’ll put up a fight if you start throwing wild parties or revving you expensive cars or motorcycle at all hours of the day and night.
While it would please me to no end to see some filthy rich conservatives use their wealth to buy up media outlets and convert them to anti-communist political outlets, it’s not my place to tell anybody what to do with their money, whether earned or inherited. Just leave me live my life in peace and don’t step on my right to enjoy the few small hedonistic pleasures I enjoy.
Buying up Propaganda Press outlets and converting them to telling the truth would be a profitable investment opportunity.
If I were ever to find myself rich (not much chance for that at this point,) I would not want people to advise me what to do with it. I suppose that the currently rich wouldn’t care for me telling them what to do with their money, either.
If you worked hard and honestly to earn that money, good for you. Pay your taxes if you owe them. Give to charity should you choose, but only because you choose, not because anyone tells you to. Keep your wits about you where money is concerned and remember all the things you can do with it before you start spending it on politics.
Alas, you HAVE to spend some of it on politics. Purely in self-defense.
Every tax dollar is extracted with the threat of force.
Every tax dollar is put to arbitrary uses over which the previous owner of that dollar has no control.
Taxation…is quite simply theft.
The power to tax is the power to destroy, and the power to enslave.
More accurately, taxation is armed robbery.
I guess what makes the Sultan happy is buying cars, not actually driving them. More power to him, maybe some will change hands some day if they haven’t rusted or rotted in Brunei’s sunny clime.
How many nice things can one enjoy? I can understand owning something that interests you, to hold in your own hands, like a nice gun for example. I would argue that you don’t have to use every gun you own in a gun collection to enjoy having the darned things. I would never consider myself a collector, I am just an accumulator of guns that interest me. The Sultan seems to do this as well, but on a much larger scale.