
A Look at the Ugly Side of Getting Rich - thisisit
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-04-19/a-look-at-the-ugly-side-of-getting-rich
======
justboxing
> In another, Imelda Marcos, the former first lady of the Philippines accused
> of stealing billions from state coffers, sits in her Manila apartment
> beneath a gold-framed Picasso

Everytime I read something like this, I feel ill.

What drives human beings to this level of greed and excess? Is there some
primitive or primate instinct in all of us? Meanwhile, the beggar children in
India don't even have a shirt on their back. True story: When I went back to
India for the very 1st time after coming to America, I saw a shirtless kid on
a train station begging for food. I opened my suitcase and gave him 1 of my
oversized (for him) shirt. The look on his face was priceless.

What drives so many people throughout history over 100s of years to hoard
stuff and waste (mostly) ill-acquired wealth?? Is there something in-grained
in us, that we can't resist it??

Still searching for an explanation.

~~~
self-diversity
What in particular makes you feel ill about this? What is the strong emotion
that affects you so upon reading of the wealth of a person you will never
meet?

Normally when people say this, their tone makes it evident they are envious,
but that's missing here and I'm curious.

~~~
justboxing
I'm not envious. I want to understand why such wealthy people wouldn't spend
the money improving the lives of other human beings, and instead waste it on
overprices sh*t like a $12,000 Hermes bag.

I grew up in India and the wealth disparity couldn't be any starker. I feel
that if I was ever that wealthy, I would spend a lot of it trying to improve
the lives of poor people and homeless people, instead of buying 4000 shoes or
a 100 Hermes bags.

I know from close contact with Filipino Boxers, how broke and poor a large
population of their country is. Meanwhile their President is stealing from her
people and hoarding 4000+ shoes, when she can only wear 1 pair at a time :)

So I really want to know, is there some very primate (and hence hard to
control) instinct in all human beings, which causes them to hoard useless
stuff instead of using their wealth for 'greater causes'?

~~~
ispolin
One way to answer that might be to look inside ourselves.

Take me for example. I indulge myself with books, songs, apps, etc. Granted,
it's on a completely different financial scale than Hermes bags, but I own
more things than I can realistically consume. So let's call whatever I buy but
can't consume "excess".

Whatever instinct causes me to buy stuff in excess instead of using that
excess to help the poor more than I currently do is likely the same instinct
that causes the rich to buy 4000 shoes and 100 Hermes bags instead of helping
the poor more.

I don't introspect enough to know what that instinct is, but most of us here
probably have similar very minor excesses in our lives and can get some clues
by thinking about those.

------
Banthum
I really wish people would stop using the term "1%" to refer to the super-
rich. They're actually talking about the 0.01%, or an even smaller group.

Heck, anyone making $30k/year is in the 1% globally. Even in the West, a good
(not superstar) doctor or lawyer can expect to be in the 1%. If you're buying
$300k handbags, you're way, way, way beyond the 1%.

II

Documentary works like this, mixing avaricious fascination with super-wealth
as well as the morally-delicious feeling of superiority, always put me off a
bit. It's sort of like the inverse of watching Hoarders - you get to be
horrified and fascinated and feel superior at the same time.

"How could someone live like this?" you get to say. "I would never..." you get
to say.

(Not saying that this photographer had that intention, specifically - I'm more
commenting on the audience than the photog).

People are people; wealth is wealth; most people would act in these ways if
they could.

And from the point of view of a kid starving in Delhi slums, your Prius looks
a lot like Imelda Marcos' gold-framed Picasso.

That said... I'm looking at these photos with interest :)

~~~
tekjsraske
I wish people would stop using the "1%" as a global entity. When people refer
to the "1%" it is understood implicitly that they are referring to the 1% of
the wealthiest individuals in the western world. By referring to the "1%" in
the way you do, you demean people who struggle daily making 8 bucks an hour
because "chin up, you're in the 1% hehe".

You think you're doing some good by making this argument, but really you're
hurting more people than you understand.

~~~
magic_beans
> When people refer to the "1%" it is understood implicitly that they are
> referring to the 1% of the wealthiest individuals in the western world.

The people making minimum wage in the western world are, by your own
definition, NOT in the 1%. They are very much NOT among the wealthiest
individuals in the western world. It's not demeaning at all.

------
Mendenhall
I think part of the problem is how often people idolize the rich just for
being rich and not for what sort of person they are, it enables them.

Money doesnt impress me, good people impress me.

~~~
charlesdm
And there are plenty of good people with money, and without.

------
pilom
> Money doesn't make you happy. It makes you unhappy in a better part of town.

Great quote!

~~~
homulilly
It's something only the fabulously wealthy can say. For almost everyone else,
even if money doesn't directly make you happier, it removes the vast majority
of barriers to attaining happiness (though clearly not all of them). I know
I'm much happier now that I make six figures and don't have to worry as much
about medical bills, rent, food and so on and have disposable income to direct
into new hobbies I couldn't have afforded before (fishkeeping and hydroponics
in my case).

~~~
fulafel
Most places in western countries provide citizens medical and food/shelter
security without being wealthy.

~~~
tsunamifury
Except the largest Western nation in the world...

------
MR4D
Bloomberg should retitle this article "The Ugly Side of Greed". But then we
never would have read it. ;)

The people portrayed here are on the extreme end of greed & materialism.

I once worked with an almost-billionaire family. If you ran into them in a
restaurant, you would never know. They were out of the mold of Sam Walton. Ok,
they drove Cadillacs, but Cadillacs with well over 100,000 miles on them. The
rest of their vehicles were Chevy Tahoes or Ford pickups.

Further, there are tons of millionaires who saved their money over their life.
They don't act like this, and they probably live right near you, but you
wouldn't notice because they don't go overboard on their materialism.

On the poorer end of the spectrum, there are tons of "credit-card
millionaires" \- as I call people who make $100-300,000 per year but have no
real savings and spend all their money on "glamorous" crap that fills up their
homes. To me, the article is about people just like this, but who have secured
more money - their behavior is identical.

~~~
SyneRyder
> _I once worked with an almost-billionaire family. If you ran into them in a
> restaurant, you would never know._

One of my favorite books is The Billionaire Who Wasn't, about Chuck Feeney of
DFS (Duty-Free Shoppers), and it keeps referencing his cheap Casio watch:

 _“Since my earliest days I have been frugal, but I am a frugal person in that
I hate waste, at any level,” says Feeney, who always wears off-the-peg
clothes, a cheap plastic watch, and reading glasses of the type sold in book-
stores. “If I can get a watch for $15 that keeps perfect time, what am I doing
messing around with a Rolex?”_

[https://www.amazon.com/Billionaire-Who-Wasnt-Secretly-
Fortun...](https://www.amazon.com/Billionaire-Who-Wasnt-Secretly-
Fortune/dp/1610393341/)

[Incidentally, it means the $200 Pebble watch I wear & love is 13x more
expensive/extravagant than that of a billionaire. Gives an interesting
perspective.]

~~~
jjeaff
It actually makes more sense for the already successful and wealthy to not be
interested in outward appearance. They have no one to impress and nothing to
gain by showing off.

Your up and coming business man, however, may have some logical reasons to
signal wealth. Either for networking purposes or convincing potential
customers or partners that you are the type of successful person they might
want to work with, conspicuous consumption can have its merits.

------
return0
So what do you do when you have a ton of money? You can of course spend it on
charity or investing in companies, but that requires work, and is not in
everyone's interests. There are also only so many expensive things that they
can buy in this world, so they buy all of them, and some more, and there is
still a lot of money left to spend. Even if they do all of the above, there
will be more money left, and the search for purpose and meaning will become
more and more intense. Also, due to the nature of capitalism, the rich can't
stop making more wealth than the rest.

------
gmarx
When Fortune (or was it Forbes) introduced the list of 500 richest Americans
(early 1970s?) many people on the list were angry and threatened to sue.

Now it's honor, a form a celebrity

~~~
clort
people are still sueing Forbes

    
    
      http://www.reuters.com/article/us-britain-saudi-billionaire-idUSBRE9560Q020130607

~~~
gmarx
Ha!

------
bkeroack
For those of you in LA, this work is being exhibited at the Annenberg Space
for Photography in Century City. Highly recommended.

------
flubert
Interesting that "In Bay Area, six-figure salaries are “low income”"

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14194803](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14194803)

...was posted 3 hours before this one.

