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Wealth Therapy Tackles Woes of the Rich
HughPickens.com writes: Jana Kasperkevic writes in The Guardian that it can be very stressful to be rich. "It's really isolating to have a lot of money. It can be scary – people's reaction to you," says Barbara Nusbaum, an expert in money psychology. "There is a fair amount of isolation if you are wealthy." According to Clay Cockrell, who provides therapy for rich, this means the rich tend to hang out with other rich Americans, not out of snobbery, but in order to be around those who understand them and their problems. One big problem is not knowing if your friends are friends with you or your money. "Someone else who is also a billionaire – they don't want anything from you! Never being able to trust your friendships with people of different means, I think that is difficult," says Cockrell. "As the gap has widened, they [the rich] have become more and more isolated."
Sci-fi author John Scalzi has published an entertaining take-down of the cluelessness in this article.
... is hire someone to manage their wealth and disguise themselves and go live among normal people to "cure" themselves of their own self imposed exile. AKA go live like a normal person instead. Wealth is something you can leave behind at any moment, there's no law of nature saying you need to be around your own wealth. AKA think of it like going on vacation.
People on this planet are so stupid.
If they're not this guy: http://www.politico.com/magazi...
If they're not that guy, fuck 'em. If the system is making them hyper-privileged and it's wrecking their relationships and making it impossible to live as a human being, it's on THEM to change the system because the system is there to serve them.
They're guilty for a reason. They don't need therapy, they need reform and rehab, and they are the ones in a position to change things.
It's morally wrong to give 'em therapy and soothe their little feelings without addressing the larger problem. They're unhappy because they are BAD PEOPLE.
Wow, could there be a MORE polarizing article than this? And really, it *needs* a takedown? Come on. This is like the class warfare version of race-baiting.
Coming into money, especially quickly (e.g. winning the lottery) has been shown time and time again to leave people in a MUCH WORSE situation than they started from because they don't know the first thing about handling that much money responsibly. As far as the issue of finding people with similar problems, isn't that just part of life? My wife and I don't have kids, and that makes it really difficult to find other people/couples we can connect with. It's the same thing.
So quit bitching about how clueless rich people are. You're just as clueless about them as they are about you.
I earn about 80k and I used to dedicate 20% of my income and most of my weekends to running a soup kitchen in a shanty-town along with a couple other volunteers. The local narco-lord eventually moved in with assistance from political point-men, our lives were threatened both on the "legally ruin your life" and "shoot your head off" sense, and now it's a front for drug dealing. This, in the words of one of the point-men, was backed from all the way up by a ridiculously powerful and wealthy Cabinet minister who's now running for province governor. If you live in Argentina, you know who I'm talking about.
So yeah, I am the "1%" you talk about (even though I still don't even have my own home, I do okay, but lol at calling me rich), I interacted regularly with the bottom 30% and had no problem doing so, until the top 0.001% came in and ruined everything for everyone. We were in the process of getting people jobs, getting them off drugs even. Fuck this world.
While I understand "you can't tell if people are friends with you or just with your money," at the same time I also feel that if you are extraordinarily wealthy and you're not gladly dumping excess money to your friends, you're not a very good friend. After buying a nice house in a nice part of a city I love and putting enough away that I could have ~$100k/year in spending money, there is literally nothing else I would rather spend money on than bringing the people I love up to the same level. I know a lot of people tend to become greedy, but if that happens you talk to them and if they are more attached to the money than you, just cut them loose. You've made an important discovery and it only cost you money you didn't need anyway.
Then the claim that the government should only look after the interests of the rich will become louder, there's already an element of society that claims that, because the superrich pay the bulk of taxation (because they earn the most, with taxes being related to income) that, despite the government's affects being felt by everyone, the government should only be answerable to the superrich and their interests.
I prefer some taxation for everyone than taxation only for a tiny minority who happen to be the people hoarding all the new wealth.
Higher taxes on the superrich also discourage absurdly high salaries, from past experience. People who own businesses are less likely to skim an extra million from their revenues if they only get $400,000 of that back after tax (assuming a 60% top tier tax rate.) Better to re-invest it in their own businesses, than increase what's ultimately a status symbol (how many plasma TVs does a man need anyway? A huge amount of the reason why wages are so high amongst the superrich is the belief that a higher salary shows greater worth.)
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
I think the rich don't want to be around the poor because of their preconceived notions about the poor. I am poor because I have a disability that destroyed my career and makes it nearly impossible to hold a job. While I sometimes stress about money, I am largely happy because I don't measure my self-worth by how many possessions I have or by the amount of money I have in my bank account. Positive relationships are more important. Doing something you love is more important. If the rich have trouble forming positive relationships or doing what they love because of how much money they have, then my suggestion would be to give it away.
If you go around driving a high end luxury car, Armani suits, gold Rolex watches, etc ... you're going to get attention.
Now, if you live your life like old school humble Protestants/Jews - live in a small house, wear Timex watches, at best a Brooks Brother's suit only when you need to, drive a Toyota, etc ... you don't have to worry.
And if you're really wealthy, biz causal and and a beat up anything. I actually met a very wealthy person and he was so low key I didn't know until I went to his place of business and one of his executives told me who he was - a guy who owned a $200 million concrete business.
Geeze!
My brother does this. He pays for meals but I find it awkward because he'll use his tip as a bludgeon. If service is bad, he'll not only refuse to tip but will sometimes refuse to ever set foot in the place again. If you're good, you might get a fifty dollar tip on a ten dollar pizza.
I don't think he's trying to impress me, or not primarily. I think it's a Darwinian thing where he's trying to improve the breed by punishing and rewarding.
Too bad this only underscores a sense that he is the puppetmaster managing and directing all his servants, passing judgement upon them because that's his duty. Put like that it sounds like the most extreme entitled assholery.
I'm poor, and I'm capable of getting bad service and thinking 'oh well, guess I'd better do some kind of tip, not like I'm special and there to throw my weight around. Maybe they were just having a crap day'. I guess if I was rich I would be more likely to assume I was there to pass out punishments and rewards.
"Rubbing it in your face" might be preferable because it implies someone posturing and doing a dominance behavior thing. This 'improving the breed' stuff, it's like dominance is already so completely assumed that the only remaining question is how you manage your slaves. And it seems to sneak into the behavior of relatively rational, non-evil people.
I would say middle class family is the one which earns less than $300K.
The government disagrees with you. They think anybody that actually has a job is rich. Anybody that has never had a job is poor (but not somebody that had a job and then lost it, they are still rich and not entitled to long term benefits). And with the governments current policies, it won't be long before there IS only poor and rich, and there will probably be a lot more poor when people figure out they can live a more fulfilling lifestyle by being poor than working their but off being "rich".
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
Many dogs, if given unlimited food, will eat themselves to death. Yes, really. These dogs have no restraint and will consume food until their stomachs cannot physically hold any more. The stomach may rupture, and if not treated quickly, that is fatal.
I think of most of the super rich as suffering from the same sort of problem, only with money instead of food. They will earn, steal, and horde wealth beyond all sense. Even if it causes great harm to many others, damages society, they can't stop themselves. An example is wage theft. We have many people working in the restaurant business, for extremely low pay. But it seems the low pay isn't low enough to suit some owners, who bully their workers into working a few extra hours off the clock, delay paychecks, miscalculate the pay in their favor, and other tricks. It might be somewhat understandable if the franchises were struggling, but often they are doing very well indeed, don't really need more money. Nor is the owner hurting for money. Why then do they do it? They don't have good reason. Reasons of the "trickle down" variety are wrong. It simply is not possible for one person to use vast wealth efficiently. They can blow thousands on luxury conveniences that save a few minutes here and there, but it is not good value.
Meanwhile, the cheated workers must spend even more time struggling to get by on extremely limited means. The old expression "time is money" is so true for the poor. A lot of expense can be eliminated by burning more time. Dishwasher broken? Wash dishes by hand! Water cut off? Lug your laundry to a laundromat, use paper plates and plastic spoons, and as for showers, well, can rent a cheap motel room or visit the Y, but not every day. Instead, keep the deodorants and perfumes handy, and wear a cap to hide your hair. Toilets can be flushed with buckets of rainwater. Car repossessed? Take public transport, or bike or walk. The poor are forced to work around all kinds of things that the middle class take for granted, and ingenious and actually better and healthier though some of the workarounds are, it all takes time. What might they be able to accomplish if they didn't have to spend so much time scrapping and scrounging for every penny?
We should keep constant watch on the rich, and rein them in. Instead, we practically worship them. That's not good for anyone. People think the rich are really special, leaders and doers who've been rewarded with great wealth for their hard work, think it's all merited. Think they're John Galt. Some are, no doubt. However, when such status is given to someone who doesn't merit it, the result is almost always bad. That's where we as a society have fallen down. We let these undeserving rich get away with murder. In all the fraud and cheating that resulted in the Great Recession, only Madoff ended up in prison. This Angelo Mozilo should have gone to jail, instead he was only banned from ever running a company again, and allowed to keep much of the wealth he had stolen, and live on in freedom. Sure, he was fined a record amount, a fact they like to play up to try to show how tough they are on rich criminals, but it didn't reduce him to poverty, far from it. Since then, a few more perps have been put away, but it took years to do it. Meanwhile, little people are routinely dragged through the mud over petty debts. Some consequences would be okay if the big people faced the same consequences, but they don't.
Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
Someone else who is also a billionaire – they don't want anything from you!
Anyone who claims that has no understanding of the psychology of the majority of billionaires. See Carly Fiorina and her 'good friend' Steve Jobs for an example. If you're a billionaire, then other billionaires are the ones that have the most of what you value and therefore the best targets. Stealing from the poor is far more effort - you need to steal from loads of them.
Not just billionaires, problems can happen between people with any wealth gap. I'm nearing the point where interacting with people on the lower end of the income ladder than me is just irritating. Frequently they want something from me and give me basically nothing in return. They come to my apartment, want to use the pool, eat my food, drink my beer, and bring nothing. No food, no beer, nada. I know their situation- they're poor. I don't expect much. Just give me a gesture of appreciation. When you go to someone's house, you should bring a gift. A 6-pack of midgrade beer or a $10 bottle of "bargain" wine, a small nugget of weed, a homemade appetizer or something. It's just common curtesy. Even some macaroni and cheese would be very cheap but perfectly acceptable! If they really can't spare a dollar, I'd be perfectly happy with some wildflowers picked up from side of the road.
You would be surprised how many of my guests fail to bring anything at all. My friendships with people of lower income don't end because of wealth differences. They end because frequently, the other lower income person doesn't reciprocate in any way. Sometimes I wonder if this inconsiderate behavior is partly responsible for their poverty.
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.