A question concerning rich people

[undergroundpanther]

This thought is for all here that say oh but there are GOOD rich people too...

Saying oh the rich are not all BAD..every time someone vents over the greed of wealthy people,and expresses the injustice of it all..

Every sympathizer pulls out maybe 1 or 2 shop worn examples, offered up as"humanitarian" rich like Bill Gates..

http://motherjones.com/mojo/2007/01/two-faces-bill-gates-or-how-kill-those-you-love-most

Ok if he's so generous, and ethical ..Why isn't windows for free,why is the code so protected?? Has bill gates decided he's got enough money yet? Apparently NOT,because windows is still expensive..and the copyright crap is always ever present in windows,got genuine microsoft blah blah..And why so much crime from a so called ethical "business" Hmm?
Nobody gets rich by being kind.I am pretty sure a lot if not all seriously rich people are sociopaths,narcissists or authoritarian in some aspect,and might have a very ugly side people pretend is not there...


When has any excessively richie pig ever said...Ok I have enough money now I can stop making money off other people....I bet you can't name any rich person/merchant(multi millionaire/billionaire) who has said "I have enough money now,I think I'll stop hoarding wealth.

HOW MANY rich people,whom are NOT on their deathbeds,have decided they are wealthy enough,and STOP seeking profits?

I don't know of any.

And I'm getting sick of the cheerleaders for the billionaires when so many are so poor,desperate and suffering..Really I do not think the rich deserve any cheerleaders anymore..

Just my POV on this..

[Tansy_Gold]

1. You won't hear me defending bill gates.

I still hate windows.

[Pavulon]

3. Pretty sure jobs is not eating cat food either(nt)

[OhioChick]

13. .............

[SharonAnn]

8. Why does outsource to India and China? Why does he used so much "contract"

help so that he doesn't have to pay benefits or abide by tax regulations?

He's not generous. He's not even fair.

While he's given away a lot of money, it's barely a fraction of what he has.

[aquart]

2. No man should be so rich he has nothing left to buy but his government.

[Drale]

4. Its not that they are all bad

but the fact is they do not need another tax cut, and the republicans are lying saying that the only way to create jobs is to give the rich tax cuts.

[wtmusic]

11. +1

Doesn't matter whether they're good, or bad. They can afford to pay their share of a truly progressive tax structure.

[applegrove]

31. Yes.

[Newest Reality]

5. We mean the DEADBEAT Rich!

Well, at least when you are rich you have all the rights that money can buy, ey?

[HEyHEY]

6. "Ok if he's so generous, and ethical ..Why isn't windows for free,why is the code so protected?? "

uh... .cause he's got a staff of people to pay for as well as distribution of the product, support...etc.

Do you work for free when you start making enough money to save?

[JVS]

36. You're thinking backwards on this whole issue of item, staff, and price.

Bill Gates does not charge money because he has a staff. He charges money for the same reason he has a staff. Both are part of his way to make money. If he didn't make money doing this he would have neither staff nor product.

[Ozymanithrax]

7. Carnegie

Who set up libraries and a foundaiton to help people after he died rather than leaving it so someone else.

[undergroundpanther]

33. After he died

Does not count.He can't make money for himself in a grave..That's why I said NOT on their deathbed..

[some guy]

34. you misread

Andrew Carnegie started doing philanthropy in 1881, he died in 1919. (born 1835.)

He was philanthropic for almost half his life.


I wouldn't hold him up as a paragon of virtue, but he was a very wealthy man who wasn't unceasingly greedy. So, now you can name one of those.

[Ozymanithrax]

41. Thanks...

I appreciate the back up and the historical acumen.

[snappyturtle]

9. At the very least, I'd like those in the upper 2%, the uber-riche,

to prove how many jobs they've created since 2001...wasn't that the first year of their tax cuts? Based on number of jobs created will determine the amount of their tax cut. No jobs created=no tax cut.

You're right as far as I am concerned. I know some very wealthy individuals and they never seem to have enough and are always scheming new sources of money.

[WHEN CRABS ROAR]

10. In this country it's their right to be rich, it's also our right to

change the government.

[leftstreet]

12. It's not the people, it's the Capitalism

[Clovis Sangrail]

14. the problem I have is the term "rich people"

ultra-rich is still amorphous but it gets the point across better.

"rich" is relative
When I was a teenager I thought people that could afford a car were rich.
Then I thought people that could afford to live someplace without room mates were rich.
Then it was people who could afford to own a house (*any house) were rich.

Now that I own a car and a house (well ... rent from the bank) am I "rich"?
it sure doesn't feel like it.

[sharesunited]

15. Wikipedia (citing Roll Call) says Alan Grayson is worth over $31 million.

It's all right there in his financial disclosures, apparently.

I thought that was pretty cool.

[walldude]

16. I have one rich relative...

she was a school teacher and was my favorite aunt. She married well and now I can barely talk to her. She has some sense of entitlement that I will never understand...

[intheflow]

26. Similar thing with my aunt.

I remember her living room adorned with posters for the movie Hair and her wearing tie-dye, very liberal. Then she met this lawyer, married him and moved into a huge house. Suddenly she's flying to Africa on safaris every year, sponsoring the local opera* and emailing me crap about how there should be public prayers at high school football games. :eyes: She's turned into the epitome of the "entitled elite."



*Not to disparage opera, but a reflection of her turn toward a more traditional mindset.

[KT2000]

17. CEOs are not tightening

their belts.
They get huge bonuses for putting Americans out of work. They are competing with each other to get the largest bonus.
The wealthy were not willing to "sacrifice" anything when others are going without medical care and food and shelter.
They believe they are the special people who deserve everything and more.
And on Gates - the money he gives has strings attached that often requires recipients to purchase things that he has a monetary interest in.
Fuck 'em.

[Name removed]

18. Deleted message

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[HEyHEY]

19. Welcome to DU! Oh consumer of mass amounts of coffee!

[Name removed]

21. Deleted message

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[HEyHEY]

22. Argh?

Is that an LL cool J reference?

[Name removed]

20. Deleted message

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[Statistical]

23. Are you that dense?

Windows is the property of the Microsoft corporation and thus indirectly shareholders.

Bill doesn't have the right to give away shareholder property anymore than a gas station clerk has the right to say free gas or grocery cashier has the right to say take an extra box of cereal for free.

Still don't let facts or reality get in the way of a good rant. RANT ON! RANT ON!

[HEyHEY]

25. he he he

:D

[Jamastiene]

24. Well, I have heard of 1.

Christopher McCandless
He might not have been filthy rich, but he was upper middle class and he did walk away from wealth. :shrug:

[tpsbmam]

27. Bullshit and unrec.

Nobody gets rich by being kind.I am pretty sure a lot if not all seriously rich people are sociopaths,narcissists or authoritarian in some aspect,and might have a very ugly side people pretend is not there...

I'll tell you about one uber-rich couple I know. Just a couple of instances illustrates how these people are.

One was when I was in grad school. I moved into a new place and, having moved a lot, I'd pretty much gotten rid of everything and had to come up with furniture to live in this big old house (with VERY reasonable rent!). The business these people are in is corporate real estate and they have a couple of warehouses where they have office furniture and tons of other stuff. They also had some of their old stuff in there, and I mean quite a bit of it. Hell, I got a bed from them that belonged to the guy's great aunt and was so old it was "3/4 size," which no longer existed. But it was a really nice, very comfy bed! Anyway, they furnished the whole damn house for me. A couple of their employees drove it the 140 miles to me to deliver this truck full of furniture. One of the men talked to me about his employer, my friend. This guy was a handy man, a general fix-it guy for the company. He told me he'd worked for him for about 19 years at that point. At one point, about 10 years into his employment, his daughter was diagnosed with cancer. My friend was on the board of the hospital where she was treated. He said that my friend made sure that she got the best of everything. The company had provided them with excellent health insurance but there still were bills and extra costs associated that weren't covered by insurance. They never saw the bills from the insurance company for co-pays and the like -- my friend took care of all of it. And my friend gave him a HUGE bonus that year to cover all of the extra costs they incurred for home stuff and stuff for the daughter.

Second was when they heard about a family in their town whose house burned to the ground shortly before Christmas. They lost everything. These fabulous rich people stepped in, helped them find a rental, helped them cover the security deposits etc, furnished the house for them, bought the family a ton of Christmas presents and surprised them with a Christmas tree & all the trimmings. This isn't something most people knew about (I was one of the few), they don't get tax deductions for doing stuff like that, they're simply incredibly good people.

I could tell you way more but the above two examples really do typify these people. You seriously need to be careful when you stereotype people of any stripe. These two aren't alone -- there are others like them out there. Not enough and these two may be unusually good, but they definitely don't fit the stereotype that I see all too frequently around here.

[HEyHEY]

28. A very kind rich man lent my father the money to start his business, interest free.

My Dad and Mom were young and building their house. The guy who owned the lumber yard they bought materials from owned other business and was VERY well off. He and my Dad got to know each other and one night over beers the guy convinced my Dad the only way to live was to be in business for himself.

So, he then offered to lend my Dad the start-up capital to start his office supply and printing company. There ya go.

[JVS]

35. That's in Canada. In the real world the rich are horrible fucks who destroy everything good.

[undergroundpanther]

32. I'm not convinced

The asshole rich are far too common to justify the wafer thin amount of decent rich people that take a wee dollop of money and give it to a buddy,cousin or friend..

Middle upper class is NOT rich enough for this disdain for the rich I speak of. And I don't care if I use a "broad brush".

The rich cheerleaders are using a brush as broad as mine is. It creates a pollyanna delusion,that considering the numbers,is too generous, too kind to the rich and it's just disgusting if you account for the MILLIONS in poverty that will NEVER have a benefactor to help them keep up the rent or buy enough food.. Hah,Start a business??!!..you do realize that for many people that is a dead dream,a fantasy never to happen.And some with even less "big" dreams have long given up on those too.



What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
Like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore--
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over--
like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.
Or does it explode? :nuke:

Langston Hughes

[tpsbmam]

40. Rich cheerleader? Give me a damn break. I simply refuse to condemn people

based on their wealth or lack of it. I know there are tons of rich shits in this world. I also know there are good people who are rich and who actually do what they can to make the world a better place. You're painting me unfairly with that broad brush of yours. Rich cheerleader because I refuse to condemn good people who I know and who happen to be rich. Please give me a damn break.

[Dappleganger]

29. The most generous people I know are poor and working class.

They give up a larger percentage of their income to help those around them in comparison to the wealthy. They also have a great deal more of compassion for those in need. And yes, there was a study:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/dec/08/social-status-empathy-philanthropy

[OhioChick]

30. Very interesting read....

Thanks for posting.

[JVS]

37. You have my blessing. Dispose of the rich as you wish.

[Whisp]

38. Paul Newman gave away millions to charity.

I understand where you are coming from and don't really disagree with you but there are some wealthy people that share their fortune.

[BzaDem]

39. In case you haven't noticed, Bill Gates is using the money he gets from Windows and spending tens of

billions of it for philanthropy. That's a better use of his money than subsidizing Windows users (which is equivalent to "making Windows free").