Why the hyper-rich turn into crybabies when "one percent" is invoked

boing
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But honestly, most of these guys aren’t sociopaths and they don’t lack empathy any more than you or I do

That’s completely untrue.

Sure, we can change the wrold without them, but it’s faster if we can use them for good, right?

So, when do you think sociopaths are going to start being agents of good roots for society? Are they just waiting until they swindle their 3rd billion that they hoard from society before they jump up to sincerely help?

It’s never going to happen. I mean, maybe one of them will go senile, completely lose their mind and start trying, but their lackeys and associates would literally kill them before any real change could be implemented. These guys aren’t like the mafia, they are a mafia.

Of course, a big problem is ‘THEM’ is a bit broad.

It’s not a “THEM”, it’s sociopathic megalomaniacs that are trashing society and the environment for their own gain. I have their names, but I don’t have time to sit here and gather every one for you in a list.

But, if you want names, you can start at the top right here:

William, I’ve met some of these people back in the day and they’d just as soon willingly let good people (like you) suffer and die if it means more money for their bottom lines. They are that depraved and they’ve already proven it with their actions. It’s megalomania, it’s sociopathy… and it’s a sick illness that affects society while they live in the lap of luxury.

If you’ve got a plan to cleanse them against their own will of their sick addiction to wealth, then let me know. An intervention is long overdue.

I appreciate and truly respect your willingness to try to find the goodness in these evil people, but it’s a fruitless endeavor in this regard.

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Really?

I’m guessing we’ve got a different perspective. So tell you what . . if we ever end up with a situation where any of these people are somehow at the mercy of society . . . I bet the world will be a better place if they’re put in the hands of people with my mindset rather than yours.

I know mine’s less common, but I can get useful things out of these people, just as I can get useful things out of a third world orphan. If somebody’s not willing to work with me, then we’ll talk.

You’re a very clever man, but in this particular situation you’re trapped and assigning too much value to the person and far too little to the role/training/circumstance. Real humans aren’t fixed points in time.

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I bet the world will be a better place if they’re put in the hands of people with my mindset rather than yours.

I think they should be tried for their crimes and put into prison like any other murderer or person who causes great harm to people. I don’t agree with the death penalty or torture, so they wouldn’t be subjected to that. If they were being chased by a mob, I’d grab them and take them to safety even if it risked my life.

But, justice? Yes, finally they’d be subjected to justice… I’m surprised you’d think I’d do anything different. I have no desire to kill rich assholes. But, I would enjoy a movie about it or something like that.

I know mine’s less common, but I can get useful things out of these people

Hey, I told you I’m against torture! :wink:

You’re a very clever man, but in this particular situation you’re trapped and assigning too much value to the person and far too little to the role/training/circumstance. Real humans aren’t fixed points in time

Well, I think you’re very clever too. :slight_smile:

I would agree with you that there’s perhaps some conditioning involved in the making of an extreme megalomaniac, but I’ve also known people who were the children and grandchildren of the excessively wealthy and they choose not to play into it and walk away from vast wealth because of their own ethics.

People called them crazy and some even end up disowned by their family members, but they can at least look themselves in the mirror at the end of the day with pride instead of paying people to fake it and look at them that way.

I don’t know Warren Buffet’s grand daughter, but she seems like a fairly good example:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2008/02/21/us-wealth-buffett-idUSN2040437020080221

Being a megalomaniac who profits off the misery of others is a decision that people choose. Just like when someone decides on premeditated murder to collect insurance money. Human suffering and death caused with a gun in an alley or by a pen in an office is the same to me. I’m not sure why you find a disconnect there, but we’ll just have to agree to disagree.

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Ooh, see there. . totally agreed!

That’s actually also where I get really cautious though. I’m pretty sure there are a few hundred thousand other similarly ‘qualified’ individuals that, were we to create a power vacuum, would just give us more of the same (if not worse).

Ahh! Yeah, see. My take is that we’ve got a whole lot of people in prisons who can be useful too, but you can’t get a lot of that benefit out without getting some intrinsic motivation out of them, which generally means not caging them up. I’m sure there are a few people who we just don’t want around other people, ever. . but at the very least we can get art, have them research cures, or just fight robot battles for our entertainment, right?

So I guess I see a lot of people who, given a different environment, can thrive in a positive way, and I’d rather hit things from the other direction. Of course there are some people who are so good at being assholes that we’ll never get them out of that comfort zone, but when you change the framework and take away their advantages they expose themselves pretty quickly

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Philanthropy is often thought of as a creative endeavor-- an opportunity for the donor to apply his or her entrepreneurial spirit towards a particular social good.

I suppose you could call that vanity.

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When it comes to billionaires it’s more like an excuse to funnel money to pet projects or things they like instead of the greater social good, complete with naming rights and gala balls. Yes it’s vain and suits the donors particular ideological interests vs. society at large.

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Show me some billionaires that put most their money towards cleaning up all the externalities they’ve created and thrust upon society in order to plunder their wealth and I’ll stop calling them vain when they throw a little shindig for their favorite pet charity and brag to everyone about it.

Actually, I’ll be the first in line to kiss their ass and ask if they want seconds.

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Though nobody pays for their externalities (rich or poor). I read somewhere a while ago that the every dollar a rich person spends contributes substantially less pollution than that spent by a poor person. That’s not an argument for inequality of wealth, but it does suggest that the externalities argument is a weak one the other way too.

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I glanced through Carnegie’s Wealth essay, which is famous among Philanthropic circles, and one of his concerns that his wealth will be frittered away, either by heirs, taxes, probate, etc etc, without actually doing much of consequence. Thus, he suggests giving away large sums in ones own lifetime, actively managed by the donor.

If we consider what results flow from the Cooper Institute, for instance, to the best portion of the race in New York not possessed of means, and compare these with those which would have arisen for the good of the masses from an equal sum distributed by Mr. Cooper in his lifetime in the form of wages, which is the highest form of distribution, being for work done and not for charity, we can form some estimate of the possibilities for the improvement of the race which lie embedded in the present law of the accumulation of wealth. Much of this sum if distributed in small quantities among the people, would have been wasted in the indulgence of appetite, some of it in excess, and it may be doubted whether even the part put to the best use,that of adding to the comforts of the home, would have yielded results for the race, as a race, at all comparable to those which are flowing and are to flow from the Cooper Institute from generation to generation. Let the advocate of violent or radical change ponder well this thought.

We might even go so far as to take another instance, that of Mr. Tilden’s bequest of five millions of dollars for a free library in the city of New York, but in referring to this one cannot help saying involuntarily, how much better if Mr. Tilden had devoted the last years of his own life to the proper administration of this immense sum; in which case neither legal contest nor any other cause of delay could have interfered with his aims. But let us assume that Mr. Tilden’s millions finally become the means of giving to this city a noble public library, where the treasures of the world contained in books will be open to all forever, without money and without price. Considering the good of that part of the race which congregates in and around Manhattan Island, would its permanent benefit have been better promoted had these millions been allowed to circulate in small sums through the hands of the masses? Even the most strenuous advocate of Communism must entertain a doubt upon this subject. Most of those who think will probably entertain no doubt whatever.

And I thought of something I heard on This American Money

Planet Money reporters David Kestenbaum and Jacob Goldstein went to Kenya to see the work of a charity called GiveDirectly in action. Instead of funding schools or wells or livestock, GiveDirectly has decided to just give money directly to the poor people who need it, and let them decide how to spend it. David and Jacob explain whether this method of charity works, and why some people think it’s a terrible idea

Clearly, this is at odds with Carnegie’s idea of a well organized and well capitalized donor organization. Did all the towns need those libraries? Is international peace such a good thing? Perhaps with all those funds, we could have fought a decent war! But no. Mr Carnegie has to decide what’s best for us, and he only gets his way because his ideals, pipe dreams, and other fripperies are well capitalized.

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I read somewhere a while ago …

I read somewhere a while ago that Iraq had WMDs and we’d be greeted as “liberators” after invading Iraq. It didn’t quite work out that way.

How about providing your source? Let me guess, you don’t have one…? That’s ok, I have some sources below…

Though nobody pays for their externalities (rich or poor).

That’s an absolutely untrue statement based entirely on fiction.

Check this post (for starters) and educate yourself on who pays the costs:

Why the hyper-rich turn into crybabies when "one percent" is invoked - #161 by Cowicide?

Average American taxpayers and the poor (dearly) pay for externalities:

Fast food, poverty wages: The public cost of low-wage jobs in the fast-food industry:
http://laborcenter.berkeley.edu/publiccosts/fastfoodpovertywages.shtml

Airlines get $2.7 billion in taxpayer-backed loans while using poorly paid workers:

http://thechart.blogs.cnn.com/2010/06/22/epa-renew-polluters-pay-tax-to-fund-cleanups/

Taxpayers foot bill for cleanup of polluted site in south St. Louis:

Disparities in the Impact of Pollution on the Poor:
http://www.stateoftheair.org/2013/health-risks/health-risks-disparities.html

Pollution disproportionately affects the poor:

Low-Income, Minority Communities Disproportionately Exposed To Toxic Air Pollutants, Study Finds:
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/148257.php

(This all just barely scratches the surface, by the way)

The poor (especially the poor) pay for externalities not just with their limited money, but with their time, suffering and even with their very own lives. Let me know when the billionaires start living next to the superfund sites they create (and start paying for them in earnest along with all the damage to the poor that live there).

For you to dismiss this is incredible.

I don’t now what libertarian think tank crack you’ve been smoking, but that’s so far from reality that it’d be laughable if it wasn’t so heartless and delusional to say such things.

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I can’t think of a single example where vast wealth was created without vicious externalities.

Car manufacturers: consistent pattern of employee disenfranchisement and raw material pollution
Health insurance: collusion on a mass scale, depriving customers of their wealth and health
Hospitals: same thing, including runaway hospital acquired infection
Oil: pollution at all levels of production, distribution and consumption
Finance and banking: Enron 2001, Worldcom 2001, Lehman Brothers 2008, etc. Fraud and deception are a way of life for them.
Apple: poor working conditions and pollution in the USA and China
Microsoft: always leaving customers out in the cold. First with viruses in the late 90’s, and now with weak security and back doors for the NSA.
Google: massive energy consumption, which means downstream pollution
Warren Buffett: invests in all these crooks to make his buck
Koch brothers: same
Bilderberg Group: same

Is there any example of a billion-dollar industry, or a billion-dollar-industrialist who has not caused massive downstream externalities to “make” their money? Serious question. I’m pondering. What do you think?

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That’s NOT what he said. There is a difference between being greedy, and being consumed with greed. Sometime, somewhere, everyone has seen SOMETHING, and said “I want this”. . .

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Something toxic to water supplies and aquatic flora & fauna isn’t necessarily something it’s a bad idea to fertilise potatoes with.

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Lovely analogy. Just being forced to play monopoly at all gives me the chills…

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Sometime, somewhere, everyone has seen SOMETHING, and said “I want this”. . .

And that’s a far cry from megalomania and that’s doesn’t even come close to being “greed”. I’m sorry to inform you that you just viciously failed at logic.

The subject is megalomaniacs consumed with greed (see webpage title bar for “hyper-rich”). xzzy made the mistake of comparing them (the rich) to all humans with his own statement:

“Maybe the rich are crybabies because all humans are greedy”

If I misunderstood xxy, I sincerely apologize to you… or xxy… or both of you as it may be.

So I’ll adjust my statement to appease the semantic pedantry brigade:

You’re going to have to speak for yourself and the corporatist scumbags there. All humans aren’t greedy, just the worst of us.

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Is there any example of a billion-dollar industry, or a billion-dollar-industrialist who has not caused massive downstream externalities to “make” their money? Serious question. I’m pondering. What do you think?

Billion-dollar industry? It’s not looking good.

Maybe a government information transparency and citizen privacy industry in the future?

I’m not sure, but I do know that there are no billionaires that consumed their enormous wealth without shunning the externalities they created in the process. Name any megalomaniacal billionaire and one can easily research the externalities he or she pushed onto society in order to acquire that plunder. I’ve tried it for them and it pops up without fail.

It’s just not possible to acquire that much wealth in a fair fashion, it’s literally impossible.

As far as industry goes, I think some of the sustainable energy businesses might reach that point some day where the cost to society now pays off in the long term for the advances to society at large. But, that’s only if some megalomaniacal assholes don’t jump in to jack it all up for their own personal greed.

That, in itself, may be the ultimate battle for humanity once you factor in things like global climate change.

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I’ll name 5 for ya: two Kochs and 3 Waltons. 5 of the 10 wealthiest people on Earth. Have you paid any attention to how they spend their money when they even bother spending any? I can’t get behind anything they’re doing. Artificial wage suppression for the average worker (worldwide), fueling the climate denialism, pushing theocracy onto a pluralist society, pushing privitization of public treasures… The list of bad things just goes on and on. A couple museum exhibits do not come remotely close to making up for any of the harm they’re working so hard to inflict on everybody else on the planet.

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I’m just trying to think through this. What if you inherited it? Are you still evil? What if you use simple interest and real estate transactions to build up a fortune and you never participated in shady transactions, artificial wage depression, all above board? Does that have externalities? Are there any billionaires who got there this way?

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I’m just trying to think through this. What if you inherited it? Are you still evil?

Nope, not if you take that ill-gotten family money and use most or all of it to pay reparations with it where needed.

That family money was made on the backs of unwitting, destroyed lives and it’s not all yours because of that. A nepotistic transfer of money from one undeserving person to another doesn’t suddenly change that fact. Like the case I showed above where in the process of garnering vast wealth they caused people to grow up with deformities (among many other externalities that involve human suffering), that money needs to go to help these people the best it can and the heir should also become a champion and caretaker for those affected, if there are resources available.

That is, if you don’t want to be evil, anyway.

If there’s some cash that’s left over (which I sincerely doubt, since the externalities thrust upon society by billionaires almost always vastly outweigh the profits taken), then go buy something nice for yourself. You deserve it.

What if you use simple interest and real estate transactions to build up a fortune and you never participated in shady transactions, artificial wage depression, all above board? Does that have externalities? Are there any billionaires who got there this way?

Billionaires? Nope. Not a one. Definitely plenty of millionaires though and I’ve got nothing to say to them but, “Congratulations.”

Also, please consider that in order to become a billionaire in the first place you have to hoard vast sums of wealth. Only a megalomaniacal, sociopathic asshole is capable of doing that to society on such a vast scale in the first place.

Can you imagine just sitting on hundreds of millions of dollars while watching our nation’s cities go to shit? I know you can’t and neither can most Americans because they aren’t sick, sociopathic megalomaniacs where more money is never enough.

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I’m in agreement so far. Let me take the billions vs. millions argument apart a bit in the way you know I like to, mathematically.

A billion is 1000 millions. So, how does one go about getting a million dollars? If you work normal, middling jobs, you get paid between 50k and about 150k per year (if extra lucky and good at what you do. I’ve never made 150k per year, what does that say about me? LOL.) At 100k per year, on average, you’d be able to save a maximum of about 75k of it per year if you lived cheaply. In this scenario, 1 million would take you 13.3 years, assuming there are no economic hiccups or big expenses along the way. To amass a billion that way would take you longer than recorded history: 13,333 years.

So, that’s not going to work. Let’s say at a savings of 500k, after 5 to 10 years of saving, you buy a business. Nothing that uses starving children in Cambodia to make your shit. Something more close to home. Let’s say you open an organic, farm-to-table restaurant and you pay fair wages and concentrate on happy customers, sustainable ingredients, good workplace and fair business practices. Let’s also say it really takes off, gets really popular instantly. In that first year, with your 500k investment, you pack the place every night with 100 groups of patrons who pay on average $100 total for their meals and drinks, to make the math easy. That’s 3,650,000 gross per year. Minus about 50% food and operating costs, puts you at, say 2 million in profit per year. (It’ll take you 500 years to make a billion, assuming you buy nothing with your profit.)

Now, say that each successive year, you open 1 new identical restaurant for 500k, and there are never problems with popularity. So year 1, you make 1.5 million. Year 2, 3 million. Year 3, 4.5 million. Etc. Because you have to spend to open new restaurants. To get to a billion will take you 36 years, if there are no hiccups and no other spending of profits except to open more restaurants. A lifetime of work, luck and extreme frugality to become a billionaire this way.

The shortcuts I can think of: Instead of opening new restaurants, become a franchisee. But then, externalities creep in because you have no idea where the investment money came from. Or invest your money somewhere; but unless you only invest in social choice type mutuals, you again have no control over the vicious externalities…and even then, you have no control over “social choice” investing. It could be ridiculous.

It’s starting to become mathematically clear that it is highly unlikely that any billionaire got there without either vicious externalities directly occurring, or by giving away control of who invests with their money and therefore letting externalities creep in. Probably a 99.9% chance that all billionaires got there by hook or by crook, and there really isn’t any way around that if you wanna be a billionaire.

And, as you say, becoming a millionaire is possibly a different story. Many more ways to do that than by hurting people.

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