If I had $62 billion, I would buy an island and take in every stray cat off the streets and I would spend every single day donating money to reputable charities… And I wouldn’t give a FUCK about controlling other people’s lives!!!
The thing is, when we talk about wealth like that, it is no longer the money of things. Itʻs the money of power. All things wealth can buy can be had at much less wealth. Power, however, is the meth of billionaires.
That's way too much money. It would be a burden. I would feel compelled to find ways to redistribute it. No matter how good your intentions, they're YOUR intentions, and who put you in charge?
I'd like several million to make my few friends and family comfortable until we die. That's it.
If I had 62 billion dollars I would be doing everything possible to lift people up, work towards climate solutions, and rescue a ton of shelter animals.
But then I'm not a greedy, unscrupulous, narcissistic sociopath.
The problem is with that much money they are bored. There is nothing to strive for any more, so it is control others, space, or do weird things to their bodies or others. bored billionaires is a plague on the planet
In 1982 in the United States there were 13 billionaires. Then Reagan and the Republican started cutting the taxes of the wealthy and big corporations. In 2023 there were 700 billionaires in the USA. Musk paid no federal taxes in 2018 and pays a tax rate of 3.27%.
I would spend it on 10 libraries per billion and 100 students' tuition fees, and then I would still not know what else to do with it. How much is a billion? Does anybody really know that this represents? In houses? In concert tickets? In weekly grocery shopping? I don't.
Mental illness, we just love their leadership. Sociopathic or psychopathic people need help not leadership roles governing corporations and governments. They crazies are leading us off the cliff for quite some time.....
They can never get enough money to be satisfied, no matter how much they hoard. That’s why they never seem to go away. They’re always still trying to make more money.
I feel like most guys who devote their lives entirely to money do so because they were bullied or otherwise have some inadequate chip on their shoulder. Or maybe both. It is definitely true of both trump and Leon. Both were bullied and devoted their lives to "proving their worth" with money
Right? Holy shit, with that kind of money I would:
Donate to every charity I believed in.
Live in a different country every month
Donate buildings in my town to help others through housing, education and general culture improvements.
Pay for the educations of an entire high school.
I would:
A) have so much fun choosing people/ orgs to donate to
B) or wait! Just give all the money to teachers and librarians
C) childcare providers
D) social workers
Ok I’d take a week to give it away.
Then go to the woods and never be seen again.
To amass that type of wealth. You can only care about yourself. Noone and nothing else matters. No one becomes a billionaire making the world a better place.
Talking with some very wealthy people, it becomes obvious that wealth is not truly satisfying in and of itself. If there is no ambition towards anything other than creating more wealth it becomes a never-ending pursuit that produces little joy for them, so they continue pursuing, hoping it pays off.
This is why when people call us jealous for disliking the guy, I point out that it can't be that because for all his $, he doesn't exactly seem very happy.
Bill Gates once said that past a certain level of wealth, you couldn't possibly eat better, dress better, travel better, live better. Nothing you could possibly ever want cost more than that.
After that, it was all about keeping score. They just all want to WIN.
Precisely. There is really no point to accumulating wealth past a certain point, other than to do it for its own sake, like an addiction, or a weird competition with other rich people. It really serves no satisfying purpose, in and of itself.
You raise a good point, about doing some good. This is really the crux of the matter, I think. If you do not do anything with wealth, except create wealth, then why are you doing it? What is the purpose? What is the intention? Wealth comes with a weight of responsibility, but few lift it very well.
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And they are rarely happy.
I'd like several million to make my few friends and family comfortable until we die. That's it.
But then I'm not a greedy, unscrupulous, narcissistic sociopath.
It would be terrible.
That seems obvious to me.
Wealth and the adulation society places on it only exacerbate, if not validate, their disorders.
First off, no family member or relative or their DESCENDANTS, forever, would ever again have to work at any job they didn't love doing.
Secondly, me, an international concierge service, a briefcase full of cocaine, and possibly a bevy of high end escorts will be in Bali. Or Paris.
Donate to every charity I believed in.
Live in a different country every month
Donate buildings in my town to help others through housing, education and general culture improvements.
Pay for the educations of an entire high school.
A) have so much fun choosing people/ orgs to donate to
B) or wait! Just give all the money to teachers and librarians
C) childcare providers
D) social workers
Ok I’d take a week to give it away.
Then go to the woods and never be seen again.
After that, it was all about keeping score. They just all want to WIN.
But at least he seems to be having FUN with his money. And doing some good with it as well.