1 Reason You Should Want To Be Rich

[DRoseDARs]

More personal financial power with which to help others, either by directly giving money to those in need or through donations to various causes.



Edit: This thread is a sort-of play off of these two other threads:

10 Reasons You Aren't Rich
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=491251&mesg_id=491251

and

10 Reasons I Don't Want To Be Rich
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x491489

[Kelly Rupert]

1. Man. I had never considered the benefits of wealth. Sign me up! n/t

[Random_Australian]

2. Eh? Doesn't bieng rich mean you have money, rather than the ones you want to help?

[BayCityProgressive]

3. exactly

if you were helping people..you wouldn't be rich. Your wealth came formt eh stolen labor power of the workers who made you rich.

[Laurier]

4. You're kidding, right?

[Random_Australian]

7. Though it's true that if you were dedicated to helping people you'd

have given away enough money so as to be not rich, but the thing about the stealing from workers I don't agree with.

And if you are rich and don't want to give away lots of your money, don't worry, I won't judge you.

[Laurier]

18. Oh, please.

"it's true that if you were dedicated to helping people you'd have given away enough money so as to be not rich"

Leaving aside the poor grammar in your post, it remains a silly assertion, in my view. Are you seriously suggesting that those with the means to donate money to others should become paupers themselves in the process? Seriously? Is it not enough, in your view, that people work hard and donate to causes and agencies in support of those less fortunate? Does it somehow make others bad people in your eyes because although they donate thousands of dollars every year to those less fortunate, they don't live in their cars?

As an aside, I am glad that you at least distanced yourself from this, which was even more extreme than your post:

If you were helping people..you wouldn't be rich. Your wealth came formt eh stolen labor power of the workers who made you rich.

[Random_Australian]

26. Hmmmm, you're not getting me.

I was thinking that a person might become middle class, not rich, by giving away lots of their stuff. This is, in fact, what I intend to do.

And yes, it is enough that people work hard and donate. That's why I explicitly said I would not judge people who became rich, for exactly that reason - they have still done good things.

In other words, I said that bieng rich was no impediment to bieng a good person.

You've seriously misread my post, I think. Or I posted some words wrong :rofl: but I don't think I have. :)

[piesRsquare]

31. Giving Away A Lot...

...doesn't mean you LOSE a lot...

You can donate a LOT of money and still stay (financially) rich.

Oversimplified:

Investments earn interest. Lots of wealthy people donate much of what they've earned in interest. Principle (principal?) remains, and the next year, they earn the same amount of interest...then donate again!

Imagine you had money in a basic savings account at a bank, earning 2% interest.

Now imagine you had $500,000.00 in that account. At 2% interest, that's $10,000.00 you'd earn in a year...just by having that $500,000.00 sit in the bank. Pull out that $10,000.00 and give it to your favorite charity. You still have $500,000.00 sitting in the bank, which will earn another 2% interest the following year. Easy and fun, huh?

The trick is getting enough money such that you can live comfortably (including paying all yer bills) AND be able to let $500,000.00 just sit in the bank and earn interest!

[DRoseDARs]

33. Kind of what I tried to say in post#21, but you've stated it much more eloquently. Thank you. n/t

[Random_Australian]

35. :)

This sounds fair enough. I would do some modifications, but that's just unnecessary detail. :)

[Leopolds Ghost]

27. Oh please? Jesus & Jewish prophets said so. Why be a philanthropist if you've no ethical basis?

The origin of philanthropy is the qute clear statements in books like the Bible about how the rich were supposed to conduct themselves, i.e. give away their wealth to the poor. This is the basis for Judeo-Christian ethical worldview about the place of money in society. Our society (whether or not you're religious). It is not in keeping with the self-interested "common sense" view of philanthropy, where the rich do it to assuage their egos.

To say the "give a little" view is more enlightened than the Judeo-Christian
view is to say we should take the country rightwards -- and call it progressive.

Just about anything someone considers "more reasonable" can be mislabled progressive these days.

How about this: The division between the rich and the poor should not, ideally, exist. Therefore, if you find yourself owning vastly more than those around you, you should work to lower the distinction, REGARDLESS of whether you feel the money was ill-gotten or not.

Don't folks understand this? Could this lack of comprehension of our traditional societal expectations, which are rooted in thousands of years of cultural tradition, be the real reason so many upper-class liberals seem to have abandoned its traditional commitment to social justice, i.e. eliminating the huge and immoral distinction between rich and poor in our society?

[DRoseDARs]

30. Unfortunately for old world philosophies, I'd say most "rich" people are secular now...

...or at least don't follow closely the precepts of their religion. So long as capitalist systems exist and tolerate the "I have money, therefore I deserve more" kinds of mentalities, there will always be a gap between the rich and the poor and it will keep growing the longer this tolerance of this greedy sense of privilege continues. No amount of quoting Bible/Torah scriptures will change that. The only thing you can do is try to convince the rich to voluntarily give up some (ideally, most) of their wealth to help others who aren't nearly as well-off or in a position to do in kind.

[DRoseDARs]

21. "Rich" doesn't have to mean "money squirelled away;" what about just their income?

If a "rich" person has a yearly income of say 2 million after taxes but donates almost all of it to various good causes or just one, saving just enough to live comfortably (say upper-middle class; all of this is subjective of course), is that person still "rich" or are they now middle-class? Shades of gray all around however you look at it.

Are actors like Gary Sinise, who co-founded Operation Iraqi Children, making his money off by exploiting the work of others? How about Cat Stevens (aka Yusuf Islam), who founded Muslim Aid and later Small Kindness? An arguement could be made about the Gates family (Bill and Melinda) exploiting others, but is that the whole story or even really fair to say?

[Random_Australian]

28. What?

I think it a really good idea that people donate and live comfortably. :shrug: is there something I'm missing?

Do we have different ideas about what rich is?

And didn't I explicitly - explicitly say that people don't just make money by exploiting others? I think I did. In fact, I'm sure of it.

[DRoseDARs]

34. Read post #31; he says it a lot better than I ever could. n/t

[papau]

36. they are still rich n/t

n/t

[DRoseDARs]

9. Apparently they've never heard of philanthropy...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philanthropist

[Kelly Rupert]

6. Hey, don't knock it 'till you've tried it, man!

I've been exploiting the proletariat for a few weeks now, and man, I gotta say, it totally kicks ass. There's just nothing like waking up in the morning, walkin' down to your factory and stealing labor power from workers. Man, it's the life.

[Bonobo]

5. The best way to help change the world is to set a good example.

Pursuit of wealth and possessions is not a good example for anyone.

[fujiyama]

8. It depends on the sort of "wealth"

Material wealth is often gratifying temporarily but in the long run leaves you hollow and empty.
nt

[Breeze54]

10. Rich is relative...

"1 Reason You Should Want To Be Rich"

I have bills to pay. ;)

[The Animator]

11. Um... I can't afford righteous indignation... I'm poor.

Those who say money can't solve problems, have never been broke. I'm talking rolling pennies for gas broke. Wondering how your gonna get to work tommorow because you've run out of dough in the middle of the week. Leeching off family and friends to stay a float broke. I've been there, and it's not exactly a badge of honor. Just being self sufficient would be a huge step up. Saving is a little too much to ask for right now.

[DRoseDARs]

13. Getting by with a little help from your friends is nothing to be ashamed of...

...every little bit helps. Now what if one of those friends was rich? From some of the posts in this thread so far, you should be ashamed of yourself for accepting any money from a rich friend.

[BayCityProgressive]

17. you should be ashamed

if you're rich and your dear friends can't even get to work..

[DRoseDARs]

23. You SHOULD be ashamed ... if you're standing by & doing nothing to help them get back on their feet.

There's a difference between being "rich and aloft" and being "rich and generous/charitable."

[Manifestor_of_Light]

24. that's right

None of the guys I went to law school would lift a finger to help me find a job as a paralegal, with my law degree, twenty years after we graduated.

And I know that several of them are millionaires or multimillionaires.

In fact, anyone that I have asked to help me find a job, be it a preacher or rabbi or a lawyer, has acted SHOCKED that I would ask them to give me a referral to somebody.

Like jobs just fall out of the sky or something, like magic.

Oh and my parents wouldn't help me when my car died and I couldn't look for a job, because the jobs were not where the bus ran. My mom threatened to sue me to get her car back because I borrowed it when I needed it, and she couldn't drive. She was blind from macular degeneration. I wouldn't be surprised if she'd filed charges of auto theft against me. They just couldn't understand why I couldn't get a job with my expensive education.

Then they acted like it was my fault like I wasn't trying. This went on for about a decade before they died.

[rwenos]

14. Tough Times

Been there, done that, my friend. Currently experiencing something close to the same thing -- only now I have a disabled wife and teenage daughter to worry about too.

I tell my kid the only thing we can rely on in this world is our own brain -- i.e., training, education, poise, moxie, nerve, energy. Sometimes that means just putting one foot in front of the other. Remember the Billy Joel lyric? "I learned that just surviving was a noble fight."

Keep putting one foot in front of another.

[rwenos]

12. Easier for a Camel to Pass through the Eye of a Needle

than for a rich man to find the Kingdom of Heaven. On the other hand, Dorothy Parker once said, "I hate all rich people. But I think I'd be perfectly darling at it."

A third view, Ella Fitzgerald's: "I've been rich, and I've been poor. Rich is better."

Isn't this debate tantamount to debating the number of angels that can dance on the head of a pin?

ON EDIT: Even Karl Marx found nothing wrong with what he called "petty bourgeois capitalism" -- i.e., English shopkeepers.

[Craftergrl]

15. Like him?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Huntsman%2C_Sr.

Mr. Huntsman has been an important donor to several causes, both locally in Utah and nationally. One of his most notable causes is his co-founding of the Huntsman Cancer Institute. His namesake HCI building holds this quote "Selfless giving unto others represents one's true wealth."

As I understand it for years all the profits of Huntsman Chemical were donated to charity.

[DRoseDARs]

16. And yet such a thing doesn't occur to some people and I find that very sad.

They seem to automatically assume that large sums of money must turn everyone it touches into greedy, selfish bastards incapable of parting with any of their money unless it's to buy more things for themselves.

[BayCityProgressive]

19. sorry until

every American has healthcare, education, a safe living space, enough food to eat, and childcare if needed, the rich int his country will continue to disgust me. Just watch that horrid show on MTV "Sweet Sixteen"..then look at the lives of people in inner Detroit. How anyone can have a concience and live like Paris Hilton is beyond me.

[gravity]

20. I agree

Many poor people are "greedy, selfish bastards incapable of parting with any of their money unless it's to buy more things for themselves" too. I think it's a universal trait for some, and money just makes it easier to see it.

[tblue]

22. Yeah, but a lot of poor people are very generous. I remember phonebanking and asking for

campaign donations, and one person told me she had given before and she's on a fixed income, but she could send $5. The big difference is, when a poor person gives $5, they're sacrificing s a day's worth of food. And, of course, there are nasty bastards of every stripe.

[DRoseDARs]

25. Bless their hearts for doing so...

I just filed my taxes for the year and I'm below poverty level still (lots of help from my parents until I can finally find my footing). I still manage to find it within my means to donate here and there.

[tblue]

29. Such a mensch!

mensch |men ch | noun ( pl. menschen |?men ch ?n|or mensches) informal a person of integrity and honor.

[DRoseDARs]

32. I'm having a blockhead moment: I hope that's a compliment...

:P

It really doesn't take much to try to make a difference in someone's life, even if they're a total stranger who you will never met. Personally, I love those commercials that have aired recently (two so far, I believe) that talk about people who were 'almost' helped by people who 'almost' donated. Leonard Nimoy (aka Mr. Spock of Start Trek fame for you non-Trekkies) voiced the first commercial. It expresses pretty closely what I'm talking about: It doesn't take much to donate (as you pointed out, even the "poor" can manage to donate now and then) and those who have greater financial wealth have a greater means to donate. Whether they do so or not is up to their moral beliefs and ethics; it's up the individual to decide to do so, and we should all hope they do so. Moreover, if we should find ourselves in the position of having greater wealth, this kind of generous/charitable behavior shouldn't even be a question. Hell, Bill and Melinda Gates live like royalty, but they've donated more money with a single check than I will ever probably see in my life. I find it difficult to fault them for that, questions about any use of cheap labor by Microsoft notwithstanding.

[tblue]

38. Oh, sweetie, my goodness yes!!! I guess you're not Jewish. LOL

[mrbill]

37. "Oh Lord, Please give the faith, respect and trust of my fellow man......

and enough money so i don't have to assoiate with any of them."

--quote by Alex Burton, early Dallas tv news guy