LIVING ON THE FRINGES OF REALITY
Johann Wagener 9-19-13
In a previous post about the super rich I posed the question; is accumulating wealth a mental disorder?
The responses were mixed and there were a few who took offense, accusing me of being jealous. Jealous? That's silly. Who would be jealous of the village idiot which is who I compare these people to. They just happen to be idiots with money; so much of it that they do really foolish and crazy things which is indicative of someone suffering from form of "psychosis." Thus, my proposing a new diagnostic category for the next DSM publication. To get the diagnosis I would ask that these people take a 1 question test which would consist of the following;
#1- If you had $75.00 and needed to spend it, which of the following options would you choose?
a) Buy a bag of 5 ice cubes based on the following;
Gläce Luxury Ice is the world’s leading premium drink-ice brand. Our proprietary manufacturing process creates a zero-taste(TM) profile ice which, unlike traditional ice products, allows the consumer to maximize the beverage experience. Our elegant design provides minimum dilution and maximum cooling, greatly enhancing enjoyment at the point of consumption. Gläce Luxury Ice provides consumers with a top-shelf choice for ice that matches their premium spirit selection.
b) Write a check to the American Red Cross based on the following;
The Red Cross helps with all disasters including hurricanes, tornadoes and floods, but fires make up 93 percent of the more than 74,000 disasters each year in the U.S.
If you chose "a" I would suggest you seek treatment because your ability to discern real from fantasy is seriously compromised. Anyone believing the blurb to be true and then actually buying 5 ice cubes for $75.00 is not living in the real world.
I don't mean to paint all wealthy people with this brush. I'm sure there's a bunch of them out there that are not living in the fringes of reality and do their part in contributing to the welfare of their fellow humans.
I'm referring to the "morbidly" wealthy; much like the morbidly obese, who hoard wealth to the extremes and beyond what a normal person would consume. Just like the morbidly obese they make up a small percentage of the population and you can find most of them on the Forbes 400 list which, by the way, requires having more than a $ Billion dollars to get on this year.
The average net worth of those on this list is $5 billion — each. Together, they're worth a whopping $2 trillion. You need to scrape at least $1.3 billion to make the list at all (we were so close), but it's heartening to learn that over half the billionaires on the list weren't born with a silver spoon — they earned their insane wealth all by themselves.
NOTE: I tend to disagree with the last part of that sentence because I can't phantom anyone being able to generate that much wealth " all by themselves." People like Buffet and probably Zuckerberg are not disillusion and recognize that it took the collective effort of many people to create the wealth they hold.
As for those on the list that "inherited" their wealth (had it handed to them) my guess is that they don't even have a concept of what it means to "work for a living." Work in their bubble consists of looking for ways to spend the money they hoard.
The closest one can come to self-mad wealth is by buying a winning lotto ticket.
