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Power is. If you want outcome A, and the billionaire wants B, it will be B. And if the billionaire hires a marketing team to convince you that you want B, you may not even realize that he is getting his way and you aren't.
This is why, even though it may be the most tenable economic construct we've come upon so far, capitalism is, ultimately, a pyramid scheme. Communism (in practice; not theory) has the same results, but tends to happen even quicker. This is largely due simply to human greed and the capacity for corruption and power-grabbing.
Money doesn't define happiness. Once over $60k a year, meaning once our basic needs are met, the more money doesn't necessarily means all happiness.
Yes someone may have billions but it doesn't mean they are happy at all. Be content with what you have and live below your means. That defines happiness.
I can be perfectly happy with a computer to Internet. Don't need TV, fancy cars, big house etc. etc. etc. I can get my books at local library. I am all set.
My wife, two daughters and I are about as frugal as we can be. We don't even have cable or internet at home (though at least the internet part of that may change soon.) We have simple phones with the lowest monthly bills we can find, we conserve our utilities. We are making a car payment, but that is our only real bill outside of rent, utilities and, of course, necessities such as food and gas.
We shop for clothes at Goodwill. My daughters, bless them, are totally fine with this.
I work at a library so we don't pay for most of our books or movies. We just aren't terribly materialistic and make do with a minimum.
I make $40K per year, minus taxes, retirement, health insurance, life insurance, etc. My wife had to stop working two years ago after she was hit by a car, nearly killing her and essentially ruining her health and physical well-being.
We simply are not making it. We fall further behind every month. Always a juggling act...robbing Peter to pay Paul, etc.
I don't mean to complain--I know we live like kings compared to most people on Earth. As I say, we do not care about fancy cars, fancy houses, flashy clothes, etc. but it would be nice to have enough extra money a month to take care of things that pop up like a brake job on the car, a dental appointment for one of the kids, maybe even take a weekend and go somewhere nice, like a cabin at a nearby lake or something. But not only is there never any extra, there's simply not enough to make it month-to-month.
I am 47 and have some health issues. I haven't had to work the 70-80 hour week or hold down multiple jobs in a few years (although I've spent good parts of my working life doing just that, and I've been in the workforce solidly since 1982) but I believe it is going to happen again. Something's gotta give. At least if I work myself to death, I do have a few life insurance policies.
It's a trifle unnerving being worth so much more dead than alive.
I don't believe money "buys happiness" but I do think it can pay the way to being a bit less stressed and constantly worried about how basic essentials are going to be paid for.
The tens of thousands of people who die every year because of lack of proper health insurance and even more who go bankrupt because of cancer think otherwise.
Wow, this thread is just full of complete and utter fabrication or maybe it's just lefty insanity that has completely lost its moorings.
Strange I am not in the top 10% and live quite well. So do most of my coworkers. Just bought a used Acura with all the bells and whistles and adding a room to my house. Economics is not a zero sum game. If one person makes a billion a year it does not effect me negatively for certain.
Would your tune change if that billionaire bought out your employer and them shut down the business so he could take the loss as a tax write-off or sold the business to a Chinese investor who proceeded to shut it down and transfer the business to China? Billionaires can do these kinda things you know!
The finite and scarce quantity of circulating money is one of the reasons for forced rationing and disparity between the haves and have-nots.
Part of the problem is insanity.
People are trained to chase after money (and wealth) instead of prosperity.
Real prosperity is based on the production, trade and enjoyment of surplus usable goods and services. Doing more with less so more can enjoy is superior to doing less with more so few can enjoy. Unfortunately, prosperity has become a victim of predators who do seek to meet their needs by taking the production of others, by whatever means they can - usury, underwriting, and even governments (inflation, debasing the money supply, socialism).
Contrary to widespread indoctrination, money is not prosperity, and poverty is not caused by a lack of money. If money was the cure for poverty, simply crediting everyone with 22 billion billion quatloos would eliminate the “need” for money, ever again. But if no one “needs” money, who will labor, sweat, work, manufacture, transport, and trade? Obviously, our society is corrupted by the “need” for money - deliberately controlled in value and volume - that strangles trade by its scarcity.
Furthermore, under money madness, there are only THREE WAYS to acquire money tokens:
__ Trade (labor, property),
__ Charity (private, public) and
__ Predation (crime, gambling, etc).
When people lose jobs and can’t find work, and cannot trade to acquire money, they either rely on private charity or resort to crime. Since no one wishes to encourage crime, the only remedy left to those who have exhausted private charity is to provide PUBLIC CHARITY, via SOCIALISM. However, compulsory charity and expropriation of property by government is nothing less than slavery, and slavery is not a viable remedy for the ills of mankind. Not to mention the awful side effects of penalizing the productive for the benefit of the non-productive.
So within our nutshell we have a situation due to money madness that pressures people to accept SLAVERY to the STATE as the means to acquire necessities.
Would your tune change if that billionaire bought out your employer and them shut down the business so he could take the loss as a tax write-off or sold the business to a Chinese investor who proceeded to shut it down and transfer the business to China? Billionaires can do these kinda things you know!
I would go back to being self employed. I made about the same when I was a realtor. The difference is 15k a year worth of benefits, primarily health insurance. If you only have one skill set in today's economy you are a fool.
I actually work for a Japanese multinational. We are in the cylinder gas business. Ya can't ship 150 lb cylinders to China and back daily. I think I am ok.
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