Rich people have feelings too

[shadowstalker]

Posted by Bill Ryan (here)
-------

And here's a story for Mini Flash... (Hi there! )

It's a true story, too. I've never told it before.

I once was very privileged to spend a lot of time with a princess (a real one, from a royal family outside of Europe). This woman, who was a wonderful, spiritual person, was a secret Camelot follower — and the black sheep of her royal family.

She lived in an apartment in a five star hotel that cost $5,000 a night. She was extremely wealthy.

But she was also very lonely. She couldn't even go for a simple walk in the hotel grounds without being followed by two security guards everywhere she went. Friends — normal friends — were almost out of the question.

But she and I did become very good friends: the reason she liked me so much was that I absolutely refused to treat her like 'royalty'. I would tease her about her golden slippers (a joke we had), and make her laugh a lot. I treated her just like any other very nice person. She desperately wanted to be 'normal', with 'normal' friends, doing 'normal' things (like driving a car, taking a bus, going shopping, having coffee in a restaurant). But all that was completely impossible.

Did she have feelings? Absolutely. She was one of the most lovely, warm-hearted, sensitive people I've ever met. But it would have been easy for someone who didn't know her to imagine, just from her wealth and background, that she was haughty, arrogant, elitist, selfish... but she was absolutely none of those things. She was trapped like a bird in a golden cage... really. I learned a huge, huge amount from the time I was able to spend with her.

I love your life stories and experiences Bill they are truly worthy of reading/listening to.

[Mini Flash]

Posted by Bill Ryan (here)
-------

And here's a story for Mini Flash... (Hi there! )

It's a true story, too. I've never told it before.

I once was very privileged to spend a lot of time with a princess (a real one, from a royal family outside of Europe). This woman, who was a wonderful, spiritual person, was a secret Camelot follower — and the black sheep of her royal family.

She lived in an apartment in a five star hotel that cost $5,000 a night. She was extremely wealthy.

But she was also very lonely. She couldn't even go for a simple walk in the hotel grounds without being followed by two security guards everywhere she went. Friends — normal friends — were almost out of the question.

But she and I did become very good friends: the reason she liked me so much was that I absolutely refused to treat her like 'royalty'. I would tease her about her golden slippers (a joke we had), and make her laugh a lot. I treated her just like any other very nice person. She desperately wanted to be 'normal', with 'normal' friends, doing 'normal' things (like driving a car, taking a bus, going shopping, having coffee in a restaurant). But all that was completely impossible.

Did she have feelings? Absolutely. She was one of the most lovely, warm-hearted, sensitive people I've ever met. But it would have been easy for someone who didn't know her to imagine, just from her wealth and background, that she was haughty, arrogant, elitist, selfish... but she was absolutely none of those things. She was trapped like a bird in a golden cage... really. I learned a huge, huge amount from the time I was able to spend with her.

I would have treated her the same way
My real name comes from a princess in a story.. So you know two princesses! One real one and one fake one (me) lol
I am sad to see how lonely she is.. She is very lucky to have you in her life.. Keep being a good man!

[Innocent Warrior]

I agree that a witch hunt is harmful, and it doesn't benefit anyone. If I was in the company of a rich person who was hurt about this, I would encourage them to empathise with what caused whoever hurt their feelings to behave the way they did. It's not that hard to understand, we don't need to look too far to see the enormous suffering people endure when they don't have their needs met.

I do my best not to hurt anyone's feelings, including rich (elite or not) people's but I don't give much consideration to their hurt feelings, caused by this issue. I don't want to be rich in a world where there are poverty stricken people and struggle to understand why people with money don't do more to help others. I know better than to judge anyone so I choose to just drop it and trust all that is.

Tom Shadyac was a very wealthy Hollywood Director, he directed The Nutty Professor, Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, Liar Liar, and Bruce Almighty. Shadyac became seriously ill, turned his focus inwards and chose to live a much simpler life. He lives in a trailer park and rides his bicycle to work now.

There’s all kinds of evidence now that money and material wealth makes you happier when it buys you out of the burdens of homelessness and hunger, or when you need medicine or education, but beyond that it doesn’t make you any happier,” explains Shadyac. “I’ve taken care of those needs for myself, as anyone would want, but I just realized that beyond that there’s no ‘there’ there.

Source.

The documentary, I am, is about Shadyac's story. Shadyac's story helped me to see the abundance in my own life and to let go of personal issues I had/have about rich people, there's a lesson in there for rich people too. It's informative and inspirational and a reminder of our true nature and what really matters in life.

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=JODEGNxS4CU

[shadowstalker]

Ok my turn to tell a story. To which spans to specific lifetimes.

I moved into a friends house in Texas last year to help her out with the kids, she needed a nanny as she could not afford one, nor could her man stay at home as he needed a job as well, so I volunteered. Not even a month later her true colors broke through, we had already been friends for 9 years but not that close as things always seemed to get in the way. But i also used this opportunity to get to know her better as a friend. So I move in.

As I said not even a month later things started to go down hill, as i noticed her treating her children like personal slaves. She never lifted a finger, not unless she felt things went to slow, then she would have a hissie fit. She tried to make me her slave as well but i made her keep to our agreement that my job ended when she or her man came home. Well summer time came around and I was there for 3 months and we where watching some weird docu, and wham out of the blue statements came out of there mouths that would make one sick to there stomach. Things like wanting a 4 year old child to die for eating grape flavored hand sanitizer. They asked me what my opinion of that was, i just return with the facts, " children are the true experiencers of this world, they work on scent, touch, taste, and the like, that is how they explore and learn, there response was " it doesn't matter that child is to stupid to live and should be put down." it is survival of the fittest. My heart was broke to know that one of my friends would even consider that kind of thinking, so i just let it go, because she was the same person she was in our past life, when her and I where sisters-in-law (royalty on both sides) She was the princess and I was the queen as I had married one of her brothers.

In this lifetime she does not have the money to back up her thinking(thank god) (as in the castle days), but it is just that, a way of thinking a mind set, what's in the heart, It has nothing to do with money, money just makes it easier for them to get away with what ever plans they may have for the rest of us. Believe me when I say she treated me like total crap as when in the castle days because i did not fall into the elitist mind set, I still want to help the world money or not, she still wants to destroy the world money or not.

BTW I met her father in this lifetime on many occasions, he is nothing like her.

[Ahnung-quay]

It doesn't take long for people to develop that mindset it seems. Take the Walton family for example. Sam Walton was a middle class business man with an idea to develop a five-and-dime store that sold mostly American made products. His wife and him lived in a small ranch style house where they raised their family.

Even after Walmart started to expand, he continued to live in that same small house. He never felt like he needed more. He started his business in order to help people be able to buy low cost goods. He was interested in people. While he was still alive, Walmart employees could buy stock in Walmart at a reduced price. They had fairly decent jobs that offered a competitive wage for the time.

Once he died, his children turned it into a mega corporation. Part of their vast profits now come from screwing the employees. They also buy most of their goods from China. Sam Walton left a great legacy for his children. I don't think he would too proud of the direction they have taken it.

Less than one generation; a totally different mindset.

[Alan]

This is a very revealing thread about the character of some of our members.

Judging someone by the size of their bank account is no different than judging them by the color of their skin.

[Ahnung-quay]

And, having said that Alan, you have judged.

[Agape]

Kingdom is when things are in order ,
things in order makes soul happy

Crown is if you keep your head up
and free of worries , and clear mind,
that's your crown

If you do good deeds that's your precious jewels

if you keep brave heart that's your Knighthood

and if you keep your mouth clean that's your Lordship

It's fairly impossible to do all of those things at the same time ..but if you drop all ... there are other options for life ..

[Tesla_WTC_Solution]

Hello everyone.
There is truth on both sides of this debate

Even in Christianity (back in the day at least lol), which is a religion of "forgiveness" supposedly, the preachers of Christ's era quipped that it was far more difficult for materially-blessed people to understand the value of the Kingdom of God; and because of this lack of humility/perspective, many of them would not then seek to enter the Kingdom of God.

It doesn't take actual wealth to become a greedy Scrooge In Real Life. Even (especially! lol) in multiplayer games (and single player games?!), we find excellent examples of people profiting from slavery, cheating, economy exploitation, and racial abuse! That's just in one game (wow), too.



For the uber-wealthy, the stock market becomes a game.
For poor families it can be a matter of life or death.
So when "elite" people treat the real life economy like a game, using computer algorithms and whatnot to illegally affect the markets (crash!), and enslaving the poorer populace when they lose their businesses, jobs, legal protections... that's absolutely wrong.


And as some of the wealthy folk recently admitted, they didn't quite catch on to the value of identifying with others in time to capitalize on knowing how to really communicate with them.

It's not hate speech to point out that people miss the value in life, when they choose to fixate on one gift or talent.

When we exploit one of our human abilities (lie cheat n steal) at the expense of the rest of our human abilities (empathy communication identity), we suffer as human beings.





Yeah it's easy for the overly taxed, overly stressed, overly vaccinated lesser beings on earth to "hate on" i.e. be jealous of the gross advantage of the uber elite.

My main beef with them is how they buy off the media (used to be a sacred institution imo) and buy off the doctors, and buy off the courts etc.


I don't like wealthy people who ABUSE that gift to tyrannize, enslave, take advantage of the poor. That's my right. Is it Christian? Heck no. But it's human to dislike.

XD

accepting that fact then doing a goodly amount of research helps a person feel better about the negative sides of his or her emotions.

The FOunding Fathers would have understood that humans have to draw the line,
there is a difference in fact between success and tyranny.

[ghostrider]

I worked on the Rockefeller private ranch in N.C. when I got out of the military ... I met ms ogalvie's three boys , they were just as done to Earth as you and me ... they loved to go sport shooting and I spent a lot of time with them away from prying eyes ... they never look down on anyone as less than , they are always positive and believe it or not in some ways are more sensitive than you and I ... they know where they are , and they are trapped in a world of demands , they must do , perform , and achieve in everything ... they just want to be normal boys ... everything they do is put on display ... the ranch was their private get away from the world , the true elite never interact with the general public and they hide their wealth , being discrete is their most valued asset ... instead of them joining a country club , they built their own private club on 15,000 acres that they use twice a year for two days ... it had it's own water plant , gas station , three mansions , 15 ranch houses , a hog farm , strawberry farm , pine straw farm , hybrid deer farm , golf course , lake , horseback riding trails , a very high tech clay pigeon shooting range , a riding stable with 12 horses , 15 employees , all for inner family use only ... their passion is watching wild birds ... go figure ...

[Innocent Warrior]

I appreciate people being honest about their thoughts, no matter how far from ideal or unpopular they may be. Managing my mind has been my greatest challenge and has commanded much of my focus until recently. One thing I've learned about mind is that it is not motivated by the same things as we are, it's just a personality construct, designed for survival and shaped unconsciously, and not just by our own soul. A person's thoughts are not an accurate reflection of who they are as a human being, only what they are thinking, at this time.

I understand there are lots of intelligent and intuitively gifted people on this forum, but you are mistaken if you think you can really see someone's character from their forum posts or even by tuning into their energy. All life is astonishingly dynamic and inspiration can change a person in a moment, again and again and again.

We debate the truth of issues but the truth about truth is...



Just in case you can't read the text (bit small), it says, "This line is a part of a very large circle".

...so don't take anything too seriously or take things people say personally.

Sorry, a bit off topic, judgement seems to be an issue that pops up a fair bit...just my two cents.

[Flash]

Posted by ghostrider (here)
I worked on the Rockefeller private ranch in N.C. when I got out of the military ... I met ms ogalvie's three boys , they were just as done to Earth as you and me ... they loved to go sport shooting and I spent a lot of time with them away from prying eyes ... they never look down on anyone as less than , they are always positive and believe it or not in some ways are more sensitive than you and I ... they know where they are , and they are trapped in a world of demands , they must do , perform , and achieve in everything ... they just want to be normal boys ... everything they do is put on display ... the ranch was their private get away from the world , the true elite never interact with the general public and they hide their wealth , being discrete is their most valued asset ... instead of them joining a country club , they built their own private club on 15,000 acres that they use twice a year for two days ... it had it's own water plant , gas station , three mansions , 15 ranch houses , a hog farm , strawberry farm , pine straw farm , hybrid deer farm , golf course , lake , horseback riding trails , a very high tech clay pigeon shooting range , a riding stable with 12 horses , 15 employees , all for inner family use only ... their passion is watching wild birds ... go figure ...

Don't you think it is much too much for maybe 4 people, two week ends in a years, while billions are starving?

If they had heart, which some truly have, and others wanting to get out of this golden jail, if they have heart, good, if they still can use it once into adult life.

I have seen some of those reaaaallllly rich, to a point where they are not telling, being absolutely depraved ... i meant deprived... of understanding and caring for others less fortunate, stabbing each other in the back as well, the roots of sociopathy.

[jagman]

I love threads like this lol ( It's the real meat and potatoes.) I hope we all become prosperous in
our lives. I guess what I define has "prosperous" is? Just being happy and fulfilled. Life throws us
all (Rich or Poor) curve balls sometimes and we strike out, But the question is do we throw down
bat and quit the team? Or do we get up and dust ourselves off and get back into the game.
Ok enough with the sports analogy's lol. Money doesn't make people happy but people who have money
can be happy and be a good person at the same time. The same can be said of any poor person.
Yesterday I had 2 dollars in my pocket (day before payday) and I passed a guy holding a sign
saying "PLEASE HELP I'M STARVING " so I stopped and gave him a dollar. Who knows he may have
used it to help buy booze or drugs but It still made me feel good.

[Natalia]

Great thread, thank you!

[lastlegs]

Look at the difference between Jasper Gamble who did the movie Thrive and Warren Buffet's granddaughter who I saw on Oprah. Jasper got an education to both do something constructive and learn things. Buffet's granddaughter told how he was willing to pay for any and all education for his kids and grandkids otherwise all they got was a million. She was a personal assistant to some rich person content to just wait to collect inclined to do nothing.

If you ever read Jared Diamond's COLLAPSE, as a UCLA anthropologist, he says his studies reveal that as the elite multiply they wind up taking up80% of all resources which eventually destroys both them and their civilization.

So not caring--leads to not learning--which leads to history repeating itself.

The Walmart family sited to Congress today is worth right now 158 billion which they can never spend and don't because they do not have the imagination to do it. So they just use it to count coup.

[Violet]

Yes, of course, I'm not talking about the evil three. But I do think I have some awareness of what money can afflict.

Posted by Flash (here)

Violet is speaking, in my views, of the regular rich people. With no sense of how billions make you or how you have to be to get to have billions.

Closer, try this: go back to your elementary school or early high school if you like and think about the kids in your class.

- Which ones did you and everyone know were really rich and how did you treat them and how did they treat you?

- Which ones did you know were poorer than you and how did you treat them and vice versa?

- Which kids did you actively choose to form ties with and which kids chose you?

Start from there and see what comes out.

It worries me that it is easy to say: Well, maybe a few rich people have a heart, somewhere, but most of them...

Can you guarantee yourself that the words "rich" and "heart" cannot be replaced by other target groups and qualities at any given time in the future? Think about that.

I've done the exercise above and will provide parts of it here as an anecdote. In my elementary class we had three kids that we gathered were of some wealth. A blonde girl (with blue eyes), a blonde boy (grey eyes) and another white boy (blue eyes). It's interesting, remember that brown eyes-experiment...

The two boys were friends and they were a joyous team. I remember they were so inventive on the playground turning tree sticks into lego-like planes and other constructions and just playing in a creative balance that was so appealing to me that I wanted to be their friend, and I managed, by the time we were 7 or 8, not sure. Not surprisingly, these two were also the class' math wizzes. One of them left two years later. It was only later that I understood too many immigrants had come to join our school, and the parents opted for the elitist (whiter) alternative right around the corner. Sadly, his friend, who stayed behind only for a short while, also left to that same white elite school, before we finished elementary school, to be reunited with his friend.

For me, things got pretty boring after that, and few kids were able to impress me in the same manner ever again. Except for one girl, talk about her later.

The blonde girl was pretty spoiled and did not initially attract many girls as friends because the other girls knew there was some difference. Maybe due to her older sister, who had it really bad, with an arrogant glamour look scanning inferiors with disdain. And she was beautiful, as was her younger sister.

But as time passed we found that this rich blonde girl in our class was actually pleasant and fun and we simply didn't take off well. She became my best friend at one point. I think things changed when her grandmother started teaching her some things about life. One day school was out and as it happened her grandmother wasn't picking her up that day, but she had to go to her. So, as I too was returning on foot, I said I would join her, and she was a bit hesitant. I did not understand that and I insisted it's not a problem, it's just a small deviation from my route and it won't cost me that much time. And then she said: my grandmother does not like immigrants. Well, enough said. It's not her fault.

Most of the kids in our class were average though, and some were poor. I was dancing the cord between poor and average though probably more often the former than the latter, and when that happened, rich(er) aquaintances hesitated not to help us, emotionally too, from what I can remember, as a child. They spent time with me, told me wonderful stories, and - I can see that now only - basically tried to take my attention away from the less pleasant phases I was going through.

Back to class, the tendency was that the average hung with the average and the poor with the poor, not so much because they were poor but because of their ethnicity. And as it happens there are links between poverty and ethnicity. It was also much more likely to find combos between average income and wealthy kids than the two extremes, and I can't undo the impression that parents played a significant role in this.

So, the other girl. We first thought that she was also in the upper income layers (children have this very naive way of determining this by looking at the brand of coloured pencils, fountain pen and type of rucksack one brings to school) and we found out later that she actually had a fairly miserable personal life with alcoholism at home and probably an unstable financial situation because the parents were running a bar and had to sell at one point, but she was always the cheerful, chubby, happy girl bringing everyone together. If others hadn't told us about her real situation, we would have never known. She was our class glue. She glued all income classes, ethnicities and hair/eye colours together by the time we were in our last year elementary school.

After that we lost each other. First year of college, there she is again. And so are others still, some are making good decisions, and some aren't.

So, I'm not looking at a pyramid, I'm looking at my close surroundings. That's where we should start, to make any change.

[Roisin]

Among the "rich", and here I'm talking about the REAL RICH, you will find a much higher percentage of psychopathology than in the general public because afterall, they got where they are because they are psychopaths. Anyone who is a reader of those true biography's of anyone with a whole lot of money, and you will clearly see that trait running through all of them. This is something that is inherited too where it and goes from one generation to the next. David Icke is right on target on this one.


WIDENING GAP
Eighty rich people now have as much wealth as 50% of the rest of humanity combined

Billionaires are getting richer, according to a new study from Oxfam. Gather together the wealth of the world’s richest people, and you now only need 80 of them before there’s enough in the pot to equal everything owned by the poorest 50% of the rest of the world combined. Back in 2010, you’d have needed 388 of the world’s richest to balance those scales.



The richest of the top 1%, the top billionaires on Forbes’ rich list, have seen their wealth accumulate faster over the last five years than even the rest of the super-rich, Oxfam said. In 2010, the richest 80 people in the world had a net wealth of $1.3 trillion. By last year, that was up to 1.9 trillion, an increase of $600 billion.

Together with the rest of the 1%, that group owned 48% of global wealth in 2014. That’s more uneven than in 2010, when they owned a little over 44%.
However, according to Oxfam’s data, we’ve been here before. Back in 2000, the 1% owned a higher percentage of global wealth than they do today. For a few years, the trend seemed to show that number falling, as the world’s poorest clawed some of it back. But in the past five years, that’s reversed.
Part of the problem, as identified by Oxfam, is that the rate of increase for the rich has speeded up, and it’s now so much higher than that for everyone else that it’s increasing the gap.
Critics have attacked Oxfam’s methodology. The charity uses data on net wealth—assets minus debts. Whether a deeply indebted American homeowner is poorer than a destitute African farmer is indeed a leap. Another charge is that adding up the wealth of the poorest people doesn’t make sense in the first place, because poor people are poor in different ways (few assets or debts) than rich people are rich (lots of assets and debts). Oxfam has defended the assumptions behind its “killer fact,” including how it’s much easier it is to count the wealth of the super-rich—there are only a handful of billionaires, after all, which is also Oxfam’s point.
The 1% has entered parlance, but who’s included? And do they constitute a problem or an asset?
Who are these people?

With a world population of 7.2 billion, there are around 72 million people in the top 1%—not all of whom are billionaires. In 2014, there were 1,645 people listed by Forbes as being billionaires, with Bill Gates back at the top after a year off. Of these, 90% are male, and 30% are American. And there’s evidence they’ve been running the show for a long, long time.
Is rising inequality inevitable?

Oxfam says not. In a campaign, the charity focuses on changes that could be made to the way global society is organized, including the eradication of extreme poverty and economic empowerment of women.
Why does it matter?

Economists like Dan Altman and Thomas Piketty argue that wealth inequality hampers growth and will only get worse in the future. Some have argued that it could be a good thing. And many have blamed it for misery, hopelessness and, ultimately, violence.

http://qz.com/329099/80-rich-people-...nity-combined/

[blake]

.....and what did this very wealthy person do for actual average people working hard, getting no where, and having to choose between food for the kids this week, winter coats and boots, or make the decision to pay the heating bill, or get a medical device they need for their cancer. Most Americans can not even make ends meet and are constantly trying to shuffle their money around to get what they need. The princess wants to be average and yet she doesn't seem to understand what average is from how you described her.

Reduce her income to $40,000 a year with no assets, and understand that out of that $40,00 which after taxes and forced insurance coverage is a lot less, then have her pay rent, or a mortgage that eats up half her income before taxes. So after paying taxes, insurance, school loans, rent/mortgage, and a car payment, if she is lucky to afford one, and after she struggles to buy food, clothes and medicine as well as school supplies for the kids, I don’t think your princess would have money to go out and buy a cup of coffee; shopping is out of the question because she would have no money to go shopping with. I am wondering how much this princess thinks she needs to live on to be happy and free? Let’s see $5000 a night….. in one week that is $35,000, How long does it take YOU to make $35,000? Many people in America don’t even make $35,000 in a year.

I am sure your princess is a nice person, but she lives and sees a different world than the majority of people. If all she knows if that it costs her $35,000 for rent for one week, how can she possibly relate to many single parents who only make $35,000 a year? Where is her reality check on living in the real world? Do we have a case of the poor little rich girl here?

And if the Princess gets ill she can have medical treatment, or purchase what she feels she needs to help her heal. Ophra often says money may not buy you happiness but she states life is so much better rich the poor. Hmmmm why does she say that?

The single parent making $35,000 a year, if she or he gets sick, unless they live on the street or rent free somewhere, they will not have that income to purchase medical devices or medical treatment and so they die or suffer immensely. People with cancer get chemo more often because it is the only treatment that they can afford because their insurance pays for it. They have no choice to do any other treatment. You Princess friend could have the best doctors and fly around the world to the best clinic and buy whatever medicine or medical devices they need to give them a chance to live, normal people don’t have a lot of options, because having money left over, after paying for the basics of life, doesn’t happen to most people.

I am an American. I cannot say how things are in other countries but I suspect most people are living hand to month in western countries, and most people can’t afford to go out and have coffee at a restaurant. Many years ago "Ophra" told her audience if they wanted to get out of debt they had to stop buying coffee everyday and to not buy any clothes or anything for a year. That, at one time was Ophra;s advice. The people I was visiting and watching the show with had a very charming house in the suburbs, blurted out that they, as a couple, had not eaten out or purchased anything for more then a year. That was already their financial life style. Yet still they had no money at the end of the month to save or invest with. Therefore on the outside they may have looked upper middle class and yet they were financially strapped as most Americans.

I don’t believe in global or national charities, that the rich seem to like to show how compassionate they are by giving money, they never really earned in my opinion. I would never give to a national or global charity. I believe in helping people, as anonymously as possible in my own community. Every time some one asks me for a donation for their favorite charity, I look around my community and give the money to people who need help. and it has been more than one occasion, that I just took the cash that I was asked to donate to the American Cancer society and anonymously mailed it to someone in town who indeed was struggling with cancer. Especially if I heard they needed or wanted a medical device that they believed would make their life more comfortable. Why anonymously…. because I don’t want people feeling they are beholding to me and I don’t like to embarrass people about money especially when they don’t have the money to buy something.

Rich people, that I know, seem to have a lot of advice for people with little money. The problem is they have little realistic notion of what the world is like for people who work hard and still can’t make all the bills paid in full by the end of the month. People will say they work hard and that is why they are rich. Well the majority of people work hard and are not rich. Its all about the system. Why do rich people have so much money? Our congress person was far from rich at the time of her election, but since becoming a member of Congress, it is amazing how quickly she suddenly advanced financially into the world of millionaires and I suspect if she says on her path she will enter the circle of billionaires and yet the average person she represents and use to be like, can’t make ends meet while they work hard..

Money is power. People love to have power. The majority of people are usually controlled by money in some way. Few have escaped the bondage of having money control them. Usually as soon as they get a job, just over broke as they say, they are enslaved.

So your princess wants the freedom to walk into a mall and go shopping without her body guards. Hmm….. many people would love to go shopping at the mall or anywhere else but can’t because most Americans today DO NOT have the money to do so.

I would like to know why your princess friend couldn’t live in a cheaper hotel, like an average person would stay at, if they had the money for a hotel room, most people don’t, and then use the $35,000 a week to give away to real people who work hard and have basic living needs that are not being met.

Rich people hang mostly around other rich people like famous people mostly hang around other famous people and that is human nature, but as long as they do that, they remain in a bubble at what life is really like for the majority of people. Your Princess has the means to buy what she needs to live free but she chooses not to She chooses to spend over $140,000 a MONTH to rent living space from a hotel, She created that world herself. She has many options to live differently and to make friends in the real world.

I have a lot of respect for people who ethically and morally make their fortune. I have no respect for people who made a fortune unethically or on the backs of others, by paying wages so low people that we have , in America, what we call the working poor. If you are rich and you employ the working poor, what does that say about your ethics and morals? Sure get a job at Wal-Mart. I have not idea what they pay but while corporate is making millions, the workers can’t pay their monthly bills.

I read a book when I was young about a banker;s memoirs, it was an old book maybe written in the 30s. He of course was wealthy. His attitude was that he under paid the tellers because “ if they were so stupid” to accept a job that pays so low on what they can’t afford to live on, then that is what they deserved. There were the people they paid well, the ones who took a lot of vacations and then the work horses like the tellers were the working poor. I never forgot that book. And I don’t blame people for accepting low paying jobs as they are desperate for any money and have the hope of making more eventually. I have no respect for any employer who contributes to the working poor ro benefit them.

It reminds me of our retired presidents. One who has a summer retreat in Maine and lives down south. He has a bullet proof car that gets like 7 miles a gallon. And he has it driven up to Maine and down to Texas every season. But you think he is so rich he can afford the luxury or the necessity of doing that each year. Well it turns out the American people pay for the gas to drive his car from Texas to Maine and than from Maine to Texas each year. Why are the American people paying for his gas when he bloody well can afford to pay for his own? I imagine the English people have the same issue supporting their royalty even though from what I read the Queen of England is the largest landowner in the world, but she must take from the workers to pay for her life extravagances.

I admire people who become rich ethically, and pay their workers a real living wage with hefty bonuses for work well done. But most rich people didn’t become rich by just working smart and hard ethically. I remember reading Warren Buffet paid his secretary 16 dollars an hour. But that was a few years ago. But even a few years ago, people can’t live well on $16 an hour. I am sure he could have paid her more without hurting is counting house too much.


You may have had a friendly relationship with the princess, but from what you described I have no respect for anyone spending over $140,000 a month on a hotel and than complains about not being free enough to go out for a cup of coffee. The Princess is not seeing reality, nor does she have good judgment in being a good steward of her fortune, which I presume she inherited.

The majority of people are poor even when they work hard because society is set up to keep them poor. Being poor makes people easier to control.

As long as you have a job you can’t walk away from you are a slave. The world like a slave. Some salves actually make a lot of money and yet if they can’t walk way form their job then they are just a highly paid slave.

When people cheat you out of time and money, they are hurting your life.
Most rich people, you will find if you look into it deeply will cheat you out of time and money. Its just how the hierarchical structure of power works. I always have. It just has gotten so much worse. To not factor in how the gap between the rich and the poor is growing and how the middle income class is being stamped out would be helping the rich and the powers that be continue to push the envelope of what they can do to us simply because they took all the marbles simply because the majority of Americans accept low wages and do not insist on being paid properly. They do so out of desperation.

Most people I know thinks the average person in America must make at least $70,000 a year. It is shocking to them when I win bet after bet when they look up what the average salary in America really is.

How much do you make a week? How much to you pay for rent, mortgage, school loans, utilities, taxes, insurance, food and medicine? Can you afford a vacation every year? How about one every five years? If you got sick and couldn’t work, what would you do?

If you got cancer and declined chemo how would you pay for any alternative treatment? Oh yes there are some charities that may help you get chemo if you don’t have insurance and give them all your private details of your life for the past five years. To get help you trade it for intimate details of your life. Once you ask for help, you are treated as a ward. You have no privacy.

The rich can make a difference in their communities by keeping most of their money in their community to help the local community and the local people who keep the community working. All rich people should be paying their workers decent wages, instead of mocking people who will work for any wage at all.

Making $10 an hour, in a full time work week, is $ 400 a week. Or about $20,000 a year/ Can you pay your mortage and all the bills from society on less then $400 a week. Less than $400 because after taxes you will be lucky to get $350 a week

Making $15 an hour will give you $ 600 a week before taxes or about $30,000 a year. Can your family live on that?

Making $20 an hour gives you $800 a week or about $40,000 a year.

Now look at what the majority of jobs pay. And whose fault is that? Not the hard workers fault? Why are the majority of people paid so poorly while the rich can so casually spend $5000 a night for lodging?

Your poor little rich Princess in her hotel has many choices and opyions that the majority of those carrying her luggage and making her meals don’t.

[Pam]

Posted by Desire (here)
We are all rich if we want to see it.

There is so much truth in what you are saying, Desire. Thanks for putting a smile on my face.

[TargeT]

Posted by Bill Ryan (here)
The moral of the story? To her — and many others here — I am the 'rich' one. Compared to them, I am (or seem like!) a multi-millionaire.

So think of this: everyone posting on this thread is 'rich' compared with probably at least a third of the world's population....

(And yes, you and I have feelings, for sure. )

If you make over 34,000 a year you are in the global 1%......... I am a 1%'er (in that sense) .

Americans make up half of the world's richest 1%

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- The United States holds a disproportionate amount of the world's rich people.

It only takes $34,000 a year, after taxes, to be among the richest 1% in the world. That's for each person living under the same roof, including children. (So a family of four, for example, needs to make $136,000.)

"Rich" is such a perspective based term, it's not a very good way to categorize people.