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Why do people feel they are entitled to the money of others?

  • 29-10-2021 9:21pm
    #1
    Registered Users Posts: 304 ✭✭


    Jeff Bezos & Elon musk amongst others, appear in the media quite frequently and how they make obscene amounts of money and even more so during the pandemic. We see a story that typically says something like: "These companies made billions during the pandemic" or "Such a persons wealth has now surpassed this amount" etc, etc.

    And the comments that follow are nearly always the same;

    1. Nobody needs that amount money.
    2. Jeff.B could give every American 50k and still have billions left over.
    3. Billionaires should be illegal.
    4. Why do billionaires build rockets when they could cure cancer

    Lots of ganging up, negativity, wealth shaming etc, and anybody who disagrees is usually mocked.Do people seriously think like this? What is the rational? Nobody has a say over other peoples money nor are they entitled to other peoples money.

    Does anybody feel that this is inappropriate behavior?

    And to a lesser extent, Its definitely a prevalent mentality with certain classes in Ireland to. Anybody who looks like they are well off are automatically labelled as snobs, rich cu^ts etc, etc.



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Comments

  • Registered Users Posts: 5,901 ✭✭✭happyoutscan


    i was a **** well before I was successful.



  • Registered Users Posts: 6,034 ✭✭✭Jequ0n


    It’s called envy or begrudging, OP.



  • Registered Users Posts: 17,568 ✭✭✭✭VinLieger


    The wealth these people have accrued is actually incomprehensible for our brains to understand in the abstract due to the gap between what we all have and what they have being so massively vast.

    Here's a great visual aid showing how obscene the likes of Bezos and Musks wealth actually is.

    https://mkorostoff.github.io/1-pixel-wealth/

    If you make your way the whole way through it and can still say their level of wealth is reasonable considering the absolute paltry amounts of tax they pay vs the amount of people in poverty or without a way to afford basic medial help and thats just in the states alone I really question your humanity.



  • Posts: 0 [Deleted User]


    I was sure this was going to be about inheritance.



  • Registered Users Posts: 729 ✭✭✭SupplyandDemandZone


    Bezos has made his billions paying people cappy money is his facilities. He also encourages the population of the planet to buy cheap crap they don't need in turn contributing towards the destruction of the planet.

    I don't begrudge him anything, I just think he's a bit of a dick tbh..



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  • Posts: 0 [Deleted User]


    That scale of that kind of money is staggering. If you were to count 1 euro every second it would take you 11 days thereabouts to count to 1 million, a billion on the other hand would take 31 years!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    Bezos is worth about 200 billion.



  • Registered Users Posts: 2,300 ✭✭✭landofthetree


    “I have never understood why it is "greed" to want to keep the money you have earned but not greed to want to take somebody else's money.”

    Thomas Sowell.



  • Registered Users Posts: 2,300 ✭✭✭landofthetree


    Nobody is forced to hand over money to amazon.

    Government takes it off you by force.



  • Registered Users Posts: 5,189 ✭✭✭Brucie Bonus


    The fact that such enterprises make such people so much money means there's a problem with the system.

    When you make a certain amount of wealth it seems to take on a life of its own.

    Nothing wrong with making a profit but the like of Bezos does it by making others suffer. His staff. He could chose to distribute a few hundred million on raising salaries, health etc. but the c*** wants to go to space a few times to be fair.



  • Registered Users Posts: 1,184 ✭✭✭85603


    somewhat agree, somewhat disagree.

    The people do have a say over other peoples money, since the system is implemented and run by the people and belongs to the people.

    If the system is allowing gross extremes then its fair to question whether something should be changed within the peoples system.

    People have a say over other peoples money when 'people' decide that other people must have a license to have that business, or must pay charges or taxes. So yeah people have a say over other peoples money all the time.

    If you sell drink then people have a say over your money and you must buy a license or people will come and shut you down. Same for taxi driver, same for drug dealer. The money is the systemized collective will of the people. The people give money value and print it. And its all promissory notes owed by the people. The people own the system, and they can question it.  

    I would say that with Musk having a gdp literally higher than Pakistan that maybe something is wrong in the system, the one the people built and own. The one which facilitates his business. Customers drive on national roads to get to his shops, customers use national funded education to earn money which then is spent on his products.

    Not that we need to tear all billionaires down and distribute their earnings to couch potatoes, but we could still maybe put in a ceiling that allows for the decadent life of a billionaire but just not to the point where you are worth more than Pakistan.

    Something where the reward is still there, the mega-yacht can still be bought. But equally having the gdp of Pakistan can't. They are using our system after all, no little people no infrastructure, no infrastructure no distribution, no private space shuttle.

    Something like 80% tax beyond 5 billion. Its all just ego games at that level anyway.



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  • Registered Users Posts: 12,948 ✭✭✭✭bnt


    One thing that’s not fully appreciated by some is the power of money to generate more money, simply by virtue of having it. Once you’ve covered all your expenses - however lavish or simple - what’s left can be invested and will inevitably grow unless it’s invested really badly. It requires no work or skill, it can be entirely passive on the part of the one with the money.

    Take someone who earns €50,000 a year. Now compare him or her to someone who makes €5,000,000 a year. There are absolutely no circumstances under which you could say the second person has ever worked 100x as hard as the first person. They can have in-demand skills, of course, but that doesn’t account for most of the difference.

    So, can we please drop this fallacy that the super-rich have somehow earned all their riches? Those riches came from distortions and failures of the free market, not through merit.

    From out there on the moon, international politics look so petty. You want to grab a politician by the scruff of the neck and drag him a quarter of a million miles out and say, ‘Look at that, you son of a bitch’.

    — Edgar Mitchell, Apollo 14 Astronaut



  • Registered Users Posts: 691 ✭✭✭atticu



    It seems that you missed point 3.


    1. Nobody needs that amount money.
    2. Jeff.B could give every American $5 and still have billions left over.
    3. When you make a certain amount of wealth it seems to take on a life of its own.Nothing wrong with making a profit but the like of Bezos does it by making others suffer. His staff. He could chose to distribute a few hundred million on raising salaries, health etc. but the c*** wants to go to space a few times to be fair.
    4. The fact that such enterprises make such people so much money means there's a problem with the system. Why do billionaires build rockets when they could cure cancer


    Post edited by atticu on


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,263 ✭✭✭dublin49


    or alternatively why do we laud these grotesquely greedy people ,why does society not regard them as pariahs ,gluttonly elsewhere is scorned why not when is comes to the accumulation of wealth.I can never understand how the church reconciles christian values with wealth,Theres the old chestnut trotted out about the camel and the eye of the needle but thats just ould pavlaver to keep the flock in check.The characters name checked by the OP are cartoon versions of people we meet everyday who think they deserve way more from life than other people because of circumstance.If you want a system that rewards entrepreneurial spirit why cant the reward be double or treble the norm ,why does it have to be unlimited.



  • Registered Users Posts: 332 ✭✭MarkEadie


    Amazon keeps charging me for amazon prime despite the fact that i've cancelled it long ago and this is very common going off google search so I am going to feel justified in criticising jeff bezos



  • Posts: 3,801 ✭✭✭[Deleted User]


    You guys realise that we pay taxes right? We the little people?



  • Registered Users Posts: 795 ✭✭✭Relax brah


    Lazy and resentful people - they usually lack a proper education and have zero social awareness.

    Ive done well (ish) for myself, I went to a public school and paid my own way through college whilst working full time - I had to do part time study so I could work full time in order to pay the fees.

    I never came from money and parents were very poor. I did it all with hard work and nothing more.

    alot of people will say it was “luck,” or my “his parents supported him.” Which isn’t true. I’ve read a bit into this, you’ll find a good research paper here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2944661/

    In short, people have a need for control. People also look to others for a benchmark by which they can gauge their own success. When you change the benchmark in such a way that you are now above where they are, they start questioning their own skills and abilities and feel like they've failed. This sense of inadequacy can be made even worse by the fear that, as you gradually make choices that create more distance, you'll leave them behind.



  • Registered Users Posts: 468 ✭✭Shao Kahn


    They are the biggest winners, in a game designed to create winners and losers!

    Whenever one of these guys gets to this lofty position in life, where they have so much wealth that their life essentially just becomes a bit meaningless, you invariably get an army of plebs in society trying to paint them as some demonic comic book style villain. Hell bent on world domination and subjugation of the masses in some giant half baked conspiracy theory.

    Bezos, Gates, Musk, Soros etc etc. It's just a lazy caricature at this point.

    Don't create an economic system, and then lose your sh!t when a bunch of clever feckers become really good at playing the game.

    If you don't like the system, change it. Design a better system.

    I agree nobody NEEDS $200 billion. And it would be better if wealth and resources were more evenly spread across society. But that's not the fault of Jeff Bezos. He played the game and came out a big winner!

    Now he's 57, obscenely wealthy, probably incredibly bored too by the looks of it. So he builds a space program, like a bored kid might build a tree house or go-cart etc. Mid life crisis billionaire style! lol

    Good luck to him. I don't envy famous or rich people, they're still human beings. They are subject to human emotions and human problems / weaknesses like everyone else. Depression, addictions etc. Being rich and famous looks like a bit of a curse to me - a lonely place, where you are surrounded by the worst type sycophants and leaches.

    Plus, I genuinely enjoying working hard to achieve modest improvements in my life. I don't know that I would really gain much gratification from having so much money, that I had no reason to even get out of bed in the morning. Creating a space program just to alleviate my boredom. No thanks!

    "Tomorrow is the most important thing in life. Comes into us at midnight very clean. It's perfect when it arrives, and it puts itself into our hands. It hopes we've learned something from yesterday." (John Wayne)



  • Registered Users Posts: 1,750 ✭✭✭LillySV



    Just a quick Google shows you why people like me aren’t happy with him… it’s not that he is successful… it’s cause he pays little to no tax , while the small paye man gets taxed more and more each year … not fair is it ?



  • Registered Users Posts: 18,821 ✭✭✭✭Tony EH


    What does Jeff do to "earn" his money these days? His money is actually earned for him by other people now. Jeff's "work" in Amazon amounts to about a few hours each year.

    We're not talking about Joe and Josephine Soap here, who go to a job each morning and graft through something they hate in order to feed a family and put an extortionately priced roof over their heads. We're talking about a billionaire who's cash flows to him from other people's labour.

    And I wouldn't be that hard on Bezos. He was just lucky in the grand scheme of things, that's all. Amazon could easily have gone the way that a lot of online book selling sites (that's what it started as) went. I.E. tits up. But just like Google, it ended up simply being the right place, right time. Or actually, it just eneded being a catchy name that people would remember and recognise.



  • Registered Users Posts: 5,628 ✭✭✭The J Stands for Jay


    Dont forget that his fortune is made on denying workers toilet breaks and normal employment benefits, along with putting local companies out of business. Amazon's business model is extremely wasteful and harms the environment on a massive scale. It's completely immoral.



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  • Posts: 0 [Deleted User]


    Erm, they all take large amounts of subsidies off multiple countries. Think Musk's company was at 4 billion from the US. Meanwhile they pay feck all tax. That's inequitable.



  • Registered Users Posts: 5,628 ✭✭✭The J Stands for Jay


    Especially when Musk has come out warning against wealth tax, telling the little people that once billionaires are taxed, they'll come after us next. Back up a second there, Elon, I think you'll find we're already taxed . Tell us more about the millions you company receives from the taxes that the plebs have paid in the States.



  • Registered Users Posts: 757 ✭✭✭generic_throwaway


    These huge corporations do not exist in a vacuum. They can exist because of the legal and social framework that allows them to exist and make money. That legal and social framework costs money to create and maintain. They should contribute to that.



  • Registered Users Posts: 13,705 ✭✭✭✭Hello 2D Person Below


    Bezos and Musk receive billions upon billions in subsidies from the taxpayer.

    Why are they entitled to the money of others?



  • Registered Users Posts: 468 ✭✭Shao Kahn


    They also have more talent and ability than 99% of the taxpaying population.

    Which is a big part of the reason why they're more successful than 99% of the population.

    Like them or not, their businesses drive economies. Most people could not build or run amazon, they would be hopelessly under skilled to pull it off.

    If you don't like Bezos or Musk, then don't engage with their products. You are the consumer, you built their wealth by making their products successful.

    When people pay 1,000+ euro for a new iPhone, you are saying "thank you Mr Apple corporation for making my life so much better with this barely indistinguishable upgrade from the last iPhone".

    Most consumers are idiots. Idiots deserve to be parted with their money. People like Bezos and Musk are experts at giving these greedy idiots what they think they want / need. It's a game and they play it very well.

    When the capitalist system is taken to this ridiculous level, everyone is greedy. The only difference, is some people are greedy and smart. While others are greedy and stupid.

    "Tomorrow is the most important thing in life. Comes into us at midnight very clean. It's perfect when it arrives, and it puts itself into our hands. It hopes we've learned something from yesterday." (John Wayne)



  • Registered Users Posts: 20 Sibyl_savant


    There's a certain naivety amongst those who take the above kind of 'libertarian' approach.

    They assume there is an even playing field that allows certain aristocrats of the business world do well and rise to the top.

    They assume these aristocrats of the business world are fair in their business practices, (including being fair to their own employees).

    They assume these people have the same access to media and political power as the average person.

    They assume these business people are just as libertarian as them.

    They assume money and power do not corrupt, i.e. that the people who acquire it are angelic like.

    The people who make these assumptions are either knaves or fools.



  • Registered Users Posts: 20 Sibyl_savant


    The 'if you don't like X then don't use X' is a foolish argument.

    When a company such as Amazon has such a dominant position in a market they limit people's options. The suggestion that they can't or shouldn't be criticised is interesting. It raises them up to another level, giving them church like qualities. Let's be clear, Bezos might be more clever than 99% of the population but that does not entitle him to be wealthier than 99.99999999 of people. This is especially true since he has leveraged his place in the market to give himself an advantage.



  • Registered Users Posts: 16,188 ✭✭✭✭Galwayguy35


    Bezos wasn't born into money, he was smart enough to come up with an idea and it made him one of the richest people alive today.

    Nobody is forced to work in Amazon or buy their products, if his company gets away with paying only a small amount of tax then its up to Governments to change the system and not blame business owners for taking advandage of it.

    The far left always seem to hate people who are successful and want them to give it all away to the workshy and crusties who will never achieve anything in life.



  • Posts: 0 [Deleted User]


    I think the question is should we live in a society with such gross inequity/inequality?

    Those who answer yes to this probably have a pipe dream that they might be billionaires some day.



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  • Registered Users Posts: 1,102 ✭✭✭PMBC


    Re the Bible ... camel and the eye of the needle.

    THere is a different interpretation that refers to the 'eye of the needle' as being a very tricky mountain pass in the middle east. So that being rich means it will be difficult not impossible to attain Heaven. Of course you have to believe in religion and Chrisitanity in the first place to accept the allegory.

    Just sayin ....



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