Rich people

16-04-2013 09:56PM

ElvisChrist6 wrote: »

I know a few reasonably rich people and most of them are complete cunts, but mostly because they grew up with a huge sense of entitlement having upper class parents, so they always think they're right and a lot seem to have no idea that other people can't do the things they can.

That's pretty much how I feel, having grown up around lots of very rich kids. Most of them weren't downright nasty or snobby but just kind of oblivious to how rich and how lucky they were. I still know a lot of well-off people and it bugs me so much that they don't realise not everyone can afford to do the things they do. If I say in a conversation that I'd love to go to Japan, they say 'why don't you just go? What are you scared of?' Scared? I'm not scared. I just don't have anything like that kind of money to spend on a holiday, knobend.

I know another girl who has a blog and she posts about 'just scraping enough money together to buy a designer bag', we're talking 2 grand a bag here and she gets one every few months. She goes on 5-6 holidays a year to places like Thailand and Hong Kong, her parents pay for her 2 bed apartment in Chelsea and she goes to restaurants almost every night. She's nice enough but just totally oblivious to how privileged she is. She just doesn't understand the concept of not being able to afford something.

johnr1 · 16-04-2013 10:06PM

As a sometimes limo driver, sometimes tour guide to the top end of the market, I've met guys from the board of McDonald's, New York litigation lawyers, German judges and barristers, most of the European Commission, Texas oil millionaires, top US broadcasters.

They were all very different, some were absolute cnuts - particularly the Ivy League educated east coast Americans. I never want to meet people who let you know what a worm you really are to them as much as those aholes did again.
Some were really sound, most were very very busy, most of them rewarded honest effort well. The Germans were the stingiest tippers, no matter what you did for them the still didn't appreciate it, but then again they were on a company junket, and putting their hands in their own pockets wasn't part of the plan anyway.

In my former life as a construction subbie, I met most of our top builders and developers, now mostly broke and including those already mentioned here.
They were the same as any other cross section of irish society, some grand to deal with, some a-holes. Their underlings were usually the total cnuts actually.

Kinski · 16-04-2013 10:07PM

somefeen wrote: »

I don't think I've ever met anyone who was really wealthy.
(in before "We are all loaded compared to Ethipoians")

Not compared to this guy.

NuckingFacker · 16-04-2013 10:20PM

I got talked into a smartphone a few weeks back, away from my battered Nokia. I find it an embarassment, waay to flash and "ohh look at me poking away at my big dopey phone". I miss my Nokia and will change back soon. I also drive a dull looking anonymous car and usually a battered van. I also like working with my hands so I do- actually like getting down and dirty. Most of the very wealthy people I know are sound, you'd never guess they had any money.

I'm well off, not rich, just well off. Some of my family are rich, very rich. But unless you knew, you'd never know. They're the ones shopping for bargains in Tesco and Lidl and having a whinge about the price of parking. They also drive crap cars, spend their time discussing soccer and look like a cat dragged them through a bush backwards. But they'd buy a house for a million for the craic just because they thought it was a bargain. And not blink. It's usually the flash ones that are borrowed up to the hilt and don't actually have a pot to pis5 in. The really rich ones are usually very, very down to earth.

shoos · 16-04-2013 11:49PM

I don't think arseholes are anything to do with money, old or new.

Money might give them more opportunities to be an arsehole and certainly on a grander scale but they would have been one anyway so can't really blame the money.

Also, in my experience (and I've a lot of experience with rich teenagers) arsehole parents breed arsehole kids. If you're the kind of person who thinks having done well in life has made you better than others than you're kids are going to think exactly the same and that goes for the old and new rich.

ToxicPaddy · 23-04-2013 01:28PM

I've met a fair few wealthy people in my time, from those who have a few million to those worth billions..

Some were sound out, down to earth and great craic, others were complete d*cks.. Nothing to do with how much money they had or anything, just to do with their attitudes in general.

What I have found is that those with the real money (100 million+), rarely flash it around, however some of the ones with 3 or 4 million in the bank make a point of trying to prove to everyone how rich they are.

Met 2 guys in Germany last year who were part owners of an NHL hockey team last year, Canadian guys who made money from the oil industry in Alberta, no idea who they were but spent night sitting at the bar having a great laugh with them. Sound out guys. Probably worth hundreds of millions but they were just normal guys who did well for themselves.

Only found out afterwards when the barman was telling me about them and showed me the jersey in a frame behind the bar that was signed by all the players from the team to the guys in the bar.

Sleepy · 23-04-2013 02:06PM

Who I assume to be the richest man I ever met was lovely. He was a director of a german bank at the time and invited myself and my then girlfriend over for dinner in his place while we were borrowing his Paris city-centre apartment for a weekend (her father was one of his oldest friends). He told us his life story over some incredible wine and a lovely meal his wife cooked and changed my life.

Since a very young age I'd wanted to be uber-rich and I could definitely see the advangtages to it in his lifestyle: a fantastic homes, the city centre apartment for those nights you don't fancy a long cab home, the ability to donate millions to your alma-mater, a Rhodan on the wall, cases of premier ecru beaujolais etc. In telling us his life story, he revealed what it had cost him: incredibly long hours of hard work. Fair enough. Not afraid of hard work at all. But those long hours were often in different countries to the one his children were growing up in. His kids were almost strangers to him. Not in any malicious way, they loved him as their father, but he barely knew them as they were growing up and was only starting to get a grasp on what the children his wife had raised were like now that they were adults.

That night my notions of becoming insanely rich died. Sure, I'd still love to win the lotto and buy a ticket most weeks. But, as far as I'm concerned, being at home to have dinner with the family and put the kids to bed should be the norm. I'll give up the occasional night for the sake of my career of course but I'm never letting it become a full time thing. I had 6 months of commuting to London to keep a roof over my family's head and it was fcuking miserable. If I can help it, it won't be happening again.

Wealth is subjective and there's nearly always a price to be paid for it.

dublinman1990 · 03-05-2013 02:44PM

The way I see it is that wealth is seen in many different ways, traits or personalities. I am not wealthy in terms of money btw. I have seen some people on the street who I assume "cash rich". Some of them can really be very nice, sound people. And I met some who are miserable as they seem to be brought up to be miserable from their parents.

But I can say that a person can become being rich and wealthy in life with no sense of ever grasping a reality. They could be ignorant at times; when people don't give them a chance to be generous towards them.

There also can be people who I feel have wealth in their standard of their education; but; they do not have to be necessarily rich in terms of having money at all.

Yes; Money is essential in some good ways. But it can be bad in terms of not enjoying life to the full.

Rich people

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