Feeling sorry for the poor rich

by sanchom

Are the Rich Completely Undeserving of Sympathy? –
[Via Megan McArdle - Business - The Atlantic]

I saw a fair amount of chortling this morning about this Bloomberg piece on wealthy financial-industry types who are having to cut back because of plummeting bonuses.  And to be sure, some of the cuts are in the “Call me a Waaaah-mbulance” category:  can’t go to Aspen any more?  Had to cut back that three-bedroom summer rental to only one month?  Why yes, that is the sound of the world’s smallest violin playing a dirge.

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All this shows is that many people making a ton of money are not very smart. Just as are many people making little.

We used to assume that wealth meant you either had some brains or were born into a family that once used to have brains.

But a lot of these wealthy seem to have fallen into wealth without a lot of self-awareness of what that really entails.

So, they make $300,000 but have $200,000 in fixed costs. See that is worse for them when their salaries drop to $125,000. Poor rich guys.

Not very smart, unless they had been socking that $100,000 extra away every year. It seems like most of them squandered that on vacations and such.

Because if they had been socking away even $50,000 a year for a while, they would have liquid savings to tide them over as they made a decision on selling the house.

What this article states is we should feel sorry for people who squandered their riches, who lived month-tomonth just like a poor person does.

A poor person has no choice. Someone making $300,000 made all sorts of choices.

And I bet there are many more people making $300,000 who are weathering this because they were aware enough to take precautions. But we don’t hear about them in the papers.

Ants never get much press.