A lesson in democracy

[moonshadow]

This is meant as a joke... but you gotta admit, it kinda rings true...

voting.jpg

I also like:

"Remember the golden rule...
He who has the gold makes the rules!"

[crfriend]

"Remember the golden rule...
He who has the gold makes the rules!"

There it is, in a nutshell.

[Dust]

That's not necessarily a bad thing. The one who worked his tail off to earn that money is probably going to be more careful with it than someone spending other people's money...

[Freedomforall]

No truer words have been spoken!

[Jim]

That's not necessarily a bad thing. The one who worked his tail off to earn that money is probably going to be more careful with it than someone spending other people's money...

Often the poor working folks work much harder than those "who have the gold".

[Myopic Bookworm]

That's not necessarily a bad thing. The one who worked his tail off to earn that money is probably going to be more careful with it than someone spending other people's money...

Yeah, but a high proportion of the ones with the gold didn't work their tails off: either they gambled successfully on the financial markets, or their grandfathers worked their tails off and left them a pile. The easiest way to make a million dollars is to start with several million and pay a good stockbroker.

[Dust]

That's not necessarily a bad thing. The one who worked his tail off to earn that money is probably going to be more careful with it than someone spending other people's money...

Yeah, but a high proportion of the ones with the gold didn't work their tails off: either they gambled successfully on the financial markets, or their grandfathers worked their tails off and left them a pile. The easiest way to make a million dollars is to start with several million and pay a good stockbroker.

Any time it's your money, you are more careful than if someone else is paying the bill.

Even if Grandpa just taught them a thing or two about money, they could probably do better with an inheritance that is theirs than the kid with dad's credit card...

[crfriend]

Any time it's your money, you are more careful than if someone else is paying the bill.

The problem with the modern super-rich is that they tend to be 3rd or 4th generation trust-fund babies who have precisely no clue about things and have to hire managers to look after (and accumulate ever more) money matters.

The ones who do "make it on their own" tend to do so using practises that are extortionate to the ones poorer than they are.

[Sinned]

Actually saying the one with the money will be more careful with it. Look at our political class and the billions they waste every year. Sunak wasted billions on various schemes during the covid lockdown and I'm sure we can all cite examples no matter which country we live in.

[rode_kater]

Any time it's your money, you are more careful than if someone else is paying the bill.

If you have a million dollars you don't have to be careful at all, that's the unfortunate part. Invest it in the stock market, stock market crashes. Oh noes, now you just buy up other stock on the cheap from the other million you had stashed for backup. Millionaires don't need to spend money on insurance because no possible unexpected expense is going to cause them any hardship at all.

As aptly stated in a Discworld novel (forget which one): the poor have to spend $1 on cardboard shoes that last a week because they never manage to save the $10 to buy leather shoes that last for a year. Being poor is expensive.

That's not to say there isn't anything they can do about it. But complaining about people living off $40 a week to feed a family of four of not saving anything is at the very least insensitive. Being able to buy stuff in the supermarket without checking your bank balance first is a kind of wealth many people take for granted.

[Sinned]

That may be true for those who made their millions or inherited it and were brought up to be financially astute. Sadly it doesn't seem to apply to lottery winners who end up poor again after just spend, spend, spending, thinking that their little pot is bottomless. I have a pension pot which I have yet to touch because I work part time and don't need to. In early marriage we had little and struggled with a young family of four. So those lessons learned bode us well in our "retirement". [0]

[0] Even my wife and daughter work part time in a Chinese take-away and the owners, I think, are beginning to appreciate them and the contribution they make. My daughter was working her shift there tonight and my wife went to keep her company. When she got there the place was packed out so even though she wasn't due there to work, she barged through, rolled her sleeves up and got on with preparation, cooking and bagging up. I have been known to log on to the checkout and help four a short while if I've popped and there are long queues. Sometimes one just must.