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| Being Rich is a Pyramid Scheme... |
I’m going to share a bit here from my own personal experience. I grew up in a home where there was anything between one and three servants. When we had three servants, one did the cooking, another did the cleaning, and the third did the laundry. I remember their names well - Grace, Honey, and Sarah. And, still, all these years on, I hold them fondly in my heart. They were good people. That said, I took for granted that my bed was made, my laundry was done, my meals were cooked, the house was cleaned, the dogs, cats, chickens, birds, and anything else was fed, and whatever else goes on in running a home took place invisibly.
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| http://deeptruths.com/letters/richman-poorman.html |
I went to DSG in Grahamstown, a rather private, posh, and highly achieving academic school for the sons and daughters of the well-to-do. In my days, there numbered between 180 and 200 girls (no boys allowed) that included all twelve grades. That meant each class had maybe ten or fifteen students. Needless to say, girls who attended the Diocesan School for Girls in Grahamstown always had excellent academic results.
But it was more than that.
There is a certain culture amongst the rich. Anyone who doesn’t speak the same way one does is immediately scorned. There is a certain language. One speaks about chaps (guys) and the loo. One pronounces words in a certain way. And all these things are instantly picked up when someone is introduced to one. So when someone didn’t fit that mold, they are looked down upon and spoken about with contempt. Anyone who isn’t in one’s class really is’t worth one’s attention.
That hasn’t changed. The rich are different. They don’t see you and me. They see scum, the flotsam and jetsam of humanity, and a means to use those useless masses for their enrichment. One of the reasons I walked away from that culture when I was twenty five was that I could not bear the disparagement I so often heard about those who are less fortunate, especially when it came from the mouths of people who had never had a day’s suffering in their lives.
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| http://www.ready4growth.com/why-the-rich-get-richer-the-poor-get-poorer/ |
A Few Years Later
A few years later I was really struggling to relate to others around me. It occurred to me that I had no appreciation for anything. Appreciation, after all, is understanding its value. If everything has come easily to one, one seldom understands its value. I wasn’t impressed by fancy cars (hell, for most of my life until that time, everybody I went out with drove a Lambourghini, a Corvette, a Merc, or a fancy sports car of some sort), expensive clothing (my mother clothed me in labels and I didn’t even realize it. She bought me a complete new wardrobe every semester), and money. I never had to pay for anything so it really didn’t matter to me. Still, I obviously offended many because I didn’t appreciate the things they did or said and they obviously thought I had to. And so my long journey on learning to appreciate begun.
Back to the Rich
The Rich Have No Idea About Money
So let me tell you about these super rich people. Genuinely, without any intended malice, they cannot understand what they have never experienced. Nor are they capable of making decisions for the rest of us. As Mr. Mitt Romney has shown us time and time again in his endless remarks, his way is not our way.
Mitt Romney first said that middle income was about $19,000 per year. Then a while later when that obviously got him into hot water, he said it was between $200,000 and $250,00. When asked if $100,000 would put one into the middle income bracket, he said no.
Mr. Mitt Romney, you see, is so far from the middle (and lower) classes that he has absolutely no idea of their income.
Here’s a really good link to see the many things that Mitt Romney said. They are all the result of having growing up in a particularly sheltered - sheltered from the poor, that is - way of life.
The Rich Think They are the Only One’s Who Work Hard
Because the rich have never intermingled with those of us who don’t have the coin to interact with them, they think we are poor because we didn’t work hard. So you often hear comments like, “I worked hard to get where I have,” or “If I can do it, so can you,” or “You’re just jealous because I’m rich and you aren’t.”
You can read about more things the rich say here.
Why do the rich say those things? Interestingly, because their life experience is very limited. If one has only experienced life at one level, one has no conception of anything else. I always remember a story I was told about the late Dr. Chris Barnard, the South African doctor who was the first person in the world to do a heart transplant.
He was irritated that the Africans always arrived late for work - at about 6.30 am instead of 6 am or 6.15am.
Someone turned to him and said, “They don’t have cars. There is no regular transport from the townships. Many get up at 3 am to walk here.”
Dr. Barnard had no idea because those weren’t the circles he moved in, and, as I said, like many others, he didn’t have any other sort of life experience except that of a white Afrikaaner male at the top of the food chain in South Africa.
Here are some other quotes from rich people.
Barbara Streisand, “I want only two houses, rather than seven... I feel like letting go of things.” Most of us would be happy to have only one.
A Kuwaiti Minister on how to save money, “"Instead of having four maids or three maids in the house, you can have two maids."
Jose Canseco - a sportsman, "You know my life, this financial thing, is a very complicated issue. Obviously, when you make all that money, people think, 'OK, let's assume it is $35 million.' People have to understand that $35 million, you're paying the government 41 percent. That leaves you with about $17 or $18 million, not even. Then you're taking care of your whole family."
On Twitter, “"OMG i was saying how i couldn't afford the gas to fly daddy's jet to the riviera this summer, and this barista totally rolled her eyes at me"
You can find more about what the rich say here.
Are the Rich Qualified to Lead and to Set an Example?
The answer to that is an unequivocal NO. Rich people, regardless of what their roots were, are completely disconnected from the rest of humanity. They have no understanding of normal people
It might be wise to remember a verse from the bible here.
Not that I’m a Christian, but Proverbs 30: 8-9 has a point.
“Keep falsehood and lies far from me; give me neither poverty nor riches, but give me only my daily bread, Otherwise, I may have too much and disown you and say, ‘Who is the Lord? Or I may become poor and steal, and so dishonor the name of my God.”
The Middle Classes are the Bastion of a Successful Nation
According the Bible, one can extrapolate that it is the middle classes that are the bastion of a successful and ethical nation. The above verse would denote that the rich have become arrogant and the poor have become desperate.
Exactly right. History hasn’t changed a thing.
So What are We Going to Do About the Super Rich?
Time to change the system, don’t you think?
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