The unfortunate reality about wealth is its power to corrupt. People who have the ability to help other people often do very little. I realize I live in a glass house on this one as I have done nothing myself, but I also haven't had much that I can help with either. As Americans we live in a very prosperous nation, and yet we have a large poverty problem. It is no wonder the 99 percent movement exists. When the top 1% control 43% of the overall wealth of the nation and the top 5% a total of 72%, there is a huge disparity. If there were 100 people in a room and we ordered 10 pizzas with 10 slices each. At this rate, 1 person would get 4 of those pizzas and an extra 3 slices. The next 4 people would get 2 pizzas and 9 more slices. The 95 other people would then have to split the other 28 slices.
While being wealthy in and of itself is not a bad thing. Being greedy, selfish, and narcissistic is. As Barack Obama has stated in his campaign, no one has become wealthy without other people. In fact without other people's existence, wealth has no meaning. You cannot become wealthy without other people placing value on your goods and/or services. You cannot become wealthy without other people being able to have access to your goods and/or services. This is what Barack Obama was talking about when he said "You didn't build that". He was referring to the roads and bridges, the society that we all belong to, the public services that we all depend on, the education system that allowed the United States to prosper, and fireman, policemen and EMTs that we all pay to protect us. Without these public services that we all pay for with our taxes, an individual has no capability of becoming wealthy.
So if wealth cannot exist without a society, then to continue being wealthy, society must continue to exist. But you didn't come here to read tautologies. Having wealth to such an extent that it is impossible to spend it all has little meaning except to stroke one's ego. Unless that money is being used to provide goods and services for people whether by donation or through new or expanded businesses, then that money is just sitting in a bank account, not doing anything. I'm sorry, but your ego is just not as important as the health of society. Society helped make you wealthy, is it not also your responsibility to give back to that society? I realize that you cannot and should not be able to compel the wealthy to help the rest of society, but we as a nation need to create a culture where we hoist those who help their fellow citizens on our shoulders as heros. As people we should all aspire to be. Our current culture has role models such as Snooki and Chris Brown. These people are awful human beings and yet they are the types of people who get all our attention. We need a change of culture. Our culture needs to place altruism and philanthropy as core values.
So if wealth cannot exist without a society, then to continue being wealthy, society must continue to exist. But you didn't come here to read tautologies. Having wealth to such an extent that it is impossible to spend it all has little meaning except to stroke one's ego. Unless that money is being used to provide goods and services for people whether by donation or through new or expanded businesses, then that money is just sitting in a bank account, not doing anything. I'm sorry, but your ego is just not as important as the health of society. Society helped make you wealthy, is it not also your responsibility to give back to that society? I realize that you cannot and should not be able to compel the wealthy to help the rest of society, but we as a nation need to create a culture where we hoist those who help their fellow citizens on our shoulders as heros. As people we should all aspire to be. Our current culture has role models such as Snooki and Chris Brown. These people are awful human beings and yet they are the types of people who get all our attention. We need a change of culture. Our culture needs to place altruism and philanthropy as core values.
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