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Why Aren’t Rich People Happy With the Money They Have?

theatlantic.com

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Re: Why Aren’t Rich People Happy With the Money They Have?

#21
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did not even realise there was a leaderboard for HN karma. I stopped tracking my own karma score a while back. I was getting upset by even a handful of downvotes, and as soon as I decided to just publish my thoughts without caring about down (or up) votes, my happiness went up quite a few notches.

> Did not even realise there was a leaderboard for HN karma. It's a well kept secret. And I've been much happier since I stopped looking at it, but every now and then I fall off the wagon and sneak a peek.

Well, I implore you to do us all a favour and NOT publish the link to the leaderboard... :)

Re: Why Aren’t Rich People Happy With the Money They Have?

#22
TLDR; Michael Norton did the survey of people with networth > $1M and most said they need 2 or 3 times more. People with networth > $100M also don't feel satisfied because they tend to answer the question "Am I better off than last year?" by comparing to other folks who did even better than them.

It looks to me that if you are in $3M to $10M bucket, you have financial freedom to live low key upper-middle class life. This is what Tim Ferris refers to as "New Rich".

However when you are above $10M, something else happens. While you have financial freedom, you are also just starting to taste freedom of will. Sooner or later it might get annoying that you must wake up at 5 AM because that's the only flight available OR that you can't get the penthouse suit because someone more wealthier decided to book it out for entire year. You still depend on publicly available utilities fiercely competed upon. Unlike your peers with $100M you can't own GulfStreams or have $25M Malibu mentions overlooking Pacific with infinity pools.

When you get to $100M, things change again. Now you do have little gulfstream but it's far cry from private 747 with king size bedroom, office, bar and a chef. Sure, you got that mention in Malibu but that large paradise estate in Hawaii with its own beach and waterfalls is out of your reach. When you meet your billionaire friends in blue waters of Greek island of Creet, your little yatch looks like baby's first toy missing things like its own sub and helipad. Life is good but not that good because resources at your disposal have still limitations to achieve maximum possible freedom of will. People tell you how awesome you are but you keep finding new limiting ways you are restricted to act by your will every single day.

I think its only above $3B that you are in realm of pure score keeping, the quality of material possessions cannot be improved further and freedom of will is pretty much maximized. Now you are truly limited by time, and much less by ideas. So until you get in to that top 1000 individuals, it's going to sting one way or another.

Re: Why Aren’t Rich People Happy With the Money They Have?

#25
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Did not even realise there was a leaderboard for HN karma. It's a well kept secret. And I've been much happier since I stopped looking at it, but every now and then I fall off the wagon and sneak a peek.

Well, I implore you to do us all a favour and NOT publish the link to the leaderboard... :)

Wouldn't dream of it.

Re: Why Aren’t Rich People Happy With the Money They Have?

#27
post #17

A while back I noticed that my HN karma was rising at a rate that would put me on the leaderboard, so I decided to make an effort to submit content and post quality comments just to see if I could crack the top 100. After a few months I did it, and kept rising up to a high of 85 (today I'm #88). Then I realized I was spending way too much time on HN, and how easy it was to fall into this trap of thinking I was doing…

I agree. We have been conditioned to use wealth - which is neatly expressed as a 1-dimensional value - as a proxy for merit.

If we are asked to do something that in abstract we would consider stupid or pointless, but is now accompanied by a large amount of money, we accept with the presumption that no one would offer so much money if it weren't very important.

Money provides a very simple, neat way of valuing every item or service on Earth. Deceptively simple.

Re: Why Aren’t Rich People Happy With the Money They Have?

#28
“For one study, Norton and his collaborator paid each respondent about 46 euros for every completed questionnaire. “You can run a survey on regular people for like a dollar,” “

Hmm I refused to give my email to a cable provider for a $100 Best Buy gift card (I was in Best Buy). At the time I thought who would trade their email address for a lousy $100?

Now I know.

Re: Why Aren’t Rich People Happy With the Money They Have?

#29

But isn't it the well oiled marketing and advertising industry that is keeping us constantly unhappy and forcing us to compare our own (projected) shortcomings against others? My hypothesis is that wealthier people are even deeper in this trap, as once you can afford nice clothes, accessories, cars, houses etc., you are immediately exposed to others in the same (or higher) wealth bracket, thus exacerbating these feel…

I think this is partly why "old money" isn't flashy like nouveau rich money. It's easier to blow a fortune than it is to make a fortune.
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