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The real use of money is to buy freedom

paraschopra.com

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Re: The real use of money is to buy freedom

#51

Post by kamaal »

>>A life spent mostly hoarding money and possessions is a wasted life

Having seen the kind of advantage some of my friends born in rich families enjoy, I would love to hoard and posses tons of wealth even if its purely to give away in inheritance.

Rich kids enjoy privileges and advantage poor kids can't even dream of. The biggest of which is attitude of course. Rich kids are born with an assumption they are supposed to remain rich forever, become leaders and are free to act as unfair as they want given the their 'natural selection' in becoming rich.

No matter how hard you work, you will never be able to truly compete with a rich kid. He will get all the resources, tutions, fee and expenses taken care of to establish a more deeply entrenched position of advantage.

The only real way is for you to exactly do what their parents did, and hope your kids will be better off.

>>Then why do we run after money?

Which brings me to the point, why did you start a company?

Speaking purely from a philosophical point. There have been people in India, especially wandering monks who shown you can find all the bliss in life even on bare minimal survival gear. And there is no way you can match their freedom.

Re: The real use of money is to buy freedom

#52

Post by hkmurakami »

joosters wrote: post #18
forgottenpaswrd wrote: post #16

When you know self made millionaires you learn one thing: "Money is not wealth". Almost nobody that understands wealth holds money, money is a tool for exchanging things and its value decreases with time. They hold real state, they hold precious metals, they hold stock, they travel, they know people. The people that made money usually like making wealth and don't fear losing it so much, they learn all their life to h…

The good thing about being rich is that you could be poor whenever you want. What? Name some rich people who are now voluntarily poor! I'd happily bet that 99.9999% of multi-millionaires never choose to be poor in their lifetime. But I'm sure lots of them feel amazing about thinking how they could help people.

I do know one heir to millions who lives on the streets and dumpster dives, thinking that it is morally wrong for him to make use of his monetary advantages in any way.

Obviously not the norm.

Re: The real use of money is to buy freedom

#54

Post by dsirijus »

hkmurakami wrote: post #50
dsirijus wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I went a similar road (from $50 a month in an underground windowless garage with no utilities whatsoever, to a 200m2 penthouse). I'd put an accent on your point #2 - it really makes a huge difference to just shoot up some money into trivialities and mundane annoyances in your life just to make them magically go away. Because there's so many of them, most cannot afford that. I'd like to add a point though, maybe the m…

Was #6 because of how you dressed, or because you could host events at your new place, or some other factors? I'm curious since I have some acquaintances who are morbidly afraid of having members of the opposite sex approach them for their substantial wealth. They go out of their way to mask their material status.

I think most of the other points made are just a resultant from desire to appeal to other sex. Security, stuff, housing, all that. It is relatively trivial to sustain oneself, without family and other people dependant on you. Family is hard. And, spoken like a true life form, furthering our gene makeup is what it's all about, for the most part for the most of us. We can do Maslow's hierarchy here or some other model of motivation, but for me, this is the core of it in today's times.

Disclaimer here being that I'm speaking from male perspective (and there's an obvious significant difference in motivations accross genders).

As for your acquaintances, I'd doubt that it could be generalized to whole "rich" population. What your acquaintances have problem with is, well, their problem. Not a trend.

Re: The real use of money is to buy freedom

#55

Post by xioxox »

rahimnathwani wrote: post #8
birken wrote: post #5

There is a really great article in The Atlantic (from 2011) called "Secret Fears of the Super-Rich" on this topic: Excerpt: The respondents turn out to be a generally dissatisfied lot, whose money has contributed to deep anxieties involving love, work, and family. Indeed, they are frequently dissatisfied even with their sizable fortunes. Most of them still do not consider themselves financially secure; for that, they…

I recall a colleague once (~10 years ago) telling me that some people he knew felt that 5k GBP would be enough to solve all of their (money) worries. I thought it absurd, i.e. too low given things like planning for old age. I guess there are people who would think my estimate too low if I said I needed 5m for the same purpose. (not saying 5m is the right number for me or anyone else.)

5k seems absurd, though there is a big differential in the UK between those who own a house and those who do not. If I lived in London, 1e6 GBP would be necessary for housing alone, a ridiculous sum compared to the average wage.

Re: The real use of money is to buy freedom

#56

Post by Cookingboy »

officemonkey wrote: post #43

Everybody just loves the word "freedom," like it's some magical super-juice which is the be-all and end-all of the American experience. We will all be free of obligation, pain, responsibility, and any other positive or negative thing soon enough. Instead of the pursuit of freedom, we should dedicate ourselves to obligations that honor ourselves and others. You don't really want "freedom," you want an obligation that…

The more successful people can do things they want to do, and the most successful people can avoid doing things they don't want to do, I guess that in itself is freedom.

Money purchases a lot of options, and on the surface, they are either freedom or provide the illusion of freedom.

Re: The real use of money is to buy freedom

#57

Post by kamaal »

downandout wrote: post #44
yummyfajitas wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The author is from India. Based on that fact, there is a 95% chance that he lived most of his life in poverty comparable to the bottom 5% of Americans. See figure 7: http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/WDSContentServ... It's also worth noting that he's writing this from the perspective of a far more materialistic and status-based society than the US.

He actually mentioned in the article that he grew up "middle class". I am aware that middle class in India may be different than in the US, but it is clear that he was never poor - going to bed hungry etc.

>>I am aware that middle class in India may be different than in the US

As an Indian I can tell you, To give you a true perspective almost every one rich in India apart from Ambanis and Tata(Kind of Rockfellers and Rothschilds of India) think they are from the middle class.

The super poor in India die out of hunger. Farmers commit suicide day in and out. The lower middle class barely gets any education and nearly die fighting for opportunity all their lives. The middle class is a little above that.

I can tell you stories of how difficult and crappy my child hood and teenage here was. And we were considered middle class.

The fact that you can start a company in India, and do it relatively comfortably to have your parents support your through, pay your college fees, have a car, and give you comfortable cozy home to live means you are easily among the rich.

In India middle class is an heavily overloaded terminology.

Re: The real use of money is to buy freedom

#58

Post by ghaff »

MichaelGG wrote: post #53
vijayr wrote: post #37

We don’t make movies to make money, we make money to make more movies - Walt Disney

Heh. Not anymore: Disney implements a "vault", where they stop selling movies for a certain amount of time in order to drive new sales when they re-release.

Disney was doing that with theatrical re-releases long before there was such a thing as a VCR--much less a DVD.

Re: The real use of money is to buy freedom

#59

Post by esw »

rahimnathwani wrote: post #8
birken wrote: post #5

There is a really great article in The Atlantic (from 2011) called "Secret Fears of the Super-Rich" on this topic: Excerpt: The respondents turn out to be a generally dissatisfied lot, whose money has contributed to deep anxieties involving love, work, and family. Indeed, they are frequently dissatisfied even with their sizable fortunes. Most of them still do not consider themselves financially secure; for that, they…

I recall a colleague once (~10 years ago) telling me that some people he knew felt that 5k GBP would be enough to solve all of their (money) worries. I thought it absurd, i.e. too low given things like planning for old age. I guess there are people who would think my estimate too low if I said I needed 5m for the same purpose. (not saying 5m is the right number for me or anyone else.)

It's difficult to see beyond your immediate problems when you're broke and living month-to-month. My guess is that anyone who says $5k will solve 'all of their money worries' is probably not including retirement in that figure.
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