<p>Rich is definitely relative. In some countries I’ve lived/worked, my salary was in line w local professional salaries. My local colleagues & I lived in shoebox-sized homes and scrubbed our own toilets.</p>
<p>In other countries, my salary was 10X what local professionals earn. Even in these countries, my comparatively “poorer” local colleagues employed live-in maids & nannies.</p>
<p>Cbreeze, I love your post. </p>
<p>My mom almost drowned. If she drowned, I wouldn’t be here. </p>
<p>I wonder why I go to step off a curb, change my mind and immediately a car whizzes by, that I changed my mind and did not get crushed.</p>
<p>Nobody has to explain that they are rich, or how they got rich. Nobody else is entitled to any explanation. If you are rich, that isn’t somebody else’s business. Being rich is not a bad thing either. All things considered, being rich is better than not being rich.</p>
<p>However, when somebody explains that they became rich because they worked hard, that is one of America’s myths. Plenty of Americans work hard and don’t become rich.</p>
<p>When somebody says they became rich by workng hard, what is that somebody saying to others? You did not work hard? If you worked as hard as I did, you would become rich too? </p>
<p>^Yes, that is exactly what they are saying. Although in many cases these days, it’s people who AREN’T rich who say that as a way of diminishing those who are poorer than they are.</p>
<p>2018dad :). Your area is brutal on renters. Must be an attractive place to live.</p>
<p>Sally305, I agree.</p>
<p>“If this conversation was about whether people feel secure, then maybe I wouldn’t be so judgmental. That’s a lot more subjective, and even rich people can become poor (or at least, less rich).”</p>
<p>Perhaps you could consider, that some people consider feeling rich as the same thing as feeling secure. I would never be so naïve to think that because someone has XX income they are automatically rich, or secure. A job can be gone tomorrow.</p>
<p>" I don’t really care what people feel–I was just answering the question posed in this thread. The reason rich people don’t feel rich is because they are self-absorbed and duped by advertising."</p>
<p>Well, since you really can’t answer this question for ANYONE else but yourself, I suppose you’re just guessing. Kind of an arrogant generalization for other people. If someone fits your definition of rich and they don’t feel they are, they must be, “self-absorbed and duped by advertising”. Selfish and stupid. </p>
<p>“This is exactly the description of my folks. They came to this country with nothing, lived through the depression, but by the end of their lives they were very comfortable. Not uber rich, but very financially secure–they were the poster children for the “American Success Story.” Despite this, they were never happy and always worrying (needlessly) about money.”</p>
<p>I always hear stories about how my Grandfather would have starved, if it wasn’t for the Communists. How rough a childhood my parents had, and when I look at my childhood, I think today’s poor in this country lived a lot better than we did. While my parents now have a significant net worth (because they rarely spent a dollar), they look at me with horror when my dad starts ranting about the evil rich and I say, “Hey, look at your investments. YOU are the evil rich. And it’s all YOUR fault now.”</p>
<p>
But there is no such person. I was thinking about this–how many of my problems would be solved if I suddenly had 10 million bucks? Some of them, but by no means all, including some of the things I worry about the most.</p>
<p>
I call it like I see it. Feel free to disagree.</p>
<p>“I call it like I see it. Feel free to disagree.”</p>
<p>It’s just curious to me, which is why I have responded to your posts. From what I can tell, you think most Americans are rich, because you compare them to the majority in the world. And if they don’t believe they are rich, they must be self-absorbed and duped by advertising. Of course, most Americans would not consider themselves rich.</p>
<p>It is eye opening that someone could have such an opinion that deems most Americans as selfish and stupid, but I suppose it can be comforting to someone to feel superior to most people around them. I like to think the best of people, that is comforting to me. </p>
<p>I have to agree that bringing the entire world in the discussion is highly distracting. I think it’s a legimate question why “rich” americans don’t feel rich these days. Although they may still be rich compared to the world average, 30-40 years ago average americans were incomparably richer than the rest of the world. That’s no longer the case.</p>
<p>@busdriver11, I don’t know if you two have history, in which case I’ll back away slowly :), but I think you’re being a little unfair. </p>
<p>First world countries are richer than third world countries, by definition. Instead of “being duped by advertising,” think of it as having internalized media representations of normal. We think having a car for every licensed driver is the norm, because we see it all the time, in our magazines, our TV, heck, our neighborhoods. For a large part of the world, that’s as much a fantasy as streets lined with gold. </p>
<p>I’m not sure I ever referred to “most Americans,” but maybe I did. I think I referred to Americans with above average wealth, who, on a global scale, have wealth almost beyond imagining by people in many countries. In my opinion, it’s an unfortunately common American trait not to recognize this. I understand, again, that some people have some personal pathology (like growing up during the Depression, for example) that makes them feel this way, but there a lot of other people who–again in my opinion–are indeed self-absorbed and have bought into the ideas that our mass media promotes.</p>
<p>I take poetgirl and Igloo’s points that perhaps Americans aren’t as rich, and don’t have the same prospects to get rich, as they used to. But we’re still pretty darn rich, and lucky, too.</p>
<p>My dad always used to say, “I cried because I had no shoes; then I met a man who had no feet.” I just get tired of people crying because they have to pay high property taxes on the real estate they own.</p>
<p>Hunt said “But there is no such person. I was thinking about this–how many of my problems would be solved if I suddenly had 10 million bucks? Some of them, but by no means all, including some of the things I worry about the most.”</p>
<p>I should have said that I consider someone to be rich if they don’t have to worry their financial future</p>
<p>Does Warren Buffet lie awake at night worrying that a market crash could sweep it all away? He might. I suspect he feels rich, though, so maybe he’s not a good example.</p>
<p>IxnayBob, I think you’re trying to be very generous. However, there are many reasons why people don’t feel wealthy, and I’m pretty certain that most people aren’t going around thinking they’re rich because people in third world countries have it far worse. Everyone with any education whatsoever or the ability to flip on the tv and see how some people are living knows this. That really is irrelevant to why people do not feel as if they are personally rich.</p>
<p>Anyone who has to work for a living knows they could be one job loss away from losing their health insurance and their paycheck, and it does not instill a feeling of security. You may feel rich because you have as much as you think you need saved up, and your wife only continues to work because she loves it. Very few people are in this situation, and I doubt they’re thinking, “Yay, I have a car when people in other countries don’t, I’m rich”. I think the issue is having to depend upon a job to feel secure. Our general standard of living, thankfully, has improved, but the cost of almost everything has increased. People used to be able to work part time and pay for college. Not anymore. </p>
<p>
You’re right that they aren’t thinking this. I’m just saying that they should be.</p>
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</p>
<p>Unlikely to be true for “almost everything”. After all, CPI inflation and pay growth for the bottom 90% of the income scale have been similar over the recent decades. It is just that certain now-relatively-large spending items, like college education and (for those few who self-pay) medical care have risen much faster than CPI inflation and pay growth for the bottom 90% of the income scale. But other things like computers and phone service have become less expensive over the decades.</p>
<p>"Very few people are in this situation, and I doubt they’re thinking, “Yay, I have a car when people in other countries don’t, I’m rich”.</p>
<p>“You’re right that they aren’t thinking this. I’m just saying that they should be.”</p>
<p>Seriously? Saying what people should be thinking? I’ll make sure and yell that out to all the drivers that got into an accident in the ice here on the way to work. “Hey, at least you have a car. Or…did have a car. At least you live in a country where there are ambulances. Consider yourself lucky.”</p>
<p>I give up. I can’t argue with people who are too supercilious. There can be no argument convincing enough.</p>
<p>Why?</p>
<p><a href=“The Century of the Self - Wikipedia”>http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Century_of_the_Self</a></p>
<p>"The words of Paul Mazur, a leading Wall Street banker working for Lehman Brothers, are cited: “We must shift America from a needs- to a desires-culture. People must be trained to desire, to want new things, even before the old have been entirely consumed. […] Man’s desires must overshadow his needs”</p>
<p>The documentary looks at how the population is manipulated.
For people who are interested in mass psychology, economics, and politics, I think they would find the documentary interesting. </p>
<p>I think the documentary is where Hunt is indirectly going. You can get the idea after the first 20 minutes or so…</p>
<p>If you desire less, you need less. If you need less, it is easier to feel rich. </p>
<p><a href=“http://vimeo.com/m/85948693”>http://vimeo.com/m/85948693</a></p>
<p>
As I mentioned above, I don’t yell out this opinion to anyone, except maybe to my kids. But I certainly have plenty of opinions about what people ought to think and feel, and I’m happy to share them in a discussion like this. I do think people who have homes and cars and lots of other American goodies should be grateful for how fortunate they are, and should lay off with their whining.</p>
<p>And if you are in an automobile accident, and have to go to the hospital, you most likely will be lucky to find yourself in the United States. Of course, if you’re poor and need Medicaid, your luck may depend on what specific state you live in.</p>
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<p>Tho turue, that’s too general a statement. Our question is why high income people these days feel not so rich. Is it all expectations? Did people making $200-500K/yr think they would have “arrived” when they make that? Are they just getting started at the upper level of wealth? If so, is it right(?) that people in the top 5% income not feel accomplished? What does that say about the remaining 95%? What should they think?</p>