Is it bad to be rich?

[Fether]

I saw this topic brought up on another thread, felt it would be a good topic on its own.

The typical premise is “No one needs a billion dollars, so why not donate it?”

I am under the impression that that is a fairly short sighted view. Should a billionaire give away their $1,000,000,000? Or would it be better to continue to grow their wealth and consistently donate 5% of their wealth every year for the rest of their life and then pass that wealth to their family and have them continue to donate that 5% every year?

I’m not a Billionaire, but I intended on amassing some amount of wealth in my life and I have an idea of how money is used, stored, and spent. From what I have gathered, Billionaires don’t have rooms full of gold and cash Scrooge McDuck style. Rather, the vast majority of it is invested in their own businesses, other businesses and other entities. That money is then used to grow other industries that provide jobs for others. People with insane wealth are also incentivized to donate to charity for tax write off purposes. I would imagine a single year of a billionaire’s donations would exceed that of anyone normal person’s life time donations.

Additional questions I would ask:

- How much money is too much money?

- Should rich people just give all their money away? Is that the best thing to do?

- Is this a problem about maximizing the good someone can do? Or is it about there being some moral limit on how much someone should have? Or perhaps is it just jealousy?

[Rivers]

You can have a lot of money.  You just can’t love it. Loving money is the root of all evil.

[CV75]

46 minutes ago, Fether said:

I saw this topic brought up on another thread, felt it would be a good topic on its own.

The typical premise is “No one needs a billion dollars, so why not donate it?”

I am under the impression that that is a fairly short sighted view. Should a billionaire give away their $1,000,000,000? Or would it be better to continue to grow their wealth and consistently donate 5% of their wealth every year for the rest of their life and then pass that wealth to their family and have them continue to donate that 5% every year?

I’m not a Billionaire, but I intended on amassing some amount of wealth in my life and I have an idea of how money is used, stored, and spent. From what I have gathered, Billionaires don’t have rooms full of gold and cash Scrooge McDuck style. Rather, the vast majority of it is invested in their own businesses, other businesses and other entities. That money is then used to grow other industries that provide jobs for others. People with insane wealth are also incentivized to donate to charity for tax write off purposes. I would imagine a single year of a billionaire’s donations would exceed that of anyone normal person’s life time donations.

Additional questions I would ask:

- How much money is too much money?

- Should rich people just give all their money away? Is that the best thing to do?

- Is this a problem about maximizing the good someone can do? Or is it about there being some moral limit on how much someone should have? Or perhaps is it just jealousy?

It is not bad to be rich.

But it is rich to be bad!

[The Nehor]

The idea that investment money is some kind of valuable and necessary service in an economy structured like ours is is true but falls into a trap. There is too much of it. Look at interest on your checking or savings account and you can see how valuable that investment money is right now (not very). We don’t need more venture capitalists right now and we haven’t in a very long time.

The way to grow an economy is to put money into the hands of those who will spend it and circulate the money. This means you need a lot of it going to those on the lower end of the income scale.

While there is nothing inherently wrong with wealth (Zion was intended to make everyone wealthy) there is a problem with wealth gaps and the income and wealth of the already wealthy growing much faster than the bulk of society. This state contributed to the Great Depression and we seem to be aiming for that again.

Some good quotes from Henry Ford who saw the depression.

Quote

There is one rule for Industrialists and that is: Make the best quality of goods possible at the lowest cost possible, paying the highest wages possible. Nothing can be right in this country until wages are right. The life of business comes forth from the people in orders. The factories are not stopped for lack of money, but for lack of orders, Money loaned at the top means nothing. Money spent at the bottom starts everything.

Quote

 

The best wages ought to be paid. A proper living ought to be assured every participant in the business—no matter what his part. But, for the sake of that business’s ability to support those who work in it, a surplus has to be held somewhere. The truly honest manufacturer holds his surplus profits in that trust. Ultimately it does not matter where this surplus be held nor who controls it; it is its use that matters.

Capital that is not constantly creating more and better jobs is more useless than sand. Capital that is not constantly making conditions of daily labour better and the reward of daily labour more just, is not fulfilling its highest function. The highest use of capital is not to make more money, but to make money do more service for the betterment of life.

 

Instead we have a culture where “job creators” want to be praised and shielded from taxation while creating low-paying jobs that do not sustain their workers without government help or require the employee to have multiple jobs as if they are doing everyone else a favor. They aren’t doing anyone a favor. They are leeching the system. We have also set up what amounts to a regressive taxation scheme when everything is taken into account and any hints of changing it are seen as ‘class warfare’ or ‘targeting job creators’ or whatever. It is a ‘tragedy of the commons’ situation. Everyone would be better off if people at the bottom were making more money but individual businesses want to concentrate their wages at the top of their organization because the people making these decisions are those people. So we creep along suboptimally until everything blows up again.

[JLHPROF]

1 hour ago, Fether said:

I saw this topic brought up on another thread, felt it would be a good topic on its own.

The typical premise is “No one needs a billion dollars, so why not donate it?”

I am under the impression that that is a fairly short sighted view. Should a billionaire give away their $1,000,000,000? Or would it be better to continue to grow their wealth and consistently donate 5% of their wealth every year for the rest of their life and then pass that wealth to their family and have them continue to donate that 5% every year?

I’m not a Billionaire, but I intended on amassing some amount of wealth in my life and I have an idea of how money is used, stored, and spent. From what I have gathered, Billionaires don’t have rooms full of gold and cash Scrooge McDuck style. Rather, the vast majority of it is invested in their own businesses, other businesses and other entities. That money is then used to grow other industries that provide jobs for others. People with insane wealth are also incentivized to donate to charity for tax write off purposes. I would imagine a single year of a billionaire’s donations would exceed that of anyone normal person’s life time donations.

Additional questions I would ask:

- How much money is too much money?

- Should rich people just give all their money away? Is that the best thing to do?

- Is this a problem about maximizing the good someone can do? Or is it about there being some moral limit on how much someone should have? Or perhaps is it just jealousy?

A wise man once said "never have more money than you are willing to walk away from".

It's not at all bad to be rich.  It's bad if money becomes your love, focus, God.  It's bad if you don't help others too but instead choose self interest.  That's why Christ said it's hard for the rich to get to heaven.
I don't believe there is a "moral limit" on how much someone should have but there is a moral limit on how much they should be focused on their wealth.

[Freedom]

1 hour ago, Fether said:

I saw this topic brought up on another thread, felt it would be a good topic on its own.

The typical premise is “No one needs a billion dollars, so why not donate it?”

I am under the impression that that is a fairly short sighted view. Should a billionaire give away their $1,000,000,000? Or would it be better to continue to grow their wealth and consistently donate 5% of their wealth every year for the rest of their life and then pass that wealth to their family and have them continue to donate that 5% every year?

I’m not a Billionaire, but I intended on amassing some amount of wealth in my life and I have an idea of how money is used, stored, and spent. From what I have gathered, Billionaires don’t have rooms full of gold and cash Scrooge McDuck style. Rather, the vast majority of it is invested in their own businesses, other businesses and other entities. That money is then used to grow other industries that provide jobs for others. People with insane wealth are also incentivized to donate to charity for tax write off purposes. I would imagine a single year of a billionaire’s donations would exceed that of anyone normal person’s life time donations.

Additional questions I would ask:

- How much money is too much money?

- Should rich people just give all their money away? Is that the best thing to do?

- Is this a problem about maximizing the good someone can do? Or is it about there being some moral limit on how much someone should have? Or perhaps is it just jealousy?

Being a billionaire does not mean you have billions at your disposal. This just means they have billions in assets. Bill Gate's fortune is largely due to the value of his ownership of Microsoft for example. They do not keep this money in a closet, their wealth is invested to create more wealth and to create more jobs  But as stated, what is rich? In terms of average global household incomes, I suspect most people on this forum are in the .1%. For sure, too many live an outrageously lavish lifestyle but again, what is considered lavish to a single mother in Somalia may be considered by you to be living below the poverty line. I know someone who owns a $40,000,000 super yacht, lives in a $20,000,000 house, and owns a fleet of very expensive cars. He does indeed live a very lavish lifestyle compared to me, but he pays out millions to staff, employees thousands of people, and runs a successful business that provides a valued service to my city. His brilliance has made him rich. He donates a huge fortune every year to local and national charities, and funds schools in countries such as Haiti and  Peru. 

 

I have no idea what his net worth is, but relative to his worth he lives off a very small amount. 

in Vancouver houses are valued at well over $1million

https://www.realtor.ca/real-estate/23907150/5770-granville-street-vancouver

this 2 bedroom apartment in the suburbs has an asking price of $500,000 but will likely sell closer to $600,000.

https://www.realtor.ca/real-estate/23906347/406-8110-120a-street-surrey

being a home owner in Vancouver makes me super rich but i would have to sell my home to enjoy the equity. 

so how do we determine how much is too much.

rather than being concerned about the rich we should work to elevate the poor by providing access to education and medical care for physical and mental impairments that keeps them in poverty. 

 

[rpn]

Of course not.    But if you are getting in by exploiting others or resources and/or NOT using it to help and lift others and bring people to Christ, then it may destroy you.

Edited December 22, 2021 by rpn

[Steve Thompson]

D&C 49:20:

20 But it is not given that one man should ^apossess that which is above another, wherefore the ^bworld lieth in ^csin.

[MustardSeed]

Most people have enough that they could donate more and still be ok.  If we are going to judge the extremely wealthy we probably best look inward first. IMO. 

Edited December 22, 2021 by MustardSeed

[InCognitus]

2 hours ago, Rivers said:

You can have a lot of money.  You just can’t love it. Loving money is the root of all evil.

I would love to be rich so I would not love my money.  Is that bad?

[Freedom]

4 minutes ago, Steve Thompson said:

D&C 49:20:

20 But it is not given that one man should ^apossess that which is above another, wherefore the ^bworld lieth in ^csin.

An interesting verse that is deep in meaning but I cannot accept that this is revering to income or capital assets. It is quite literlay impossible to have everyone have the very same amount of cash in their bank account. There will always be poor, and there will alwasy be people skillied at making money. Should we punish the rich by taking away theri money to give to the poor even if the poor are just being lazy because they know the government will force the rich to hand it over? 

 

I think that this is more referring to access and opportunity. The homeless mentally ill veteran should have the same access as the wealthy lawyer to services, education, and so forth. We must not do all we can to elevate others but there will always be those who will never be able to be homed or employed. For those we need to look out for their safety, always be watchful, and ensure they have what they need even if they refuse to accept it. Is a family making $150,000/year in need of a transfer to make sure they are equal in income to the family that makes $1.5 million?

Education is the best gift we can give anybody. 

[CA Steve]

Money can't buy happiness, but poverty can't buy anything.

😝

[Robert F. Smith]

39 minutes ago, Freedom said:

An interesting verse that is deep in meaning but I cannot accept that this is revering to income or capital assets. It is quite literlay impossible to have everyone have the very same amount of cash in their bank account. There will always be poor, and there will alwasy be people skillied at making money. Should we punish the rich by taking away theri money to give to the poor even if the poor are just being lazy because they know the government will force the rich to hand it over? 

Xi Jinping has now instituted a new policy in China in which the billionaires must give up huge swaths of their money to govt, so as to level the people.  It is not going well.  The largest Chinese corporations are now going bankrupt.  Also generations of ridiculous birth policy has played havoc with the population, which has been tanking.  Xi now wants good Communist Party members to have children.

39 minutes ago, Freedom said:

I think that this is more referring to access and opportunity. The homeless mentally ill veteran should have the same access as the wealthy lawyer to services, education, and so forth. We must not do all we can to elevate others but there will always be those who will never be able to be homed or employed. For those we need to look out for their safety, always be watchful, and ensure they have what they need even if they refuse to accept it. Is a family making $150,000/year in need of a transfer to make sure they are equal in income to the family that makes $1.5 million?

Education is the best gift we can give anybody. 

Absolutely, and the LDS Church ought to have a policy that any member who wants an education can get it, conditional only on studying hard for it.

[Freedom]

2 minutes ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Xi Jinping has now instituted a new policy in China in which the billionaires must give up huge swaths of their money to govt, so as to level the people.  It is not going well.  The largest Chinese corporations are now going bankrupt.  Also generations of ridiculous birth policy has played havoc with the population, which has been tanking.  Xi now wants good Communist Party members to have children.

Absolutely, and the LDS Church ought to have a policy that any member who wants an education can get it, conditional only on studying hard for it.

Pathways is certainly filling this need. There is great disparity in wealth, but how much of this is because of a lack of education. A pharmacists or an anestheseologist makes very good income. Even an exray technician makes more than average pay. School teachers in BC make $70,000-90,000/year. 

[Freedom]

40 minutes ago, CA Steve said:

Money can't buy happiness, but poverty can't buy anything.

😝

Someone once said 'whoever said money can't buy happiness did not have enough money" 🙂

[The Nehor]

52 minutes ago, CA Steve said:

Money can't buy happiness, but poverty can't buy anything.

😝

Money can’t buy happiness but it lets you choose your favored form of misery.

1 hour ago, Freedom said:

An interesting verse that is deep in meaning but I cannot accept that this is revering to income or capital assets. It is quite literlay impossible to have everyone have the very same amount of cash in their bank account. There will always be poor, and there will alwasy be people skillied at making money. Should we punish the rich by taking away theri money to give to the poor even if the poor are just being lazy because they know the government will force the rich to hand it over? 

Or maybe the whole financial system is fundamentally incompatible with celestial principles.

1 hour ago, InCognitus said:

I would love to be rich so I would not love my money.  Is that bad?

Having money doesn’t always do that. It can but it is not a sure thing.

1 hour ago, MustardSeed said:

Most people have enough that they could donate more and still be ok.  If we are going to judge the extremely wealthy we probably best look inward first. IMO. 

I am not judging them. I am judging the system we have developed that led to this state.

[Freedom]

1 minute ago, The Nehor said:

 

Or maybe the whole financial system is fundamentally incompatible with celestial 

You have no argument from me on that comment

[katherine the great]

5 hours ago, Fether said:

-How much money is too much money?

- Should rich people just give all their money away? Is that the best thing to do?

- Is this a problem about maximizing the good someone can do? Or is it about there being some moral limit on how much someone should have? Or perhaps is it just jealousy?

I did bring this up and another thread. I personally object to the existence of billionaires. In my case I am absolutely not jealous of billionaires but I object to the whole concept of one person having that much personal wealth. I’m not sure most people can really wrap their minds around how much $1 billion is. It is true that some billionaires do a lot of good with some of their money. My observation is that it’s generally the women in their lives who begin and manage the philanthropic business.
After turning away from his ambitious, cutthroat business years, Andrew Carnegie famously said “The man who dies thus rich dies disgraced.” I agree with this. 

[Robert F. Smith]

3 hours ago, Freedom said:

Pathways is certainly filling this need. There is great disparity in wealth, but how much of this is because of a lack of education. A pharmacists or an anestheseologist makes very good income. Even an exray technician makes more than average pay. School teachers in BC make $70,000-90,000/year. 

An LDS education grant program could be very helpful in eliminating heavy student debt -- which prevents young people from marrying and having children.

[rongo]

Nobody claims that wealth by itself is bad, and many of us know genuinely good wealthy people. The problem, in my experience, is the children and grandchildren of wealth --- and not because the wealth was "bad," per se, but because they were deprived of the experience of want, need, doing without, not having instant gratification, etc. Many of us also know children and grandchildren of prominent, wealthy Church members who are a mess (not that the wealthy upbringing was the sole cause of this). It's not for nothing that Jesus said that it will be easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. 

We were just talking about this yesterday as a family. This will probably be our last family Christmas before things change drastically, never to be "like before" again (daughter going on a mission in February, oldest son will be married soon, etc.). This is really the first year that we have been "middle class." By worldly standards, we were "poor" growing up (somewhat by choice, so that mom could be home with the kids) --- and it has made all the difference in a magical upbringing and growing up. We made our own fun, our kids didn't have phones or electronics (mom and dad were also very late to the dance themselves with cell phones. We had a land line and used calling cards for calls to other area codes --- which is pretty much everybody in the cell phone era). We did carnivals at home instead of school carnivals, because of cost. It's helped tremendously with testimony, literacy and eloquence (gospel and secular), etc. We joke that we were "blessed" with poverty, but we're also serious. I think we and our experience over the last 21 years would have been vastly different if we had had wealth, comfort, and luxury instead. 

I also agree with Orson Hyde. He taught that the curse when Adam and Eve were driven out of the Garden is still in force, until the Millennium, and the rich have more of the curse because they have more of the earth and its goods. Food for thought. 

[rongo]

I know this is what most people think (hence the rarity of one income families now), but this article seems so foreign to me. "$100,000 can't achieve the American Dream any more" . . .

https://www.businessinsider.com/how-far-does-six-figure-salary-go-house-college-kids-2021-12?fbclid=IwAR1akLes6GP6hH25FHU0lQ8c4WPO0Ar2joDQ4V5FZK6Cnm175K2AV6zhxCw

Points from the article:

1) Very hard to buy a home for less than $100,000. [True. Point conceded]

2) $100,000 income not enough to pay for college. [Pure baloney. Your kids might need to attend where they can afford, but even then --- our two oldest haven't paid a cent for college (they work, but that's for savings. School, housing, etc. itself is paid for by scholarships and grants). Bootstrap mentality and excellence can provide education, even for the low income].

3) Childcare costs are through the roof [Which . . . can be offset by mom staying home with the kids. Yes, this limits the household income, but it has exponential benefits in testimony, child development, etc.].

4) American Dream defined as "not living paycheck to paycheck." [It's a great feeling to have security and savings, but I would define the American Dream in different terms from mere financial security]

[carbon dioxide]

10 hours ago, Fether said:

I saw this topic brought up on another thread, felt it would be a good topic on its own.

The typical premise is “No one needs a billion dollars, so why not donate it?”

I am under the impression that that is a fairly short sighted view. Should a billionaire give away their $1,000,000,000? Or would it be better to continue to grow their wealth and consistently donate 5% of their wealth every year for the rest of their life and then pass that wealth to their family and have them continue to donate that 5% every year?

I’m not a Billionaire, but I intended on amassing some amount of wealth in my life and I have an idea of how money is used, stored, and spent. From what I have gathered, Billionaires don’t have rooms full of gold and cash Scrooge McDuck style. Rather, the vast majority of it is invested in their own businesses, other businesses and other entities. That money is then used to grow other industries that provide jobs for others. People with insane wealth are also incentivized to donate to charity for tax write off purposes. I would imagine a single year of a billionaire’s donations would exceed that of anyone normal person’s life time donations.

Additional questions I would ask:

- How much money is too much money?

- Should rich people just give all their money away? Is that the best thing to do?

- Is this a problem about maximizing the good someone can do? Or is it about there being some moral limit on how much someone should have? Or perhaps is it just jealousy?

I think its better to focus on growing ones wealth while slowly giving some away.  If one just dumps a billion dollars, a lot of it will be wasted or not used efficiently. One can give far more away over a long period of time if they do it slowly.  Even Bill Gates messed up by selling too much too soon.  He has given away about 50 billion so far and is worth about 130 billion. However if he had not sold his stock, at current price of Microsoft stock, he would be worth around 700 billion.  He took hundreds of billions off the table by selling too much too soon.

[strappinglad]

It's called inflation  or income creep. When I started work my salary was $7000 per year. Currently the starting salary at the same job is about $ 60,000 per year. The mortgage on my first new home was $ 25,000. A new home now can have a mortgage here of around $ 250,000 . The only saving grace is that my first mortgage was at 12%pa. and now it is about 3%. If rates were to move to 12%, millions would lose their homes for inability to pay. The 2008 crash was bad. If inflation hits hard , 2008 will look minor. 

[Freedom]

1 hour ago, Robert F. Smith said:

An LDS education grant program could be very helpful in eliminating heavy student debt -- which prevents young people from marrying and having children.

This is certainly a challenge in the U.S. Not so much in Canada. A perpetual education fund modeled for developed nations

[CV75]

Is it hip to be square?