The vulgarity of uncivilised rich people

[edyzmedieval]

Ah yes the Eastern European obsession with basketball means we are also exporting urban culture....awesome simply awesome

Basketball is one thing, urban culture is another thing. Not my fault Nike and Jordan started a partnership 20 years ago and this developed into hip hop culture.

[Strike For The South]

Basketball is one thing, urban culture is another thing. Not my fault Nike and Jordan started a partnership 20 years ago and this developed into hip hop culture.

Will you be my Peja Stoikoavic?

[Spino]

I am sure they are still there, it is just the crass exceptions like the Paris Hiltons who put out a sex video and get all the attention.

I think that "rich class" is more and more insulated and segregated from everyday life, including cameras and the media. In part because wealth has become so political and the idea of inherited wealth, at least in the U.S., is extremely frowned upon. Looking at most of the super-successful wealthy people in our country, and realizing that the majority of them didn't get there through their own ingenuity and fantastic good luck and fantastic hard work, really takes the wood out of the mythos Americans have that everyone who works hard "makes it", and only those who were lazy or stupid fail.

What kind of delusional, insular world view is that?!? Wrong, wrong and wrong again. Now I finally understand where you're coming from. Hard work is simply not enough, were that the case the best ditch diggers would be millionaires. The bulk of our super rich are, for the most part, hard working, incredibly intelligent people. Most of them are the nutters that fly through graduate schools, work 7 days a week and are physically connected to their blackberries. Most of them are high IQ, top of the Bell Curve types who dove headfirst into the world of finance or high tech and played their cards right. They're made of the heady, gray matter stuff that most plebs do not have and cannot catch up to no matter how skilled or educated they may be. Celebrities, athletes, lottery winners & trust fund dolts like Paris Hilton are in the tiny minority but get the most press because their conspicuous lifestyles and carefree attitudes are far more appealing and fascinating to plebs.

Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, etc., not a mediocre mind in the bunch.

Take Id software's John Carmack for example. He is a high IQ geekazoid who is a wunderkind software programmer. His company makes pretty mediocre games but the 3D game engines he creates are very advanced and licensed out the wazoo by scores of developers. As a result John Carmack is now a very rich fellow. This same rich wunderkind has now become a... brace for it... amateur rocket scientist who is currently applying his intellect to build rockets that compete in the various X-Prize competitions (and doing quite well at it). The notion that some low class, sub-85/90 IQ rube can aspire to be like Carmack is laughable to the extreme. Thanks to the fact that Carmack was born with the knack for numbers, a healthy work ethic and a passion for programming he is now reaping the whirlwind.

The hideous, politically incorrect truth that accounts for the great separation between America's rich and poor is the gap in intelligence. You can no more expect a dumb rube to become filthy rich than you can expect a pudgy, short legged athlete to become a world class sprinter. Acquiring a great education and skill set is only part of the equation, it won't make anyone any smarter or better equipped to succeed in the face of competition which does not suffer from such shortcomings. This is what happens in all meritocratic societies; the cream consistently rises to the top while the grinds get left at the bottom of the cup.

[TinCow]

QFT Spino... minus the quote.

This goes back to the age-old (literally, it was extremelly common even in the Roman Republic) divide between Old Money and New Money. Old Money is inherited and rarely has any correlation to personal achievement or value. New Money is earned and is almost always the result of a great deal of hard work and success over a prolongued period of time. Not coincidentally, Old Money is never as wealthy as New Money. Take a look at your Forbes list of richest people. With the exception of a few land-owning oil barons in foriegn countries, nearly all of the super rich made their own fortunes with their own hands.

This is not a divide between the the rich and the poor, it is a divide between what is earned and what is inherited. New Money often comes directly from poverty and is nearly always earned. Old Money earns nothing and ironically can actually have crippling levels, but still tends to sit on its ass doing nothing.

[Banquo's Ghost]

This is not a divide between the the rich and the poor, it is a divide between what is earned and what is inherited. New Money often comes directly from poverty and is nearly always earned. Old Money earns nothing and ironically can actually have crippling levels, but still tends to sit on its ass doing nothing.

That's as much a generalisation as the earlier description of the poor. Whereas it is true that many successful and rich people have started with "nothing", many more have had better starting opportunities - like access to the education that is so lauded.

Real "old" money can also have had significant social benefits. You ignore the concept of stewardship in your blunderbuss opinion - perhaps because you are thinking only of the American experience.

[TinCow]

That's as much a generalisation as the earlier description of the poor. Whereas it is true that many successful and rich people have started with "nothing", many more have had better starting opportunities - like access to the education that is so lauded.

Real "old" money can also have had significant social benefits. You ignore the concept of stewardship in your blunderbuss opinion - perhaps because you are thinking only of the American experience.

You are correct on both counts. It is definitely several orders of magnitude harder for someone living in true poverty (on the African or Asian levels) to achieve wealth in comparison to someone with 'American poverty' which still results in proper nutrition, education, and a job. I was certainly thinking from a western society oriented viewpoint and my statements should be taken with that bias in mind.