What Impresses you More...?

[Hosakawa Tito]

Whether it's the feckless who live & spend on other people's riches like Paris Hilton or the crazy tortured souls who rose to fame & riches ala Michael Jackson...they can have it. Makes me glad I'm just a regular person and the only ones I have to impress is myself, and loved ones. I don't measure my riches solely on what I have in my bank account.

[Prodigal]

Nothing in the poll I'm afraid, the only sort of money that deserves repect is that which is made that both profits and enriches more than the individual or company. Fair Trade had the right idea & failed.

[Kadagar_AV]

Hmmm.... People work their *** off to be able to spend a month in the alps... Simultaneosly, I spend the whole winter in the alps.

Some others spend their life to afford a beautiful wife, well, I am the one having sex with her.

So no, money does not impress me, at all.

Only thing that counts on the death bed is who have most memories, and who had most fun :)

[Prodigal]

Hmmm.... People work their *** off to be able to spend a month in the alps... Simultaneosly, I spend the whole winter in the alps.

Some others spend their life to afford a beautiful wife, well, I am the one having sex with her.

So no, money does not impress me, at all.

Only thing that counts on the death bed is who have most memories, and who had most fun :)

YOU'RE SCREWING MY WIFE!?!?!

Probably get a warning for that

John Betjeman always springs to mind at times like this, when asked if he had any regrets his reply was that "I wished I had had more sex".

[HoreTore]

The Diana thingy made me laugh. A single mother of two who crafted an anti-landmine treaty with her own bare hands. Yeah right..

.....But she walked in a mine-field in Angola!! TWICE!! How can anyone do more than that??!?!??!!!111

[Adrian II]

.....But she walked in a mine-field in Angola!! TWICE!! How can anyone do more than that??!?!??!!!111

She did. She died for it. I mean, without her death the treaty wouldn't have come about in the firt place. What a woman, eh?

Pity the treaty was practically null and void from the start. It's got more holes in it than a fragmentation mine victim.

[Tribesman]

What a woman, eh?

Ever meet her?
Brainless self obsessed patronising publicity whore
Even the wife who normally can find some redeeming trait in anyone found absolutely none in princess Di.

[Adrian II]

Ever meet her?
Brainless self obsessed patronising publicity whore
Even the wife who normally can find some redeeming trait in anyone found absolutely none in princess Di.

Once. She sent me a smile that just missed me because she had already spotted someone else with a lot more money than me. Charles is a laugh though, despite his lack of brains and presence. Or because of it, I never can tell with that man.

[Tribesman]

She sent me a smile that just missed me because she had already spotted someone else with a lot more money than me.

Seeing her ain't meeting her.

Charles is a laugh though

So is his mother.
Just wondering if any of them will be at the party next week?
BTW what does English Garden Party mean as dress code?
I thought it was sunburn , beer belly , tattoos and union jack shorts
Though I told the wife I was going for Jesus creepers and woolen socks.

[Adrian II]

So is his mother.

There is something inherently funny about these people: it's that they exist at all. And I suspect both Charles and his Mom know it.

[Tribesman]

There is something inherently funny about these people:

Don't talk about inherently funny when talking about Royals , thats mocking the afflicted

[HoreTore]

There is something inherently funny about these people: it's that they exist at all. And I suspect both Charles and his Mom know it.

Well, if you're grandfather and great-grandfather was the very same person, you'd be kinda funny too, methinks

and this comes from a Norwegian, the land of the inbreds...

[seireikhaan]

Its irrelevant whether money is "new" or "old". What impresses me more is the ability to handle finances adeptly, making the most of what one has. If you inherited 30 million dollars and blew it all on excess and opulence and buried yourself in mountains of debt, you don't end up in any different a place if you acquired the money yourself and blew it on excess and opulence and buried yourself in mountains of debt. You end up broke and miserable.

[Adrian II]

You end up broke and miserable profoundly satisfied.

Fixed it.

[||Lz3||]

Oops... voted before understanding the question....

As you said, L VI, I'm impressed by great sums of money earned, since that usually makes me feel that I could achieve that too. Hehe. I'm not impressed on inherited fortunes, why should I? If anything I feel envy. Damn papa boys who know nothing and yet can do everything... <.<

[a completely inoffensive name]

Glad to see those bashing the rich for the sake of bashing the rich have actually contributed some progress with their lives like an actual working treaty without loopholes, oh wait...

[Louis VI the Fat]

Nouveaux Riches are usually utterly and completely disgusting.

Quickly earned money makes turn people into irresponsible idiots. What makes it even worse is that, while half of them honestly admit they don't give a crap about anything and just spend foolishly their money, the other half try to wrap itself in a cloak of respectability and morality (while they don't really care about anything either).

While I usually can't stand the sons of lawyers/doctors I meet everyday at my university, they at least have something, and education, and attitude, unlike Audrey and other braindead friends. Being the son of a nurse and of a teacher, I feel a bit awkward when dealing with people coming from the former nobility or from the high bourgeoisie (typical class relationship), but I couldn't care less about spoiled brats whose dad got rich by putting up a computer-related start-up.

Yay! Awareness of, sensitive reaction to, and simmering frustration about, the subject. (Bolding mine)

I've been googling 'till I saw blue in the face, but I can't find a recent study I was looking for. A sociologist, he set about making an inventory of social classes in France. He counted 83.

This in contrast to the UK, where they have only three. Each one commonly subdivided in three substrata.
And in far clearer contrast to Germany. A ruthless title society, whether of noble or academic achievement. (Never forget to mention the academic title of a German!) But more an authoritarian, or top-down, than class society.

And certainly in stark contrast to the US. Americans, as every European knows, don't have any class at all.



Meneldil: 'the sons of lawyers/doctors I meet everyday at my university, they at least have something, and education, and attitude'
Pah. Social climbers for the most part. Medicine and law, the emancipatory studies of the non-possessing classes. ()

~~-~~-~~-<<oOo>>-~~-~~-~~

I would say that maybe this all is a French thingy. It certainly is. More correctly, it is a clear Latin phenomenon. The right 'words', the right schools, exact manners - an awareness of these things. These are the instruments of strict social stratification. Within this stratification, the inherited position and fortune, of whatever modesty, always trumps the earned one of like quantity.

But I am not so sure it is not Western in general. What of the British? The 'keeping up appearances' of the middle classes? Their public schools for the upper classes - these institutes of heritable social exclusion? Persons of merit who didn't attend one will always feel a mixture of resentment and inferiority to them, and the pupils who attended. Regardless of whether they surpassed most during the course of their life.
It is not the fairness or worth of public education that fascinates me, but that those deprived of it remain impressed by it, despite any resentment they might harbour towards it.
Sticking closer to what has been discussed in this thread, to many people Bono and Bob Geldoff are mere attention-seekers when they talk of dying Africans, Diana's a saint for saying the same.


Or what of the Americans, with their Ivy League system, their socially segregated communities? In its dreams, America is strictly meritocratical. Personal achievement ought to trump inherited status. This is not what I see.

An example:
In another thread, I once suggested an American to learn French rather than Spanish. Despite the relative uselesness of French compared to Spanish in America. Precisly because of the uselesness.
Useless skills, that is, skills without a monetary value - always the hallmark of those of privelidged birth.
Command of Spanish betrays that you baked cheeseburgers at a fastfood restaurant during in your off-hours to pay for school and college. That you picked it up from your co-workers and cleaners. Command of French shows you spend your youth reading, visiting Europe, absorbing culture.
An employer will always pick the latter over the former. Despite the former having worked twice as hard to get where he is now.

That is the essence of what I mean with 'impressed by' inherited versus aquired money and position.


What I am interested in, is not so much class and wealth. (Which in retrospect would've been the more clear topic).
Rather, the fact that most people will profess to be more impressed by aquired money, whereas, in fact, society does not behave this way. Little has changed since Roman times - when it was admirable for a man to posess fortune, but by Jove, never show that you've worked for it. For nothing could be more vulgar or unimpressive.

[miotas]

One of the things that doesn't impress me about the wealthy is that they seem to buy expensive things just to show the price tag. Whereas all my family and friends will brag about how much they saved. Knowing someone and getting a huge discount because of this person you know is a huge achievement that is to be congratulated. Spending more than you have to, ie buying designer shoes for hundreds of dollars when you could get a pair that are just as good for $40, just proves how stupid and gullible you are.

[Louis VI the Fat]

buying designer shoes for hundreds of dollars when you could get a pair that are just as good for $40, just proves how stupid and gullible you are.

That depends a good deal on whether these are Manolo shoes...


More to the point. Stupid and gullible. Is that really so?

Why does a peacock have impractical, uncannily long tailfeathers?
Why do bower birds collect little blue items to display at their nests?
Why do birds of paradise have outrageously colourful plumage?

Each behaviour is a terrible waste. Unlike designer shoes, dangerous even - predators love clumsy birds with unwieldingly long tails. Yet, these birds persist.

Why? Because it serves a purpose. It attracts mates. It...impresses people.

If you look like your parents could provide abundantly for you, then you look more probable to have inherited good genes.

[miotas]

Are yoiu serious? You would chose a partner because they have expensive clothes? Would you go for the short, over weight, ugly girl in designer shoes or the tall, stunning beauty in cheap supermarket shoes?

Granted, I take things to extremes, I can't remember the last time I spent more than $15 on an item of clothing and I've never paid for a haircut in my life. A ditzy, foolish girl who thinks expensive possessions are important seems less attractive to me than the rational thinking inteligent girl who knows spending huge wodges of cash on clothes is stupid.

If you had a choice between two products that were almost identical, would you pay many times more for one, simply because it was made by a famous person? I'm not talking as a collectors item, sure people collect expensive things to keep in a collection, and that is understandable, if not still a bit foolish. I mean as a functional item you will actually use.

Plus in australia, girls tend to go for construction worker types since they have more free time than high paid office workers, doctors, laywers etc

[Prodigal]

Why does a peacock have impractical, uncannily long tailfeathers?
Why do bower birds collect little blue items to display at their nests?
Why do birds of paradise have outrageously colourful plumage?

1. They look good in hats, and look great on cloaks.
2. Makes good documentary.
3. They taste awful.

[Ja'chyra]

Not impressed by money at all

[rory_20_uk]

If you look like your parents could provide abundantly for you, then you look more probable to have inherited good genes.

I disagree with this. Intelligence is a far better judge of genetic well being and general suitability for procreation. It is both nature and nurture and gives a rough hint on both.

Paris Hilton might be rich, but is a brain dead pseudo-whore / tramp. That her parents can afford to dress this clothes horse in money isn't enough.