I’m Rich and I’m NOT Apologizing!
reverendhornibastard
Depraved Deacon of Degeneracy
I’m rich.
Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates and all of the rich and famous people you’ve ever heard of wouldn’t consider me rich. Compared to them, I’m very poor. But viewed from the perspective of the choice-limited, chronically cash-strapped circumstances my parents faced raising me and my four siblings, I am now very wealthy.
I get the impression that some people think I should apologize for being rich. It is becoming increasingly unpopular and politically incorrect to be, or even to appear to be, rich.
I don’t understand why.
I thought we were supposed to be trying to eliminate poverty. I thought that was precisely what I was doing while I busted my ass for all those years. Did I fuck up some how by eliminating my own poverty?
I feel no sense of shame about my financial position. I don’t plan to apologize for my good fortune or my privileged circumstances.
I did not steal what I have from anyone. Nor did I acquire my wealth through a lucky lottery ticket purchase. I didn’t find my money in the back seat of a taxi cab.
I worked my way through university and law school, living in crappy apartments, riding a bicycle around town because I couldn’t afford to have my car repaired and holding down a long list of shit jobs along the way.
It wasn’t easy and I’ve got a couple of busted fingers to show for it.
Then after graduation I worked like a dog (in a suit) for decades until, one fine evening as I sat in my garden beside my swimming pool, when the gate opened and Mrs. Hornibastard #2 pulled up in her fancy Mercedes Benz I suddenly realized, “Holy fuck! I’m rich now! How and when did THIS happen?”
I was genuinely surprised. I’d been so busy working my ass off for the last twenty years that I’d failed to notice how much my personal circumstances had improved.
Some things happen in life happen so slowly and while you’re so busy that they just creep up on you.
I know I can’t take all the credit for my wealth. I never claimed to be a self-made man (see https://www.tuscl.net/discussion.php?id=… ). But I certainly don’t feel any shame over my financial situation and I won’t be apologizing to anyone for it.
For those who regard wealth or its creation and accumulation as dirty or disreputable, to those who advocate an impoverished lifestyle as being more virtuous and ecologically friendly, I salute you and your sanctimonious personal choices! Take pride in your penury! Revel in your rudimentary lifestyle and personal deprivations!
Don’t wait for my apology.
I was not the cause your poverty.
https://www.tuscl.net/photo.php?id=2039
Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates and all of the rich and famous people you’ve ever heard of wouldn’t consider me rich. Compared to them, I’m very poor. But viewed from the perspective of the choice-limited, chronically cash-strapped circumstances my parents faced raising me and my four siblings, I am now very wealthy.
I get the impression that some people think I should apologize for being rich. It is becoming increasingly unpopular and politically incorrect to be, or even to appear to be, rich.
I don’t understand why.
I thought we were supposed to be trying to eliminate poverty. I thought that was precisely what I was doing while I busted my ass for all those years. Did I fuck up some how by eliminating my own poverty?
I feel no sense of shame about my financial position. I don’t plan to apologize for my good fortune or my privileged circumstances.
I did not steal what I have from anyone. Nor did I acquire my wealth through a lucky lottery ticket purchase. I didn’t find my money in the back seat of a taxi cab.
I worked my way through university and law school, living in crappy apartments, riding a bicycle around town because I couldn’t afford to have my car repaired and holding down a long list of shit jobs along the way.
It wasn’t easy and I’ve got a couple of busted fingers to show for it.
Then after graduation I worked like a dog (in a suit) for decades until, one fine evening as I sat in my garden beside my swimming pool, when the gate opened and Mrs. Hornibastard #2 pulled up in her fancy Mercedes Benz I suddenly realized, “Holy fuck! I’m rich now! How and when did THIS happen?”
I was genuinely surprised. I’d been so busy working my ass off for the last twenty years that I’d failed to notice how much my personal circumstances had improved.
Some things happen in life happen so slowly and while you’re so busy that they just creep up on you.
I know I can’t take all the credit for my wealth. I never claimed to be a self-made man (see https://www.tuscl.net/discussion.php?id=… ). But I certainly don’t feel any shame over my financial situation and I won’t be apologizing to anyone for it.
For those who regard wealth or its creation and accumulation as dirty or disreputable, to those who advocate an impoverished lifestyle as being more virtuous and ecologically friendly, I salute you and your sanctimonious personal choices! Take pride in your penury! Revel in your rudimentary lifestyle and personal deprivations!
Don’t wait for my apology.
I was not the cause your poverty.
https://www.tuscl.net/photo.php?id=2039
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32 comments
When I didn’t have what I have now I was jealous too.
Great response!
I’m jealous of your wit!
In our capitalist system, great individual fortunes are generated by business. The question then becomes when are business profits a crime?
Business profits in our system are in most cases result of collusion, history shows that big business and big government can collude to keep profits flowing to the former and contributions flowing to the latter.
Some in the system will benefit from this form of profit and will defend the system because of it.
Nobody in their right mind would believe that the large fortunes and opulence of Robber Barons, Fat Cats, Capitalist Pigs etc. can be attained just by being an honest hard working person.
I'm not poor.
I'm not apologizing
I'm not complaining.
Life is good.
Think I'll go visit a strip club soon.
It’s taken more than 30 years in the workforce, saving and investing wisely and most of all — spending wisely — all while not making a hefty salary but being well-compensated just the same.
I don’t know if a lot of people are “jealous” of wealthier folks, they’re certainly envious, as am I.
But I do find many people in my circle who live paycheck to paycheck and have little retirement savings spend on items I
would consider frivolous.
Likewise, they would probably think spending on strippers, sex workers, etc., is a waste (if they actually knew I did this. LOL!)
I guess it all comes down to what’s important to you. I have few interests other than women, so I spend much on my disposable income on what I consider one of life’s greatest pleasures. Being able to do it while still maintaining my level of wealth tells me I’m doing it right in comparison to my friends, co-workers, neighbors, etc.
“Behind every great fortune is an equally great crime” ~ Balzac
How seriously can you take a guy named “Ball Sack?”
Rich people who are obsessed with status possessions, who don't read and who don't have a social conscious, are somewhere between boring and repulsive.
Americans are obsessed with wealth and the word "success" really means "wealthy" in the mind of most Americans. How else can you explain why Jeff Epstein -- a pedophile and college-dropout -- was able to mingle with the social elite? Because he owned expensive "stuff." Also partially explains why an ignorant bigot and misogynist like Trump was elected.
I personally associate "success" with those who climb to the top of their profession -- whether it be medicine, physics, English literature, or sociology. Particularly admire academics and, for example, admire top law professors far more than some rich ambulance-chaser or medical-malpractice hack.
Important example of what @CJ is referring to is the great recession of 2008. It was caused by Wall Street guys slicing and dicing dogshit mortgages into securities, getting them rated AAA, and selling them to unsuspecting, innocent, pension funds all over the world. When the shit began to fall, we were forced to bail out the investment banks on the back of the taxpayer. Because sometimes you have to rescue the arsonist to save teh whole burning theater. Liz Warren understands what happened better than any of the candidates and partially why I admire her. Only one minor Wall Street player went to jail and most other execs walked away with fortunes.
Anyway @Reverend you seem a little too obsessed with material wealth and the OP is a little cringeworthy.
And Balzac was a very smart man.
SJG
Harvard claims that Warren didn't get the benefit of affirmative action. Even if she did, I personally forgive her and think she's an intelligent woman. Seems like all of these candidates have skeletons of one form or another.
SJG
Secondly, what income level, and/or net worth level would you consider to be rich ?
“You should decide whether something makes sense by its content, not by the person who says it, regardless of his name, the letters after his name, or his title or position in society.”
“It was not this, however, so much as their materialism, that shocked me. It is true, these beautifully gowned, beautiful women prattled sweet little ideals and dear little moralities; but in spite of their prattle the dominant key of the life they lived was materialistic. And they were so sentimentally selfish! They assisted in all kinds of sweet little charities, and informed one of the fact, while all the time the food they ate and the beautiful clothes they wore were bought out of dividends stained with the blood of child labour, and sweated labour, and of prostitution itself.”
“When I mentioned such facts, expecting in my innocence that these sisters of Judy O’Grady would at once strip off their blood-dyed silks and jewels, they became excited and angry, and read me preachments about the lack of thrift, the drink, and the innate depravity that caused all the misery in society’s cellar.”
“When I mentioned that I couldn’t quite see that it was the lack of thrift, the intemperance, and the depravity of a half-starved child of six that made it work twelve hours every night in a Southern cotton mill, these sisters of Judy O’Grady attacked my private life and called me an “agitator”— as though that, forsooth, settled the argument.”
From “What Life Means to Me”
by Jack London.
Newton, Iowa.
November 1905.
This is astounding and wholly unexpected viewpoint not my opinion. I’ve never had to work in a “sweat shop.” This is the view expressed to me by people who have actually worked in sweatshops.
I would favor doing away with sweatshops if we could improve the lives of the people who work in them. But closing down the sweatshops will not improve their lives. Better social programs and less corruption in their home countries would improve their lives (eventually).
Before you try to lecture me about these issues, be forewarned that my role as a lawyer in third world countries gave me an excellent personal view of the horrors the people you pretend to understand and with whom you pretend to commiserate must really endure.
I am on a first name basis with plenty of them.
I done a lot more for poor people in some third world countries than strike a few sensitive poses and drop a few quotes from books I’ve read.
Until you’ve had your boots on the ground, rolled your sleeves up and got your hands dirty, just shut up rather than expose your ignorance.
I’ve got healthy and wealthy children and grand-kids in elementary school with trust funds waiting for them to age.
Today, my debit card was used by someone other than me about 15 times which had me sitting in a bank for 2 hours. I just checked my bank balance and I have $3.57. I have no investments, owe more than my car is worth and have about $230,000 in debt and I don’t care. I’ve got a very adequate income and Life goes on.
I’ve got a very hot Latina meeting me OTC sometime in the next week. She’s 26 or 27 and I’m 73. Lying naked with her I’ll be wealthy again (so long as I can get it up).
Quotations are used by me as a means of inspiration and to invoke philosophical thoughts from the reader.
Pragmatically speaking, quotations can also be used as language games (in the Wittgensteinian sense of the term) to manipulate social order and the structure of society
“Like everything metaphysical the harmony between thought and reality is to be found in the grammar of the language.”
~ Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig said it all.
Greed/covetousness and envy are rotten for the soul - i have no respect/admiration for the rich nor sympathy for the poor/struggling who exhibit these traits.
With that being said, I disdain the current fashionable trend of demonizing wealth and financial success. There are good rich people and rotten poor people. Nothing wrong with enjoying comforts you can afford and having an elevated standard of living as a result of industrious work and taking smart calculated risks.
Even with the current crop of social programs and welfare
@Gawker, can you post some photos of that hot Latina after you see her? I have a thing for hot, young Latinas.
Matthew 19:23-26
“The saying was a response to a young rich man who had asked Jesus what he needed to do in order to inherit eternal life. Jesus replied that he should keep the commandments, to which the man stated he had done.
Jesus responded, "If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me." The young man became sad and was unwilling to do this...
So you and some others are doing well and want to make sure it stays that way. Well tough shit, things are going to change, they have to.
At this point we really have no choice but to go a large degree of socialism. Doesn't matter whether you like it or not.
SJG
Daniel Castro - I'll Play The Blues For You
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ioOzsi9a…
Consider:
Biopower : Foucault and beyond / edited by Vernon W. Cisney and Nicolae Morar (2016)
and
Michel Foucault : key concepts / edited by Dianna Taylor