I stopped him right there since I wanted to understand more about how he was thinking. I asked him to define greedy… Interestingly enough, he couldn't give me an answer other than “a person who has a lot of money”. Clearly that is not the definition.
I looked it up. Here is the “full definition” according to Websters.
a selfish and excessive desire for more of something (as money) than is neededThis brought up so many questions.
How much money does one need? I suppose it would depend on their lifestyle. What does a person have to do in order to get this money? Do they need to do something they don’t like and get paid just enough to cover their basic expenses? Does this mean that a person can earn a passive income that covers basic expenses but no more?
I think, when it comes to money, the word “need” is extremely subjective. The word "selfish" and the word "excessive" are just as subjective.
Here’s how I see it… If there are 2 people and 4 pieces of pie. If one were to grab 3 before the other person gets a chance, then I think we can all say that this is greedy. However, what if there were 10 pieces of pie and I grabbed 3. Would I still be greedy? Same number… but what has changed is the number of pieces to start with. I think someone is “greedy” if they take more than their share.
Here’s the thing about money. There is no limit. They keep printing more. A lot of people look at the gap between the rich and the poor and think that rich people take money from poor people and therefore they have “more than their share”. However, it doesn't work that way. Rich people do different things to attract the money they have. Anyone (especially in north america) has the same opportunity. Many of us simply leave the money on the table since we are scared to take a risk and someone else comes and picks it up.
Opportunity is all around us, but for whatever reason most people don’t seize it. It is usually those same people that end up complaining about the gap between the rich and the poor.
Money is a powerful tool and if you can attract enough to pay your bills and enjoy life experiences, then you can use the surplus to start changing the world. Set up charities… Donate time and money to a cause. If you give more than you use for yourself you are definitely not greedy.
There are two ways to interpret money or economy. one is to view money as a thing, something you can pile up and hoard so you always have it. the other is to view the economy as an electrical circuit, and money is the flow of electrons through that circuit.
ReplyDeleteif you view money as a thing, then piling up a large amount of it that only you have access to would be the best approach, for you as an individual. in fact, piling up as much as you possibly can makes some sense. but this is myopic and does not demonstrate a systems-level understanding of the system that you're participating in. the rich do this, saving by not spending.
if you view money as the electrons in the circuit of the economy, then you begin to understand why it is necessary to spend money and move it through the economy. a circuit can have a number of loads and still operate - it can have a light and a buzzer and a charge capacitor (like a bank) and any number of other components that use the electricity AS IT PASSES THROUGH.
in this analogy, a rich person is a break in the circuit. nothing gets through and eventually the circuit fails to perform any tasks at all. this is what proved the lie of trickle-down economics - axiomatically, the rich are rich because they don't spend enough money.
every time there is a major shift in wealth holding, like in the 2008 real estate crash, the economy does poorly as money is moved from many people to few people. this happens in every financial crash - many people lose some money, and a few people gain a lot of money. depending on your political stance this is either a free market victory or a capitalist coup, but in either interpretation, the data says that moving money from many to few is bad for the general economy.
Wow. This is one of them most brilliant analogies I've ever heard with regard to money and economy.
ReplyDeleteI think the problem is education... Yes we can educate the rich, but I think that it would be more productive to educate the poor.