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 #2 (permalink) Thu Aug 30, 2007 12:36 pm How important is money to you? |
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I think of money as a tool. My problem is that the older I get, the more things I imagine that I can do with this tool, so I want more. These are not usually things I want to do for myself. Sometimes I see that a magnificent historic building in my city needs renovation, and I wish I could have them send the entire bill to me. There is a nun in my town who drives poor children with terminal illnesses to their doctor appointments and treatments, and her van is quite beat up. I wish I could buy her a more reliable van, but I can't.
I don't think it's automatically unfair that a corporate CEO makes so much more than an average employee. If that's the amount of money it takes to get a talented person who can keep the business prosperous and ensure work for average people -- and dividend income for retired stockholders -- then it's money well spent. When I don't like the situation is when a CEO gets that much money and drives the company into the ground. Sometimes a CEO like that has to be bribed several million dollars just to make him go away. It's called a "golden parachute". In most cases, however, the CEO's large salary is a good investment.
There was a poll done recently that found that the average American would rather earn $50,000 per year at a company where everyone else made only $30,000 a year, than make $100,000 a year at a company where his coworkers made $120,000 a year. In other words, they'd prefer having a moderate income where everyone makes less than they do, to having a high income where other people make more than they do. Those are really WEIRD results!
Anyway, I notice that when people talk about unjust differences in people's incomes, they usually compare a corporate CEO to the average worker. They very seldom compare the enormous salaries Michael Jordan made to the income of the average kid who likes to play basketball. And I've never seen anyone condemn the amount of money Paul McCartney or Sting made, and never the money a movie star makes. I think the CEO benefits people more than a basketball player or a rock star. |
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Jamie (K)
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| #3 (permalink) Thu Aug 30, 2007 18:40 pm How important is money to you? |
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Money is important, because we live in a system based on money.
What we have to take into account is how much money do we really need? |
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Migmam
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| #4 (permalink) Thu Aug 30, 2007 19:02 pm How important is money to you? |
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| Jamie (K) wrote: |
| Anyway, I notice that when people talk about unjust differences in people's incomes, they usually compare a corporate CEO to the average worker. They very seldom compare the enormous salaries Michael Jordan made to the income of the average kid who likes to play basketball. And I've never seen anyone condemn the amount of money Paul McCartney or Sting made, and never the money a movie star makes. I think the CEO benefits people more than a basketball player or a rock star. |
Hi Jamie,
Why do you think a CEO benefits people more than a basketball or a rock star? I mean, who measures the value a person creates? I think it takes a lot of courage, training and discipline to achieve a state of mind that allows you to write and perform music that millions of people from all over the world listen to. What if a CEO needs a certain type of music in order to relax or do a great job? So much money would pay somebody who can create this type of music? The same holds true for professional athletes and movie stars. It's a fact that the majority of all people around the world are willing to pay a certain amount of money for entertainment. What do CEO's spend their money on? How many cars can they drive and how many houses can live in? The number is rather limited, isn't it? However, how many movies, sports games and TV shows can watch? How many songs can they listen to and how many books can they read?
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| #5 (permalink) Fri Aug 31, 2007 2:48 am How important is money to you? |
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| Torsten wrote: |
| Why do you think a CEO benefits people more than a basketball or a rock star? |
A highly paid CEO runs an organization that generates a livelihood for thousands or millions of employees, who feed their families and educate their children with it. They also give a good deal of money to charity (in the US, at least). The CEO's organization also provides money for shareholders, including retirees who have to live on dividend income, because they can't work anymore. This income can go directly to the shareholder, or indirectly through a pension fund. Many charities have endowments in which a large part of the money is held in blue chip stocks, the dividends from which go to finance their charitable work. All this is financed by the company the CEO runs, and it amounts to many times the amount of his salary.
A rock star or an athlete employs a certain number of people, but he benefits far fewer people in this way.
| Torsten wrote: |
| What do CEO's spend their money on? How many cars can they drive and how many houses can live in? The number is rather limited, isn't it? However, how many movies, sports games and TV shows can watch? How many songs can they listen to and how many books can they read? |
I noticed you didn't ask this question about rock stars or professional athletes. Many of them use the money to kill themselves gradually, and often to help other people ruin their lives and kill themselves in the same way.
At least in my country, when someone like a CEO gets that rich he pretty much doesn't spend all that money on himself. You seem to imagine a 19th-century robber baron character that communist governments were presenting as the face of capitalism all the way up until 1989. Or you're imagining a cartoon character like Uncle Scrooge ("Onkel Dagobert" in your country) who sits on top of a pile of money bags and has everything gold plated. It's not like that.
Andrew Carnegie, who once owned almost the whole American steel industry, said that it was morally acceptable to become rich, but disgraceful to die with all that money. For this reason, most of our massively rich people start giving the money away at a certain point in their lives. They build libraries, schools, hospitals, shelters for the poor, and a lot of other things that are needed. They're better at this than the government is, because they're more focused, more efficient, less corrupt, and less likely to fund something that isn't needed.
My city is full of things built by these guys. The oldest money comes from the estate of Henry Ford and his family, which basically built the college I studied at. Another part of it was built by the estate of Sebastian S. Kresge, who founded the chain of retail stores that are now called Kmart. He partially or fully financed many public institutions, and his money is still doing that half a century after he died. There are libraries and university buildings in the city where I live that were built by money from Alex Manoogian, who invented the type of one-handled faucet that's found in houses all over the world now. Money from the Fisher family, founders of a company that is now part of General Motors, basically built or restored the whole music district. Another family built an entire YMCA. The man who founded Compuware built a whole cancer hospital downtown, and another millionaire entrepreneur and CEO built another cancer hospital in the suburbs, where I live. That second CEO, Mr. Van Elslander, also paid for a large warehouse and services center for an organization that takes care of the poor. The old one burned down, and he just wrote the check, from what I understand. The founder of the Domino's pizza chain also founded a university and a law school in my state. These are just a few of the more conspicuous things I can think of, but these same people -- and many others -- pump money into many charitable and cultural institutions constantly, without the public really noticing.
This is completely normal behavior for rich people in the US. People from other countries say their rich people don't do that, but it's hard for me to believe. Many Germans, for example, tell me that German millionaires die with their money, but it's hard for me to believe that someone like that would be that selfish and plan so badly in any country. |
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Jamie (K)
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| #6 (permalink) Fri Aug 31, 2007 3:55 am How important is money to you? |
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Hi, Jamie
Why don't all those rich people bequeath all their money to their families ? Isn't it more logical that giving them away to the people they've never known ? |
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Lost_Soul
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| #7 (permalink) Fri Aug 31, 2007 5:34 am How important is money to you? |
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They don't usually bequeath all the money to their families. They set their kids up so that they've got more than enough, and once that's done they still have too much money, so they sponsor charities.
The average American millionaire made all the money himself. Only a small minority got it from their families. Sometimes their children are relatively spoiled and irresponsible, and they're liable to squander the money. In that situation it's much more logical for the millionaire to give the money to the Sisters of Mercy for their hospital, or to the local university for a genetic research laboratory, or to the St. Vincent de Paul Society for a homeless shelter, than it is for him to give it to his own kids. And usually these millionaires know the charities they're giving the money to, because many of them have been on their boards of directors or worked with them in some other capacity, so they're not giving the money to strangers.
If the millionaire's kid is not spoiled or irresponsible, he's liable to be prepared to take over the business, and as part of this capacity he gets involved with the charities.
I saw something like this when I worked for a small art museum, when I'd just graduated from college. Two of us had to go to rich art collectors' houses to pack and transport the artworks they were lending to the museum for exhibitions. We went to the office of one very rich guy to pick up a couple of small sculptures. When he gave them to us, he also gave us two or three more pieces of art and ordered us to take them for the show. We didn't know what to do, because the curator hadn't told us about them. Then the man explained himself: "My son is starting to collect art too, and I'm trying to train him. He needs to understand that these artworks belong to all people, and not really to him, and that as a collector it's his responsibility to lend the works in his collection to museums for the benefit of the public." This was characteristic of the whole way this rich man was raising his son. |
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Jamie (K)
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| #8 (permalink) Fri Aug 31, 2007 6:32 am How important is money to you? |
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| Enough is enough. |
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Edison_Chen_e_c
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| #9 (permalink) Fri Aug 31, 2007 11:37 am How important is money to you? |
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| Jamie (K) wrote: |
| I think of money as a tool. My problem is that the older I get, the more things I imagine that I can do with this tool, so I want more. These are not usually things I want to do for myself. Sometimes I see that a magnificent historic building in my city needs renovation, and I wish I could have them send the entire bill to me. There is a nun in my town who drives poor children with terminal illnesses to their doctor appointments and treatments, and her van is quite beat up. I wish I could buy her a more reliable van, but I can't. |
Hi Jamie,
Despite our occasional political differences of opinion, I must say I was pleasantly surprised by the human touch shining through in your comment. I do believe you when you say that you would indulge in beneficence supposing you had the money. But you also said that money has gained more importance in the course of your life. So I'm curious how you would comment on the statement "The more money I earn, the less I think of others". No imputation here, just curiosity 
btw - Were you referring to this building in Detroit?
http://www.ferestenphoto.com/trainsta.html
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 Ralf
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| #10 (permalink) Fri Aug 31, 2007 12:11 pm How important is money to you? |
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| Ralf wrote: |
| But you also said that money has gained more importance in the course of your life. So I'm curious how you would comment on the statement "The more money I earn, the less I think of others". No imputation here, just curiosity |
The first thing is that when I was in my 20s I was a big leftist, bordering on communist. I had all sorts of delusions about the benefits of socialism and communism, but I grew out of them as I got more information about economics and human nature, and especially after I visited some Soviet Bloc countries and saw how people lived and how oppressed they were.
Basically, being this kind of person, I didn't like dealing with or thinking about money very much. Later I realized that money is not only a tool necessary for obtaining the things we need to stay alive, but that it is also a tool for doing good things for other people. I've shocked a couple of nuns and priests by telling them, "It's good for you to take a vow of poverty, if you want, and devote yourself completely to service of the poor, but you shouldn't forget that you're completely dependent on wealth accumulators to do your charitable work." They give me a stunned look, as if they don't like this idea, but they have no answer, because their work really is dependent upon people who amass money and give them some of it. They'll say that the Holy Spirit provides for them, and yeah, that may be true, but the Holy Spirit is working through people with money who write them checks. It's not poor people dispatching truckloads of groceries for them to feed the homeless with; it's the rich guy who owns the grocery warehouse.
As for your quote, "The more money I earn, the less I think of others," doesn't correspond to my experience with people who make a lot of money. My experience is that they usually have more free time to think about other people. The people I see usually think something more like, "Now I finally have enough money to help people." Many people dream of being rich so that they can do something good with the money.
There's also the observation by a German who writes books on gaining "financial freedom", named Bodo Sch?fer. He said that he decided to try to get rich when he was a child, because he observed that the people who are most obsessed with money are those who don't have any.
No, but you bring up an interesting observation. My father took me into this place when I was a kid. It was deserted, and my father explained to me how incredibly busy it was in the 1940s and before. At that time, Detroit had about 2.5 million people. Now the Detroit area has nearly 5 million people, but its two train stations are more or less like the stations in very small towns in Europe. This shows the decline in the importance of train travel in American life.
Just the fact that that building is still standing is a miracle, and it shows how much citizens and the government love it and want to restore it. The problem is that nobody knows what to do with the place, and without an idea and a purpose, no one can finance the restoration. |
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Jamie (K)
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| #11 (permalink) Fri Aug 31, 2007 15:29 pm How important is money to you? |
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Money is a very useful tool so if I can get 10 million dollars why should I just take 1 million dollars. The more money I have, the more things I can do. ~~
We can use money to help our families, my relatives, and people needing help. Why not I wish i could have billions of dollars.  Just a daydream.
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Aleaf
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| #12 (permalink) Sat Sep 01, 2007 13:48 pm How important is money to you? |
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Hi Jamie,
I agree with your observation that there are probably more poor people being obsessed with the idea of making more money than there are CEOs infected with this idea. Whenever I am in a fortunate position to make more money than usual, I feel more at ease and spend the odd Euro on charity.
| Quote: |
No, but you bring up an interesting observation. My father took me into this place when I was a kid. It was deserted, and my father explained to me how incredibly busy it was in the 1940s and before. At that time, Detroit had about 2.5 million people. Now the Detroit area has nearly 5 million people, but its two train stations are more or less like the stations in very small towns in Europe. This shows the decline in the importance of train travel in American life.
Just the fact that that building is still standing is a miracle, and it shows how much citizens and the government love it and want to restore it. The problem is that nobody knows what to do with the place, and without an idea and a purpose, no one can finance the restoration. |
I went to Detroit in 1993. A friend of mine and I were travelling the eastern states on a Greyhound bus. This is definitely not the most convenient or safest way of travelling the states, but it's a good way of getting in touch with the "locals", and it provides you with ample opportunity to get an insight into the dodgiest parts of American cities as it drops you at the most dismal looking spots.
When arriving in Detroit on a Friday afternoon, I was amazed that downtown seemed completely drained of life. All we could hear on arrival was the sound of a car alarm, because the car windscreen had been smashed. No people anywhere, nobody to ask for an inexpensive hotel.
We eventually spotted a nice black gentlemen who recommended the Ramada Inn to us. At reception, a lady who was quite busy varnishing her nails told us that the best way to pass the time in Detroit was to go to a mall just outside town. Fortunately, we were clever enough to get a second opinion, and we ended up spending two memorable nights north of the river.
What does the city centre look like these days?
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| #13 (permalink) Tue Sep 04, 2007 9:43 am How important is money to you? |
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| Quote: |
| What does the city centre look like these days? |
To specify my question, when I was visiting Detroit people told me that the city centre was being reconstructed. What once used to be an area for shopping and socialising has probably turned into a zone for offices, public administration or some other field of new business. Am I right in thinking so?
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| #14 (permalink) Tue Sep 04, 2007 15:46 pm How important is money to you? |
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money is important inasmuch as it represents the means through which I buy the things that are important to me (I mean, those things that can be bought).
That is where money's value is -- it's not money I want, per se, but the things it can purchase.
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Prezbucky
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| #15 (permalink) Wed Sep 05, 2007 14:30 pm How important is money to you? |
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| prezbucky wrote: |
money is important inasmuch as it represents the means through which I buy the things that are important to me (I mean, those things that can be bought).
That is where money's value is -- it's not money I want, per se, but the things it can purchase. |
I completely go along with you here, Tom.  |
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