What's a few million between friends?

Tuesday, 7:26 pm

Jun

03

2008

Well this is a sad, sad article. It’s called It’s Not So Easy Being Less Rich. Now, we’re not talking about upper middle class people or even the comfortably wealthy. No, this article is about the very, very wealthy who are finding their net worths or incomes shrinking by a few million here or there owing to a deteriorating economy. They still have plenty of millions left, but the stress of keeping up with the really, really, really rich Joneses is causing them all kinds of trouble—gaining weight, drowning their sorrows, bags under their eyes. Stuff like that. Their friends and spouses and acquaintances might dump them if they don’t maintain the facade of their former fabulous wealth.

It’s all about status, you see. If you can no longer afford to charter a Gulfstream jet and have to settle for a Learjet instead...well, your friends and associates are gonna know you’ve hit hard times. And they might snub you the next time they pass your table at the Four Seasons or Barney’s. Probably an instructive lesson in fair weather friends.

I guess I feel sorry for them. Not because they’re less rich than they were, but because they don’t appear to have any sense of self-worth that isn’t dependent on great gobs of money. Without their fabulous wealth, they don’t appear to feel as if they have any value in this world. That’s what this stress and fear is all about.

I don’t suppose most of us would object to having a few million rattling around in the investment accounts, but good golly. How much money does it take to buy happiness and security these days? I don’t believe that money actually does buy genuine happiness, but this crowd would apparently disagree. There is something seriously out of whack when still having “way more than enough” is a fate worse than death.

I’m guessing that the book I just started reading, Dmitry Orlov’s Reinventing Collapse: The Soviet Example and American Prospects won’t be on their top ten reading list this summer. But I do have to seriously wonder what would happen to these people if Orlov’s proposals come to pass. It seems entirely possible lately. Really good read, in any case.