I’ve been procrastinating on my taxes, so I have money on the brain.
Most people say that having more money would solve most of their problems.
For some, that means the lifestyle of being able to throw money around – go to the best restaurants, buy a fancy car, live in an elegant house, travel to exclusive resorts worldwide.
Others just want enough so that they can pay their bills, see the doctor when they need to, and treat themselves from time to time without feeling pinched.
But regardless of how we define rich – whether it’s a lot of luxury items or just feeling comfortable that you can handle your needs – I think for most of us the true definition of “rich” is “never have to worry about money again.”
I know that’s my definition.
But according to Anand Giridharadas, who has been reviewing the Epstein files at length, people who are actually rich spend a lot of time worrying about money – particularly about how to make more of it and hold onto it over generations. He says emails around money are much more common in those files than ones documenting the abuse of children.
I was about to say Fitzgerald was right that the rich really are different from you and me, but maybe Hemingway’s (perhaps apocryphal) response on that point is also correct: “Yes, they have more money.”
I mean, if most of what they do is worry about money, they’re very like ordinary folks. Their worries aren’t over how to pay crucial bills, true, but they are apparently terrified that they won’t always have “enough” (by preposterous standards of enough) unless they keep fretting about it.
And, of course, their fretting leads to influencing legislation and figuring out how to get around rules designed to get them to pay their fair share. They don’t just worry; they put lots of effort into making sure to stay very rich.
I’ve always figured that the main thing people needed to get rich was a deep interest in money. I mean, obviously it helps to have started with money and also to have no ethics surrounding your use of money. But I suspect to really get and stay rich, you have to care more about money than anything else.
And this more or less confirms it. These people have plenty of money and it’s all they can talk about.
As far as I’m concerned, that negates any point in getting rich.
Now I’ve never worked very hard at getting rich because the truth is I hate dealing with money. Money is boring.
And if it weren’t for taxes and banking rules and the pressure to prepare for old age because of our lack of social programs, I wouldn’t worry about it much at all. While I want to do my best to be sure I have enough for the rest of my life in case I end up with a long illness or inflation goes through the roof, the things that actually worry me are complying with the laws about withdrawing money from retirement accounts, making sure the savings I have are put in safe places, and the complications of filling out tax returns.
I don’t mind paying taxes – or at least, I wouldn’t if our federal government wasn’t in the hands of criminals – which I suppose is something that distinguishes me from the very rich.
I think sharing money through a system that provides needed services to everyone is a good idea. I’d like to have a lot more of it, in fact.
What I object to is the overcomplicated paperwork – paperwork that now requires a computer program not just to make sure the arithmetic is right but that what you’re putting down follows rules that are so arcane that most of us don’t know what they are.
A lot of these rules are set up to help the ultraweathly avoid paying taxes and are not even necessarily to the benefit of ordinary people like most of us. But we still have to jump through all the hoops.
And that means we have to worry about money even if we’re in that sweet spot where we have enough for our needs, which unfortunately is not as nearly as common as it ought to be.
A system where no one ever has to worry about money is not only doable – just looking at the money wasted on nonsense like fifth homes and the kind of frictionless travel where you do not have to rub elbows with the hoi polloi convinces me that we have enough resources if they were distributed properly – but desirable.
Beats the hell out of one that rewards people for greed and selfishness.