It's 10 P.M. Do you know where you money is?

So…my question nimh….How do you reconcile the fact that you are satisfied with having a vague idea of your financial standing at any given time, yet feel poorly toward someone who, because they anticipated the future and last year bet they would be around today, can splurge on something without vaguely wondering if this is going to effect their ability to pay for an unexpected bill? Hmmmmmmm?

There seems to be an incredible amount of tension in the A2K air today.

But going there would turn this into a Politics thread... :wink:

nimh wrote:

But going there would turn this into a Politics thread... :wink:

And we all know how much you hate those ...

So ....it sucks to be 'poor' for whatever political or personal reasons, but once you're there....

you kinda can choose to perpetuate it or not.

dag....don't get all nimned out on me....

again...and I'm not going to say it after this...I was using rich and poor as a reference point.

my POINT was....how can you resent someone for having something (and no, I'm not talking to you...my post was directed to nimh if you'd care to pay attention) if you only have a vague idea of what you've got, ergo, only having a vague idea if you have enough for some future need or want?

I have not idea about why you've gone off on the differences between working for money, or embezzling, or inheriting. Back up and look at what I was responding to...your statement that if a person was rich they wouldn't have to take out a loan, or save their money, for something they need in 2 years.

I was disagreeing with that, and that alone.

People with money save for all sorts of things, and take out loans. However, they are prepared to do that, and are not just vaguely aware if they have the means to support it.

If you're going to get pissy dag, at least get pissy about what was actually said, and what was said to you.

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Eh.. dont share your optimism. I mean, sure, being like me, for example, sure wont help you. Being more meticulous with money will help you compared to someone who isnt, for sure. But there's plenty of people who are absolutely meticulous with money, and still are poor.

Lots of people, in your country, mine, my adopted one too - for whom being frugal and precise with money helps 'em hold their head above water where others just end up on the streets etc. But thats pretty much all it does. The next step remains out of reach no matter how frugal they are.

Chai wrote:

So…my question nimh….How do you reconcile the fact that you are satisfied with having a vague idea of your financial standing at any given time, yet feel poorly toward someone who, because they anticipated the future and last year bet they would be around today, can splurge on something without vaguely wondering if this is going to effect their ability to pay for an unexpected bill? Hmmmmmmm?

Huh?

Uhmm.. I dont. Feel poorly towards "someone who, because they anticipated the future etc [insert your description]".

I instinctively feel poorly towards the rich, yeah. (That's the thread you're referring to, I'm guessing). But the people you describe - the ones who have carefully planned their life's finances so as to gradually built up just enough money to be able to afford a few things considered luxuries in their society - they are not "the rich", are they?

I didn't say anything about gradually building up just enough money. Or about people who have carefully planned their lifes finances. How someone saves doesn't have to be gradual, in fact, if you're young you better get as much put away as fast as possible in order to be able to live an idenpendant life when you are no longer able to work. However, I see no connection with saving or taking out a loan with being rich...as said, the rich save and borrow money as well.

As Dag already pointed out, if you have to save for two years for your car, you're not rich.

I disagree - I think you have a very different definition of the word rich. Rich is not eating foi gras every day and hiring someone whose only job is clipping your toenails. Perhaps that is part of why you have this instinctive (but misplaced) feeling toward the "rich", because you're only thinking of the "idle rich"

On the same count, I instinctively feel solidarity towards the poor, yeah. But there's no equivalent whatsoever between "the poor" and people who "have this vague idea of how much they have spent etc [insert your description]".

In fact, there's many rich people who live like that, just spending with only a rough idea of their current balance -- just like there's many poor people who meticulously calculate how much they've spent today, this week and this month - because that's the only way they're going to get by.

Again, different definition of rich....I've known loads of people with way more than enough money....believe me, they have more than a rough idea of what they've got.

There's also poor people, of course, who live like me, incompetents when it comes to getting a grasp on money, and who are poor partly because of that; just like there's rich people who know the whereabouts of their every last penny.

Is isn't one or the other nimh. it's not like you either haven't a clue or know where every penny is. One more time, I think it's a matter that you may be seeing wealth in these extreme all or nothing scenerios. To be honest, it feels like you want to "hate" (an exaggeration) the rich so badly, you make your definition of rich so narrow it only includes people with a gazillion dollars who abuse the poor

So yeah, uhm, what? I dont see where you get the equation you're making here, I guess, between my instinctive feelings about rich and poor people on the one hand, and the two sets of types you're sketching here on the other. They're not the same groups of people. So my instinctive feelings about rich and poor say zilch about what my feelings would be about the two groups you're describing.

I can only guess where you could be coming from... how you got from one to the other. Some sincere belief that the country's rich people really got rich by being meticulous with money, while the country's poor just got poor because they didnt watch what they spent? Like, the American Dream?

No, I certainly did not say that people got rich by simply keeping their noses to the grindstone, and the poor are that way because they don't know what they spend on any given day. In fact, it's naive of you to think that's what I was saying....again...what is rich?

I think thats a very naive way of looking at things, in today's society of highly concentrated, largely inherited capital and ever decreasing social mobility. But going there would turn this into a Politics thread... :wink:

Chai, sorry dear, but you get pissy all the time. It is your attitude that sometimes rubs me the wrong way - knowing better than the rest, or perhaps choice of words sometimes. You may not mean it, in fact I'm almost certain you don't, i'm just saying how it often comes across for me.

For me, "rich" is, well, someone like me. Monetarily, I have so much more than most of the people on this planet.

I have a home that I can leverage in my later years to provide an income.

Chai wrote:

For me, "rich" is, well, someone like me. Monetarily, I have so much more than most of the people on this planet.

I have a home that I can leverage in my later years to provide an income.

If you were rich you wouldn't need an income in your later years, the money would already be there imo.