[Kiss]

Someone´s been watching too much American Psycho.

[Dirac Delta Function]

oh to be that rich....

I would buy myself a house on some beach front in California, have enough to live comfortably for the rest of my life, give the rest away to charities and universities.

[goape]

I don't really like the concept of giving my money away somewhere without having trust in it beforehand - I would want to spend time in a charity to gain trust in it before I part with significant sums of money.

I'm certainly not super rich but I have been and am happy to continue volunteering time for charity BUT I volunteer very little money.

[Profesh]

(Original post by Guybrush Sheepgood)
Because there is a limit to how much wealth I would own personally to the extent that any further wealth I earned I would feel guilty about possessing.

And that threshold isn't low enough to warrant such pious posturing.

I fully understand that it's completely subjective where this line is, and that I am imposing my own morality on the world.

A morality apparently devoid of any coherent philosophy. ("Look, these people are even more bourgeois than I am!" doesn't count.)

I think it's pretty obvious what my point about thirty cameras is. It's excessive materialism.

And I think it's pretty obvious that your point is untenable.

[Guybrush Sheepgood]

(Original post by Profesh)
So, when confronted by 'a whole family' lying in the street on the brink of starvation, rather than eschew materialism in favour of countless more ethical pastimes – reading, for example – and donate the money saved to UNICEF, you instead bought a camera, thereby condemning them to die. An accurate assessment?

And then, if at all humanly possible, stop being such a sanctimonious hypocrite.

No it is not an accurate assessment. I donate a lot of time to volunteering, and I have given to charity, and I, like all human beings, require a certain level of indulgence in materialism to keep myself from going insane. I have a clear line where excessive indulgence would be, and anything past that line I would give away. Some people would give away nothing, and feel no sympathy for others.

I am not being a hypocrite, and I am not being sanctimonious by condemning the insane inequality in the world.

A morality devoid of any coherent philosophy.

Not every single choice and action in the world is binary and can be fit neatly into a little box. My morals are hardly 'devoid of a coherent philosophy.'

("Look, these people are even more bourgeois than I am!" doesn't count.)

Yes it does. People with huge assets and power have more responsibility.

[TheWalkinDude]

(Original post by Norton1)
I would give lots of money to charity.

I've also worked out I could build myself a golden house for a mere $15,313,760,000. So that too.

(My basis for this; http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/htm...homehay19.html
http://goldpricenetwork.com/goldprice/uk/)

How much to rent a room?

[JamesNeedHelp2]

(Original post by Bill_Gates)
Yes i would give it all away. Theres only so many big houses and Ferrari's you can buy. Im not even rich at the moment and i regularly give away. I find it greedy. What makes me happy is seeing a happy world.

That made it all the more believable with your username.

[Profesh]

(Original post by Guybrush Sheepgood)
No it is not an accurate assessment. I donate a lot of time to volunteering, and I have given to charity, and I, like all human beings, require a certain level of indulgence in materialism to keep myself from going insane.

Temporarily disregarding the frankly mind-blowing sophistry of the above, you implicitly assert that a world in which you are unable to purchase an electronic device assembled by Indian sweatshop-labourers from components manufactured by Chinese drones using raw materials exhumed by third-world slave-children (and which until recently wouldn't have been technologically feasible, let alone fiscally attainable) is not a world in which you would be content to live: your imperfect morality, a by-product of your environment, is thus rather perversely facilitated by the very billionaires whose rapacious, unfettered capitalism you so ineffectually decry – and whose cardinal offence has been simply to furnish the apparatus by which people like us can hope to adequately sate our ingrained consumerism, rather than diverting all their surplus wealth to sub-Saharan Africa (and in doing so, depriving you of your beloved camera/television/insert other frivolous lifestyle-accessory).

I have a clear line where excessive indulgence would be, and anything past that line I would give away. Some people would give away nothing, and feel no sympathy for others.

Some people would abnegate any but the most essential of material possessions, and look upon your own excesses with equal contempt. Does this accord you the status of 'psychopath'?

Not every single choice and action in the world is binary and can be fit neatly into a little box. My morals are hardly 'devoid of a coherent philosophy.'

And yet you feel entitled to designate an arbitrary threshold beyond which 'necessary materialism' graduates to 'pathological greed'? How consistent.

I am not being a hypocrite, and I am not being sanctimonious by condemning the insane inequality in the world.

Hate the sin, not the sinner.

[Jack93o]

Bunch of lizards they are

[DickDastardly]

nah i aint a psycho

[sclez1]

Yes, it's true that if millionaires don't give a large proportion of their money to charity then they're disgusting excuses for humans with morals that make you question the meaning of life, but unfortunately most people fit this category (and I'm not discounting myself).

[ken2]

(Original post by glelin96)
No it isn't. If it is the natural survival instinct then why is it so often occurring that the "Mega-rich" are giving away a larger percentage of their net worth than you most likely ever will.

I am the kind of guy who will always always give you money IF you ask and ofcourse if i have.
If i was a multi billionaire i wouldnt hesitate giving over half to charity & small local businesses...HAND ON HEART

This was posted from The Student Room's Android App on my GT-I9100

[maxcartwright]

You really think the tax dollars they don't pay would go to the starving in Africa? Nope, goes straight to the government to use for their programs, which right now are so ridiculous I want to take my 200 pounds and deposit it offshore so they can't get at it.

[Azaro]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Giving_Pledge

[zaliack]

I thought the super rich regularly give to charities so that they can avoid tax

[MTR_10]

(Original post by Hamburglar0)
While it's true that many of the super-rich have this psychopathic / uncaring attitude, there are plenty of examples of the opposite as well... For example the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is the world's largest charitable trust, and Warren Buffet's one-time donation of $20 billion+ was the biggest one-time charitable donation in history. So, while some may be psychopathic, it's not true for all of the rich.

Both of which bring them huge media attention, thus improving their profile and business interests, and ultimately money. They did not do this for the good of humanity (sadly).

(Original post by PinkyPurply)
If I'm completely honest I would probably give little to charity compared to others.
It's all well and good saying that they should give their money to charity but it's a very different situation when it's your own.

I'm not from a wealthy background by any stretch of the imagination and I'm painfully aware that I'm a terrible person.

So why not change before it is too late?

(Original post by Norton1)
I would give lots of money to charity.

I've also worked out I could build myself a golden house for a mere $15,313,760,000. So that too.

(My basis for this; http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/htm...homehay19.html
http://goldpricenetwork.com/goldprice/uk/)

Would you give the same amount to charity? and if not wouldn't that be incredibly self indulgent to clad your house in gold when there are people starving?

(Original post by Steevee)
Why should they?

But more to the point, many of the super-rich do give millions to charity, they just don't make a song and dance about it. And to be honest, they probably give the same sort of proportion of their overall wealth to charity as you do.

Yet they get more from it. ie. media publicity, profit, good reputation etc which is completely unjust.

(Original post by glelin96)
No it isn't. If it is the natural survival instinct then why is it so often occurring that the "Mega-rich" are giving away a larger percentage of their net worth than you most likely ever will.

source?

(Original post by Guybrush Sheepgood)
That depends - define 'need'.

I think basic humans needs encompass things like, having a hobby to pursue so that you don't become a depressed burden on society. So in that case, I have bought a camera etc. Of course, I wouldn't die without these things but I would definitely have a much reduced quality of life.

Do I need 30 different cameras to satisfy my ravenous materialistic tastes? No.

Maybe not but what worries me is that if people stop consuming then what would happen to all of our huge new shopping mega-malls? Imagine all of that space wasted, and everyone was suddenly unemployed...

Basic point is that we are trapped in a huge hole with apparently no way out.

but I do agree with your point about over consumption.

[Norton1]

(Original post by TheWalkinDude)
How much to rent a room?

I've not set a price yet but the medium of exchange will be diamonds.

(Original post by MTR_10)
Would you give the same amount to charity? and if not wouldn't that be incredibly self indulgent to clad your house in gold when there are people starving?

What on earth are you talking about? I'm not going to be cladding it in gold. The entire structure will be built with gold.

[danny111]

(Original post by Profesh)
Have you ever bought anything you didn't need?

I think this isn't valid here. It's the same as saying the rich spend a higher proportion of their income on charity than normal people. The rich could have 20 instead of 40 sports cars, thats still 19 super expensive cars that they don't need and yet all of a sudden they have donated 20 cars worth as charity. If I buy myself a new phone I don't think that's the same "not needing" it.

[glelin96]

(Original post by danny111)
I think this isn't valid here. It's the same as saying the rich spend a higher proportion of their income on charity than normal people. The rich could have 20 instead of 40 sports cars, thats still 19 super expensive cars that they don't need and yet all of a sudden they have donated 20 cars worth as charity. If I buy myself a new phone I don't think that's the same "not needing" it.

No, but how does owning those 40 sports cars make them psychopaths? They are able to decide what they wish to do with their money. My parents run a really rather successful business, we have become accustomed to the lifestyle that it offers so we struggle to make donations in the term of cash. However, what we do is we run charity events, we open our house as a black-tie event and serve drinks, food and have the usual charity events, we don't ask for "payment" for these things but we ask for a donation. One of these events earned us around £8000 and we donated this directly to the Chemotherapy ward, not to buy equipment but to allow them to employ more people, making the "service" much more endurable for the patients.

You may not realize the contributions the rich make to society, they don't necessarily need to donate their personal funds but allow themselves to open services to the public to make money. I understand that people that don't have the money to donate can easily say, "Oh yes, I would donate half of my income to charity.". If you progressively worked your way into the position that you get into, your lifestyle progresses and as this happens you don't realize where you may be headed, you think short term, think about enjoying yourself and helping others where you can. When you then get to become wealthy, it is not as easy as people may think to just dump their assets and donate to charity. You have progressively become accustomed to living that lifestyle and going back from that, isn't easy at all.

[Profesh]

(Original post by danny111)
I think this isn't valid here. It's the same as saying the rich spend a higher proportion of their income on charity than normal people. The rich could have 20 instead of 40 sports cars, thats still 19 super expensive cars that they don't need and yet all of a sudden they have donated 20 cars worth as charity. If I buy myself a new phone I don't think that's the same "not needing" it.

Of course it is: you could've bought a perfectly serviceable second-hand phone (like mine) for thirty pounds, but instead spent ten times as much on a plethora of superfluous functions and a touch-screen interface. You chose convenience over charity, and in doing so allowed others to die.

Ultimately, once you understand why you supposedly 'need' a smart-phone, perhaps you'll also understand why that billionaire 'needs' his forty sports-cars, and finally start to address the underlying social issues rather than pointlessly vilifying those who just happen to be somewhat better at capitalism than you are.