Is it an ultra-wealthy person thing ?

Who are the people that go places and do stuff and then pretend that there will never be any consequences?

It's all about Truth or Consequences, that's life.

I understand Barney "nothing to lose" Bunghole playing fast and loose with anyone , anywhere and no holds barred.

If getting rich impairs my morals ,decision making and social compass like these that are in the news now,
I am quitting the whole Powerball deal.


This redacting b.s. is going to play a good part in killing this country.

quote:

If getting rich impairs my morals, decision making and social compass like these that are in the news now,
I am quitting the whole Powerball deal.

LOL! Keep playing the Powerball. Just remember who your friends are when you win. You're old enough to handle it.
Young people should not get suddenly rich as it really does "impairs morals, decision making and social compass."

Me personally? I don't.

But with respect to the general population, I suspect more than you can possibly imagine, and the reason is "because they can".

How many people have had an affair? How many guys go to a strip club when on a business trip, and never tell the SO?

How many people day drink, either at work or at home, and hide it from family and colleagues?

They say the only difference between men and boys is the price of their toys. A corollary is, that the only difference between the rich and the rest of us is the scale of their vices.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: ArtieS,

It is a result of being surrounded by people always telling you, “Yes. That is a brilliant idea and you are amazing for thinking that!” simply because they want to suckle at the teat of wealth/power/fame/whatever.

Enough people tell you whatever stupidity you can come up with is, “okay” you start to believe whatever stupidity you can come up with is indeed “okay.”

^^^^ You are absolutely right about that! Hell, your cut basically says the same thing from the other side of their coin.

None. I shed the losers and hard friends long ago. Hard friends are those friends that are too much work to be worth it.

All of my customers are ultra wealthy. They are also very very good people. Very good to me, very good to others, down to earth. It seems like the barely wealthy are the ones that are jerks and flash what little money they have (financed to the hilt ferrari, big house, etc etc. )

I've had several long term friends that have gone away over the years because they went down a road to where they were just too much of a pain in the ass.......one started drinking way too much, all of the time......etc. etc. I had another one that worked for my business on the side to help him out for years and then he screwed over one of my top two customers to go tile shopping with his new GF instead of doing the job he was supposed to do that day, costing me the customer.

Money isn’t evil. It’s an amplifier of who you are.

quote:

Originally posted by ArtieS:
Me personally? I don't.

But with respect to the general population, I suspect more than you can possibly imagine, and the reason is "because they can".

How many people have had an affair? How many guys go to a strip club when on a business trip, and never tell the SO?

How many people day drink, either at work or at home, and hide it from family and colleagues?

They say the only difference between men and boys is the price of their toys. A corollary is, that the only difference between the rich and the rest of us is the scale of their vices.

Absolutely. Imagine a world where money is not an object--ever. Not only that, you belong to a class of people whose privacy is generally protected by others, and whose favor is courted by everyone, and where there are virtually no consequences for bad behavior. Now imagine how much trouble you could get into.

It could be fairly argued that if you have those kinds of advantages and AREN'T maximizing them, you are leaving a significant portion of your life's opportunities on the table.

quote:

Originally posted by SigJacket:
Money isn’t evil. It’s an amplifier of who you are.

You are ready to leave the monastery, Grasshopper.

I should have added this only applies if you have an inherent ability to be a general turd. As others have pointed out; good people, regardless of favorable circumstances, don’t turn into flaming craters of self-destructive narcissism. There must be that kernel of shitty personality to be amplified once surrounded by mindless syncophants.

quote:

Originally posted by rkentm:
It is a result of being surrounded by people always telling you, “Yes. That is a brilliant idea and you are amazing for thinking that!” simply because they want to suckle at the teat of wealth/power/fame/whatever.

Enough people tell you whatever stupidity you can come up with is, “okay” you start to believe whatever stupidity you can come up with is indeed “okay.”

Do the three officers of the National Clandestine Service I know count?

Perhaps there are ten times the bad people that I know about,
But since the media chooses to personify the wealthy , for headlines, the many others go unnoticed.

Well that's pretty effin depressing.

There are people{not me} that obtain gratification from hanging around questionable characters. THe casino industry is a good example. There are others that like to brag about being friends with gangsters.

None that I can think of.

What I’ve seen, has been anyone too isolated, without push-back, goes nuts.

They can be isolated by wealth, or intelligence, but once someone is “the golden goose,” people tend to start catering to him, because they’re all afraid of “interfering with his process.”

None. I don’t have time for the negative waves man.

I don't associate with people much, so I'll go with zero.

quote:

Originally posted by rkentm:
It is a result of being surrounded by people always telling you, “Yes. That is a brilliant idea and you are amazing for thinking that!”....

This is something that I realized long ago about myself, and then as a result of that realization that the same was true of many other people.

By definition people who are in positions of power and/or influence control or influence others. To cite a common example, school teachers influence their students. And within their span of influence and among those whom they influence, they can get away with a great deal that won’t be challenged. The natural consequence is that they tend to start to believe that anything they say must be true within that setting.

I recently ran across a complaint that a teacher told a student that one divided by zero equaled zero (1 ÷ 0 = 0). When the parent challenged the statement both the teacher and the school principal insisted that was correct and rejected the complaint. I can readily imagine the outraged thinking: “I’m the teacher; who are you to question what I teach?”

In my own case I taught a variety of military intelligence related subjects, and when I was assigned with little notice to present a new subject that I really didn’t know much about, I filled in my ignorance with assumptions and guesses that I basically just made up. But by chance in the class there was a captain who had been assigned to the section that actually handled the matter I was discussing. The result was an extremely embarrassing experience that taught me an indelible lesson. I was accustomed to not having students challenge the other things I taught, and assumed I wouldn’t be challenged about anything when standing at the front of a classroom.

After that lesson was seared into my consciousness, I became aware of how true it was of other people.

The most obvious example that most of us see are people who are surrounded by sycophants, such popular singers and actors. It’s also true of people who become highly respected for other reasons. I recently ran across an admission by a winner of the Nobel prize that it was easy to contract “Nobelitis” because after receiving the award they were inundated by questions that had nothing to do with their field of expertise, but which they were then tempted to offer opinions about because they were being asked simply due to their respect and fame.

Another common as dirt example are powerful politicians. In their case it’s not as if no one ever challenges them, but that actually contributes to their self-assurance because they become totally immune to criticism. If anything, the challenges and criticisms become confirmation that they’re right: “No one would pay attention to me otherwise.”

I suspect that’s true of people like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Ordinarily, how could someone like that with such a limited background and stunningly limited intellect be paid the slightest attention, much less respect? And yet precisely because of those factors, whenever she opens her mouth multitudes of commentators and others cannot avoid flocking to the train wreck that she represents. And because of all that attention from supporters and opponents and those who may think of her as nothing more than a useful idiot, I’m sure she has no doubt about her own genius.

Or to sum it all up and as a friend puts it, “They start believing their own bullshit.”

So, yes: We see examples of such thinking all around us all the time, but unfortunately some examples have far greater consequences than others.

When I left Oregon, I'm the one people associated with, but didn't want their friends to know about.

I was...deplorable, you know. A Gun loving Christian conservative, anti-vaxxer who voted for Trump.

Now I live in a place where I fit in.

Tony.