# 21 Ways Rich People Think Differently **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [September 6, 2012, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/21-ways-rich-people-think-differently/633905 "2012-09-06T20:25:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![42fish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/4/b487fb/32.png) [@42fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/42fish)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2012, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/21-ways-rich-people-think-differently/633905/61 "2012-09-09T16:56:51Z")
F. Scott Fitzgeald: “The rich are different from you and me.” Ernest Hemingway: “Yes, they have more money.” [Note: Exchange almost certainly didn’t happen.] ---
**Author:** ![Kozmik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/8dc957/32.png) [@Kozmik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kozmik)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2012, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/21-ways-rich-people-think-differently/633905/62 "2012-09-09T18:09:19Z")
acquiring specific knowledge. - agreed you have to BE something. - agreed (though I would revise to “you have to BE someone”) just want to surround themselves with like-minded people. - agreed ---
**Author:** ![Hello\_Again](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/85e7bf/32.png) [@Hello\_Again](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hello_Again)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2012, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/21-ways-rich-people-think-differently/633905/63 "2012-09-09T18:36:25Z")
> [@doreen](#): > > It really depends on which “average people” you’re talking about. If you’re talking about college-educated people, I’m sure you’re correct. But if you’re talking about the people I describe as having “middle-class incomes with working class attitudes”, they actually don’t expect to switch careers and often don’t even expect to switch employers. My relatives who work installing lines for Verizon might move to doing the same type of work for Time Warner, but they aren’t going to voluntarily look for a job in an entirely different field. > > In my experience, for the most part, government workers fit into the above group. I find it amazing that you work in government and don’t know anyone who hasn’t changed careers . Most of my office is attorneys and judges, and for most of them it is at least their second career. If they didn’t do something completely different before getting their law degree (like I did) they completely changed the type of work they do within the law. I don’t consider working as a prosecutor and then becoming a judge as the same career, even if they are both in government and both require a JD. Anyway, most of the working class people I know have done other stuff. If they’re installing cable now, at one point they were driving a truck/waitressing/childcare/movers/handyman/retail/call center/tried a year of college but it didn’t work out. You really know people who started installing cable at 18 and just did that until they were 55? That surprises me extremely. ---
**Author:** ![Hello\_Again](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/85e7bf/32.png) [@Hello\_Again](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hello_Again)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2012, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/21-ways-rich-people-think-differently/633905/64 "2012-09-09T18:46:12Z")
Too late to edit: Even the secretaries who have been in our office 15+ years and have their eye on their 20 year pension, did other jobs and other types of jobs before starting work with the government. Think about it: they’re in their early 50s and getting ready to retire on a 20 year pension. That means from 18-30, they were doing something else. ---
**Author:** ![Hello\_Again](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/85e7bf/32.png) [@Hello\_Again](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hello_Again)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2012, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/21-ways-rich-people-think-differently/633905/65 "2012-09-09T19:18:19Z")
ETA AGAIN (sorry): just because career changes are sometimes involuntary, does not mean that people don’t expect them. Hoping you won’t have to change is not the same thing as believing you never will. The article alleges there is a huge group of people – so many they are considered “average” – who actually believe they will will never change careers by either choice or necessity. I posit this group does not truly exist any more, and has not existed for quite some time. ---
**Author:** ![doreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/858c86/32.png) [@doreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doreen)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2012, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/21-ways-rich-people-think-differently/633905/66 "2012-09-09T20:12:43Z")
> [@Hello\_Again](#): > > Anyway, most of the working class people I know have done other stuff. If they’re installing cable now, at one point they were driving a truck/waitressing/childcare/movers/handyman/retail/call center/tried a year of college but it didn’t work out. You really know people who started installing cable at 18 and just did that until they were 55? That surprises me extremely. Yep, and people who started as apprentice electricians or plumbers , truck drivers, mechanics or hairstylists and continue to do the same type of work until they retire. They might move into a supervisory position and they might change employers but they rarely change careers from truck driver to mechanic. They might be forced to but they certainly don’t expect it to happen more than once- when they leave the job they took while waiting to get into the union , finish training, or get hired for a government job. And I do mean they believe they will never have to change careers. I think they’re wrong, but that’s what they believe. Oh and I just noticed the 20 yr pensions- I guess you work for the Feds.That might be why our experience differs. I’ve worked for a state government and a municipal government, where you need to be 55 with 30 years of service to retire with a full pension. Most of the support staff in the places I’ve worked were hired in their early 20s and have over 30 years by the time they reach 55. ---
**Author:** ![Fuzzy\_Dunlop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/848f3c/32.png) [@Fuzzy\_Dunlop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fuzzy_Dunlop)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2012, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/21-ways-rich-people-think-differently/633905/67 "2012-09-09T21:16:16Z")
> [@Frylock](#): > > How does this work? Since you have to pay the invested money back, and since in the meanwhile you will have spent the invested money on your business, aren’t you, basically, putting you’re own money into your business even if it’s funded by investors? > > Only, even worse, since you can now go into the negative, while if you were using just your actual bank account that couldn’t happen. Well imagine I start a “company” I own 100% of. It’s just an entity I created by registering it with your state. It doesn’t have any assets or liabilities, no products or services to sell, but it legally exists and I own it. More realistically it might have some designs and schematics and maybe a patent application but it’s basically nothing. Imagine I convince you I can turn that into a multi-million dollar business and I’ll let you invest $1 million in it in exchange for half the ownership. Now we each own half of a business that has some design schematics and a million in cash. Some people will talk about the value of the business at this point but it’s so illiquid that it doesn’t matter too much, the point is we both believe I can make money. I’m going to use your million to make a real product and sell it. I’m also going to pay myself a fair salary, although it’ll be pretty low because I don’t want to drain the company more than I need to. Maybe over the next 5 years we find out there’s no market for my idea, the company goes bankrupt, all the company’s money is gone, which means your shares are worthless. Mine are too. Neither of us get paid back because there’s no money. Or maybe we get bought out by Google for $50 million. We each get $25 million out of it and we’re really happy. It’s not a get rich quick scheme or a scam. It’s really fucking hard to successfully start a business. It’s slightly less hard to convince someone to invest in your business, so you get the chance. But going back to my original point, I didn’t “need money to make money”, I convinced you to invest your cash into my idea/business. ---
**Author:** ![handsomeharry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e9c0ed/32.png) [@handsomeharry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handsomeharry)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2012, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/21-ways-rich-people-think-differently/633905/68 "2012-09-13T03:48:37Z")
I think another flag that the guy is full of crap is “18. Average people play it safe with money. Rich people know when to take risks.” Rich people play it safe with money. Knowing when to take risks is playing it safe. Risking money, without knowing when to do it, isn’t playing it safe. To paraphrase Carl Sagan, about Immanuel Velikovsky, and apply it to this goober: “When he says something original, it’s incorrect. When he says something correct, it isn’t original.” ---
**Author:** ![Satellite\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/258eb7/32.png) [@Satellite\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Satellite_Guy)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2012, 7:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/21-ways-rich-people-think-differently/633905/69 "2012-09-13T07:53:32Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > Again, I think you are looking at getting rich like gambling, as opposed to taking calculated, smart risks. Is it better to spend $150,000 on a) college, b) a new business or c) lottery tickets? Spoken like a rich person who doesn’t understand the average person’s financial reality. Is it better to spend $150,000 on… huh? What $150,000?? Right now, I don’t have $150 in my bank account, never mind a thousand of those. Every month, I have to make sure my mortgage is paid, otherwise I’ll lose my house. I have to make sure my car payment is made, otherwise I can’t get to work. (public transportation, you say! I’ve never seen a city bus drive by my house, and a cab would amount to more than I pay for my car) I have to buy groceries, otherwise my family and I will starve. I have to make sure my debts are paid, otherwise bankruptcy will reduce my income to a fraction of what I’m currently getting, and all the above will go to pot. Add all the other expenses I could go on listing in here, there’s no way I could “scrape together” $150k. ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2012, 12:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/21-ways-rich-people-think-differently/633905/70 "2012-09-13T12:45:21Z")
As others have said, just by being born rich, you have an immediate advantage. You can borrow money at the drop of a hat, and you can use OPM for your own investments-and return a fraction of it (this is what Jon Corzine did). In a multi-generational situation, you can set up a trust fund that will provide a fountain of money for your descendents, for years (think Rockefeller, Kennedy,etc.). Hey, money is important:" money is the blood and sold of men, and he who has none wanders about like the dead among the living". ---
**Author:** ![Fuzzy\_Dunlop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/848f3c/32.png) [@Fuzzy\_Dunlop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fuzzy_Dunlop)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2012, 1:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/21-ways-rich-people-think-differently/633905/71 "2012-09-13T13:06:24Z")
> [@Satellite\_Guy](#): > > Spoken like a rich person who doesn’t understand the average person’s financial reality. > Is it better to spend $150,000 on… huh? What $150,000?? Right now, I don’t have $150 in my bank account, never mind a thousand of those. Every month, I have to make sure my mortgage is paid, otherwise I’ll lose my house. I have to make sure my car payment is made, otherwise I can’t get to work. (public transportation, you say! I’ve never seen a city bus drive by my house, and a cab would amount to more than I pay for my car) > I have to buy groceries, otherwise my family and I will starve. > I have to make sure my debts are paid, otherwise bankruptcy will reduce my income to a fraction of what I’m currently getting, and all the above will go to pot. > Add all the other expenses I could go on listing in here, there’s no way I could “scrape together” $150k. How much did you pay for your house? I bet if you add in 30 years of interest payments there’s no way you spent less than $150,000 on it, even if you bought an extremely cheap house in an area with affordable housing. I don’t buy into the original article about rich people thinking fundamentally different, but you certainly don’t need to have $150,000 cash at any point to spend $150,000 on something. ---
**Author:** ![Crafter\_Man](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crafter_man/32/458_2.png) [@Crafter\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crafter_Man)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2012, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/21-ways-rich-people-think-differently/633905/72 "2012-09-13T13:24:56Z")
> [@Satellite\_Guy](#): > > Right now, I don’t have $150 in my bank account… I have to make sure my car payment is made, otherwise I can’t get to work You claim you do not have any money to save, but you have a car payment? Should I infer that you are driving a newer car? One of the reasons I have money in the bank is because I am frugal with most of my purchases. I’m 44, and have never bought a new car and have never taken out a car loan. (I pay cash for my vehicles.) My current car is the newest car I have ever driven. It’s a 2000 Saturn. I paid $3500 for it a few years back. I plan on driving it as long as I can. ---
**Author:** ![Imago](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/85e7bf/32.png) [@Imago](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Imago)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2012, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/21-ways-rich-people-think-differently/633905/73 "2012-09-13T15:33:43Z")
Ah yes, selfishness. One of the highest virtues, right up there with hatred, ignorance and pedophilia. ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2012, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/21-ways-rich-people-think-differently/633905/74 "2012-09-13T15:51:29Z")
“Pedophilia, for lack of a better word, is good. Pedophilia is right. Pedophilia works. Pedophilia clarifies, cuts through, and captures, the essence of the evolutionary spirit.” Honest question: so is there a difference between how millionaires think and billionaires think? ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2012, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/21-ways-rich-people-think-differently/633905/75 "2012-09-14T20:38:01Z")
> [@Slithy\_Tove](#): > > Honest question: so is there a difference between how millionaires think and billionaires think? Yes. Show me someone with $500 million and I’ll show you a frustrated billionare. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2012, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/21-ways-rich-people-think-differently/633905/76 "2012-09-14T23:59:23Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > Again, I think you are looking at getting rich like gambling, as opposed to taking calculated, smart risks. Is it better to spend $150,000 on a) college, b) a new business or c) lottery tickets? But suppose you want to get rich and you’ve only got $15 rather than $150,000. Do you use your fifteen dollars to go to college? Or buy a company? Maybe buy some real estate? Or do you buy fifteen dollars worth of lottery tickets? Yes, playing the lottery is a 100,000,000-1 longshot. But for some people, that’s the best odds they have access to. ---
**Author:** ![Taomist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/53a042/32.png) [@Taomist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Taomist)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2012, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/21-ways-rich-people-think-differently/633905/77 "2012-09-15T00:27:00Z")
> [@Crafter\_Man](#): > > You claim you do not have any money to save, but you have a car payment? Should I infer that you are driving a newer car? > > One of the reasons I have money in the bank is because I am frugal with most of my purchases. I’m 44, and have never bought a new car and have never taken out a car loan. (I pay cash for my vehicles.) My current car is the newest car I have ever driven. It’s a 2000 Saturn. I paid $3500 for it a few years back. I plan on driving it as long as I can. Most people living paycheck to paycheck do not have the money to pay cash up front, nor the opportunity for a new car. It’s used car, on payment, with hopefully an affordable down payment. ---
**Author:** ![handsomeharry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e9c0ed/32.png) [@handsomeharry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handsomeharry)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2012, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/21-ways-rich-people-think-differently/633905/78 "2012-10-05T02:10:19Z")
> [@Crafter\_Man](#): > > You claim you do not have any money to save, but you have a car payment? Should I infer that you are driving a newer car? > > One of the reasons I have money in the bank is because I am frugal with most of my purchases. I’m 44, and have never bought a new car and have never taken out a car loan. (I pay cash for my vehicles.) My current car is the newest car I have ever driven. It’s a 2000 Saturn. I paid $3500 for it a few years back. I plan on driving it as long as I can. In my experience, the new v. used car thing is a crap shoot. I’m extremely frugal. So, when I saw this 10 yr old Lincoln, with a super tight body, clean as a whistle, only 100-125K miles, and remarkably quiet, for 2500 bucks, I jumped on it. Since that day, every month, like clockwork, it would die on the road somewhere. I had AAA, but it would cost 250 a throw at the garage. I kept thinking “Now, it’s good as new. It can’t break down anytime soon. Law of averages are with me, if nothing else.” Law of averages were against me. Always something that required a. a scan and b. some electronic part, that the average Joe couldn’t access unless he was used to disassembling dashboards, etc… Got rid of it about a year later. The guy who bought it had it break down on him within a month, and he just left it parked. Now, I’m no mechanic, but saying something glib like ‘you should have had a mechanic check it out before you bought it’ wouldn’t have done any better. The first time I had it towed in to the garage, the mechanic ‘checked it out’. He didn’t find anything else. Until one month later. Whole point being, frugal helps, but vehicles are not any kind of canon for money issues. ---
**Author:** ![Imasquare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Imasquare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Imasquare)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2012, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/21-ways-rich-people-think-differently/633905/79 "2012-10-11T01:35:55Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > That list seems a little smug to me. Twenty-one ways of saying “Rich people are just better than you.” Well 20 ways at least. This one is saying rich people are sociopaths: 1. Average people think selfishness is a vice. Rich people think selfishness is a virtue. Also, this is not universally true. I know a rich couple. The wife is not at all selfish. The husband while not selfish does have an unhealthy love of money. It’s embarrassing to be in a shop with him when he is trying to haggle over an already good price. ---
**Author:** ![Zabali\_Clawbane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/ecd19e/32.png) [@Zabali\_Clawbane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zabali_Clawbane)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2012, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/21-ways-rich-people-think-differently/633905/80 "2012-10-11T01:57:54Z")
> [@Hello\_Again](#): > > \As to this When was this study done? There can’t be many averagely middle class people in America who don’t clearly understand the conenction between money and access to medical care. Seriously? Even if its as simple as “my kid has a toothache and I can’t afford the dentist,” this is something I think even the desperately poor understand. I believe they are referring to the sentiments expressed **[here](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/10/chris-rock-talks-health-c_n_532748.html).** [QUOTE=Chris Rock] Rock: I had my father get sick when I was 22. And I was poor, alright. And my father had an ulcer, and it exploded and you know all these toxins get in your blood. And basically, my father died, whatever, 50 days after his ulcer. So I had a father get sick while I was poor. My mother got sick when I was rich. And my mother, you know… I don’t really want to get into it, but my mother was sicker than my father. And my mother’s alive. My mother’s fine, OK? I remember going to the hospital to see my mother and wondering, ‘Was I in the right place?’ Like, this was a hotel. Like it had a concierge, man. People don’t… if the average person really knew the discrepancy in the health care system, there’d be riots in the streets, OK? They would burn this motherfucker down!" [/QUOTE] [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/21-ways-rich-people-think-differently/633905.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/21-ways-rich-people-think-differently/633905.md?page=5)