Life is like a shit sandwich. The more bread you have, the less shit you have to eat.
This is true, and its true the way you are using it (influence) and its true in just “money begets money” We pay very little interest in our house, but we make quite a bit in interest and dividends from letting money sit in places where it brings in money.
“In this country, you gotta make the money first. Then when you get the money, you get the power. Then when you get the power, then you get the women.”
Tony Montana
Iceberg Slim was saying the same thing back in the 1930s about success breeding success, I’m sure his vocation and whatever you do are closely related. I’m not sure what it is about success that breeds success though. I’m guessing successful people come across as competent and like they don’t ‘need’ your business because they are doing so well and deeply in demand already.
Then again, a lot of celebrities are rich and successful, and all they have to show for it after 5 years are a bunch of failed business ventures. So it isn’t always true.
I think it was Paul Stanley who said the best part of having lots of money was not having to worry about money anymore.
Makes sense. Next to health problems, money problems are the worst.
Plus when you have money you have access to better advice and investment opportunities that people who don’t have money have. Even moderate amounts allows you to not do things like yank money from a 401K in a crisis.
While it is possible that more money will have benefits, it is also possible it will have liabilities:
- The more stuff you have, the more time it will take to manage it–for example multiple houses in differing locations.
- Having household employees can be an unpleasant experience–the old cliche is “if you want something done right, do it yourself.”
These are what my colleagues and I call high class problems.
And this is simply not true. If an employee is not competent, replace him or her with someone who is. Doing the work yourself is the worst decision to make, and you’re fooling yourself if you believe you can do it better, quicker, more proficiently, or more efficiently than someone trained for the task.
Generally people with money have more self confidence, so yes they get laid more.
You get to go to the rich person’s zoo and see the fantastical animals.
(Simpsons ref.)
Two chicks at the same time.
And if you are socially awkward people will make the effort to reach out to you.
Money can permit people greater freedom to make bad choices too - not just obviously self-destructive ones that we have seen big lottery winners do, but subtle incremental ones that can bring about a general change that was not desired.
Case in point: I actually know a self-made multi-millionaire couple/family. Their wealth first enabled them to take advantage of more free time to do the things they wanted - to spend more time at the gym, to go sailing, horse riding, swimming, etc. Then over the course of several years, they made subtle choices - they bought a bigger house and installed their own gym equipment; they built an extension with a large indoor pool; they moved to an even bigger house that had all of the above, plus a stable block for their horses - individually, these (and other similar choices) all seemed sensible, but each one severed a few social ties.
Now they’re comfortable and doing the things they want, but wondering where their friends have all gone.
Being broke sucks, but once you have more than reasonable amount so that you don’t have to worry about work, paying rent, etc. then there’s not much tons more money can get you. Especially in the happiness department. I think the difference between 10 million in the bank and 10 billion is minimal. Paul Allen’s mother still has Alzheimer and Steve Jobs still died fairly young. Bill Gates is probably doing the right thing giving it away in droves, also from the perspective of his own happiness and mental wellbeing.
Also for some reason wealthy people seems to have really fucked up children.
Yes, but there is a satisfaction in doing things yourself. If you are rich you can buy a chef to make you great food and a skipper to steer your yacht. But ultimately I think it is more satisfactory to learn to prepare your own great meals, and yourself steer your boat. Also if you get used to the idea that money can buy people, you might quickly acquire personality traits than are less pleasant.
Now you’re talkin’!
What having tons of money, as opposed to simply enough for security and stability, gets you is freedom. You don’t have to spend all day in some pointless job just to ends meet; you can do what you want to do with your life. (That may involve having a job; certainly some CEOs qualify as having tons of money, but they could summarily quit if they genuinely wanted to). You can do almost anything you want to do with your life, rather than spending 9 or 10 hours each day doing busywork for someone else or being stuck in traffic en route to or from doing busywork for someone else.
In part, because there’s no longer a natural excuse for why little Veruca can’t just have a pony right now, or whatever whim has taken her at the moment. There’s no (or less) reason for them to develop patience, politeness, or people skills in general.
In civilized society, money is how we keep score.
As Cow & Boy wrote, money can buy you unlimited passes to every theme park in the world and plane fare to get there. “That’s a lot of happiness” 
Was thinking about a scenario the other day. Let’s say that you met Bono, or Mick Jagger, or Madonna or someone like that who had started out poor and working class, but had now spent a lot of time being filthy rich and having servants and people waiting on them hand and foot.
Would you even consider inviting someone like them into your house as a guest? For my part, I’d be afraid that they’d just treat me and my house as just another servant, just another hotel. And I’d end up saying “Make your own goddamned toast, Paul! And pick your shit up off my floor!”
And then too, sometimes I see how some of those people act after years of wealth and I want to ask them if they even remember being that poor kid from nowhere.
I sometimes wonder why the ultra-rich keep doing everything in their power to gain even more wealth, even when they’re ancient and obviously near death. All I can figure is that the game is all they know and what they like to do. Not like they can take it with them or that they’ll be ‘long remembered’ or anything. Hell, most of the rich people from a century ago are only remembered from the name of a house left behind, or a park, if anyone even remembers those things, and they certainly won’t be remembered a thousand years from now. Their wealth bought them precious little more ‘immortality’ than I’ll have.