<story><title>Ask HN: How to continue to be gracious about the good fortune of rich friends?</title><text>I have no money. I do have rich friends who are getting richer and richer every year.&lt;p&gt;I try to be gracious and happy for their good fortune.&lt;p&gt;However it makes me depressed and angry and envious.&lt;p&gt;One friend told me a few days ago his house went up in value $1,000,000 in one year, at which point he sold it.&lt;p&gt;I visited my cousin who is a fabulous person and has a gorgeous house freshly renovated and extended and a new pool put it.&lt;p&gt;All around me my peers are becoming very wealthy.&lt;p&gt;And I’m at the bottom with nothing.&lt;p&gt;I try to be happy for them and gracious and to listen and enthuse whilst they tell me of their good fortune or show me around their stunning houses. And afterwards I feel smashed with depression as I go back to my shit rental house that I’m ashamed of.&lt;p&gt;Good people, great friends, and seeing them brings me down.&lt;p&gt;Rich people aren’t aware  that their tales of success make people like me feel bad. They shouldn’t have to be aware of that or hold themselves back. As a good friend I should feel happy for them, and I pretend to, but inside it makes me feel terrible.&lt;p&gt;If you’re commenting on this thread and offering advice, I encourage you add the context of whether you are one of those who have money or not.</text></story><parent_chain><item><author>deanmoriarty</author><text>I do not agree at all. Governments should try to make life fair for people. In my opinion, once a person reaches something like $10M net worth (I took a number purely based on the current 1% of wealth in the US, but I’m not married to it), taxes should go to 100% and the government should use the proceeds to provide free services to the population, like education, healthcare, affordable housing and infrastructure.&lt;p&gt;I am saying this very naively without reflecting on the effects it would have on the economy, the inflationary forces and the overall corporate productivity. So I realize my view is mostly a romantic utopia, but nobody should be allowed to hoard billions, especially by inheritance.</text></item><item><author>germandiago</author><text>&amp;gt; Government has the ability to reform inheritance and taxation. However, theres no political will&lt;p&gt;IMHO it is not right to try to make people that earn more than us the target to be sacked. I think it is a bad thing. It is not a matter of you have less or you have more . It is a matter of respecting people who make money legally or inherit it by the will of their own relatives or whatever. I do not think anyone should be entitled to put hands into that for any single reason whatsoever unless that money has been stolen or made in illicit ways. That is the only valid reason IMHO.</text></item><item><author>ntSean</author><text>You’re exactly right- but it isn’t a timeless problem. Government has the ability to reform inheritance and taxation.&lt;p&gt;However, theres no political will, because those with money, can lobby better than those without.&lt;p&gt;Ironically America rejected the monarchy, and yet has replaced it with an oligarchy.</text></item><item><author>rl3</author><text>&amp;gt;&lt;i&gt;That billionaire was jealous of the main money dude who had family money inherited from the crusades.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;Illuminati confirmed.&lt;p&gt;On a serious note, being born into wealth is a travesty of sorts. People who are tend to experience a reality that is far removed from that of the average person, and as such can&amp;#x27;t identify nor relate. They are robbed of a certain type of life. Yet, enormous wealth confers power that can be exercised over common people—despite such an upbringing rendering one ill-suited to exercise said power. It&amp;#x27;s a timeless problem, I suppose.</text></item><item><author>randycupertino</author><text>I worked in wealth management and LIVED the hedonistic treadmill firsthand.&lt;p&gt;Everyone was jealous of the next level up.  I was making 300k and my high school hometown friends were like &amp;quot;holy cow, you&amp;#x27;re so lucky this is amazing, you have your own apartment&amp;quot; meanwhile I was annoyed I couldn&amp;#x27;t keep up financially with my trust fund boyfriend who had $3 million a year to piss away with random trips to Bermuda.  My CFO was jealous of the Principal who could take netjets and didn&amp;#x27;t have to fly first class everywhere.  The NetJets guy was jealous of the billionaire principal who had his own jet.  That billionaire was jealous of the main money dude who had family money inherited from the crusades.  They all fought with their wives over private school tuition and horses.  Everyone drank, did tons of drugs, had dramatic affairs and fought like cats and dogs with their families.&lt;p&gt;I left finance and went into healthcare and realized I&amp;#x27;m pretty damn happy living a simple life.  I kept a $1500 belt I bought from Henry Bendels that&amp;#x27;s incredibly ugly as a reminder of dumb decisions and having too much money to piss away on stupid crap!&lt;p&gt;Read Blood Diamonds: Tracing the Deadly Path of the World&amp;#x27;s Most Precious Stones
Book by Greg Campbell.  Reading that made me realize how our planet has finite resources and I just I wanted to cleave the my own consumption habits so stopped needless shopping for &amp;quot;fun&amp;quot; and started being a stubborn bastard about driving my 12 year old Hyundai into the ground.  It&amp;#x27;s not much but it&amp;#x27;s my own private rebellion against the gaping maw of endless consumerism.&lt;p&gt;Worship your family, friends, love ones, health, music, doing things that make you feel alive, shared experiences and nature over shiny toys and stuff that just sits around collecting dust and looking pretty.&lt;p&gt;At the end of the day, we&amp;#x27;re all the same food for worms anyways no matter our net worth.  Enjoy your friendships, realize they probably have their own internal struggles and problems they&amp;#x27;re dealing with and try to be there for them in whatever way you can!</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>strken</author><text>The problem with this is that wealth often means ownership of capital, capital often means ownership of a private company, and so you have a peculiar situation where the government takes gradual ownership of your business once it starts to do well.&lt;p&gt;There&amp;#x27;s probably a way to work around this by making it non-voting stock or something, but it&amp;#x27;s still an inherent dampener on growth, because there&amp;#x27;s no incentive to grow, and on RnD, because there&amp;#x27;s no concentration of capital. A silicon fab is worth billions; does your system imply that the only way to build one is to either arrange a consortium of 10,000 people or government funding? HN exists because of PayPal; should the PayPal money have been spent entirely on free services? How are you going to stop the black market[0]? What are the alternate routes to power in your society, and are they better than acquiring money?&lt;p&gt;You can envisage worlds where this &lt;i&gt;does&lt;/i&gt; function, but there&amp;#x27;s a lot of work to put in regarding the specifics, and doing the work makes you realise their might be a lot of downsides.&lt;p&gt;[0] Around 80% of North Koreans&amp;#x27; income was once acquired through the black market: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;web.archive.org&amp;#x2F;web&amp;#x2F;20110924095232&amp;#x2F;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.atimes.com&amp;#x2F;atimes&amp;#x2F;Korea&amp;#x2F;MI23Dg02.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;web.archive.org&amp;#x2F;web&amp;#x2F;20110924095232&amp;#x2F;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.atimes...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>Ask HN: How to continue to be gracious about the good fortune of rich friends?</title><text>I have no money. I do have rich friends who are getting richer and richer every year.&lt;p&gt;I try to be gracious and happy for their good fortune.&lt;p&gt;However it makes me depressed and angry and envious.&lt;p&gt;One friend told me a few days ago his house went up in value $1,000,000 in one year, at which point he sold it.&lt;p&gt;I visited my cousin who is a fabulous person and has a gorgeous house freshly renovated and extended and a new pool put it.&lt;p&gt;All around me my peers are becoming very wealthy.&lt;p&gt;And I’m at the bottom with nothing.&lt;p&gt;I try to be happy for them and gracious and to listen and enthuse whilst they tell me of their good fortune or show me around their stunning houses. And afterwards I feel smashed with depression as I go back to my shit rental house that I’m ashamed of.&lt;p&gt;Good people, great friends, and seeing them brings me down.&lt;p&gt;Rich people aren’t aware  that their tales of success make people like me feel bad. They shouldn’t have to be aware of that or hold themselves back. As a good friend I should feel happy for them, and I pretend to, but inside it makes me feel terrible.&lt;p&gt;If you’re commenting on this thread and offering advice, I encourage you add the context of whether you are one of those who have money or not.</text></story><parent_chain><item><author>deanmoriarty</author><text>I do not agree at all. Governments should try to make life fair for people. In my opinion, once a person reaches something like $10M net worth (I took a number purely based on the current 1% of wealth in the US, but I’m not married to it), taxes should go to 100% and the government should use the proceeds to provide free services to the population, like education, healthcare, affordable housing and infrastructure.&lt;p&gt;I am saying this very naively without reflecting on the effects it would have on the economy, the inflationary forces and the overall corporate productivity. So I realize my view is mostly a romantic utopia, but nobody should be allowed to hoard billions, especially by inheritance.</text></item><item><author>germandiago</author><text>&amp;gt; Government has the ability to reform inheritance and taxation. However, theres no political will&lt;p&gt;IMHO it is not right to try to make people that earn more than us the target to be sacked. I think it is a bad thing. It is not a matter of you have less or you have more . It is a matter of respecting people who make money legally or inherit it by the will of their own relatives or whatever. I do not think anyone should be entitled to put hands into that for any single reason whatsoever unless that money has been stolen or made in illicit ways. That is the only valid reason IMHO.</text></item><item><author>ntSean</author><text>You’re exactly right- but it isn’t a timeless problem. Government has the ability to reform inheritance and taxation.&lt;p&gt;However, theres no political will, because those with money, can lobby better than those without.&lt;p&gt;Ironically America rejected the monarchy, and yet has replaced it with an oligarchy.</text></item><item><author>rl3</author><text>&amp;gt;&lt;i&gt;That billionaire was jealous of the main money dude who had family money inherited from the crusades.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;Illuminati confirmed.&lt;p&gt;On a serious note, being born into wealth is a travesty of sorts. People who are tend to experience a reality that is far removed from that of the average person, and as such can&amp;#x27;t identify nor relate. They are robbed of a certain type of life. Yet, enormous wealth confers power that can be exercised over common people—despite such an upbringing rendering one ill-suited to exercise said power. It&amp;#x27;s a timeless problem, I suppose.</text></item><item><author>randycupertino</author><text>I worked in wealth management and LIVED the hedonistic treadmill firsthand.&lt;p&gt;Everyone was jealous of the next level up.  I was making 300k and my high school hometown friends were like &amp;quot;holy cow, you&amp;#x27;re so lucky this is amazing, you have your own apartment&amp;quot; meanwhile I was annoyed I couldn&amp;#x27;t keep up financially with my trust fund boyfriend who had $3 million a year to piss away with random trips to Bermuda.  My CFO was jealous of the Principal who could take netjets and didn&amp;#x27;t have to fly first class everywhere.  The NetJets guy was jealous of the billionaire principal who had his own jet.  That billionaire was jealous of the main money dude who had family money inherited from the crusades.  They all fought with their wives over private school tuition and horses.  Everyone drank, did tons of drugs, had dramatic affairs and fought like cats and dogs with their families.&lt;p&gt;I left finance and went into healthcare and realized I&amp;#x27;m pretty damn happy living a simple life.  I kept a $1500 belt I bought from Henry Bendels that&amp;#x27;s incredibly ugly as a reminder of dumb decisions and having too much money to piss away on stupid crap!&lt;p&gt;Read Blood Diamonds: Tracing the Deadly Path of the World&amp;#x27;s Most Precious Stones
Book by Greg Campbell.  Reading that made me realize how our planet has finite resources and I just I wanted to cleave the my own consumption habits so stopped needless shopping for &amp;quot;fun&amp;quot; and started being a stubborn bastard about driving my 12 year old Hyundai into the ground.  It&amp;#x27;s not much but it&amp;#x27;s my own private rebellion against the gaping maw of endless consumerism.&lt;p&gt;Worship your family, friends, love ones, health, music, doing things that make you feel alive, shared experiences and nature over shiny toys and stuff that just sits around collecting dust and looking pretty.&lt;p&gt;At the end of the day, we&amp;#x27;re all the same food for worms anyways no matter our net worth.  Enjoy your friendships, realize they probably have their own internal struggles and problems they&amp;#x27;re dealing with and try to be there for them in whatever way you can!</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>chrismcb</author><text>It isn&amp;#x27;t even a romantic utopia, it is more like a living hell.
Rich people create businesses and jobs, that is usually how they are wealthy. If the marginal tax rate guess up to 100% sorry 10 million, there is very little incentive for people to earn more than 10 million. And either they will stop trying to earn, out they will move.
On top of that, these people don&amp;#x27;t earn as much as you think they do.
In addition, these people don&amp;#x27;t burn money, they spend it. Which allows others to earn money.</text></comment>