Listen to a reading of this article: The concept of "wealth hoarding" has gained traction in the wake of the Occupy movement and the Bernie Sanders presidential campaigns, the idea being that billionaires are amassing treasure like mythical dragons in the same way someone with a hoarding disorder amasses newspapers or clothes.
It's not just the money, the yachts, private jets and islands, as wonderful though they are (to some): it's the emotional/intellectual associations that translate into status. That started with Freud and his nephew Bernays used it as a product selling strategy. It's all about what ownership says about you, not the thing-in-itself. What these idiots can't figure out is that the race to own everything makes you a slave to others' opinions and crap standards. It's also a perversion of natural instincts: everything is more enjoyable when others are enjoying them with you. Like who prefers to eat a special meal alone? Can you really enjoy yourself without suspending, for a time at least, the terrible suffering so many are forced to endure? Hoarding, especially to unlimited degree, is usually considered a mental illness. But the world is ordered to encourage this personality type to possess far in excess of anything reasonable. It's a crap system. It must and will stop, one way or another: either rationally or gone berserkers.
The ones holding the keys of power and wealth had many of us bamboozled for a century or so. The veil is being lifted off our eyes more each day; plus they seem tired of dissembling any longer, and are just flat out telling and showing us what they really think of we plebes. They want a feudal system again, and are doing all they can to shove the middle class back down.
It’s all untenable and unsustainable, but it’s hard to say what and when the tipping point will be.
I pray it arrives soon. The tension as the string keeps being stretched to its breaking point is difficult. Not that when it snaps will be a cake walk.
The “It costs them everything, and gives them nothing,” quote for hoarders is just as applicable to the super-wealthy. I know some. Their numbers are in my phone. To a person, each and every one, is just as miserable as the hoarder. Money “gives them nothing.”
Interesting explanation, and surely part of the pattern. "Rational" though? I don't know. My hunch is that in a billionaire's brain, the pattern that's playing out is addiction. In this scenario, the dopamine rush is not from HAVING, but from the moment of GETTING more, and that moment has to be repeated over and over, with increasing intensity needed to get the high. Junkies will steal from their mother to get a fix. Billionaires steal from their Mother Earth
As for ‘Drastic change in the not-too-distant future’…environmental collapse or nuclear winter, or they’ll jab and poison everyone to death (see excess mortality trend). A reckoning is due.
Excellent point. Gold hidden under a dragon has no power. It's trade in slaves that matters. Power is measured in 100 million lives over which the banker-king has control.
taxation is the most pernicious kind of theft, and it is social engineering bc gov does not need that money. taxation is anti-freedom. only free markets foster freedom.
the state is violence and taxation is one of its most powerful tools.
A very thoughtful article, Thank you for the effort. I am reminded of Huey Long's campaign to "Share our wealth" (implication is that the wealth belongs to all of us) and his book Every Man a King that put forth an argument not unlike what you make here. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Every_Man_a_King_(autobiography)
Good article. The King Midas story illustrates this. The hoarding self-appointed elites remind of humans stuck at the infantile level. Big, overgrown, ugly babies screaming “me, me, me”. Their heed for an endless supply of money, power, resources demonstrates how vastly empty and insecure they are inside.
Brilliant, CJ. These people actually are at minimum socipathic narcissists - many at the very top are overt psychopaths. They do not suffer from some minor neurosis, for sure.
"Wealth is a zero-sum game". You really need to take an economics class. A very basic one. For first year undergraduate students that will not even major in economics. You can also try basic logic, but then the path requires you to think, so it may take a bit longer.
Stop reading the delusion of a drunk imbecile like marx and believing that it is true. Use some critical thinking at least.
It's not just the money, the yachts, private jets and islands, as wonderful though they are (to some): it's the emotional/intellectual associations that translate into status. That started with Freud and his nephew Bernays used it as a product selling strategy. It's all about what ownership says about you, not the thing-in-itself. What these idiots can't figure out is that the race to own everything makes you a slave to others' opinions and crap standards. It's also a perversion of natural instincts: everything is more enjoyable when others are enjoying them with you. Like who prefers to eat a special meal alone? Can you really enjoy yourself without suspending, for a time at least, the terrible suffering so many are forced to endure? Hoarding, especially to unlimited degree, is usually considered a mental illness. But the world is ordered to encourage this personality type to possess far in excess of anything reasonable. It's a crap system. It must and will stop, one way or another: either rationally or gone berserkers.
The ones holding the keys of power and wealth had many of us bamboozled for a century or so. The veil is being lifted off our eyes more each day; plus they seem tired of dissembling any longer, and are just flat out telling and showing us what they really think of we plebes. They want a feudal system again, and are doing all they can to shove the middle class back down.
It’s all untenable and unsustainable, but it’s hard to say what and when the tipping point will be.
I pray it arrives soon. The tension as the string keeps being stretched to its breaking point is difficult. Not that when it snaps will be a cake walk.
Thanks for another great article!
The “It costs them everything, and gives them nothing,” quote for hoarders is just as applicable to the super-wealthy. I know some. Their numbers are in my phone. To a person, each and every one, is just as miserable as the hoarder. Money “gives them nothing.”
Interesting explanation, and surely part of the pattern. "Rational" though? I don't know. My hunch is that in a billionaire's brain, the pattern that's playing out is addiction. In this scenario, the dopamine rush is not from HAVING, but from the moment of GETTING more, and that moment has to be repeated over and over, with increasing intensity needed to get the high. Junkies will steal from their mother to get a fix. Billionaires steal from their Mother Earth
Spot on with this post!
As for ‘Drastic change in the not-too-distant future’…environmental collapse or nuclear winter, or they’ll jab and poison everyone to death (see excess mortality trend). A reckoning is due.
Excellent point. Gold hidden under a dragon has no power. It's trade in slaves that matters. Power is measured in 100 million lives over which the banker-king has control.
Richard had a withered arm and a crown of pure deceit
When Richard cocked his crooked jaw, heads rolled at his feet
Richard pried and Richard lied, decisive was his sting
His dandy foes were righteous men
But Richard was the king.
I want to recommend Huey Long's biography "Every man a King" in which he articulates such a perspective. He was assasinated two years later.
In a similar manner, «fact checking» isn't about hoarding knowledge, it's about making sure hoi polloi stay as ignorant as possible.
The only real wealth I'm aware of comes from nature (WW4 has been long underway, and we're winning, with Nature losing big time.)
taxation is the most pernicious kind of theft, and it is social engineering bc gov does not need that money. taxation is anti-freedom. only free markets foster freedom.
the state is violence and taxation is one of its most powerful tools.
educate yourself:
https://2ndsmartestguyintheworld.substack.com/p/original-social-engineering-sin
A very thoughtful article, Thank you for the effort. I am reminded of Huey Long's campaign to "Share our wealth" (implication is that the wealth belongs to all of us) and his book Every Man a King that put forth an argument not unlike what you make here. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Every_Man_a_King_(autobiography)
Good article. The King Midas story illustrates this. The hoarding self-appointed elites remind of humans stuck at the infantile level. Big, overgrown, ugly babies screaming “me, me, me”. Their heed for an endless supply of money, power, resources demonstrates how vastly empty and insecure they are inside.
Brilliant, CJ. These people actually are at minimum socipathic narcissists - many at the very top are overt psychopaths. They do not suffer from some minor neurosis, for sure.
You miss something Important.
We are socialized now to pray to God of money.
Mature folks know better , but not no young ones.
Cats in the cradle....
"Wealth is a zero-sum game". You really need to take an economics class. A very basic one. For first year undergraduate students that will not even major in economics. You can also try basic logic, but then the path requires you to think, so it may take a bit longer.
Stop reading the delusion of a drunk imbecile like marx and believing that it is true. Use some critical thinking at least.