The Dumb Rich

I've used that phrase often in this blog site and in my comments and replies to commentors. Today I saw more written proof that the 2008 version of the "rich" must ipso facto be stupid. OK, I'm exagerating for the purpose of humor, but hear me out.

Barron's of March 10, 2008 [page 27] has a reprise article of their oft-cited article of July 27, 1998 on "What does it take to be rich in America today?" The original article is available online or is paraphased in several places on the Internet - I have a copy. That article from 1998 was rational and derived concepts of rich from income percentiles and the amount of invested assets needed to realize those incomes at about 5% rate of return excluding a paid-off home - very reasoned.

What does the 2008 version use for a definition of rich? Here is the crucial clause, "... to be seen as rich these days." Notice the "seen as", not "be". Philosophically, Barron's is now using an ontological definition for "being rich" based on perception versus the prior version derived from reality of people's income distribution. Perception vs. reality. The article proceeds to illustrate this perception as the ability to spend money stupidly and frivolously on items such as buying a $200,000 Bentley out of petty cash. "Live the high life with little worrying of running out of money. Pick any private bank you like." Interestingly, their examples seem to indicate one can't be rich unless one's butt is being kissed by a private banker wanting one's account to gouge for big fees. And of course the "rich" must accept such or not be in the "club". This is really hilarious: "you're at the level of wealth where most of the leading private banks will start showering you and your family with attention, including access to hot hedge funds of other exclusive investments." How foolish and hedonistic and decadent ! Absolute levels of wealth mean nothing ... what's important is how many silly "toys" or "experiences" one can acquire, such as "zero gravity flights with astronaut Buzz Aldrin".

My post of August 19, 2007 titled, "Uses of Wealth" fits well here, so I repost a partial reprise here.

*** reprise begins ***
Here's a quote from Thucydides that sparked my thinking - perhaps I first read it referenced in Erasmus' "Praise of Folly". The quote is from the famous oration of Pericles.

"We cultivate refinement without extravagance and knowledge without effeminacy; wealth we employ more for use than for show, and place the real disgrace of poverty not in owning to the fact but in declining the struggle against it."
*** reprise ends ***

America in the 2008, at least for the financial press exemplified by Barron's, seems to use the obverse of Pericles' statement: "We cultivate extravagence without refinement and effiminacy without knowledge; wealth we employ more for show than for use ..."

I'm not an America basher as readers well know, but the expression of our culture in that Barron's article this week is very sad.

Words of the Day

"Reprise" - noun [$10] or adjective as used herein.... I knew this one, but made it a Word of the Day anyway.
Reprise means 1a. (musical) a repetition of a phrase or verse; 1b. a return to an original theme; 2. recurrence or resumption of an action; 3. an annual charge or deduction made out of an estate. Sentence: see above herein.

"Ontology" - noun [$10] ... I knew this one, too, but many do not.
Ontology means the philosophical study of the nature of being.
Sentence: Metaphysics is the combination of ontology, the study of being, and epistemology, the theory of knowledge.

Idiom of the Day

"Ipso facto" is Latin for "by that very fact".