Are people getting tired of all the billionaires and their billionairing?

Dav010

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119916912#Comment_119916912

Bezos’s parents were 17 and 19 when he was born and divorced when he was young, Gates father was a lawyer, and though well off, his parents wanted him to be a lawyer, his bio shows that from an early age, and without much prompting from his parents, he was interested in computers, does that mean the development of Microsoft was down to having wealthy parents? Steve jobs was adopted, his adoptive father a mechanic with no formal education.

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119916962#Comment_119916962

Thanks for the little stories. This phenomenon is much bigger than a few billionaires. Just look around you, even here in Ireland- wealth breeds wealth.

Dav010

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119916988#Comment_119916988

Meh, not really. Plenty of offspring blow their parents wealth, just as plenty of people from poor backgrounds are motivated by poverty to succeed. It is simplistic to say that successful people owe their success to luck or their parents financial situation. I accept that an educated person is more likely to succeed than an uneducated one, and that can depend on whether the parents can afford to educate their children, but the offspring still need that drive and ability to succeed, so saying it is down to luck/their parents wealth just smacks of begrudgery as it neglects to acknowledge the part played by the child themselves.

You are welcome on the stories, I just wanted to provide some balance in case you thought billionaires owe their success solely to financial nurture rather than nature playing a significant part.

Edit: just had a quick look through the Irish billionaire list, JP, Magnier, Naughton, Collisons, Murtagh, O’Leary etc, not many you could say their parents wealth played a significant part in their success, some started with very little, their talent/graft seems to have been the primary ingredient for success.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119916923#Comment_119916923

It's far easier for poor people to stay on the Dole and refuse to work at all.

Musk doesn't have to work, yet he does. Poorer people would just quit their jobs and waste their way through cash.

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119919209#Comment_119919209

Do you call that work? There’s professional demolition teams with wrecking balls doing less damage than your hero.

Dav010

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119919956#Comment_119919956

And you know this how?

He could well be doing exactly what is needed, shedding a bloated, unmotivated workforce, then retaining/hiring what is needed. You seem to be one of the few who are certain.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119919956#Comment_119919956

If Musk is choosing to develop an empire, creating employment opportunities and so on, then yes, that's work. Positive impacts on society and the economy.

He could have retired with 50 million in the bank, and holidayed forever thereafter.

He chose to continue to work.

Most people would be lazy and choose the no-risk holidaying option.

We should celebrate entrepreneurialism, not demonise it.

Igotadose

Timely article for this thread:

https://www.salon.com/2022/11/25/is-americas-infatuation-with-billionaires-finally--ifinallyi--coming-to-an-end/

(note: Salon is definitely on the left for the USA). Bankman-Fried appears to have been a fraud. Elizabeth Holmes is now a convicted fraud and a very strange person indeed. And TFG, well, perhaps soon we'll know just how much he's actually worth since the SCOTUS gave the go-ahead for Congress to get his tax returns.

As for the dole, the USA doesn't have one for all intents and purposes. Irish don't seem to get that, the ones I know from here who think it's a plan to go over there and get on the dole. No work == no housing == no food == no healthcare in the USA. It used to be more generous in the past, Clinton basically did it in, in my view much to his credit. Welfare was replaced with 'earned income tax credit,' so if you work, you got some money from the IRS. The USG eventually said it was the best anti-poverty program in US history.

But you had to work, and file taxes.

Overheal

Epic rant, nails it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVj4kZF-Fgk

He's a lot less filtered off of college humor. (Adam "Ruins Everything" Conover)