Can a "good person" Be a billionaire?

HooRU

Billionaires, the question: How they get there and become that rich and then hold on to it: Can they be considered "good people". If a Monkey hoarded all the bananas, scientists would study the Monkey to see what it starves all the other monkies hoarding their share.

But if I were rich, how would I redeem myself?

Gates does good things, but is he a good person through and through? And why did he spend time with Epstein?

Is it true that a camel won't fit through the eye of a needle?

telcodad

HooRU Is it true that a camel won't fit through the eye of a needle?

It all depends - maybe it can if it's a very small camel and a very large needle? 🙂

px_eliezer_

HooRU Gates does good things, but is he a good person through and through? And why did he spend time with Epstein?

Gates' link with Epstein and also some other things, helped lead to his divorce.

That's been pretty public.

I do credit Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, and past folks such as Sam Walton (Wal-Mart), Paul Getty, the Rockefellers, Will Kellogg, Andrew Carnegie, Sebastian Kresge (K as in K-Mart later on) and many others of starting charitable foundations now worth billions.

Ezra Cornell who founded Western Union helped to establish Cornell University.

It remains to be seen if some of the newer Billionaires will do such things. Some of the current crop seems to be quite childlike despite their monetary success. It's scary.

Somewhat-Reticent

HooRU Is it true that a camel won't fit through the eye of a needle?

Misquote. And no. But the camel must go through on its knees.
Very challenging for a person with riches and power.

Many rich people have accountants set up foundations to further their business interests.

urbanriot

HooRU

Can they be considered "good people"

This is a subjective question and quite frankly I don't expect this to go well. One man's "good guy" is another person's "bad guy". Another person's "villain" is another person's "hero".

I'm not writing this to invite any political discussion or inflammatory debate so use these names as examples, not as an invitation to discuss these people but there are plenty of people commenting on mainstream news sites praising "Luigi" as a hero just as there's plenty of people vilifying him as a scumbag murderer who should get the chair. There are plenty of people who are praising Bill Gates as being a philanthropic man that wants to save the world while others are vilifying him as a pedophile who wants us peasants eating bugs. There are people who believe Elon Musk loves America so much to sacrifice his billions to save it, there are others who believe Elon Musk is destroying democracy.

Again, those examples aren't meant to invite discussion on the people but to illustrate how we all have a different idea on what "good" means.

And then add to all of that what the media selectively reports of those people. We have no idea what's really true and what's not. We don't know if Bill Gates truly wants to save humanity with us eating bugs or if he's just saying these things so we don't vilify him for living in his massive mega mansions.

On top of all that, we have a lot of mega-rich people who do a massive amount of philanthropic work. Elon Musk has donated billions to charity, for all we know he loves giving to charity... or he loves offsetting taxes. Taylor Swift is the richest celebrity on the planet who also gives to charity... but she also offsets her taxes with her philanthropic gifts.

Honestly, I don't even think about billionaires as an entity or care if they're good or bad, I look to the individual accomplishments.

HooRU

IS being good mean one has exactly what values?

HooRU

Looking for civil debate!

broknsymetry

Good/bad, righteous/evil, moral/immoral are all subjective terms. Yes, someone can accumulate great wealth (and do "good" with it) without performing "evil" deeds.

px_eliezer_

urbanriot

Good analysis.

wdunwoody

urbanriot - HAS Elon Musk donated billions to charity?...

Somewhat-Reticent

Humans are both bad and good ( in alphabetic order ). Imperfect, to be tactful.

JRB-Ware

HooRU

I mostly mind my own bee's wax and don't get hung up on other peoples achievements or success. How can I prosper more versus whether or not some other guy is "good" in his achievement.

HooRU

Growing up in the '50s, '60s, and '70s, it seems fairly clear to me the differences between good and bad in people. Things have become murky and business and government no longer aspire to do good works, now, expedience and self interest are in their primacy and those who clamor for justice are ignored.

It is my belief that we are seeing a true decline in the essential qualities that made America a great land and we are losing our footing for being the guiding light to the world. Self-interest and short-sighted business is de riguer.

urbanriot

HooRU

Growing up in the '50s, '60s, and '70s, it seems fairly clear to me the differences between good and bad in people

One of the primary reasons for that change stems from diminished participation in church service. This is not me attempting to foist religious views on people but me pointing out how more people would follow the same set of community standards when they were following the same directives from God. Everyone knew, "don't do this but do this" and everyone listened to the same homily or sermon at church. These days we have a mix of religions along with atheism so like what I wrote above, one person's good is another person's bad, or one person is creating his own guidelines for good and bad that may not align with another person's directives from a higher power.

Not just that though, young people aren't raised as well as they were when we were younger. Nuclear families are a thing of the past and there are plenty of single mothers raising children without the help of the father.

Even in those who are a couple generations below me, I see a lot of duplicitous behavior in the workplace that I'd never seen before. Sure, there was always that one guy who would stab anyone in the back back in the days of old but these days, it seems like everyone under 35 will stab you in the back if they get the chance. I have friends who work in human resources who say that a certain demographic will trigger 3x more workplace complaints over an issue that vexes them than any other demographic attempting to weaponize workplace rules against other employees.

Somewhat-Reticent

HooRU Growing up in the '50s, '60s, and '70s, it seems fairly clear to me

… that it pays to be the only industrialized nation left standing after a World War.
For a few years, of course, but the advantage fades over time.

dave

urbanriot

One of the primary reasons for that change stems from diminished participation in church service.

Maybe so, but when my age was in single-digits, my mother made me go to Sunday School (until I figured out she just wanted a quiet day and me being far away worked just as well). It didn't take me long to figure out their hypocrisy. The minister's son was the most obsequious little shit I have ever met.

Fun fact: I came first in the 'bible studies' test despite completing it in 25% of the allocated time and treating it as fairy stories. These were not the brightest. Yes, I'm bragging :-)

So - I rather resent the idea that church makes good people. Dostoevsky observed that "without god, everything is permitted". Quite. So it's down to us to be good because it's right, not because we'll burn in hell if we don't.

As far as business is concerned - I worked for DEC for many years. The founder, Ken Olsen was a decent man (a devout christian, too) who, I think, tried to do the best for his employees. Maybe it was easier in the boom years. Eventually he was ousted by the board, and a cut-throat CEO was installed, who oversaw the dismantling of the enterprise. I think he made out ok though.

InternetJeff

Being a good/bad person is independent of wealth status. I've dealt with well off people who might be described as "good" and others who could be seen as "bad". Same with poor people.

Those with high wealth just make convenient "targets". The poor wife beater usually does not draw outsized attention.

HooRU

One things is for sure, it's not a simple black and white issue now.

Being good to others is a concept that in movies and shows has been deemphisized and downplayed.

To be sure, I'm 66 and I tried too hard my life to be kind, fair, and loyal but things have shifted and it's been hard for me to reconcile it in my emotional being.

I don't blame faith. I feel that the media had a sea change that started in the 70's where morality became more floid in the media and competition started to be more dog eat dog. Society started frowning less upon many behaviors, it came along with changes that did need to happen. Gender issues, Sexualtiy, Faith, Societal Obligations all needed to shift and I acknowledge that as a side effect of those needs, morality shifted away from compassion and kindness and more about self and status.

takeahike

Just because someone has great wealth does not automatically make them good or bad but with the system not only in America but in virtually the whole world it is to say the least a challenge to become wealthy without taking advantage of a significant number of people, usually in the form of employees, among others. It is also true that many are wealthy not through their own efforts but only because they had wealthy ancestors. We must remember that although they do risk their investment in their companies the wealthy do not attain their wealth solely on the basis of their own efforts but must have employees who receive only a tiny fraction of the wealth they produce to create their empires. Probably mainly because of moderns laws and stricter enforcement of them, much more pervasive news coverage and perhaps a general consciousness that it is wrong preventing the same, today's ultra wealthy are probably not as bad as those of yesteryear, and many have done good things with their wealth, but that doesn't mean that they don't take advantage of both their employees and the public with their power. Nowadays the wealthy engage in such things as union busting, monopolistic behavior and price gouging the public, but it wasn't always only that, and in many cases they went to great and very brutal extremes to maintain their power. I don't really want to create a long list of examples (there is) but a couple are of Andrew Carnegie who while giving generously to charity was very brutal to his employees, and the plight of mine workers in West Virginia in the early 20th Century. See: Homestead Strike and The Mine Wars.

HooRU

Employers should expect employees to excel and achieve in my opinion. Also, amassing wealth is an important tenet of American culture and it has made us stronger and more resilient.

But Being kind and fair have taken a back seat to self preservation.

Employers do exploit, now, they have to in a way. If you paid the full worth of a worker, you might not have a profit. But the stock market and venture capital have swung so far afield that companies are being destroyed and innovation dampened.

Brash individualism can only be just so good.

broknsymetry

urbanriot

Ferengi Rules of Acquisition:
#34 War is good for business.
#35 Peace is good for business.

Somewhat-Reticent

broknsymetry Ferengi Rules of Acquisition

All 285 rules, 47 commentaries, 900 major and minor judgments, 10,000 considered opinions?
And yet: The Third Rule is better than "logic" lacking Due Diligence.