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RE: A Perspective On Wealth

in #money7 years ago

I notice two points of contention in your essay:

"Ethics and morals have meaning only if enough people embrace similar values." I see ethics and morals independent of other people. Yes, I would appreciate it if other people shared my ethics and morals, but I have no control over them. The best I can ever hope to do is to live the example and demonstrate how prosperity arises from them.

"Wealth can be spent on one's offspring, house, gadgets, pleasures and such but at some point when everything is satisfied wealth will mean nothing." This is an inescapable result. Wealth has diminishing utility. Having 3 houses is no more satisfying or useful than having 1. Having 3 cars is not that much more useful to one man than 1. Absentee ownership really just amounts to slavery.

These are facts that Mr. Dimon must confront himself, or do everything in his power to ignore. And he cannot ignore these facts without consequence. Everything we do has a consequence.

No amount of wealth can make one happy. As a culture, we are trained to believe that enormous hoards of money will make us happy. But I saw the pictures of hedge fund traders standing on rooftops in New York City before they jumped. I see the legendary stories of drug abuse in the financial industry, particularly on Wall Street. Happiness is a skill, not a function of wealth.

What does one find with enormous wealth? Ringo Starr made this clear in the documentary, "George Harrison: In This Material World". Ringo said that The Beatles wanted to make money, sure, but they really wanted to make music. He said that when they made it, whatever they wanted came to them, and they couldn't make it stop. Once they had money and found that wasn't what made them happy, they had to figure out what does make them happy.

Mr. Dimon isn't so evil as he is confused. We know this from the frauds he committed and the bailouts he received. Hopefully, the rest of us will learn from the lessons that Mr. Dimon and Ringo Starr can teach us.