There is often a lot of derogatory references to rich people in the United States. They are often portrayed as heartless, morally depraved, and largely indifferent to the needs of others. Usually, rich businesspeople are portrayed as ruthless, cutthroat, and unethical. Rich teenagers are portrayed as self-absorbed morons who couldn’t balance their own checkbook, but still manage to place an order at Starbucks. This is as opposed to the middle class teenagers who are probably just as bad in general.
In any case, they are never portrayed in a flattering way and if they have redeemable qualities in the entertainment media, there is usually some distasteful quality about them. But after studying how the real world operates and learning from the experiences of others (though not enough to be come rich myself, yet), I have found that there are more than likely three distinct kinds of rich people.
The first kind of rich person is probably in the majority. These are what I like to call the productive rich. They are everywhere and may even live next door to you. They are the kind of people that Dr. Thomas J. Stanley described in his book “The Millionaire Next Door
These rich people are the kind I wish to be one day. I’m only 27, so I have the time, but God-willing I will find a way to focus my talent and energy into something that will make me prosperous. Heck, even if I never make more than 100K in my lifetime, I’ll still aim for something and hopefully hit it.
The second kind of rich person that exists are the old money rich person. These are the ones who are second generation rich or higher who have inherited their wealth, but tend to either lack the talent that generated it or really don’t care enough to create more. Usually they get high-powered degrees that they don’t use or at least go to some prestigious college. They piss away their parents money on material things.
We see these kind of people all the time on stupid primetime soaps and witness their moral depravity for our enjoyment. Unfortunately, I doubt very many of these kind of people exist because they tend to be unable float on the old money for very long. Usually they either discover the talents that got them the money or they become the next kind of rich person.
The third kind are what I call the parasitic rich. They are the real scumbags and while it is fortunate that there aren’t too many of them, really just having one is too much. These are the people who use the government to create wealth only for themselves and use the government to secure it. They are also the politicians who come from old money and decide to make a difference with their pathetic lives. A prime example of this is the late Senator Ted Kennedy who could not achieve anything on his own, but instead lied, cheated, murdered, and stole his way into a cushy Senate seat where he drank himself stupid.
They tend to be the most destructive on our nation because they seek out power in order to find some kind of moral absolution and to ensure that the party never ends. This was how Senator Ted Kennedy lived his life. One that I don’t envy but at the same a surprising number of people probably do.
They are also the banking executives who don’t really know how to properly run a business but were given the job because of their connections to key politicians (and in some cases, they knew who to screw). They are basically the people who got a cushy, high-paying job and really don’t deserve it.
Now, not all top executives are deserving of such scorn. I think many of them do a pretty decent job. It is the ones who use the power of government to secure their business and who make money off of others, like the various banks, that fall into this category. It is also the politicians who could not achieve in the real world because they are too inept to do so.
By and large, rich people do not deserve the level of scorn that they receive from the media and entertainment culture. Generally, they are decent people who create the wealth of this nation. Even the second kind of rich person I don’t think is too bad for the economy, despite their usual moral depravity, because they tend to burn money rather than create it unethically.
But the final ones are the ones who need to be done away with. And the only way to do so is to shrink the size and scope of government.