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Perspective: Money Doesn't Equal Superiority

by "Intellectual"
/
Pixabay

A couple of weeks ago on the Late Show, Stephen Colbert said, “Money makes you think you know things you don’t know.” And on the same night on Full Frontal with Sam Bee, Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman said this about the super wealthy: “Sometimes they are just lucky. Sometimes they really are smart, but about something, tiny, narrow. They get ‘billionaire’s disease.’ People want what you can give them, so they tell you what you want to hear.”  

 

Now, I want to be clear, this perspective is not a diatribe against people with a lot of money. My point is that we have to be wary of people with a lot of money who believe that simply because they have a lot of money that they know more than the rest of us. The amount of money someone has, or how they made that money, often does not equate to the kind of intelligence needed to run for office or serve in government, or drive social agendas. 

 

On a more dangerous level, the kind of arrogance great wealth can breed can lead to delusions of grandeur. If you want a particularly disturbing example from the past, read up on Henry Ford. And after you’ve done that, look around and see if anything has changed much in our current system. In my opinion, it’s yet time again to be afraid. Be very, very afraid of those with vast riches. 

 

I’m Andrew Nelson and that’s my perspective. 

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