[ExI] millionaires and billionaires: was RE: A Nobel laureate and climate change

[spike]

Subject: Re: [ExI] A Nobel laureate and climate change

On Fri, 16 Sep 2011, BillK wrote:
 
>> The super rich are money psychopaths (to a greater or lesser extent)...
BillK

BillK, I can accept this comment because you offer no definition of the term
super rich.  The person with the most money is rich.  If super means more of
the word that follows, then I have no data on people who have more money
than the rich, for no one has more money than the person with the most
money.  There are no super rich.

>...Tomasz Rola wrote:  Assuming that super-rich starts from 1 billion
dollars, I don't think I have ever met someone from this group. So, no real
life experience. I could have met few who had more than a million but I
wouldn't call them psychopaths, even if not all would fit as cool guys,
friends etc.

He didn't define the arbitrary billion dollars as super rich.

Entertaining anecdote for you guys.  I was at a private chess party in the
late 1990s.  One of the guests was Peter Thiel, who looooves chess.  We were
playing and visiting, having a good time, when the topic of conversation
went to PayPal, which Peter cofounded and had sold most of by that time.
The host asked "So Peter, how much money do you have then?"  He responded
"Steve I really do not know.  I don't know."  Host: "But it's well over a
billion dollars."  Peter: "Oh, yes it is, but I don't know how much it is
really."

I thought they were kidding, but I found out they were telling the truth.
He acted just like everyone else.  He dressed like everyone else, drove an
ordinary car.  I couldn't tell he had any kind of money psychopathy.  So if
the super rich are money psychopaths, super rich must be far more than a
billion dollars.

Our politicians toss around the phrase "millionaires and billionaires" as if
those two are the same thing.  How bizarre!  If we can span three orders of
magnitude in wealth and still see some fundamental similarity between those
two, then let us follow that to its logical conclusion.  Let us define
anyone whose net worth is over 1 million as a millionaire, over a billion as
a billionaire.  If there is any legitimate way to equate those two, then it
seems perfectly logical to me that anyone whose net worth is over one
thousand dollars is in the same class as the millionaire.  Why is it we
never hear the phrase "thousandaires and millionaires?"  Why is it
Microsloth Word doesn't even recognize the term "thousandaire?"  That puts
in perspective "millionaires and billionaires" ja?

spike