No Billionaires until everyone is Millionaire!

Recently I was pondering wealth and what a person needs throughout their life.  To me it seems many people live for nothing but pure greed (love of money).  There have always been those that are beyond rich, but in today's world, it seems like the range from poor to rich is far greater.  May not be, but it appears that way to me.

Let me make it clear that I do not have anything against anyone that becomes super rich and live in abundance; I wish all of them the best and that everyone could be this blessed.  However, I do have a problem with those that have wealth, which I classify as "Obscene Wealth".  When a person reaches this level of wealth, I feel they should be using any future gains to help others or give back to the world in some way.  More on that in a minute. 

Obscene Wealth

A few days later, I read a news article:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4388536/

It said that last year there were 587 billionaires (most of them multi-billionaires).  Bill gates topped the list at $46.6 billion.  Five members of the Walton family (Wal-Mart) are in the top 10 richest at over $20 billion each, a combined total net worth in excess of $100 billion.

This to me is simply obscene!  While I agree that a person should be able to achieve wealth in this world today, I believe these people have lost all sense of reality.  How much wealth is enough before you find that there are others you should be helping besides yourself?  Is there a point where you finally say "Enough" and funnel everything else you ever earn to others or give back to the world in some form?

A little simple math shows that a person who has only $1 billion dollars and never invests a dime, nor earns any return on the money, would have to spend in excess of $27,000 every day for the next 100 years to ever run out.  If you put the money into an investment of even 2% annually, you would have to spend over $54,000 per day for just the return on that investment and still have all your original $1 billion left. These people would have to spend (without any investment) over $27,000 per day every day for over 4,600 years to exhaust their wealth.

I came to the realization that there should never be a person with more than a billion dollars until every is a millionaire.  That might sound drastic, but in reality, it is says that there never should be a billionaire on the planet, since there will always be those with need.

Giving?  Really? Oprah?  Bill Gates?

It really makes my stomach turn when I hear rich people giving away part of their wealth to others and being praised for it.  I have never seen any of these obscene wealth elites give anything that really puts a dent into their wealth.  Remember, if they gave everything but just $1 billion away, they would still have plenty for the rest of their lives and the lives of their children.  Let us see Bill Gates give $45 billion away and then I will begin to applaud.

There are many people who practically worship Oprah for all that she gives away to others because she cares so much.  What a crock!  Yes, people get given a lot of things, but, if you listen closely, they usually come as a gift from of the supplier not the billionaire, Oprah.  It is simply an advertising marketing ploy.  How much is a worth to get your company or product featured on such a high rated show and displayed in such a positive manner?  Usually, worth a lot more than what they give away.  Oprah makes it sound like she is the one giving it away when in reality, she takes the credit and the others pay.

Some people might not care where it comes from that it is wonder to see the "giving" occur.  Yes, that is true, but it is sad the public are the ones deceived, thinking these people care about anything other than their wealth and power.

Another example is Microsoft.  This last year, they started talking about cutting some of the benefits that employees were used to receiving in the good old days.  While most of the Microsoft employees have wonderful jobs with great benefits, why would they need to think about cutting anything and Microsoft should be figuring ways to give them more.  I mean, over $46 billion, you would think that no one would every hear anything about cuts.

Then you had Microsoft wanting to move a portion of their development and research into places like India so that they can lower their costs and be more competitive (so they say).  This is all pure straight out greed.  Think of the revenue they already generate, how about giving the world the Windows OS free, since they have all their other software and technologies to support their fortune.  It is Never enough!

Take the top five Walton family members (Wal-Mart) and their combined wealth over $100 billion.  I wonder how many small businesses in different communities had to close their doors for them to claim this wealth.  It is great that they can be a success, but where is the shut-off point, what is "enough"?

These obscenely wealthy people have an addiction and it has taken them over.   In the Bible it says the "LOVE of money is the root of all evil".  It does not say that Money is the problem, but the love of it is the error.

I do not know the answers, but it does look like there is a clear problem!