When Is Enough Wealth Enough Wealth? Vicious Pathological Greed Is Killing The US.

[TheMastersNemesis]

The race to the top of the wealth heap is destroying the US and even the world. You can only consume so much stuff. So much food, so many clothes, so many yachts, so many mansions, so many cars etc etc. Devon has numerous yachts for Christ's sake.

I simply do not understand so much destructive greed by so few. Just having reasonable financial security would be ok for most workers. Yet so many people are falling below the surface of the economic waters. And there is so much determination by the rich and GOP to make sure as hell they drown.

[KT2000]

1. the wealthy bubble

keeps the inhabitants from seeing anyone other than those they are competing against - other wealthy people. With some it is collecting art. When you see the outrageous prices for masterpieces, that is the wealthy competing with each other for no other reason than to crown themselves top of the wealth heap.

I believe most people with huge wealth sink into mental illness. They are self-centered, myopic, and like trump, have holes in themselves that they are constantly trying to fill with things and status. They truly consider themselves superior and the "others" are not worth much. They are able to obliterate safety regulations, access to healthcare, and just about anything that helps the "lesser" have a decent life - as long as it contributes to their own wealth.

Sick, but the truth is a lot of people worship the wealthy.

[Marty Marzipan]

4. A lot of people worship gangsters, too...

[KT2000]

8. aren't they similar?

exploiters and considered winners by some.

[GReedDiamond]

2. The race is on for one of these corrupt, criminal...

...oligarch assholes to become the first TRILLIONAIRE.

[nuxvomica]

3. My theory is they are stuck at an earlier stage of development

As we approach adulthood, we face challenges that develop our self-reliance so that we transition from a state of innocence to the role of protector of innocence. Some people never face those challenges, or are taken from the state of innocence before they are ready, and become caught in an eternal twilight of childhood, insatiably pursuing more security through more money, guns or God, or the oblivion they mistake for innocence with drugs or alcohol, or the youthfulness they mistake for innocence via plastic surgery, comb-overs, etc. I think people who grow up rich are more likely to be stuck at this developmental stage because money can protect them from the ordinary challenges that shape the rest of us. Such protection can actually make them weaker, inured to the ill affects of their own agency and prey to boundless appetites.

[empedocles]

5. Addiction research confirms a lot of your arrested development comments

Addiction tends to get worse and worse.
The Robber Barons of the Gilded Age could not stop their toxic addictions, brutalizing workers and most everyone else with their horrible habits. They accumulated, in current dollars, hundreds of billions of those dollars, while workers sickened and died from poor wages and rotten working hours and conditions - working families often near starved.

[Squinch]

6. Kick because it's so true.

[Sherman A1]

7. I have to wondered that for decades

Certainly since Reagan began the New Gilded Age.

When the 1% has all the money 💰, do they win?

[Reader Rabbit]

9. Hoarding behavior

When it's animals or books or too much of anything else, it's a sign of mental illness. When it's more wealth than a person can use in a lifetime, it's called "success"—in America, anyway.