Those people who hate the rich, if they won or got a windfall of money would they give 98% away to keep from being rich?

HAHAHA. Don’t expect any rich-haters to answer this one honestly.
I think you can buy a lot of happiness with money. Yours as well as other people’s.

Strange but true: Bill and Melinda Gates spend more money on people to help give it away than Bill Gates ever did on people to help make it.

I don’t dislike anyone simply because of their financial status. You have to ask, “Are you a good rich or a bad rich?”

It’s not about how much money you have, it’s what you do with it. Should that windfall catch up with me, I’m certain I’d donate much of it to worthy causes. I’d feel compelled to out of the same sense of responsibility I have now.

I hate rich bashing, and I’m kinda punk rock. No, they wouldn’t give the money away, they would spend it all on hookers and blow, or maybe not, maybe they would be responsible. That wasnt funny, and I really tried to be funny. I have been amongst the super rich before and they treated me well, I live in abject poverty now compared to them. I guess I could hate them for kicking me out of the kingdom. I don’t think they would give the money away, not at all. Which is interesting, it’s something I havent thought of.

Maybe, but probably not.

@cprevite People also have to ask, “Are you a good poor or a bad poor?”

You are correct, it is not about money. It is also no ones business what rich people do with their money.

@missingbite
what does that mean “a good poor or a bad poor”??

GQ ! This is sort of an “are they hypocrites” question. What I think would happen to the people who CLAIM to hate the rich , but win the lottery, is they would keep most of it for their own pleasure but change their previous complaints about the rich. In other words, they might say something like this: “Yes, I’ve always hated the rich, not because of the money but because of their attitude about it and how they handled it. I , however, will handle mine differently !!”

I don’t hate rich people, I just hate how some of them act. If I won that money I honestly wouldn’t even want it. I would probably just give and donate it all away except about $1000000 to put in the bank.

@truecomedian It means we can’t just judge people that have money. @cprevite stated they don’t dislike people just because they have money, it’s what they do with it. I agree but if we are going to do that we need to judge everyone. Most of the time we just feel sorry for the less fortunate and want to throw money at them. It is not always, and I will go out on a limb here and say almost always not, the best thing to do. (throw money at the poor)

Give a man a fish and feed him for a day. Teach him to fish and feed him for a lifetime. A lot of people need to take responsibility for themselves. Not all, but a lot. I am all for taking care of those that CAN’T take care of themselves. Able bodied people who don’t, well…...

Wow. I knew that there was a lot of categorizing and dismissing of groups of people, but “rich haters” is a new one on me. I wonder if they have meetings with an agenda and a minutes taker. Maybe coffee and doughnuts.
I’m sure that if people here say that there is such a thing, then there must be, and they are by definition all exactly the same with the same motivations and the same predictable actions. They’re probably the same as those horrible Christians, and this is their Monday through Friday gig.

Reverse discrimination is alive and well with these types clearly.

Sounds mostly like sour grapes to me and it is doubtful that those that resent the wealthy and judge them with all sorts of biased and untrue labels would certainly not give their money away if it came down to it.

There are asshole wealthy and enlightened wealthy just as there are amongst the poorer population.

I have several quite wealthy friends and they are both very altruistic and down to earth.

While not mega wealthy I have enjoyed being quite comfortable and having more money has not changed who I am in the least.

Infact, I would say that having more money has only served to allow me to be more of what I already am.

All levels of income need to practice the mantra of healthy money management.

Spend some, save some, give some away.

I’m not among the mega wealthy either, Coloma. lol But I know a man who has 12M and he buys everything used, still wears his clothes from the 1960’s, drives his GF’s car (refuses to buy one), mows his own yard and eats at Wendy’s. Bill Gates would not consider 12M to be wealthy .

@Aster

How sad for him, sounds like his mindset remains miserly while his bank account grows.

Money is meant to be spent, it has no value in storage except to the fearful mind. :-)

Not sure he has a mind. He never worked a day in his life and kept “talking about” getting a job so he could collect SS. He thinks he needs it. Oh, brother.

@Aster

My mantra has always been, ’ being of sound mind I plan on spending my money while I am still alive! haha

@Trillian: It’s no more fair to lump “rich-haters” into one category than it is to lump the rich into one category. My family is among the upper financial echelon and when I was applying for schools, I got a lot of hate directed at me because I was applying to schools I actually wanted to go to and not schools I could afford. I also wasn’t applying for scholarships because I didn’t need them and I didn’t think it was fair to take that money away from people who actually needed it. Still, I was lumped in with the greedy rich by a lot of my friends and peers because they were jealous that I had more opportunities. It is my understanding that these are the kinds of rich-haters, specifically, about whom this question is. Although, truthfully, I have no idea how you can spin a group of people who hates someone else based solely on the fact that they more money in a good light.

To answer the question, I think that a lot of these people who display jealousy and anger at rich people would spend the money “irresponsibly” and then defend themselves by saying they went without their whole lives so they “deserved” this money.

Here’s what I think about that. If it’s your money, you should spend it. I think there can be a point where spending can get ridiculous but that is a different level for different people. Also, the way in which someone can give money generously is not necessarily determined by what charities they support. For example, if I came into a large sum of money because the money is not mine, but my family’s I would start a slush fund at my local Planned Parenthood for patients who could not pay. I would start a scholarship program for children of single parents. I would invest in small businesses. I would leave obscenely large tips. However, I would also pay for airplane tickets for me and my boyfriend to go to GenCon, stay in a nice hotel with just the two of us and buy a large amount of original fantasy art and possibly top-quality steampunk regalia. Does that make me a selfish person? No. Does it make me human. Yes.

People who hate “rich” people probably don’t have a lot of understanding of how money is made or how much is taken away in taxes and such. If a wealth hater won a lottery then they’d get a crash course and wouldn’t have to give much away to feel like they did.

@KatawaGrey and I are in agreement on this. Now there’s a big surprise! Except I probably wouldn’t go to Gen Con, I’d go to other special interest events. All my life I’ve had people tell me “If I had your money I’d <insert altruistic plan here>.” I’ve been around long enough to see some of them acquire wealth, not one has, to my knowledge, supported said altruistic cause. Now they say they deserve it.
That said, I’m sure many others would spend the money altruistically, it depends more on the character of the people rather than the amount of money they have, like in almost anything.

There is a difference between “hating the rich” and believing that the huge disparity in wealth in the USA has undermined democracy. One needn’t hate anyone to believe that wealth, free speech, and political power should be distinct.

You know, they say that Republicans give away more of their money to charity than Democrats do.

Food for thought.

@wundayatta That is verified fact. On the other hand, people like George Soros and AL Gore who have millions and millions and millions of dollars are more interested in legislating how we middle class live than really solving problems.

BTW, why don’t we ever hear liberals complaining about the wealth fat cat democrats. It’s easy to say no CEO needs X number of dollars but have you seen Al Gores house?

most people who never knew what it is like to have lots of money would eventually give all of it away anyway, right back to the rich.

Ask Michael Moore. He claims to hate the rich, is he him giving all or most of his money away?

They are people that hate rich people It’s weird jealousy. I think it’s dumb to hate rich people just for being rich, and if they win alot of money they should just give it away for beinging so stupid. If they were rich in their heart, they would be more fullied with life. They wouldn’t feel the need to hate others. The same people only hate themselves.

@WestRiverrat but isn’t Micheal Moore a millionaire too? Unless he won it all in a lottery he had to have subscribed to capitalism somewhere along the way. I wonder what his stock portfolio looks like because it’s doubtful to me he earned it all with those films.

@missingbite Give a man a fish and feed him for a day. Teach him to fish and feed him for a lifetime. A lot of people need to take responsibility for themselves. Sadly many are too lazy to row the boat up the river or too impatient to sit the shore waiting for a nibble, they figure “that guy has 5 coolers full of fish, he ought to give me two of them. He won’t miss them”. There is all sorts of reasons they can’t do it themselves, they don’t have enough education, they were a victim of a sex crime when they were a child and it bumped their head, they are too stressed out because add whatever here that is why I need whatever here to numb the pain and I can’t work when I am not sober”.

@Trillian They’re probably the same as those horrible Christians, and this is their Monday through Friday gig. Horrible Christians? Which horrible Christians are these? One that tell the less affluent to hate rich people? I have never met any that would do that. Guess where you are at there must be some pretty horrible Christians or something else cloaked in the Gospel. Good thing we have no imposters like that around here that I know of.

@KatawaGrey I hear you. If you or your parents did the work and put in the sweat you should be able to buy whatever you wanted with your money, why else would you have earned it? Stack it on the table and play with it, admiring that you have it? No one would put in the work, win the trophy then hand it off to someone who wasn’t really in the match. Wanting nicer things is never a crime in my book.

I’m all for rich people and hope to be one of them some day. I think that it is fair to ask the people that benefited from the economic incompetence that caused this “almost depression” to return some of their ill-gotten gains.