If you had unlimited funds, is this alright or is it all wrong?

Can you be more specific about what you’re referring to with “this”? I’m not really sure I’m seeing what you’re seeing. Pictures of kids partying or someone in a luxurious apartment don’t seem all that wild to me, even if I couldn’t or wouldn’t spend my money that way.

Umm, I was expecting to see Leno’s vast garage full of classic cars, or a guy with six yachts or airplanes. Kids drinking Dom Perignon at what looks like Spring Break? C’mon Rosey ;) Right of passage.

What would I do with the money? Well, I’m no kid and Dom doesn’t thrill me like it once did and I hate being rooms with sweaty guys, so for the price of only two bottles I would probably do some repairs on this tub ‘o mine.

If I had a LOT of money, I would definitely like to use a goodly portion to help others. I would love to build half-way accommodation for kids who have got into trouble and need to transition out of detention and back into the community. Often they end up right back where they started and within no time they re-offend. It would be good if there was a way they could go into a safe place, with mentors to help them turn things around.

I would also like to build temporary accommodation for the homeless. Accommodation that offers the opportunity to have a shower, clean their teeth, put together a resume so they can find a new job. As well as emergency accommodation if required.

Now I just need a heck of a lot of money. As to the people in the link you posted, on the flip side there are these people. I know who I would rather emulate.

If you are referring to those photos, then I don’t think taking them was a good idea.

I can’t speak for others, but if I had unlimited funds, I would do nothing. Absolutely nothing. I wouldn’t need or want to live lavishly, so long as I was comfortable, I could live just about anywhere. That’s not to say I would be above wasting money on stupid things on occasion, but only the extremely stupid, and vastly entertaining.

When you get right down to it, nearly everything is “meaningless and temporary”, depending on how you find meaning in things and experiences and depending on your frame of temporal reference. In 100 years we will all be dead (modern medical breakthroughs notwithstanding), so what does anything “mean”?

For those who have the money to do what they want, what is wrong with spending it? After all, it leads to employment and income for someone else. More than likely, a whole lot of someones.

OK, I just scrolled down. Yeah, not my thing at all. That cubic white house is horrible. The candelabra is ugly as hell. The kid is the Astin Martin, he has obviously chosen it as his identity. Sad. The kid in the sterile white house, well, I don’t know. Could this be a reflexion of his empty emotional life? The girl on the couch in the neo-roman looks comfortable. Take away the bronze cupid and replace the ugly sconces and I could live in a place like that. Looks like her parent’s place. These are kids. We don’t know what they will do in the future with their privilege and wealth. I’m a totally different person than I was in my twenties. Totally. I wouldn’t know or like myself if I met that guy today.

There is this huge homeless shelter near my hometown. It warehouses nearly 400 men and over 100 women. It is supposed to be a clearing house and assessment center and the residents are supposed to be referred to the proper clinics, schools, institutions, programs, jobs, low-cost housing, etc., in order to get them on their feet again. It’s a good idea. But there are few on-site counselors to direct these individuals’ transition into programs, no medical facilities, not even a nurse on board, only guards from Wackenhut under Sheriff’s deputies all of whom are only interested in getting on with the department of corrections at the huge county jail next door. Many of the resources that these people were to be referred off to have dried up. Now the local taxpayers are complaining that this has become a permanent home to many of these homeless who should have been transitioned out and mainstreamed by now. It’s partially true, a lot of the population is languishing there because three hots and a cot beats starving in the woods and constantly harassed by cops.

Unlimited funds? I would love to have the money to take this place over and straighten it out. First thing I would do is hire the most resourceful, experienced social workers available and pay them well and give them all the support they needed so they will stay. A nursing staff and an in-house first response station, an on-site psych facility. The guards would be required to take classes in how to deal with the mentally ill and others in this population. I would hire a full time grant writer. Medical social workers. I would embarrass the county health department and the state to get more involved with this project. I would somehow get the county employment bureau to put an office in there. I would give office space to the VA. I would search far and wide (not just the county) for resources and facilities for education, drug rehab, mental health, occupational rehab, job referral and training, and housing for the aged and infirm. I would hire local people who have worked with homeless for years to help manage and use their resources.

I would expand it to homeless families, single women with children. There would be on-site adult education and morning exercises, yoga would also be offered. The diet would be improved. I would have a matching dollar incentive program that would match paychecks with those who are working until they transition into low-cost housing. The need is endless.

I would enjoy making this thing work. It would take a LOT of money to do it right, but it could become a model for others around the states if it works. And if I could get a significant portion of these people permanently off the streets and self-sufficient or in the facilities for which they belong, then funding would come.

I would create a foundation like Bill and Linda Gates Foundation only a billion times bigger. Then I’d buy me a new Ford pick-up truck with no power steering, no air conditioning, 5 speed shifter and manual roll-up windows.

NOKP.

I like to help others, but I’m no Mother Teresa. I have never felt guilty about spending money on what could be considred trivial things.

An adult who has a lot of money is entitled to do whatever they want with it (even if it’s tacky). I do think they are doing their kids (and the rest of society) a disservice if they are footing the bill for the kids’ luxury cars, diamond jewelry and outlandishly expensive parties. Nothing wrong with living in a fancy-schmancy house and bringing your children up in a wealthy environment, but don’t raise them to be spoiled people who feel entitled to every whim. We don’t need any more Paris Hiltons in the world.

If I had a shitload of money, I’d buy a nicer house and car (nothing too fancy), fund my kids’ college educations, help a few people I know and love who are struggling, make sure I have enough set aside for the rest of my life and some for inheritance for the kids, then give all the rest of it away to good causes.

A psychologist friend of mine told me about some recent research into how money impacts the well-being of kids at different ages. It found that there is a positive correlation between wealth and well-being for pre-adolescent kids, because it gives them access to a wide variety of experiences. But it found a negative correlation for teens.

So if “alright”=“conducive to well-being”, then it’s probably not alright.

There is no such word as“alright.”

—Usage Discussion of ALRIGHT (From Merriam-Webster)

“The one-word spelling alright appeared some 75 years after all right itself had reappeared from a 400-year-long absence. Since the early 20th century some critics have insisted alright is wrong, but it has its defenders and its users. It is less frequent than all right but remains in common use especially in journalistic and business publications. It is quite common in fictional dialogue, and is used occasionally in other writing <the first two years of medical school were alright — Gertrude Stein>”

I’m all right.