Things I don't understand

I am not, and never have been rich.  My husband and I are very comfortable now, we don't have to pinch pennies or worry about where the money will come from to pay the bills.  We have a nice house, cars that run well, and can afford to take vacations, and go to visit family.

We can't just spend money like crazy, or buy anything that catches our eye, but we are far better off than I ever could have imagined when I was much less comfortable.

There were times in my life when there was very little money.  Times when I had to move back into my parent's house because I couldn't afford to live independently with my daughter.  But I had parents to move in with.  There were times when I had to cycle through which bills to pay which month and which bills had to go past due.  I purchased toothpaste and tampons with credit cards because I didn't have any money left, and paid the minimum balances month after month.  The phone got turned off a number of times, but never the water, the electricity, or the gas for heat.

There were times when the entire food budget for me and my daughter for a week was ten dollars or less.  But we were never hungry.  We were never homeless.  And in the level of awareness I have in 2017, that makes me believe we were hard pressed, but never truly poor.

The strange thing is that although I was never truly poor, and I was never rich, I have a much easier time imagining what it is like to be poor, and have real empathy for those living in poverty.

I struggle to find a way to find a way inside the mind of the rich.

I don't understand having all you could ever need and still wanting more.

I don't understand buying power and influence instead of earning the right to be heard because your ideas merit an audience.

I don't understand begrudging the poor, or wanting people to stay in, or return to poverty, because it means that you have more.

I know intellectually there are rich people who help the poor.  Bill and Melinda Gates, Warren Buffett, George Soros, Mark Zuckerberg, and the Walton Family top the Forbes list of the 50 Biggest Givers.  The startling thing about those people is not how much they give, which is considerable, but how tiny a portion of their net worth their annual giving represents.   The percentage of net worth for the people listed ranges from 0.3% to 3.2%.  It is the person at number nine on the list that caught my attention though.

Chuck Feeney gave 15,650% of his net worth to charity in 2012.  He made his fortune founding Duty Free Shops.  Those places in airports where you can buy liquor and perfume and not pay taxes.

In 2012 he gave all but two million of the rest of his fortune away.  Estimates of his lifetime giving range from six billion to eight billion dollars.  He called it giving while living.  He saved enough to be comfortable, and used the rest to make the world a better place.

I contrast Chuck Feeney with people who use their money to buy politicians or lobbyists to get laws enacted so they can get richer, without regard to how those laws impact those who are struggling.

I understand a Chuck Feeney.  I understand keeping enough to live comfortably.  I understand wanting to leave something to your children.

And so in doing the research to write this post, something very important got reinforced.  You don't know anything about anyone just by what you can see.  I don't know the minds and hearts of either rich or poor people I don't know.

There are generous rich people, and there are generous poor people.  There are selfish and mean rich people, and there are selfish and mean poor people.

The news stories I read this morning tricked me into believing that I could 'know' something about someone because I can observe their financial or economic position in society.

The story of Chuck Feeney reminded me I 'know' very few people well enough to 'know' anything about them.

I still can't imagine what it is like to really be rich.  I hope that if I ever found myself rich, I would be a Chuck Feeney and give the excess money away to make the world a better place.   In the meantime, I'm glad I was reminded that there is much more that I don't know and understand then I think there is.