Having a great fortune can be a tremendous burden, a problem that must be managed. One of my Facebook friends, Chad, is very rich. Although he defines himself as an entrepreneur, he lives on a trust fund and his primary occupation is managing his family foundation. Chad recently posted on Facebook that he was using money from the foundation to set up urban kiosks all over Manhattan, where people could stop by and use the kiosk like a free ATM machine to vote on their level of happiness for the day. His post on Facebook had 20 likes.
My Facebook friend has good intentions. Chad is not evil or crazy; he’s just plain clueless. He does not understand that there is a huge and growing segment of the population that would prefer decent health care coverage and a lower cost for monopolized commodities such as food, gas and utilities. Chad thinks he is being clever and innovative, a true entrepreneur. He is unaware of how most of the world is living. His 20 likes on Facebook came from friends who are a lot like him. They aren’t evil or crazy; they’re just clueless and immature.
Plight
Superrich
The awesome
of the
Alexander Soros, son of billionaire George Soros, embarrassed his family when his party photos showed up on Facebook. Images of the young Soros drinking and carousing while cruising on the family boat quickly ricocheted from his personal Facebook to the front page of top-tier press. Since the media debacle, he has gone through great effort to turnaround his party boy image and started the Alexander Soros Foundation to promote social justice and human rights while he pursues his Ph.D. in history at Berkeley.
It is a daunting challenge to be fabulously rich. You go to the best schools and any deficiencies are corrected from an early age by a legion of the finest medical and learning specialists. The children of the superrich are armed with a cadre of coaches who work hard to unearth their potential and to give them the best possible start in life. Imagine what happens when all of that expertise and money is invested in them and they still fail. And worse yet, the failure is captured publicly for the whole world to see.