A Perspective On Wealth
A few months ago a single guy, Jamie Dimon, CEO of JP Morgan, with a few words was able to cause a small crash in the cryptocurrency market. The market shortly recovered but this action alone created some thoughts that most people are not willing to face. Worse, even if most of us do face them, we choose to ignore in the longterm (for our sake).
Most people believe that working 9-5, havings kids and a few hobbies satisfies what is to become human. One third of most people's life revolves around working for almost nothing other than putting food on the table and paying bills. Yet, Jamie Dimon, with few scare tactics about Bitcoin was able to subtract billions in market valuations in just a few hours. Entire countries are not able to make that much money in years.
If someone works 9-5 for $5 an hour while Jamie made some billions in few hours with just saying a few words this can put things in perspective. Is it worth pursuing some kind of meaning in this life under our civilised "Jamian" world? If 1/3 of our lives is spend in order to mingle in Jamie Dimo's empire while we spend another 1/3 sleeping then there is not much left. Without even knowing it, we become autobots of some sick scheme. Hard work means nothing. Dedication means nothing. Ethics and morals have meaning only if enough people embrace similar values. In other words, we can all sit and cry and pointing fingers at Dimon while he just looks from the top, looking with a sense of apathy. Don't worry though. We do the same as Westerners for people that from Latin America and Africa.
I personally find no point is pursuing a western civilisation game that was set for the sake of consumption. I am a hardcore capitalist but I prefer to invest in my own capital, my own values and most importantly my own lifestyle. For better or worse, those values are not shared by most people around me and I am not willing to make any compromises so that I can belong under this sick game. This was also the reason I chose Bitcoin a few years ago. Due to this, I have lowly withdrawn from civilisation and joined the wild. And I love it.
Wealth can be spent on one's offspring, house, gadgets, pleasures and such but at some point when everything is satisfied wealth will mean nothing. Spending a life time accumulating little by little so that it can feed major whales such as Dimon is pointless. For one, people like him don't know where to spend the money. More so, it is not worth an average guys time and effort to sacrifice their life for the memes of country and family. For most people, the amount of money they would make in order to afford pleasures will be minimal. They are better off living off grid for themselves. Any investment made for the civilised world will be eaten up by higher interests.
Probably one day humanity will figure out this wealth meme and realize that our life on this planet is minimal. Perhaps we need something or someone to scare the shit out of us in order for us to understand that the most valuable thing we time. We have less of it day by day. Why throw it away?
He was probably just trying to get a lower price entry point for himself! ;)
This so true. I would like for it to be different but it is the hard cold truth. I'm trying to think out of the meme box in this moment in my life. Good post. Enlightening. I don't want to be fastidious but in the final paragraph there is a couple of words missing: "to understand that the most valuable thing we [have is] time."
Beautifully written. Honestly, I feel many of us are trapped in this never-ending subsistent lifestyle of the 21st century. We work so we can keep the lights on and food on the table. Self-exploration that will eventually lead to self-awareness becomes a modern day luxury since we cannot afford not to work. I quite sure many people haven't quite realized true wealth is time.
Life vs money? I'd choose to invest in cryptos and take life, anytime.
Really, all I care about is not having to work. That's the thing for me. I have so much fun not having to waste my time making someone else rich. And enduring customers.
Yep, ain't nothing like pure-D fear to get ya going on something important. There's a place for both slow accumulation & whippingly upside gains; got to put in the thought and effort to invest in both. Constant relentless improvement.
I'm not sure that going "off-grid" is the best solution. Gov't and whales can be maddeningly powerful and incompetent, and it can seem pretty tempting to turn your back on 'em, but if we all pitch in and actually do our part, we might turn this whole story around in a direction that is beneficial for far more of us than just the J-Dimes.
To energy & effort that makes things better, slowly or quickly. To life!
It seems that most humans (myself included) are prone to taking the simple, less risky route. But once they begin to take risks and understand that the only way to evolve is to make a mistake and learn from your mistake, a new door of opportunities is opened.
Side note.. what did Dimon say? Do you have a link to any article about it?
The Jamie Dimons of the world hopefully are not long for it. This rush to bleed people for the surplus value of their labor while at the same time automate their jobs out of existence is going to be their undoing. People have to be hungry to be stirred to revolution and we're very quickly seeing the dissolution of the basic American social contract that keeps the masses from becoming truly destitute.
All of these men vastly oversell how valuable they are to their company and to society. If you actually based their salary on how replaceable a lot of them were, it would probably be 3% of what it currently is. A lot of people took offense to Obama's "You Didn't Build That" speech, but he was completely right. Most of the wealthy people in this world would be nothing without everything the rest of society has built. Hoarding it to buy a new yacht does nothing to repay society for your opportunity and eventually it will be their downfall.
It's really simple as that. But yet so difficult to follow. I'm trying my best but all the time I have the feeling is wrong although I know I'm right.
I always thought it was crazy that one person's words can have so much power. Not just an impact on the economy but on the way people act, what they prioritize, etc. People are drawn to a leader and want to believe that there's someone out there who knows better than them, someone to listen to and to follow. We're trained to listen to people with"authority" and often fail to question how they stand to benefit from our actions.
I notice two points of contention in your essay:
"Ethics and morals have meaning only if enough people embrace similar values." I see ethics and morals independent of other people. Yes, I would appreciate it if other people shared my ethics and morals, but I have no control over them. The best I can ever hope to do is to live the example and demonstrate how prosperity arises from them.
"Wealth can be spent on one's offspring, house, gadgets, pleasures and such but at some point when everything is satisfied wealth will mean nothing." This is an inescapable result. Wealth has diminishing utility. Having 3 houses is no more satisfying or useful than having 1. Having 3 cars is not that much more useful to one man than 1. Absentee ownership really just amounts to slavery.
These are facts that Mr. Dimon must confront himself, or do everything in his power to ignore. And he cannot ignore these facts without consequence. Everything we do has a consequence.
No amount of wealth can make one happy. As a culture, we are trained to believe that enormous hoards of money will make us happy. But I saw the pictures of hedge fund traders standing on rooftops in New York City before they jumped. I see the legendary stories of drug abuse in the financial industry, particularly on Wall Street. Happiness is a skill, not a function of wealth.
What does one find with enormous wealth? Ringo Starr made this clear in the documentary, "George Harrison: In This Material World". Ringo said that The Beatles wanted to make money, sure, but they really wanted to make music. He said that when they made it, whatever they wanted came to them, and they couldn't make it stop. Once they had money and found that wasn't what made them happy, they had to figure out what does make them happy.
Mr. Dimon isn't so evil as he is confused. We know this from the frauds he committed and the bailouts he received. Hopefully, the rest of us will learn from the lessons that Mr. Dimon and Ringo Starr can teach us.