Rich gets richer

It's immoral to be rich

Being extremely wealthy is impossible to justify in a world containing deprivation. There is a lot of public discussion about inequality, but there seems to be far less talk about just how patently shameful it is to be rich. There are plenty of people on this earth who die because they cannot afford to pay for medical care. There are elderly people who become homeless because they cannot afford rent. There are children living on streets, there are mothers who can’t afford diapers for their babies. And all of it could be ameliorated if people who had lots of money simply gave those other people their money. It’s deeply shameful to be rich. It’s not a morally defensible thing to be rich. 

• White families in America have 16 times as much wealth on average as black families. This is indisputably because of slavery, which was very recent.
• Larry Ellison of Oracle bought the island of Lanai. It’s kind of extraordinary that a single human being can just own the sixth-largest Hawaiian island, but that’s what concentrated wealth leads to.
• Every dollar you have is a dollar you’re not giving to somebody else, the decision to retain wealth is a decision to deprive others.
• It is sometimes claimed that CEOs get paid too much, or that the super-wealthy do not pay enough in taxes. There is no problem in CEOs getting paid as much as the company decides to pay them. And taxes are certainly a tyrannical form of legalized theft. But the question is of the morality of their retaining wealth after it is given to them.
• The process by which those rich people attained their wealth is totally consensual. People on the right often defend wealth along these lines. I earned it, therefore it’s not unfair for me to have it. But the question is that regardless of how you have earned it, to what degree you are morally permitted to retain it? 
• It’s one thing to argue that you got rich legitimately. It’s another to explain why you feel justified in spending your wealth upon houses and sculptures rather than helping some struggling people. There may be nothing unseemly about the process by which a basketball player earns his millions. But there’s certainly something unseemly about his having those millions. 
• If the problem of inequality is systemic, and rich people do not really make choices but pursue their class interests, then asking them whether it is moral for wealthy people to retain their wealth is irrelevant and incoherent. 
• Giving away wealth in the form of charity is actually bad, because it allows capitalism to look superficially generous without actually altering the balance of power in the society. “The worst slave owners were those who were kind to their slaves, because they prevented the core of the system from being realized by those who suffered from it,” as Oscar Wilde ludicrously put it.
• Moral duty becomes greater the more wealth you have. The super-rich, the infamous millionaires and billionaires, are constantly squandering resources that could be used to create wonderful and humane things. If you’re a billionaire, you could literally open a hospital and make it free. You could help make sure no child ever had to go without lunch.
• Everyone who earns anything beyond is obligated to give away the excess in its entirety. The refusal to do so means intentionally allowing others to suffer, a statement which is true regardless of whether you “earned” or “deserved” the income you were originally given. 
• Wealthy people do give away money often in piecemeal and self-interested and foolish ways. They’ll donate to colleges with huge endowments to get needless buildings built and named after them. David Geffen will pay to open a school for the children of wealthy. Mark Zuckerberg will squander millions of dollars trying to fix Newark’s schools by hiring $1000-a-day-consultants. Brad Pitt will try to build homes for Katrina victims in New Orleans, but will insist that they’re architecturally cutting-edge and funky looking, instead of just trying to make as many simple houses as possible. Just as the rich can’t be trusted to spend their money well generally, they’re colossally terrible at giving it away. This is because so much is about self-aggrandizement, and “philanthropy” is far more about the donor than the donee. 
• If you’re a multi-billionaire, giving away $1 billion is morally meaningless and you’re still incredibly wealthy, and thus still harming many people through your retention of wealth. You have to get rid of all of it, beyond the maximum moral income. 

It is not justifiable to retain vast wealth. This is because that wealth has the potential to help people who are suffering, and by not helping them you are letting them suffer. It does not make a difference whether you earned the vast wealth. The point is that you have it. We should acknowledge that it is immoral to be rich. 

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I don’t hate capitalism, I just hate rich people.

If you are an egalitarian, how come you are so rich - GA Cohen 

Rich do not deserve their wealth - Robert Nozick 

Ways to narrow rich - poor gap

Across much of the world, the share of national income flowing to labor has fallen over the past 40 years. Taxing the rich in order to fund spending on the poor is a straightforward solution to inequality problem. But the well-heeled are adept at squeezing through tax loopholes, and at marshaling the political clout needed to chip away at high tax rates. Income inequality is the result of bad policies that favor the rich and leave everyone else struggling. A social wealth fund could narrow the gap between the rich and the poor.

• People don't realize how wide the gap between rich and poor has become. Credit masks poverty. We tend to see and associate with people who are like us, economically.
• There's no surer ticket out of poverty than a solid education. But that education has to be affordable and it has to be equally distributed. Poorer students are years behind their richer peers. Richer kids go to a private schools. Poorer students go to a government schools that does not perform well. Education should be a great equalizer, not a source of division. 
• A hard day’s work deserves a fair day’s pay. It's impossible to live on today's minimum wages, which are essentially poverty wages. Decent minimum wages (for 8 hours/day, 6 days/week work) must cover home rent, utility bills, groceries, basic health care expenses, children education and some savings, for a family of 2+2. Today's minimum wages or poverty wages that covers food expenses only, for a family of 2+2. They must be at least be double or treble.
• It's convenient for employers to argue they can't pay higher wages. Their profits indicate otherwise. The reality today is that people who are working full-time are unable meet their family(2+2)'s basic necessities.
• Tax rates on the very rich are so low. While middle class salaried person on an average pays income tax at more than 20% on gross real income, the rich pays lesser than 10% of his gross real income. The rich must be taxed at least 40-50% of gross real income and this additional amount must be spent for better education and health care of lower income groups. Without good education and sound health, one can't work hard to prosperity.
• Give workers a voice in their companies. Worker union's role is is declining since 40 years and their voice shrank to a whisper. Meanwhile, the economy is pushing a greater share of money to the top management. While half of the people view worker unions in a favorable light, the other half continue to see unions as inefficient or annoying, but there are other ways to give workers a voice, such as supporting employee-owned companies.
• Ban political donations by businesses and industry. Let politics get funded by people (individuals only) and government. Compel politicians keep away from influential rich industrialists.
• Give money to the poor -- maybe at random. Randomly giving poorer people cash may not be such a bad idea. A nonprofit organisation which is experimenting with the concept is seeing promising results. The point is not exactly how a program like this should work but that when we trust people -- when we see them as equals -- they can succeed.
• We see rich and poor differently. We assume that these divisions are inevitable. They don't have to be.
• Investing in women (family-friendly work policies, paid parental leave, allowing kids in the workplace etc), agriculture (providing farmers with access to seeds, plant nutrients and production practices, risk mitigation, weather insurance etc) and reforming workplace laws (raising minimum wages and universal basic income etc).

Let us not forget history. The Roman Empire was one of the richest on the planet, with wealth concentrated in the hands of a few senatorial elite and the rest were utterly poor. Warning signs of inequality were ignored and it resulted in civil war and the entire empire collapsed. Do we want that again? Let us collectively work towards making an equitable world.

Poverty is not an original state

Most wealthy people believe that poor people today have it 'easy' because they can get government benefits without doing anything in return. This is an infuriatingly obtuse view of those who have not known or have long forgotten what poverty truly means. 'Easy' is a word not easily spoken among the poor. Things are hard, the times are hard, the work is hard, the way is hard. 'Easy' is for the willfully callous and the haughtily blind.

Poverty is not an original state, nor are the poor the victims of their own faults and weaknesses. Poverty is self-sustaining. Poverty creates a picture of aimlessness, uncertainty and hopelessness. Once a person is caught in its trap, it is hard to escape the cycle of poverty. It destroys self-confidence and the capacity to organize collective action and response. 

Poverty is a multidimensional phenomenon. Advising poor people to working harder is an useless advice because people are rarely compensated for hard work. They are compensated for skills and smart working. A poor person can't think or plan his old age years. Poverty restricts forward thinking and planning. The daily struggles of the poor constantly humiliate them. There is no possibility of poor people enjoying rights. In poverty there can be no control over one’s life chances or even everyday life.

Development fail to address poverty or to narrow the gap between rich and poor, but widens and deepens this division and ultimately creates poverty, as natural resources and human beings alike are increasingly harnessed to the pursuit of consumption and profit. The rich are great beneficiaries of poverty. It is very cheap to be rich in India. In a poor nation, the social elite can pass through life without facing any competition. The less democratic a nation, the safer it is for the rich.

The attitude we have is running away from the needy and not drawing near to them. Corruption directly brings underdevelopment and spawns poverty. In India poor people vote, and the elected become rich. It’s a government of the rich, for the poor to sustain the poverty. This sounds cynical, but hard facts vindicate the statement.

The global economy on a wildly unequal trajectory is absurd and unsustainable. For getting everyone above poverty line (> $5 per day) would take 100 years, require $1m GDP per person and per capita income about $100,000. As a result, ending poverty under the current model is slow, inefficient and runs into planetary problems. Already the present global economy is in ecological overshoot. A radical shift in distribution to favor the poorest is the only way to reconcile the twin challenges of halting catastrophic climatic change and ending poverty.

The wealth of the super rich in the world can eradicate global poverty TEN times!

In a country well governed, poverty is something to be ashamed of. 

In a country badly governed, wealth is something to be ashamed of - Confucius

If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, 

it cannot save the few who are rich - J F Kennedy

Communism, Democracy & Socialism

• Communism and democracy are two different ideologies that have rendered great impact in the world. Communism can be termed as a socio economic structure that stands for the establishment of a classless, egalitarian and stateless society. Socialism is an economic system while communism is both an economic and political system. Communism is regarded as an extreme form of socialism.
• Democracy is a political system of governance either carried out by the people directly or by elected representatives.
• Communism is a political ideology that is based on a common ownership, mainly concerned with equality and fairness. In communism, the power is vested in a group of people who decide the course of action and decide on the activities of the public. They may interfere in the public life of others. On the other hand, democracy also stands for equality in the society, is governed by a group of elected people. Democracy is a rule by the people and the elected representatives are bound to fulfill the wishes of the society.
• In communism, the government has complete control over the production and distribution of goods and all the resources and is shared in the society equally. But in democracy, this aspect is not there.
• In communism, it is the society that holds the major resources and production. This prevents any single person or a group of people from raising to a higher position than others or becoming rich. In democracy, free enterprise is allowed, which means that people or groups can have their own businesses that can lead to rich and poor in society.
• Socialism supports the view that the goods and services produced should be dispensed based on the productivity of an individual. In contrast, communism believes that the wealth should be shared by the masses based on the needs of the individual.
• In socialism, personal properties can be kept, socialists make sure, however, that no private property will be used as an instrument for oppression and exploitation. Communism treats all goods and services as public property to be used and enjoyed by the entire populace.
• Democracy is based on the principle that all citizens have equal rights. In democracy citizens have certain liberties and freedoms that are protected by the constitution. In communism private ownership is not allowed whereas in democracy it is allowed.

Socialists regard capitalism as a threat to equality and public interest. They believe, however, that there is no need to eliminate the capitalist class because it can be used as a good instrument in the transition to socialism as long as it is properly controlled. Socialists also believe that capitalism can exist in a socialist state and vice versa. From the point of view of the communists, capitalism must to be destroyed totally in order to give way to a classless society.

Religion - Swami Vivekananda Quotes

Swami Vivekananda was religious, but never a superstitious person. 

• All religion is to be based upon morality, and personal purity is superior.
• All religious superstitions are vain imaginations. 
• Beliefs, doctrines, sermons do not make religion.
• Believe in the doctrine, and you are safe.
• Circumstances can never be good or bad. Only the individual man can be good or bad. What is meant by the world being good or bad? Misery and happiness can only belong to the sensuous individual man.
• Despondency is not religion.
• Experience is the best source of knowledge. 
• First bread and then religion.
• Great is the tenacity with which man clings to the senses.
• In religion lies the vitality  of India.
• Intellectual assent and intellectual dissent are not religion.
• It is an insult to a starving people to offer them religion.
• Mere believing in certain theories and doctrines will not help you much. 
• No destruction of religion is necessary to improve the Hindu society.
• One religion cannot suit all.
• Religion is the greatest and healthiest exercise for the human mind.
• Religion requires hard and constant practice.
• Religion is a necessary thing to very few, and to the vast mass of mankind it is a luxury.
• Religion is the retaliation of Spirit as Spirit; not Spirit as matter. Religion is a growth. Each one must experience it himself. 
• Religion has no business to formulate social laws.
• Religion is not in doctrines, in dogmas, nor in intellectual argumentation;
  it is being and becoming, it is realization.
• Religion is manifestation of the Divinity already in man.
• So long as even a single dog in my country is without food,
  my whole religion will be to feed it.
• Talking is not religion.
• The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.
• The goal of all religions is the same, but the language of the teachers differs.
• The greatest religion is to be true to your own nature. 
• The ideal of all religions is attaining of liberty and cessation of misery.
• The man who is frightened into religion has no religion at all.
• The proof of one religion depends on the proof of all the rest.
• The very rich can understand truth much less than the poorer people. The rich man has no time to think of anything beyond his wealth and power, his comforts and indulgences. The rich rarely become religious. Why? Because they think, if they become religious, they will have no more fun in life.
• True religion is entirely transcendental.
• Try to be pure and unselfish— that is the whole of religion.
• We must not only tolerate each others, but positively embrace them, and that truth is the basis of all religions.
• We must not judge of higher things from a low standpoint.
  Everything must be judged by its own standard. 
• You are what you make yourselves. 
• You are religious from the day you begin to see God in men and women.

Selfishness is the chief sin, thinking of ourselves first. The unselfish man says, 'I will be last, I do not care to go to heaven, I will even go to hell if by doing so I can help my brothers.' This unselfishness is the test of religion. He who has more of this unselfishness is more spiritual and nearer to Shiva.

मातृदेबो भब पितृदेबो भब, दरिद्रतृदेबो भब, मूर्खतृदेबो भब

The poor, the illiterate, the ignorant, the afflicted -- let these be your God. 

Know that services to these alone is the highest religion ... Swami Vivekananda

Laws grind the poor, and rich men rule the law

The significant achievement of human civilization during past 300 years is the evolution of law in a structured manner and conceptualization and enforcement of 'equality before law'. It is the fact that the poor suffers in the hands of law, and the rich men enjoys the life without much botheration about law. A poor man getting into any problem cannot come out of the police station or court easily and jailed easily with no means to get a bail. Whereas a rich politician or businessman, in most situations, come out of the station very easily with the influence of money and muscle power avoiding jail with simple bail. Accused poor is always always convicted and the accused rich are mostly acquitted. This is what happening in our country. 

• A law is made with the express intent to help people in getting justice through a legal system, thereby aiming to achieve the ‘greatest happiness of the greatest number’. But very often the law fails to serve this purpose.
• There just cannot be one law for the rich and connected, and another for the poor and unconnected. Everyone is entitled to be treated equally in his dealings with the public authorities.
• The innocent, simple, illiterate and the poor cannot access legal procedure because it is highly expensive, complicated and time-consuming to them. So they look upon law from a distance as a frightening scarecrow.
• On the other hand, some people in society like those strong, greedy birds, tame, twist or tarnish a law and use it for their own benefits. Some others follow suit and seize the opportunity, too. Thus the law is made into a no-more frightening, rather a tattered scarecrow.
• It is this second group that is mainly responsible for making many laws ineffective. Not only that, they make law an accomplice in fulfilling their greed for power and possessions.
• Our laws are adequate for the purposes intended. Our weak point is the enforcement part. We have a system, but we do not seem to be able to work the system according to the Rule of Law which posits three things: (1) that everyone is deemed equal before the law; (2) that the law is applied in its generality; and, (3) that the law is applied neutrally.
• Generality of laws, the Equality of everyone before the law, and the Neutrality of the law means that if any law is used to target a person, a group or a class of persons, then the Rule of Law is breached.
• The Commercial Division of High Courts Bill, 2009 has as its foundation a special provision with the objective of achieving quicker disposal by expert tribunals that involve a sum of Rs.5 crore or more. The idea is to facilitate their early disposal so that the rich who are involved in such disputes do not have to wait for too long for a final adjudication. 
• Meanwhile, the poor person whose litigation mostly involves a value that is below Rs.5 crore has to wait for the outcome at the Munsiff’s Court, the District Court, the High Court, and the Supreme Court that take decades before a final judgment comes. Often it takes more than a generation. 
• Obviously the rich are favoured by helping them achieve early finality while the poor and the middle classes have to hang on often for a life-time for an outcome. 
• Democracy is fundamentally equality of the judicial process. To make the monetary value of a commercial dispute the basis of classification is undemocratic. Indian socialism and democracy are the victims of feudalism, capitalism and corporate control, even as the courts enjoy longevity without accountability. 
• The legislation classifies litigation into two categories. The poor litigant will wait for the somnolescent process and leisurely pronouncement and the wealthy litigant will have his case speedily terminated. If this be the differentiation, it is horrendous and outrageous in a socialist democracy. Perhaps Oliver Goldsmith was right when he said “Laws grind the poor, and rich men rule the law.”

Let justice be done, though the heavens fall.

Be ye ever so high, still the law is above you ... Thomas Fuller

Do you deserve to be rich?

If wealth was the inevitable result of hard work and enterprise, every woman in Africa would be a millionaire. Intelligence? Talent? No, the ultra-rich got to where they are through luck and brutality. The wealth creators of neoliberal mythology are some of the most effective wealth destroyers the world has ever seen ... George Monbiot

If you believe that you deserve to be rich, take a moment and define why you should be wealthy. Most entrepreneurs and professionals believe they deserve to be wealthy, which is a minimum net worth of Rs.10 crores or more. Majority of the wealthiest people feel they deserve to be rich. They may have inherited it and therefore have an inborn sense of deserving or they may have earned it and therefore feel proud of their accomplishments. There are rich people who cheated and stole to be rich, and there are also rich people who worked hard to be rich.

Do you deserve to be rich? Do you deserve everything you desire? No matter how badly you want to be wealthy; no matter what you’ve done with your life to date and what you plan on doing; no matter if you’re absolutely brilliant; no matter who you know or who knows you; no matter anything, you unquestionably, categorically, unequivocally definitely do not deserve to be rich. Simply put, no one deserves wealth. Being rich is not a right. At best, it’s a possibility.

The path to move on in the right direction to become a self-made millionaire is:

• How committed are you to becoming wealthy?
• What are you willing to sacrifice in order to become rich?
• How can you translate your values and ideals into personal wealth?
• How do your capabilities place you squarely in the line of money?
• How are you offsetting your weaknesses in other areas?
• How are you going to leverage your network to make money?
• How do your better relationships make you money today?

Becoming wealthy is not an entitlement. It’s not a privilege nor is it a right. If you’re healthy and motivated, the advantage you have is that you very likely have the opportunity to pursue wealth, or happiness for that matter. It’s taking advantage of this opportunity by actively, forcefully, and smartly pursuing wealth that can potentially become rich. 

If you grow up poor, you’ll most likely end up poor. If you grow up rich,  you’ll likely end up rich. It’s all based on the way you view the world and money. Change your spending habits and you will change your attitude. You will begin to respect money and strangely you will gain more money in your life. 

Since you don’t deserve to be rich, but you want to be rich, what are you going to do about it?

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Rich doesn't deserve to be rich; poor doesn't deserve to be poor.

Life is not fair, ergo no one deserves anything.
Amassing wealth is incompatible with morality ... Gandhi

Between 1947 and 1979, productivity in the US rose by 119%, while the income of the bottom fifth of the population rose by 122%. Between 1979 and 2009, productivity rose by 80% , while the income of the bottom fifth fell by 4%. In the same period, the income of the top 1% rose by 270%. This is to suggest that the economy has been rewarding the wrong skills. CEO's are no more deserving of the share of wealth they’ve captured than oil sheikhs. Without resorting to cheating or labour exploitation or tax evasion or over exploitation of natural resources or destruction of ecology, it is not easy become rich.

Wealthy people are less ethical

• Pity the rich. They drive their expensive cars with little respect for the law. Most of them (not all of them) break the rules thinking they won’t have to face the consequences, and they even take candy from children. Being wealthy is what drives the unethical behavior.
• Their unethical behavior is driven by the fact that they see nothing wrong with greed. Their wealth makes them less dependent on others, less concerned with how they're viewed and it gives them more resources for handling trouble (like traffic fines) should it come along.
• Drivers of expensive cars were four times more likely to cut off another vehicle and ignore the right-of-way than drivers of cheaper cars. The most flagrant offenders: Mercedes drivers.
• Police officers often face lecturing from the drivers of fancy cars when they pull them over for a ticket.
• Lower-class individuals are more physiologically attuned to the suffering of others than their middle- and upper-class counterparts. The difference in ethical behavior might be about opportunity rather than moral fiber.
• The pursuit of self-interest is a more fundamental motive among society's elite and the increased want associated with greater wealth and status can promote wrong-doing.
• According to a string of new studies, it's not clear if being rich increases unethical behavior or if such behavior is what allows people to become rich in the first place.
• Those given an unfair advantage believes they deserved to win. They attributed their successes to their own individual skills and talents, rather than their highly favorable circumstances.
• If rich are made to feel psychologically a little less well-off, they become way more generous, way more charitable, way more likely to offer help to another person.
• A few at the top are indeed generous, as evidenced by Bill Gates and others.

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People who have less give more

• People who have less give more.
• Low social class participants were more generous and believed they should give more of their annual income to charity. 
• They were also more likely to trust strangers and showed more helping behavior towards someone in distress. Contrarily, higher social class individuals are more unethical. They are more likely to take things from others, lie, and cheat.
• They are more compassionate and more sensitive to the need of others.
• Their way of thinking as a “contextualist tendency” marked by an external focus on what is going on in their environment and with other people. 
• Those who have more tend to be self-centered with solipsistic tendencies that are concentrated on their own internal states, goals, motivations, and emotions.
• Those who have less are focused on the present whereas those who have more are future-oriented to a greater extent.
• Having money and high social status is certainly a good thing in many respects. Money provides comfort and security, and a lack of it can produce real hardships. But once our basic needs and even some comforts are met, isn’t there value in experiencing compassion for others and acting on impulse? Isn’t there some benefit to being sensitive to the distress of others, and behaving like the old woman in the Indian village at least once in a while?
• Everyone of us can learn valuable lessons from the generosity of the poor.

ఆతిధి దేవో భవ  ...

Pros and Cons of Being Super Rich

• Riches improves quality of life. Most rich people are unhappy. Happiness can't be bought.
• It’s better to be rich than poor. And it’s nice to be super rich. 
• Affluent – Still have to work. If you are comfortable but still must work to support your lifestyle then consider yourself affluent. 
  Rich – Don’t have to work. Rich people means they do not have to work on stuff they don’t enjoy. They have time and they can do whatever they want with it. In America, net worth of  $10mn or higher are Rich.
  Super rich – Have to work to give their money away. Super rich are with net worth in the tens and hundreds of millions of dollars and up. They have more money than they could ever need for their personal lifestyle. The question of not just what to do with their time but what to do with their excess money.
• It’s nice to be super rich. You’ll fly private jets. You’ll eat nice food all the time, you’ll have aides and servants who will save you time. Problem is as a person makes more money, expectations and desires rise in tandem, which results in no permanent gain in happiness. 
• The private jet doesn’t feel so special the 20th time you’re on it. Rather than marveling at the fact you’re on your own plane, you’re more likely to just compare it to other private planes you’ve been on.
• Happiness is the day to day bounce of emotions while happiness meaning is what you feel when you step back, take a minute, and reflect on what will go in your obituary. 
• A billionaire has said, “Nothing is going to make you feel better. Philanthropy is absolutely the best drug I’ve ever taken.”
• You can meet anyone in the world. The best part about being famous is the chance to meet other famous people.
• Unlike in the past, today there’s a tiny difference between the rich and the American middle class in terms of quality of life.
• Bill Gates has a bigger house than you or me, but for what really matters, we’re the same.
• Your quality of life is determined by the quality of your relationships.
• Any person you befriend while you are atop a perch of power is just trying to get something from you or so you suspect, and suspicion alone is enough to careen a relationship.
• Many presidents declared “no new friends” upon entering the White House.
• Being super rich can be lonely. If you try to talk about the perils of being rich and famous, someone will accuse you of self-pity.
• If you are a good person, the weight and duty of being responsible with the billions you have becomes a burden. And then it almost becomes criminal to pass that burden onto your kids. It is very hard not to have it run your life.
• Being super rich disconnects you from your fellow humans.  If you can’t remember the last time you waited in line at the airport, or if it’s been years since you drove your own car to a supermarket, you’re living in a different world. 
• Money changes your sense of morality, and usually not for the better. As you move up the class ladder, you are more likely to violate the rules of the road, to lie, to cheat, to shoplift, and to be tightfisted in giving to others. 
• Empathy goes down. It’s harder for the super rich to remain compassionate towards ordinary people.
• Perhaps wealth needs its own goldilocks story - not too much, not too little. Money is like gasoline while driving. You never want to run out, but the point of life is not to go on a tour of gas stations.
• Ideally you want to have a sum of money that is large enough to get most of the advantages of wealth but not its side effects. With enough money, you live entirely on your own terms.
• People are very critical of the wealthy in the UK. In the US entrepreneurs are celebrated.

That man is rich, whose pleasures are the cheapest ... Henry David Thoreau
Honesty is incompatible with amassing a large fortune ... Mahatma Gandhi 
In a country well governed, poverty is to be ashamed of. 
In a country badly governed, wealth is something to be ashamed of ... Confucius

Living life of importance is egoistic, where as leading simple & frugal life has more fun and fulfillment. VIP life in total disconnect in a different world is just miserable. It is better to have sufficient money which gives security, freedom from compulsion to work and to pursue one's own interests & choices. Anything more is burdensome and less is fatigue. We should never lose things that money can't buy. Finally we should never consume more than what we produce. Wastage and  excess emissions are nothing but abusing nature.

Why we bend rules?

Even most honest among us lie, cheat or push boundaries now and then. In everyday transgressions character isn’t the real driver; situational forces are. Powerful people break the rules; breaking rules makes one seem more powerful.

• Without the intelligence to create the rules, we would have no rules to break.
• Being able to create and  follow rules is one of the things that separates humans from the rest of the animals. Being able to create and follow your own rules is what makes you intelligent. Without the intelligence to create the rules, we would have no rules to break.
• Intelligent people generally don’t bend rules, as they are aware that the rules are made for good purpose.
• Breaking the rules all the time and getting away with out getting caught doesn't make any one intelligent or smart.
• Intelligent people are those who have mastered the rules, practiced the rules, and by overcoming laziness they have perfected their interpretation of the rules.
• At work, there are rules for a reason. The rules exist to keep things moving and to make sure everyone else can do their jobs too. Everyone knows that rules need to be broken sometimes. Flexibility allows for you to actually be a better manager.
• Rich are more likely to flout rules or cheat for making more money.
• Most entrepreneurs succeed by bending the rules. Where is the line between gall and fraud?
• The man driving powerful and expensive SUV is more likely to flout traffic rules than a driver of a compact sedan.
• In its modest form rule breaking might be healthy. The more one wins the greater the confidence boost, the bigger the risks and so on. But at a certain point, risk taking can become irrational, reckless & ruthless and could cause ethical numbing and results in self destruction.
• If your tribe downloads pirated music, sells dubious stocks or accept bribes, you are likely to go with the flow and cover up for the peers.
• Kids who cheat on the high school exams are three times as likely in adulthood to lie to a customer or inflate an insurance claim compared with non-cheaters.
• The real threat is the slippery slope that minor transgressions can snowball into cataclysmic ones. Imagine Bernie Madaoff  or Ramalinga Raju thinking, this just once. And eventually they just don't think about it. Rule breaking worsens over time. 
• It was like riding a tiger, not knowing how to get off without being eaten - Chairman of Satyam Computer Services B. Ramalinga Raju described his situation and referring to the widening gap between the real and artificial numbers in the company’s books.
• When people sign an ethics pledge at the beginning rather than at the end of job applications or tax forms - before there is an opportunity to cheat - they are significantly less likely to be dishonest.
• It is much easier to be a saint in theory than in practice. At the end of the day, you have to live with your conscience – and the law.

Every person learns at some point you don't know what you don't know.

If a million people do a wrong thing, it is still a wrong thing.

When you're the only sane person, you look like the only insane person.

Rules are framed for orderly behavior of society. Rule breakers, intentional or otherwise, must be penalized and punished to avoid chaos. Good people watch their actions continuously and regret any wrongdoings and avoid recurrences. Those who enjoy first violation of rules will commit bigger and end up as bad guys and when caught will face law, penalties & jail. Bending the rules seems to have heroism and fun but it ends up facing embarrassment sooner or later apart from character destruction. Never go with the flow of wrong doers who will get caught some day. People following rules all the times seldom ends up in wrongdoings. 

Life's most important question

• Everybody wants what feels good. Everyone wants to live a carefree, happy and easy life, to have amazing relationships, to look perfect and make money and be popular and well-respected and admired. It’s so ubiquitous that it doesn’t even mean anything.
• Everybody wants to have an amazing job and financial independence. But not everyone wants to suffer through 60-hour work weeks, long commutes, obnoxious paperwork. People want to be rich without the risk, without the sacrifice, without the delayed gratification necessary to accumulate wealth.
• Everybody wants to have awesome relationship. But not everyone is willing to go through the tough conversations, the awkward silences, the hurt feelings and the emotional psychodrama to get there.
• Happiness requires struggle. The positive is the side effect of handling the negative. Positive experience is easy to handle. It’s negative experience that we all struggle with. We get out of life is not determined by the good feelings we desire but by what bad feelings we’re willing and able to sustain to get us to those good feelings.
• People want an amazing physique. But you don’t end up with one unless you legitimately appreciate the pain and physical stress that comes with living inside a gym for hour upon hour, unless you love calculating and calibrating the food you eat, planning your life out in tiny plate-sized portions.
• People want to start their own business or become financially independent. But you don’t end up a successful entrepreneur unless you find a way to appreciate the risk, the uncertainty, the repeated failures, and working insane hours on something you have no idea whether will be successful or not.
• People want a partner, a spouse. But you don’t end up attracting someone amazing without appreciating the emotional turbulence that comes with weathering rejections. It’s part of the game of love. 
• What determines your success isn’t “What do you want to enjoy?” The question is, “What pain do you want to sustain?” The quality of your life is not determined by the quality of your positive experiences but the quality of your negative experiences. And to get good at dealing with negative experiences is to get good at dealing with life.
• If you find yourself wanting something month after month, year after year, yet nothing happens and you never come any closer to it, then maybe what you actually want is a fantasy, an idealization, an image and a false promise. Maybe what you want isn’t what you want, you just enjoy wanting. Maybe you don’t actually want it at all.
• You can’t have a pain-free life. It can’t all be roses and unicorns. And ultimately that’s the hard question that matters. Pleasure is an easy question. And pretty much all of us have similar answers. The more interesting question is the pain. What is the pain that you want to sustain?
• I wanted the reward and not the struggle. I wanted the result and not the process. I was in love not with the fight but only the victory. And life doesn’t work that way.
• Who you are is defined by the values you are willing to struggle for. People who enjoy the struggles of a gym are the ones who get in good shape. People who enjoy long workweeks and the politics of the corporate ladder are the ones who move up it. People who enjoy the stresses and uncertainty of the starving artist lifestyle are ultimately the ones who live it and make it.
• This is the most simple and basic component of life: our struggles determine our successes. So choose your struggles wisely.

No pain. No gain.
You can’t win if you don’t play.
God seldom gives us all we need to understand, 
but He always gives us all we need to obey

Ten life lessons to excel in 30's

30 second speech by Bryan Dyson

My View:

If one doesn't learn life's realities on his own, then adversity will teach him the lessons in a bitterest way. If you try to be cool, you will never be cool. If you try to be happy, then you will never be happy. Happiness is not something you obtain, but rather something you inhabit. Happiness is not achieved in itself, but rather it is the side effect of a particular set of ongoing life experiences. You can’t buy happiness and you can’t achieve happiness. Pleasure is great but it’s not happiness. Pleasure does not cause happiness. Happiness is what you get when other parts of your life are in order. 

What money can't buy?

Some of the things that money can't buy:

1. Respect
2. Work-life balance
3. Manners
4. Common sense
5. Integrity
6. Good friends
7. A worry-free day
8. Trust
9. An honest politician
10. Peace of mind
11. Patience
12. Luck
13. Time to relax
14. A strong work ethic
15. A positive attitude
16. A happy home
17. True love
18. Talent
19. Wisdom
20. Happiness
21. Humility
22. A good reputation
23. Relationship with your kids
24. Justice
25. Selflessness

.... and many more.

There are many people who aren’t well-off but yet they are honest, trustworthy and happy. They are respected for what they are & not for what they have.

It's good to have money and the things that money can buy, 

but it's good, too, to check up once in a while and make sure that 

you haven't lost the things that money can't buy ... George Lorimer