Not Funny But Cool – Money – Stories

Rich People Problems
20. When you put your Bar Mitzvah money into stocks 10 years ago and can only afford a Bentley.
19. You are torn between Gstaad or Aspen for vacation so you just book both trips.
18. When daddy makes you decide between first class and private.
17. Having a dinner at Masa and forgetting to post it on Instagram.
16. Having to hire a maid that spends more time in one of your homes than your entire family does.
15. Needing to hire a nanny because being a stay at home mom is too stressful.
14. When you use Daddy’s credit card to buy something and they ask for ID.
13. Going to a basketball game and not understanding what’s going on because you’re too busy ordering vodka and taking courtside selfies.
12. When you realize that you are still waiting for all your custom furniture to arrive from Italy.
11. You had a golf membership since you were born, but you still can’t go a game without losing 20 balls.
10. You go to the Dominican Republic and feel like Justin Bieber because all the women beckon for your US passport.
9. When you cried on your 16th birthday because you only got a Mercedes Benz or BMW.
8. The moment you realize your parents are disappointed in you for twerking after all the years of being forced to go to watch orchestras in Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall.
7. Having to order breakfast because your maid isn’t around to prepare a meal for you.
6. Being at a banquet where they’re passing more caviar than cocaine.
5. When you can’t function during the day because Starbucks forgot to put the foam on your triple machiatto.
4. The moment your parents find your Instagram of you smoking weed at boarding school in Switzerland.
3. Running on the cobble stone streets of meatpacking to meet your promoter in front of SL and your new Christian Louboutin heel breaks.
2. It’s spring and you realize you need to go on your binge & purge cocaine diet to get ready for the the Hamptons and St. Tropez.
1. The moment you don’t notify Amex that you’re traveling and they freeze your card at the club.
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Science Explains Why The Rich Are Calling Everyone Nazis
It turns out F. Scott Fitzgerald was right about the very rich: Science confirms that they really are different from you and me.

That difference has been on uncomfortable display lately, with billionaires declaring themselves an oppressed but superheroic minority “being pummeled” and “picked on,” despite their incomes having grown exponentially over the past few decades, leaving the rest of us far behind.

Dacher Keltner, a psychology professor at the University of California-Berkeley, is not surprised by these rich-guy outbursts, which have included offensive comparisons to Nazi persecution. His research shows that large gobs of money often make people drift away from the reality the rest of us know. So if some of those millionaires and billionaires seem to be completely out-of-touch rich guys lacking sympathy for their fellow man, that’s because they are.

“Extreme wealth in our lab makes people less compassionate, they care less about the suffering of others, they’re less empathetic,” he told the Huffington Post in an interview. “They tend to think that they have their tons of money because they have a stronger genetic profile. You put that together, and you get jackasses.”

Studies by Keltner and others have shown that rich people are less likely to share money with a partner or feel empathy for starving children. They are more likely to take candy from a baby.

Being rich re-wires your brain and your environment in such a way that it’s easy to feel entitled to your money and harder to understand why other people don’t have it, Keltner said.

There are a few ways this happens, according to Keltner. For one, billionaires’ extreme wealth allow them to be “psychologically insulated” from the realities of being poor, Keltner said. They “couldn’t even imagine what it would be like to earn $35,000” and worry about things like paying bills or taking a long ride on public transportation to work or to pick up your kids.

That may explain why billionaire Wilbur Ross said earlier this month that rising from “the ghetto” to his position making billions dismantling companies is as easy as getting some education. (Ross didn’t mention it, but it probably helped that he was lucky enough to grow up in suburban New Jersey, the son of a lawyer and a schoolteacher).

The realities of being super-rich also mean that the wealthy tend to be socially isolated, keeping them a safe distance from how the other half lives, Keltner said. Take Napster co-founder Sean Parker, who went on a rant just the other day comparing tech blog ValleyWag to attack dogs for Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels. What earned ValleyWag that distinction in Parker’s eyes? They had the audacity to write about how Parker may have caused “a total clusterfuck” for everyone else trying to live and walk on a Manhattan street, just so he could have Verizon FiOS installed in a $20 million apartment he no longer occupies.

“You go from country club to limousine to charity events in your tux,” Keltner said. “That circumstance allows for no window into the other parts of society.”

This combination of psychological and social isolation adds up in many cases to make rich people “believe more in the genetic basis of class categories,” Keltner said.

“If you walk around with that belief, and someone says, ‘Well, gosh, what do you think about the poor people?’ in your mind you’re thinking that’s kind of where they belong,” Keltner said. “There’s no opportunity for change, and they’re a menace to society.”

But how do these out-of-touch sentiments make their way from inside a rich person’s brain to the op-ed pages of newspapers and the television airwaves? Is there nobody to stop these rich people from making themselves look ridiculous? Actually, no, according to Keltner: Many of the super-rich surround themselves with crews of sycophants. For evidence, look no further than this recent Buzzfeed profile of that Platonic ideal of an out-of-touch rich man, Donald Trump, whose “yes-men scramble to please.”

“One of the things that we’re learning is that really wealthy powerful people make their underlings less challenging, so no one is standing up to that guy,” Keltner said. “You don’t get the challenges that keep you honest.”
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You Know You're Super Rich When...

image001We know the super rich live completely different than we do, which got us thinking … how do you know when you’re SUPER RICH? From the largest home in America to Ferraris worth millions, “Secret Lives” has seen it all and “The Secret Lives” team has come up with a list of our top 10 favorites

10. You have a luxury shower … just for your dog
image002It’s a must have for super rich pet owners who want to pamper their pooch: a custom built doggy shower. From California to New York, the super rich are installing these in their mega-homes so their four-legged friends can be bathed in style. The canine shower can even be customized to the exact height of the lucky pooch. We found this high-end dog shower in a mansion in Alpine, N.J., known as “Stone Mansion.” What else did we find in Stone Mansion? See No. 7 in our countdown.

9. Your mega-mansion comes complete with a 24-car garage
image003Only our cameras were allowed inside a super-secret mega-mansion in Los Angeles. It is so exclusive we could not share the street name or neighborhood where the home is located. The owner’s representative tells us he wouldn’t part with it for less than $150 million. The hill-top property includes five buildings, 28 bedrooms, 36 bathrooms, a hair salon and this 24-car garage. Check out our No. 3 to see what else we found in this mega-mansion.

8. You’re building an exact replica of the Titanic
image004Australian billionaire Clive Palmer says he is building a full-size replice of the Titanic, he calls it Titanic II. He’s not saying how much he’ll spend, but based on the size and amenities, CNBC Wealth Editor Robert Frank estimates it has to cost at least $600 million to build such an enormous ship. Our cameras were at the press conference when Palmer announced he’s had 16 people offer to pay between $750,000 and a million dollars to get on board the maiden voyage. And for the lucky few who set sail on Titanic II, Palmer said the ticket price includes period costumes.

7. The moldings in your home are painted in 18-karat gold
image005This mega-mansion is located in one of the wealthiest ZIP codes in America, 07620, Alpine, N.J. The super home has it all and then some, 12 bedrooms, four kitchens, 19 bathrooms and one doggy shower. Known as “Stone Mansion,” the owner told us the stone on the façade alone is worth more than $4 million. As for the interior, he said he spared no expense, painting the mansion’s moldings in a super-rich shade of 18-karat gold.

6. When the apocalypse comes, you’ll be safe in your own luxury survival bunker
image006The wealthy have homes for skiing and sunbathing, but we also found some of the super rich have homes for the end of the world. In a secret location in Kansas, decommissioned missile silos are being turned into luxury condominium-bunkers—so the super rich can survive the apocalypse in style. But safety comes at a price. Developer Larry Hall tells us that full floor units are $3 million and half floor units are $1.5 million.

5. You have a million-dollar taxidermy collection in your Central Park West apartment
image007No, this collection is not in a Montana cabin, it’s actually located at one of New York’s most exclusive addresses on Central Park West. Our “Secret Lives” cameras got an exclusive tour with Gregory Speck, the collection’s owner. Speck told us he’s been collecting taxidermy for years and he now has almost 500 animals. He estimates the current value of his collection of dead animals at more than $1 million. Not a hunter, Speck told us his unusual collection has come from a variety of places—including a country-western disco and even … road kill.

4. Your idea of listening to music is inviting a famous concert pianist to perform just for you
image008Why travel to a concert when you can bring the concert to you? We found some of the super rich do just that. Lois Pope owns this home outside of Aspen, Colo., and she invited concert pianist Lola Astanova to play on her living room piano. Pope is the widow of the founder of The National Enquirer. “Secret Lives” witnessed an impromptu performance while touring Pope’s mega ski home, currently on the market for $31.5 million.

3. You own a really expensive, one-of-a-kind carpet … that comes with a copyright
image009When you think of a copyright, the last thing that may come to mind is your bedroom carpet, but that’s exactly what one super-rich homeowner in Los Angeles thought of when he was furnishing his mega-mansion. Designer to the super rich, Sue Firestone, told us there is a copyright on this master-bedroom carpet to make sure the owner remains the only person on the planet with the one-of-kind design.

2. Your idea of party decoration is chopping down hundreds of white birch trees and hanging them from the ceiling
image010Known only among the super rich, David Monn is THE ultimate event planner. Unless you have an invite to one of his super-VIP parties, our exclusive access is the only way you will ever see one of his extravagant productions. We cannot reveal the exact location of this mega-event or what was being celebrated, but we can tell you Monn’s team brought in hundreds of white birch trees and literally hung them from the ceiling to create what Monn calls, “an upside down forest.”

1. Our No. 1 “you know you’re super rich when” moment: You have no idea how miserable commuting to work is because you drive to work in a shiny, gold Lamborghini
image011“I drive it daily. And I have a blast with it,” said Brett David.
David is the boy wonder of super cars. He owns the No.1 Lamborghini dealer in the country and at just 26 years old, he’s already sold more than $1 billion in cars. This gold-plated Lambo is the car he commutes to work in. David told CNBC his $500,000 Lamborghini that’s wrapped in gold helps with marketing.
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Luxury Car Covered In Real Gold Is The Definition Of 'Stupid Rich'
Someone at German car-tuning firm Carlsson must have been listening to Trinidad James while working on the Mercedes-Benz S-Class CS50 Versailles, because this car is the embodiment of “all gold everything.”
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That’s right, the souped-up CS50 Versailles is covered in real gold, both inside and out. Carlsson, which specializes in customizing Mercedes-Benz vehicles, used more than 1,000 sheets of gold leaf to adorn the car’s exterior. In addition, almost $16,500 worth of the shiny stuff coats the CS50 Versailles’ interior, adorning various buttons, knobs and air vents.
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Carlsson plans to make available only 25 of these swanky models, and former customers have already claimed “more than 10″ of those, according to the company.
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Though Carlsson did not tell us how much the golden car sells for, we have a feeling that if you have to ask, then you probably can’t afford it.
If you do find yourself the titleholder of a CS50 Versailles, know that this means it’s now entirely possible to get out of your gold car, wearing your gold Rolex, while talking on your gold iPhone, as you walk into Serendipity 3 to eat your gold ice cream sundae. Ah, the high life.
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