There are people who dislike the rich, especially the very rich; the "1%". I am not either one of these. I was destined never to be rich. I do not have the drive, the ambition, the discipline it requires to achieve that much. In fact, I am lazy and like to float along on the river of life, admiring the view and grabbing the low hanging fruit as I pass along the way to whatever is at the end... hoping it isn't a rock-filled waterfall that follows some nasty rapids. But I admire ambition and I harbor no animosity even for those born into wealth... because their fathers or grandfathers had that ambition, that drive, and even the sons and grandsons (and daughters and granddaughters) probably inherited that gene.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/18160586
Today we see what the very rich can do for us. A billionaire with a dream of space has successfully launched the first commercial space "supply" ship. At one time, we thought only government has the funds, the resources, to explore space. If this flight is successful, it will encourage more commercial investment in space travel.
I see this as a Good Thing.
Now, this billionaire didn't do this alone. He created a company and hired engineers and many others who did the work needed to design, build, and launch this space vehicle.
He did it because he believed in space travel. And he could do it because he is very rich, a billionaire.
2 comments:
I begrudge the rich nothing. But I do not enjoy being ruled by them, when they've no concept of the working class.
I once worked as an assistant to the CEO of a large company who asked me, in all seriousness, to help him with a budget for his daughter, a straight-C student, for her first year at a very good college. He wanted to give her $400 a month for groceries, $300 for her hair. He was utterly shocked when I told him that my 12 year-old son and I spent $40 a week on groceries and that, in my opinion, an 18 year-old did not need to have her hair done every month and certainly not at those prices.
I didn't last long there. ;-)
Pearl
Why would you expect the rich to understand what it is like to not be rich? Do you understand what it is like to be that lady you wrote about the other day? The one who refused the hot dog and the money? You can imagine but you cannot know. You no more understood his life or his daughter's life than he understood yours.
I'm sorry, Pearl, I have never been "ruled" by anyone, not even when I was in the Navy. I obeyed orders because I chose to, because I had committed myself (taken an oath) to do so. You can be sure the brass had no idea what it was like to be one of the enlisted men. Not that I had any idea what it was like to be a high ranking officer. I figured that made us even.
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