Comments
by Delphi..
An Open Letter:
To Oprah Winfrey, Paul McCartney,
Bill Gates, Steven Spielberg,
or Anyone Else Worth Over
$100 Million
You wouldn't think this is
true, but it's easier to be penniless than to be working poor. When you
have no money at all, you're never in any doubt about the state of your
finances. You really don't care about your credit rating because you're
much more interested in how you're going to eat today. Not tomorrow, because
tomorrow isn't here yet. Just today. And you never go into a restaurant
and spend the eight dollars someone gave you on a pizza. You go to the
grocery store and buy one of those big cheap bags of bread and a huge jar
of peanut butter. Neither or those requires refrigeration, and you can
eat them for quite a while, even if, as in my case, you hate peanut butter.
Once you have a job, you
also have things like rent and electric bills. After the novelty of getting
a paycheck wears off, you realize how very tired you are of figuring out
which bill to pay this time. Suddenly you aren't eligible for food stamps,
even though you don't make enough money to house yourself and feed yourself
and keep ahead of your bills. And forget having an emergency. There's no
margin at all for an emergency.
But the funny thing is, you
add up all the bills you're behind on, and you say, "Two thousand dollars?
How am I going to come up with two thousand dollars?" Meanwhile, we avidly
watch entire networks devoted to totaling up how much this celebrity or
that one spent on a single garment. If you're paying attention, you have
this surreal moment where you think, "The money that person just spent
on curtains would catch me up on all my bills and keep me ahead for several
more months."
Not that I'm knocking the
accomplishments of the folk I mentioned in the title. One of them managed
to convince almost the entire world they need a particular product, and
that, I imagine, could be classed as a kind of genius. One was involved
in changing musical and cultural history forever. One has produced stories
for us that in some cases, got us out of our mundane lives for a while,
and in other cases, irrevocably altered the way we view the world. And
one took
a run-of-the-mill talk show
and turned it into a tool that she could use on her own terms to change
the world, often for the better. So I'm not knocking them at all.
It's just a question of degree.
I could live quite happily for the rest of my life on a million dollars,
without even investing any of it. Even if I paid half of it in taxes, simple
interest on the remainder would amount to more than my current yearly salary.
Oprah, on the other hand, valued at $500 million, would hardly miss one
of them. So I was just wondering of any of these people would like to be
involved in a little re-distribution of wealth. I promise I won't sell
my story to anybody, so that whoever my benefactor is won't be deluged
with similar requests. I'd even be willing to name my first child or next
pet after them. Skip the middleman, celebreties. Make a real difference
in someone's life. |
 
 
Hey,
we know!
.
Allegedly
Art's
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Crazy
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Dept.
Of Huh?
Eye2Eye
Fool4Love
Full
Disclosure
Get
Over It
Homoerrectus
New
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& Herd
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|
