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dysphemistic treadmill's avatar

Great essay, and fun to read.

Years ago I was a poor grad student at Rich Ivy, where we TAs knew that we were merely the hired help for the *real* students, the undergrads. Before my TA session started one day, I overheard one of my charges-- an obvious rich kid from generations of wealth -- say with casual languor a line he had clearly heard from his ancestors: "well, some people work for their money, and some people's money works for them." His understated smugness made it clear which kind he was.

He was talking about capital. About having so much wealth that the return on your investments pays out a steady stream of interest big enough to support you, big enough to satisfy all of your desires. The money that most people earn by working a job, some rich people receive just by watching the interest roll in.

There was another undergrad in the class, a young striver from a different background, who had no idea what he had just heard. "What do you mean, their money works for them? What does that mean?" For him (as for me), money was the thing that's gone as soon as you get it, the thing that never piles up because you already owe it in arrears, the thing that recedes as you chase it, always vanishing in front of you when the car breaks or you chip a tooth.

I had been around wealthy people long enough to understand what I had heard, but I also understood the other kid's incomprehension. How can you have so much money that it just sits there paying you a salary? How can you have so much that you'll never have to work again?

Sorry to go on like this. You said it better here:

"People say they want to be rich. I think what they really want is to be free."

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Jess's avatar

Dr. Cottom, thank you for this beautiful examination of money and what it means to you. I come from poor-to-working-class white people in southern Appalachia and (somehow) I married a fifth-generation New York Jew who has rarely if ever worried about money — the same worry that has defined much of my life. Our cultural understandings of money and what to do with it has long been a topic between us, and it impacts everything from what we eat to how we parent to where we donate. But then, I thought “investment vehicles” meant fancy cars, so I clearly have a way to go.

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