Shocking Quotes: The Astonishingly Tone-Deaf Comments from the Wealthy Elite
Have you ever hear the one about a guy getting a free house but being grumpy because it didn’t come with a pool? It’s like, what’s the world coming to when a free mansion isn’t good enough? This actually happened, and it sets the stage for some of the most out-of-touch things wealthy people have ever said, which we’ve gathered here for you!
The question that begs asking is, when did free turn into not quite enough? Here we’ll dive into a collection of stories that highlight the sometimes bizarre, often hilarious, and always enlightening disconnect between the rich and … well, the not-so-rich. These anecdotes not only give us a chuckle but also pose some serious food for thought about wealth, empathy, and the vast divide in our lived experiences.
Are these tales of entitlement just silly quirks of the rich, or are they indicative of a larger problem in our society where understanding and compassion seem to be priced out of reach for some? Take a look at these real-life scenarios and decide for yourself:
A boyfriend of a former friend of mine was angry because his grandmother had bought him a house of his own but it didn’t have a pool. She seemed to agree and think it was unfair. I can’t even comprehend being that picky about just being given a no-strings attached house.
When I worked at a hospital, one of our technicians went home after their shift ended but left themselves logged into Amazon on the computer at work. This technician was a huge fan of the Boston Red Sox, like a legit superfan. One of the surgeons thought it’d be funny to order a bunch of NY Yankees stuff on their Amazon account. I thought it was a funny idea too at first. Turns out, the surgeon spent over $250 on the Yankee stuff. This technician was probably only making $9 an hour, so that’s a massive amount of money to them. When I told the surgeon they definitely went overboard, he smirked and said, “It was only a couple hundred bucks.”
Being a surgeon myself who grew up with no money, I uploaded $500 into the tech’s Amazon account so that we could still enjoy the joke without ruining this guy’s financial life.
My rich aunt was pretty wealthy, but then she married a man who was wealthy to a much higher degree. MUCH higher degree. They were married for about 15 years and had a good life, but he was older and passed away. Apparently his nurse made changes to the will in the last few months of his life and it left much less to my aunt than she was prepared for.
I remember her crying to my dad on the phone and saying, “How am I supposed to live on only $2 million a year?!?!”
Meanwhile, my family are teachers.
Understanding what ‘regular’ people worry about means that you have to interact with individuals from all walks of life, not just the folks who go to the same country club as you do. Genuine empathy starts with being open-minded and actively listening to someone instead of making assumptions about the challenges they face.
Now, that’s not to say that rich people don’t have anything to worry about. Far from it. A major source of anxiety is worrying that you might lose your wealth… especially if you’ve worked hard to earn it. Bad investments, global market shakeups, and risky business ventures can make generational wealth evaporate fairly quickly.
In short, instead of being wasteful, it’s helpful to be grateful for what you have and to recognize the opportunities you’ve been given that others might not have access to. Wealth also brings with it the means to genuinely change the world for the better through business or charity ventures. And a good rule of thumb is to always live below your means and to spend less than you earn, no matter how much you have in the bank or trust fund.
A very wealthy longtime Episcopal church member stood up at “the annual parish meeting” and spoke her mind after the Rector announced an $11 million capital funds drive to take place over 3 years.
She said, for all to hear: “I don’t come to church to hear about miscellaneous matters that detract from our focus on worship. I’ll simply give you a check for the amount and let’s move on with it.”.
