• ilinamorato@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    There are a lot of things that are unacceptable only if you’re poor. In fact, if a rich man hoarded a ton of old newspapers, he’d be called an “eccentric collector of vintage print media.” A rich woman with 150 cats would be a “dedicated feline rescue worker.”

    A poor guy with a car up on blocks and a stockpile of rifles at his mobile home is “trailer trash,” but put that car in a big garage and the guns in a case at a nice mansion and he’s a “hunter and tinkerer.” A poor farmer trying to stop a highway from being built through her field is “impeding progress,” but if it’s a rich woman’s family estate, she’s “fighting government overreach.” Rich, blithering racist idiots with clear signs of dementia get elected to the Presidency, while Uncle Cletus gets escorted out of the town council meeting and his family is handed a flyer for a memory care facility when he says the same things.

    Across the board, there’s stuff that’s normalized and accepted for the wealthy but dismissed and looked down on for the poor. It’s not just that hoarding the money is itself accepted, but also that someone who hoards money will find that all of their other antisocial and concerning behavior is also acceptable in the eyes of the public

    Money makes a very effective blindfold.

      • Ioughttamow@fedia.io
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        2 days ago

        Gil O’tean here. I specialize in helping the rapaciously greedy move on to the next stage. Relatively painless, compared to other options

        • urthoughtsrbad@lemmy.zip
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          2 days ago

          Sorry doctor, most people complaining here can’t use your services because they are afraid of losing their 600sqft apartment and 70hr work week.

          If only they didn’t have to risk their abject squalor, they would totally be lining up to use your services.

          They definitely aren’t feckless cowards talking big online.

  • WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    The difference is that the hoarder and cat lady don’t own fortune magazine, and entire propaganda networks to normalize their crimes.

  • MeatPilot@sh.itjust.works
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    2 days ago

    A cat lady, newspaper guy, and billionaire walk into a bar.

    The cat lady orders a bloody mary. The newspaper guy orders a beer. The billionaire orders an underage child.

    The bartender shoots him, everyone cheers.

  • matlag@sh.itjust.works
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    1 day ago

    Hoarding wealth makes you a superstar and gives you influence and power. And that’s what they’re all about: forcing everyone else to acknowledge their importance. And if that’s needed, they’ll demonstrate their power of nuisance so that you can’t ignore them.

  • GraniteM@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    I read a fun book once that proposed we should go off the gold standard and go onto the plutonium standard. Plutonium loses value as it decays, so you have incentive to spend it. If you keep it too long, you’re likely to get cancer, so, again, incentive to spend it. And if you collect too much of it all together in one place, it goes kablooey, so there’s one more factor limiting wealth hoarding.

    • teslekova@lemmy.ml
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      1 day ago

      The money is not secondary. The money is how they get away with it. It enables their every desire.

  • MousePotatoDoesStuff@piefed.social
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    2 days ago

    The hoarder is a bit concerning but ultimately harmless.

    The cat lady is an animal welfare concern. But if she’s genuinely trying to take good care of cats, she might be rehabilitated as a shelter worker.

    The last one is probably beyond redemption, if they would even accept it.

  • Klear@piefed.world
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    2 days ago

    I could never understand this money-hoarding mindset. You could buy so many newspapers with all that!

  • A_norny_mousse@piefed.zip
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    2 days ago

    Been saying the same for a long time.

    One small correction though: it’s not cash they’re hoarding - it’s wealth, both material and immaterial.

  • altphoto@lemmy.today
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    2 days ago

    Good idea. Maybe we get to 2 million and then we just jump to infinity and assume they have enough money to pay for anything they want. The money just magically appears. That way they don’t have to worry about making more than 3 million dollars. Plus it means that anyone who makes 3 million dollars can compete with the others, thus making it fair.

  • urthoughtsrbad@lemmy.zip
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    2 days ago

    What do you call the mental disorder where everyone is ruled by cannibal pedos but don’t do anything about it, they just let them rule the world and watch on the sideline talking angrily as these awful people fuck everything up right in front of them.

    Cucks?

    • balsoft@lemmy.ml
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      2 days ago

      Yes, you are right, money hoarders are much worse than useless shit hoarders. Useless shit hoarders only hurt themselves and maybe their family. Money hoarders hurt literally everyone in the society, including (ultimately) themselves. They are different (though related) mental health issues which need to be addressed differently.

    • krashmo@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      You’d call me crazy if I stuffed my house full of gasoline or batteries. It wouldn’t matter if I called them “universal energy storage”.

      • dontbelievethis@sh.itjust.works
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        2 days ago

        Doesn’t matter. Hoarding money and hoarding newspaper isn’t the same. Because as long as we live in capitalism money gets you everything, while newspapers don’t.

          • dontbelievethis@sh.itjust.works
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            2 days ago

            It doesn’t matter in relation to my comment.

            Hoarding something that is more useful the more you have, makes more sense then hoarding something that isn’t more useful the more you have.

            Mental disorder or not.

            • atomicbocks@sh.itjust.works
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              2 days ago

              Billions of dollars isn’t useful. They can’t possibly spend all their money in their lifetime even buying megayachts and shit.

              • dontbelievethis@sh.itjust.works
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                2 days ago

                Completely flawed logic.

                Just because you can’t spent all in your lifetime doesn’t mean it’s useless in your lifetime.

                They spent the money to shape the world in their image. They don’t have to stress about food or shelter, and so on and so on.

                How is that not useful?

                • Daftydux@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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                  2 days ago

                  Omg thats exactly what is horrendous. How can society exist peacefully if its always contorting itself to some hoarders will?