People who say they "Don't care about money"

A recent example is the Clinton's daughter:

Chelsea Clinton: I tried to care about money but couldn't

The daughter of former President Bill Clinton and ex-secretary of state Hillary Clinton explained in a recent interview why she left lucrative professions and opted for working with her family’s philanthropic foundation. ‘I was curious if I could care about (money) on some fundamental level, and I couldn’t,’ she said.

[...]

Comparing her experience to the average millennial, the 34-year-old former first daughter defended jumping around to different careers — from consulting to a hedge fund to academia to journalism — before finding her true calling working with her parents.

“It is frustrating, because who wants to grow up and follow their parents? I’ve tried really hard to care about things that were very different from my parents … it’s a funny thing to realize I feel called to this work, both as a daughter and also as someone who believes I have contributions to make,” she continued about her reluctant status as a boomerang kid.

The Clinton name likely opened doors for the political heiress, including an eye-popping $600,000 annual salary for an irregular stint as an NBC special correspondent, but Chelsea insists her work speaks for itself.

“I will just always work harder (than anybody else) and hopefully perform better,” said Clinton, who along with former banker husband Marc Mezvinsky, purchased a $10.5-million Gramercy Park apartment in 2013. [...]

Didn't her parents spend $3,000,000 on her wedding? I wouldn't be surprised if she has a trust fund, too. I doubt she ever has to worry about becoming homeless.

Given that she has more than enough to live comfortably, perhaps what she means is, she doesn't wish to work hard trying to earn more, because she already has enough? That she doesn't care about striving for more cash?

That would be understandable. But it's not quite the same as not caring about money. It's not like she's giving it all away, and becoming a renunciant with a begging bowl or anything. In fact, I find that people in her income class usually do care, and take steps to hang on to their money. Her parents have:

Wealthy Clintons use trusts to avoid full estate tax they back

Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton have long supported an estate tax to prevent the United States from being dominated by inherited wealth. That doesn't mean they want to pay it.

To reduce the tax pinch, the Clintons are using financial planning strategies befitting the top 1 percent of U.S. households in wealth. These moves, common among multimillionaires, will help shield some of their estate from the tax that now tops out at 40 percent of assets upon death.

The Clintons created residence trusts in 2010 and shifted ownership of their New York house into them in 2011, according to federal financial disclosures and property records.

Among the tax advantages of such trusts is that any appreciation in the house's value can happen outside their taxable estate. The move could save the Clintons hundreds of thousands of dollars in estate taxes, said David Scott Sloan, a partner at Holland & Knight L.L.P. in Boston.

"The goal is really be thoughtful and try to build up the nontaxable estate, and that's really what this is," Sloan said. "You're creating things that are going to be on the nontaxable side of the balance sheet when they die." [...]

All this posturing about not caring about money is easy when you have more than you could ever need, but IMO it rings hollow to someone whose annual income is only $11,000 a year. At that level, you HAVE TO CARE, and you know it, if you are reasonably smart and don't wish to be living in the streets.

I'm not envious of people for having wealth; who doesn't want to be better off than they are? That is perfectly natural, and I'm glad for people who manage to do it, because I want to be better off too. But it does grate when those who have so much more talk about being "broke" when they never were, like Hillary does, or not caring about money, like her daughter. Couldn't they be more honest? And shouldn't we insist that they are? Especially if they involve themselves in making laws about what is to be done with OUR money?

   

The Government's incentives to see you dead

When you die, they will be able to take 55% of your wealth via the death tax. And they will also save money by not having to pay you social security and medicare. From their point of view, they're better off if you're dead:

Death *OR* Taxes?

[...] And what of those of us who live to see the dawn of the brave new year? Do I need to point out that, with the coming healthcare rationing and the 55% death tax, the government has both the means and motivation to kill off its aging people? Many thanks, citizen, for your years of productive service! Now please die so we can take your stuff to pay off our cronies.

Am I starting to sound like a kooky alarmist? Yes, maybe a bit. It takes a leap to imagine we’ll get to the point of an actual “Soylent Green” policy. No, I don’t believe our government is actively planning to kill us. But you can see that the government has growing reason to kill us. The power, the motive, the opportunity… this is the sort of temptation you do not want to have in anyone’s hands. Would you trust a stranger to be your sole caretaker when you’re critically ill? What if that stranger would collect most of your financial assets if you were to die? And what if that stranger were a spendaholic, deeply in debt, and facing financial catastrophe if he can’t get his hands on a big pot of money?

Are you starting to get uncomfortable? I sure am! [...]

The government that gives you everything can also take it away. And now they have a motive to do the latter. How's that for Change You Can Believe In?


Also see:

The Deadly Impact of the Death Tax

With Timing of Death, Steinbrenner Family Won't Pay Estate Tax