I read a article about families who had old money and lost it all bad investments, over spending etc.
The one family that stood out was the Vanderbilts. When Cornelius Vanderbilt died in 1877 he was
worth over 100 million dollars. Can you just imagine what that would equivalent to now? The generations
have spent the money and sold off all his investments and properties. Greedy fuckers!!! lol
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Peter, from an intellectual vantage-point, you have raised a very interesting question. I believe that many of the answers to the questions you are raising can be found in Thorstein Veblen's 1899 essays, collectively entitled,
The Theory of the Leisure Class. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Theory_of_the_Leisure_Class
I suppose the argument goes something, like this:
*Old money comes, always, from
somewhere. In old Europe, it came from medieval pillage and conquest; in North America, it came from (of course pillage and conquest of the Native peoples): but also innovation, entrepreneurship, and (of course) LUCK. The point being, simply - "old money" (even hereditary titles, so revered in the U.K. and some parts of Europe) was once NEW.
*The first generation or three (sometimes JUST the first) of families who have the ambition and ruthlessness to acquire land and wealth (on the old European model, which was based upon martial prowess and service to the sovereign); or the genius and drive to devise innovations, and make wealth from them (as has been the pattern in the U.S., the U.K., Germany, and other such countries, since the Industrial Revolution); will work hard to maintain and INCREASE these holdings.
*But, heredity has very little to do with talent, skill, ambition, or energy. And those who are born into a life of mastery and ease - unlike their unseemly, striving, ancestors (striving, or exceeding one's class, is a quality
so despised in class-ridden societies, like the U.K. used to be, I suppose) - seek very quickly to "fit in" with other members of their social class, and
spend their money, with STYLE.
*SPENDING money in a graceful fashion is, at any rate, Peter - a lot more fun than EARNING IT. (Or, for that matter, stealing it, or killing for it, either!) So, the better cadres of the latter generations of great families, like the Rockefellers, and the Mellons, who lack the talent for MAKING money. . . dedicate themselves to spending it, in the interest of good causes. (Actually, I have no quarrel, with this.)
*The more FECKLESS troupes blessed with these historic names just wine, and dine, and gamble on the Riviera, until the money runs out. And who can blame them? They have no skills, they have no ambition: they are simply well-educated and enculturated hedonists. So, they do what they do, until the cash RUNS OUT. Like hamsters in a
Cage Kafig - they run the wheel, until there is NO MORE CHEESE.
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But, Peter, don't cry for Anderson Cooper - he's a Vanderbilt - at least regarding money. (He has had, sadly, a tragic life owing to the suicide of his brother.) But he isn't wanting, for his next dinner at
Le Cirque. . . .
"A" ;-))) XOXOXOXOXO
*"Money, Money, Money" ~ ABBA:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSvlyVjl4u4
