Originally posted by samhain
I think I'd find it easier to gather a fortune from any position of power I found myself in than I would trying to become more influential by using money from a lottery win for example.
That's because lottery money is "small change" by power broker standards.
If you can turn those winnings into a perpetual revenue machine for the right people/groups, that's how you gather power.
I'd want want money. You might not have influence over as many people with money as you would holding something like a high level executive position within the US government, but money gives you a much more direct and extensive level of control over those you do hold influence over. So if I have to choose between Bill Gate's fortune and the position of POTUS, I'm picking the fortune every time. I'd buy an Island, buy 1,000 or so families from a few poor countries, and live the rest of my life like a God King in a palace with a few dozen concubines. I mean how much more power does one really need?
There's the old cliche that money can't buy you happiness, which is true to an extent. However, the more money you have, the more freedom of choice you can afford.
Think of how much money we make each year, and how much of that is spent just on necessities, like housing, food, utilities, transportation, medicine, and medical care. Most people can barely afford to survive, nevermind pursue their passions in life or travel.
Also, think of how much of our lives we spend in school, going to work, and everything in between. People always say that time is money, but I see it the other way around. With enough money, you can do pretty much whatever you want, when you want to do it. That certainly is much more appealing than working our lives away at mundane 40-hour+/week jobs, or careers that don't quite live up to what we expected them to be.
Originally posted by cdtm
That's because lottery money is "small change" by power broker standards.If you can turn those winnings into a perpetual revenue machine for the right people/groups, that's how you gather power.
I just used lottery win as a simple way to explain a sudden windfall of millions. The real point I was trying to make is that it's harder nowadays to convert a sudden windfall into power as the establishment has this old money/new money thing going on now.