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posted by martyb on Monday October 19 2015, @11:27AM   Printer-friendly
from the can't-buy-me-love dept.

In recent years, members of the 1% have been singled out by protesters seeking to highlight the growing disparity between rich and poor. Now Jana Kasperkevic writes in The Guardian that it can be very stressful to be rich. “It’s really isolating to have a lot of money. It can be scary – people’s reaction to you,” says Barbara Nusbaum, an expert in money psychology. "There is a fair amount of isolation if you are wealthy."

According to Clay Cockrell, who provides therapy for the rich, this means the rich tend to hang out with other rich poeple, not out of snobbery, but in order to be around those who understand them and their problems. One big problem is not knowing if your friends are friends with you or your money. “Someone else who is also a billionaire — they don’t want anything from you! Never being able to trust your friendships with people of different means, I think that is difficult,” says Cockrell. “As the gap has widened, they [the rich] have become more and more isolated.”

Cockrell says that a common mistake that many of the his wealthy clients make is letting their money define them. “I don’t think it’s healthy to discount your problems. If you are part of the 1%, you still have problems and they are legitimate to you. Even when you say: ‘I don’t have to struggle for money’, there are other parts of your life. Money is not the only thing that defines you. Your problems are legitimate.” To avoid problems, some Americans have taken to keeping their wealth secret. “We talk about it as stealth wealth," says Jamie Traeger-Muney. "There are a lot of people that are hiding their wealth because they are concerned about negative judgment."


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  • (Score: 2) by Thexalon on Monday October 19 2015, @06:57PM

    by Thexalon (636) on Monday October 19 2015, @06:57PM (#251945)

    I think you misread it: Working-class means not necessarily knowing how you're going to make rent (especially if there's an unexpected expense such as a traffic ticket). Middle-class means a 3-5 month outlook. Which is, I completely agree, not good, but a heck of a lot better off than the working class is.

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  • (Score: 2) by Mr Big in the Pants on Monday October 19 2015, @11:00PM

    by Mr Big in the Pants (4956) on Monday October 19 2015, @11:00PM (#252092)

    " If you are really impoverished, you can really only plan ahead about 1 meal, because your brain is so focused on that it can't really think about anything else. If you are working-class, you are generally planning ahead until the next paycheck, so up to 2 weeks, because you know where your next meal is coming from but possibly not where next months' rent is coming from"

    I did not misread it but on rereading it I see you are confused with where you use the word middle class.

    As a side not" the new term for people who are working but have trouble paying the bills etc are called the "working poor"

    It neo-con wage slavery taken to its obvious end game whereby the working class are the optimal slaves that must pay for their own upkeep while having little to no power or self determination.

    From what I can see the US is almost there...