Then there’s the whole Paris Hilton uproar – although I hate star gossip, Paris was sort of hard to miss this week.
And then earlier this week I heard a great piece on NPR’s “Talk of the Nation.” The program interviewed Robert Frank, a Wall Street Journal columnist who has written a book called “Richistan.” In the book, he writes about the uber rich as though they lived in a foreign place. Well, it’s certainly foreign to me.
Having Hermansky-Pudlak Syndrome (HPS) has given me a whole different outlook on things like money.
I used to think that if you worked really hard, you could become rich, or at least get to stage where money wasn’t an ever present worry. I know better now. Because I can’t drive, I ride a bus to work every morning with the people who clean our hospitals, work at our McDonalds, and mow our yards. They’re some of the hardest working people you could ever want to meet. One woman I talk to every morning rides the bus two hours each way to get to her job. And, it’s not her only job. There are millions of people who work extremely hard in this country and have nothing to show for it.
I used to dream about big houses and traveling. Now I dream about having a life not ruled by my health insurance, or winning a grant for the Network that would take the stress off of things like putting the conference together.
In the NPR interview, Mr. Frank said that most of the new ultra rich had a major event in their life that landed them a nice big chunk of change. Typically, they were entrepreneurs who had started their own companies and then sold them. I wonder how many of them have chronic health conditions?
How many of them, without existing family wealth, were able to take that sort of risk and not feel as though they were putting their very life, literally, on the line to do it? How much talent is being wasted in America because people with chronic health conditions are teathered to their health insurance policies? (If they have insurance, that is.)
It can be easy to hate the uber rich. Many of them, however, worked hard to create their fortunes and are now reaping the rewards.
I’m not a total communist. I got to visit places like the Soviet Union, East Germany and Hungary before the Berlin Wall came tumbling down.
It’s the expectation that you might be able to do better than you’re doing now that keeps our country going.
And hey, I wish that I could just rub elbows with these people. Just one of them could be the one that would be able to project us towards our cure.
But, perhaps that’s the very reason that I can’t watch those TV shows where uber rich stars show off their toys (you know, the ones I used to dream about having), or reality shows where cameras follow around uber rich kids to record their lives and antics.
During the Frank interview I thought to myself that I really should read his book. Perhaps it would give me insight into what makes the wealthy of the wealthy tick? It seemed as though that might be useful to know should I ever have the opportunity to impose upon their generosity for grants. And then Frank told a story about the “hottest watch” among the rich of the rich. It’s a watch that can’t even actually tell time, but it starts at $20,000.
My stomach churned. We could pay for half of the HPS Conference with just one of those watches. It would more than cover the $12,000 a year bill for phone translation for the Network office. Think how many medical meetings we could attend with a budget of $20,000 and how many researchers and doctors we could educate about HPS that way?
I guess it’s the excess that gets me.
When I lived in Europe we often took tours of grand restored European palaces and castles. They were fun to look at – awe inspiring. Yet, I used to wonder how people could live so far above the necessary, let alone the comfortable, when just outside the palace gates things were so different.
Maybe that’s why so many of us have so little sympathy for Paris. The parole violations and antics seem so flagrantly to thumb her nose at the rest of us who live a more ordinary existence. It’s as if she’s saying, “Let them eat cake.”
I guess it’s not the uber wealth that churns my stomach as much as the sense of entitlement about it, or the way that such resources can be taken for granted so lightly.
Of course, not everyone is like Paris. There are those out there who recognize that God has blessed them with resources for a reason and consider it their mission as human beings to put those resources to work for the greater good. Many wealthy families have foundations that do work that benefits us all every day. I read about them and wonder why it is that there’s not a reality show about these people? Or what about a reality show about the people out there who have given up their own lives to help others? I have confidence those stories are far more interesting than how many cars some rock star owns, or what club some heiress is partying at this weekend.
It doesn't always take millions to make a major impact. Take the Molter fundraiser, for example. The Molters, and the good people of Fort Wayne, have organized a fundraiser at the Molters' country club for several years now. The money they raised might seem like chump change in the world Frank seems to describe in Richistan - it would be a couple of those watches. But, their work has made a huge impact on curing HPS. Just a few years ago the HPS Network couldn't even afford a small booth at the American Thoracic Society meeting. Donna and Marie, two HPS moms, literally sat outside the meeting with a poster trying to reach out to the medical community. Today, we're research partners.
Imagine what an impact it would have upon our culture if we idolized selfless action as much as greed.
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