The Misery of the Super-Rich

Image credit: Leonello Calvetti/Bernstein & Andriulli
Roughly 165 households responded, 120 of which have at least $25 million in assets. The respondents’ average net worth is $78 million, and two report being billionaires. The goal, say the survey’s architects, was to weed out all but those at or approaching complete financial security. Most of the survey’s respondents are wealthy enough to ensure that in any catastrophe short of Armageddon, they will still be dining on Chateaubriand while the rest of us are spit-roasting rats over trash-can fires.

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Confirmed: the super rich are unbearably miserable - and yes, we need to cry for them

DAILY MAVERICK: It’s an existential dilemma that goes to the heart of the human condition: the ability to have almost anything you want throws into stark focus the nature of your wants, so you land up confronted with the unfathomable depths of your needs. 
“I dated someone in college who will never have to work and I didn't envy her for a minute. Never getting to economic self-sufficiency because you're always reliant on your parents for money is infantilizing: you can't afford to assert yourselves because they're not only your parents, they're also effectively your boss. (And they pay better than anyone else is going to pay you.)” Then take Kate A’s response: “But the thing is, no one is forcing that infantilization on her. She is more than within her rights to treat her vast fortune as a safety nest, and live a life where her money is not a huge issue.”
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SHOOT: I'm not from a superrich family, but I think have lived with the philosophy of taking more risks in life than most people would because I've assumed [perhaps mistakenly] I may have a safety net waiting for me one day.  If there isn't, well at least I have lived a reasonably authentic life.  Not easy, and not comfortable, but real and filled with risk and reward, and certainly a test of one's vim and vigour.