The Psychology of Money
It is worth reflecting that, if Grace happened to be have a world outlook that was a smidge more venal and materialist, she wouldn&#x27;t have been able to do what she did. This is because dying with $7 million in savings means that she could have spent about $7 million more on enjoying herself in life.<p>I completely agree with her apparent outlook, and would rather have security and the pride of knowing I&#x27;d given a lot more to my fellows than I&#x27;ve taken back. And if everyone thought this way then society would be a lot better about preserving and growing what we have.<p>However, I&#x27;ve met countless people who behave like the executive in the opening paragraph not because they have &#x27;bad behaviors&#x27;, but precisely because they are clever and in practice wanted to maximise money spent&#x2F;personal resources consumed. I doubt they would word that as harshly as I have, but the implicit meaning behind the behavior is very clear.<p>Now, if you start with a value proposition that the purpose of the economy is to maximise the resources available for individual consumption, it is actually quite hard to argue for dying with savings. The families who try to maintain inter-generational family wealth actually cop a fair bit of flack socially (in times of stress, they seem to near inevitably get branded &#x27;hoarders&#x27;, and times of extreme stress they have their wealth confiscated).<p>Basically, I like the argument and the value structure it comes from - but there are other views of the situation that are reasonable and deserve mention.<p><i>EDIT</i> Fun fact, apparently $7 million gets you very close to the top 1% by wealth [1]. So technically, the sort of people who want &quot;the 1%&quot; to do more have people like Grace in their sights. We all know they don&#x27;t want that, but it shows the normal attitude to wealth and savings imo.<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.investopedia.com&#x2F;articles&#x2F;personal-finance&#x2F;050615&#x2F;are-you-top-one-percent-world.asp" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.investopedia.com&#x2F;articles&#x2F;personal-finance&#x2F;05061...</a>