Daily Prompt
Five a Day
You’ve being exiled to a private island, and your captors will only supply you with five foods. What do you pick?
I’m not going to answer this. It’s such a silly question for a whole raft of reasons you probably know better than I do, a balanced diet not being one of my preoccupations.
So here’s a different question, arising from a story that appeared on my homepage a few days ago.
Is it OK for KK to buy her one-year-old daughter (I thought North West was boy or a direction, silly me!) a fur coat worth 4.5 thousand dollars?
Well of course it is, if that’s what she wants to do. Her money, her choice. But being an antediluvian, moralistic old cow, it strikes me as just a touch obscene to splash that much on a (fur) coat a one-year-old will grow out of in 12 months – or won’t be seen wearing again for fear (her mother’s) of being out of fashion – when the extra thousands, suitably donated, would allow other mothers the gratification of still having a live child at all.
In my mind, the same thing applies to multi-million dollar houses, squillion dollar weddings, comprehensive facelifts and tummy-tucks – fill in the blanks. And no, I’m not a rabid socialist, and nor do I resent those who earn the big bucks – more power to their hard work, I say – but do they really need to spend all their millions on themselves?
None of this is new or revolutionary. Thousands before me have said it. And on occasion, it happens – Bill Gates, for example. What’s more there will never be anything approaching equality in the world for the reasons we all know well. But if the rich continue to get richer (as seems likely) and continue to hoard far more than they can ever spend in their lifetimes or their children’s lifetimes even on unnecessary shows of opulence, the divide will continue to grow.
Would it really be so hard, if you’re worth $50,000,000, to give – say – half of it to providing food and water for the estimated 7.3 billion people in the world suffering from chronic malnutrition?
I’m sure they’d be happy to be supplied with five foods in perpetuity.
helen meikle's scribblefest 
I find it difficult to process the idea of spending that much money on a coat. Perhaps that is partially because i have yet to earn 50,000 in a single year. In spite of that, her money is her money. She has the prerogative of wasting it how she pleases. Like you, I would prefer to think of how many people that money could help.
Maybe if you have as much as she has, it’s like Monopoly money: you play with it, rather than seeing its practical implications for a wider good.
Good job tying in the five foods to the end of your immensely sensible post. I know there is some Billionaires’ pledge going on right now – I forget who initiated it, sorry, and could Google but too lazy – to give away half their wealth and many have signed up. I mean after the first billion or two, it’s all rather moot.
Decidedly moot, I’d have thought! But maybe it’s like depresseion in that it affects the neural pathways in the brain, and you lose the concept of ‘enough’. 🙂
I looked up the pledge – initiated by Warren Buffett and Bill Gates. So far 128 have signed up. Gotta love that!
I just don’t get what KK has done to make her worth anyone’s attention.
She’s promoted herself with a single-minded dedication that’s obviously taken off to become an independent, self-perpetuating machine. Clever, and pretty scary when you think what that says about society.
Yep. I have learned a lot about hugemanatee I mean humanity from watching her rise to fame over absolutely nothing except being baboon assed, slutty, stupid, rich and pretty. Kind of an interesting phenomenon.
Or depressing, depending on the day 🙂
I like the way you turned this round to make sense of this prompt! 😄
Pure chance!
It is sometimes hard to cope with how little we live on against the super rich. I try not to think about it because it pisses me off. For what it’s worth, though, a lot of super rich people do in face contribute a great deal of money to various causes. Sometimes misguided causes, but at least they try.
It doesn’t bother me for me – government eliitsm infuriates me far more, and besides, there aren’t as many super rich here so they’re more like an aberration to be viewed with cynical amusement if they get above themselves.
And yes, having looked at the Giving Pledge, I’m heartened by how much has been promised. But dogs in diamond-studded collars and 10-bedroom mansions for one still make me ill.
Yes. That much money, I could actually repair my broken house. But no matter. It’s not terribly broken. Just a little broken.
in fact, not in face