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Rich people who live in Hong Kong do not view their relative wealth like people who live in Manhatten, because they surely travel frequently and are thus acutel
by wilfra 14y ago
Rich people who live in Hong Kong do not view their relative wealth like people who live in Manhatten, because they surely travel frequently and are thus acutely aware of just how much richer they are than everybody else on the planet, while rich people in Manhatten can get trapped in the cognitive bubble you are describing and misunderstand their relative wealth.
Singapore, being a rich island nation, works the same. If they started taxing the shit out of their rich it would certainly result in many of those people leaving the country and many, many more not setting up shop their in the first place.
- bearmf 14y agoSurely rich people in Manhattan never travel?
- wilfra 14y agoSure they do but on average a millionaire from HK is going to travel internationally a lot more - especially to poor countries - than a millionaire from New York, simply due to geography and living on a small island. All they have to do is walk over the border into Shenzhen to get a sense of just how rich they are. One could conceivably grow up in NYC and never grow to truly appreciate how much their life differs from those in the poorest parts of the World.
- ericd 14y agoQueens/The Bronx/Harlem aren't that far from the Upper East Side... They're not Shenzhen by any means, but they should serve as a decent reminder, especially if they're aware that those places are relatively rich compared to lots of places.
- bearmf 14y agoThere are plenty of poor people in Manhattan, inequality is very high. But maybe you are right and rich people in Manhattan have more opportunity and desire to insulate themselves. I wouldn't know.