I understand and I'm sympathetic to what you're saying. It's a bit counterintuitive, but I'll try to elaborate more on the points you've made: > They are paras

I understand and I'm sympathetic to what you're saying. It's a bit counterintuitive, but I'll try to elaborate more on the points you've made: > They are parasites because they are spending money Parasites are people who take from the system; she's contributing by putting money into it. > (that they didn't earn by producing anything) The source of her money is irrelevant to the question of how she should spend it. What difference does it make how she got it? One dollar is perfectly interchangeable with another, and the fungibility of money makes it one of the most neutral substances on earth. > in an inefficient manner. She's buying luxury properties, probably spending a token amount to fund her lifestyle, and letting professionals manage the rest. That's may be a pretty efficient allocation of capital for her situation. > That three floor apartment could house many people, instead it is wasting a very rare commodity in NYC: housing. Nowhere in Manhattan are there many people getting together to split a three-story penthouse apartment. Her properties are fundamentally different from a regular one- or two-bedroom apartment. This is difficult to articulate, but living in a penthouse in Manhattan isn't a right. > I'd be much more sympathetic if she actually spent time in that apartment. Again, why does it matter how she's using the apartments? If she owns more than a few luxury properties and it doesn't make sense to rent them out (to who?), then she necessarily is using them in an "inefficient" manner, since she can only be at one place at a time. > She produces no wealth and destroys wealth through inefficiency - good use of the word "parasite". Again, when she's spending "inefficiently", she's contributing to the system.