Author Topic: Generation Wealth Documentary  (Read 4458 times)

smoghat

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Generation Wealth Documentary
« on: February 09, 2019, 01:06:24 PM »
Has anybody seen Generation Wealth (free on Amazon Prime)? It’s disturbing viewing at times and the last 40 minutes were awful, but I found it provocative and fascinating at times. It’s easy to laugh at the lunatic Trump/Kardashian wannabes (not to mention the actual Trump/Kardashian families who make brief cameos), poor people’s ideas of what rich people are like. But, I was wondering what other lessons there are in this film.

To throw one out there... I’m curious how much of the frugal “Old Money” world, dedicated to passing down wealth from generation to generation, has survived (boy do I remember their offense at the nouveau riche and they were nothing as bad!). Growing up in New England forty years ago there was a bit out there, but is there any now and does it still have anything to teach us?

Just Joe

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Re: Generation Wealth Documentary
« Reply #1 on: February 09, 2019, 03:28:07 PM »
Thanks for the recommendation. Might be what DW and I watch tonight later.

smoghat

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Re: Generation Wealth Documentary
« Reply #2 on: February 10, 2019, 09:44:48 AM »
FYI, when I said disturbing I meant nudity and a frank interiew with a porn star about her work. This wasn’t billed in the description so a caution. I watch Game of Thrones and found some of this content made me go yikes, I wish I didn’t know that.


Just Joe

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Re: Generation Wealth Documentary
« Reply #3 on: February 10, 2019, 08:35:02 PM »
Thanks for the warning we might have started out watching it as a family...

debbie does duncan

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Re: Generation Wealth Documentary
« Reply #4 on: February 11, 2019, 07:04:41 AM »
Alive and well I believe...check out this blog!
https://theoldmoneybook.com/about/

DadJokes

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Re: Generation Wealth Documentary
« Reply #5 on: February 11, 2019, 11:06:07 AM »
I will have to find a way to watch that - thanks!

I do think there are a lot of families out there who have benefited from generational wealth and used it well, but we don't hear about them because they don't seek attention like the Trumps and Kardashians of the world. Unfortunately, those few that soak up the spotlight put a very bad name on generational wealth, so that probably helps to keep the more responsible crowd from identifying themselves.

That's just my guess though.

fattest_foot

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Re: Generation Wealth Documentary
« Reply #6 on: February 11, 2019, 11:48:57 AM »
A surreal experience is going to Newport, RI and looking at the gilded age mansions. Not so much those mansions (although that's definitely fun), but the ones next to the ones you can tour.

The ones people still live in.

Hunny156

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Re: Generation Wealth Documentary
« Reply #7 on: February 12, 2019, 09:08:42 AM »
Watched it last night, thanks for the recommendation!  I had seen the Queen of Versailles, so this tied in well w/this documentary.  Just a whole lot of WOW.  Sad that so many people tend to equate happiness with excessive amounts of money.

fattest_foot

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Re: Generation Wealth Documentary
« Reply #8 on: February 12, 2019, 10:15:08 AM »
Watched it last night as well, and I'm confused by the recommendation. The movie had almost no cohesive narrative. It started off with an interesting premise of looking at the children of the wealthy (and the one hedge fund manager was somewhat interesting). And then it just meandered for 2 hours without any kind of message.

Honestly, by the end, the entire thing looked like just a bio-pic for the photographer who made the movie. At least a third of it was just interviews with her mom and children.

And then you have the pornographic nature of it, which added nothing to the movie in any way. I guess if you wanted to watch several scenes of strip clubs, porn movie shoots, and breast augmentations, it might be interesting to watch?

TheGrimSqueaker

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Re: Generation Wealth Documentary
« Reply #9 on: February 12, 2019, 10:30:56 AM »
There's Jamie Johnson's "Born Rich" documentary, which came out in something like 2003. It's out of date but I venture to say he did a better-than-average job of depicting everyday life for himself and his peers. Many of the people he interviewed spoke in depth about what they thought there roles in the world are, or should be.

ginjaninja

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Re: Generation Wealth Documentary
« Reply #10 on: February 12, 2019, 10:44:51 AM »
What I took away as the main message from the documentary is that you cannot buy happiness.  I thought it was a great glimpse into the people that are idolized for their wealth and to show that they are not any happier than the rest of us. 

I have found that seeking changes to your body, really expensive things, and trying to keep up with the Joneses is a fruitless endeavor.  If you are on this forum it is likely you already live and breathe this message, however, there are still a ton of people in this world that think having money will make them happy.  This documentary showed the negative sides of wealth in a very real way.

This documentary made me so sad to see how we are all searching for happiness and that going down the wrong path can lead to horrible consequences and no more happiness than where you are right now.   

StarBright

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Re: Generation Wealth Documentary
« Reply #11 on: February 12, 2019, 10:53:57 AM »
Alive and well I believe...check out this blog!
https://theoldmoneybook.com/about/

I believe I will be using some of  my amazon credit to buy the kindle version of the book - thanks!

Just Joe

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Re: Generation Wealth Documentary
« Reply #12 on: February 12, 2019, 12:05:37 PM »
This documentary made me so sad to see how we are all searching for happiness and that going down the wrong path can lead to horrible consequences and no more happiness than where you are right now.

That!

jinga nation

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Re: Generation Wealth Documentary
« Reply #13 on: February 12, 2019, 12:37:35 PM »
I've tried watching this documentary as well as Queen of Versighs (pun intended). I couldn't watch more than 10-15 minutes of the stupidity.

I've enjoyed a feature (maybe PBS or 60 minutes) on one of Warren Buffett's sons who does all these farming experiments and tries new methods and all sorts of agri-things. It's his passion. He doesn't care if his dad is the richest dad in the world.

StarBright

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Re: Generation Wealth Documentary
« Reply #14 on: February 13, 2019, 02:55:30 PM »
I read the Old Money Book - it was a quick, delightful read and very mustache adjacent!

smoghat

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Re: Generation Wealth Documentary
« Reply #15 on: February 14, 2019, 04:55:19 AM »
Watched it last night as well, and I'm confused by the recommendation.

I kind of wonder if people actually read my original post which, in retrospect, would scare me off of a movie more than attract me to it. Oh well.

Alive and well I believe...check out this blog!
https://theoldmoneybook.com/about/

Thanks!

A surreal experience is going to Newport, RI and looking at the gilded age mansions. Not so much those mansions (although that's definitely fun), but the ones next to the ones you can tour.

The ones people still live in.

Strangely enough, I grew up in one of those, only in a different state. My dad lived a moustachean existence, which I suppose leads to my skepticism about some of the tenets.

He was an artist who retired relatively early (at age 60, but since he had an interruption to his life due to the war and a mid-life career change, that's pretty early). Like some Moustcheans, he scammed the system and in his version he got a half-cooked up disability claim after ten years of work and claimed a pension until he died 30 years later. People like that is why we can't have pensions anymore.

He profited off real estate in Chicago which was his side gig (and the reason for his stress-induced disability, because teaching at a community college wasn't a hard job in those days), sold his townhouse in Chicago and bought a vast estate so he'd have a place to exhibit his art.

Speaking of excess, the house had been abandoned for ten years by an heiress. She'd married a Russian prince after WWI and divorced him so she could be a Princess. She never married again. Can you imagine? Then she ran her vast fortune which must have been over $100 million back then into the ground. The house was nearly a ruin when my father bought it for a song. 

Since we had no money (what he got from his pension and apartment building went into restoring that place), that meant buying clothes at the thrift store (not good for a kid with a funny name and weird parents living in a mansion in the 1980s, let me tell you), having no heat in most of the house (I still cringe when I hear of relatives who say they keep their heat at 65… years of having my room heat at 55 messed me up pretty badly mentally and physically), and doing labor meant to be done by a staff of servants ourselves. The best was mowing the lawn, every two weeks it took three days. Two of those were on the riding mower, one by hand. He sold the house and made a profit, but he would have made the same had he lived in his townhouse.

In a way, however, this points to Generation Wealth being part of a continuum of a need and desire for excess, sometimes masked as other things, such as the need to make art. Watching both Greenwald and her film trainwreck at the end (I wish she'd just filmed herself checking into a cocaine rehab since I sense that's probably in the cards) underscored how excess can take different forms. And that's probably the big lesson of MMM, it's that excess is endemic to our culture and deeply toxic.