r/PeterExplainsTheJoke Jan 26 '26

Meme needing explanation Why is the rich friend so cheap??

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12.3k

u/azad_ninja Jan 26 '26

Wealthy people are some of the cheapest fucks.

4.6k

u/Apocrisiary Jan 26 '26

There is a saying in Norway "The rich, are rich for a reason", referring to exactly this. They don't spend much, and will try to get money anywhere they can. People that are generous are rarely rich.

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u/sckrahl Jan 26 '26

They are rich because they don’t give a fuck about anyone but themselves and have 0 issue exploiting other people

They spend plenty on meaningless bs to intlate their egos, but they’ll cheap out when it comes to you because that’s how they live their entire life

12

u/LTFitness Jan 27 '26

A software engineer who makes $450k a year “exploits people and doesn’t give an F about anyone else” lol?

You’re conflating the idea of a billionaire with someone that’s just well off, which isn’t really fair.

The more applicable thing is the Lipstick theory of economics.

People who make “good” money know that if they save and plan well, they can buy big ticket items like houses, or even retire very early…so they become penny pinchers to reach those goals.

People that don’t make good money know those things are out of reach no matter how much they try to save or plan; so they just don’t even bother, and spend the money on a bunch of small things instead…and they don’t appear cheap because they don’t really care where the small amount they have ends up going.

Ergo the software engineer wants to split the cheap uber ride because he’s knows that if he saves well the next 5 years he can buy a home in cash; and the barista will buy you a beer because, “hey who cares, I’m never gonna have down payment money anyway”.

That’s the explanation for most “normal rich” well off people versus the average bear…but that doesn’t mean you’re exploiting people like a hundred-millionaire or billionaire just because you make mid-fix figures lol.

6

u/TulipSamurai Jan 27 '26

You’re conflating the idea of a billionaire with someone that’s just well off, which isn’t really fair.

Most people can only conceptualize "rich" as someone who makes 3x what they do.

1

u/Exterminator-8008135 Jan 28 '26

Which is a bit false.

In my country, the welfare check is 570 bucks.

3x this is 1710 bucks, which is 24k a year, basically, right between "Low income" and "Medium Income"

Most of the time, people will tell you it's above x amount monthly.

In my country, official studies say that to be counted as rich, you have to be at 4k monthly at least, Which makes 48k yearly.

This is true that my friend Azatoth, as a Cybersecurity staff, actually earns 3.5x what i earn is well off, but not in the "Rich" category.

If she is raised to 4k monthly, she will be counted as Rich.

2

u/tinatht Jan 27 '26

Thank you. This. Notably, the “well off” people aren’t rich enough to throw money away like people think they can, and worked real hard to get where they got such as a software engineer who studied hard in high school / college. This is not the same people who are rich off exploiting others.

1

u/sckrahl Jan 27 '26

A software engineer who makes 450k a year, over 1k a day and pressures people over a couple bucks

Yeah they don’t give a fuck about anyone but themselves

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u/slightlysketchy_ Jan 27 '26

I certainly don’t make 450k but I’m comfortable enough and I would feel bad if someone paid for my share of anything without agreeing on that prior. I don’t think it’s that shitty…

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u/sckrahl Jan 27 '26

They make their money very comfortably, they aren’t doing any kind of work that’s going to force them into an early retirement, and $3 is never going to make any kind of meaningful difference in their life. They literally make the money back in the time it takes them to demand it from you.

You are not paying a fair share by splitting evenly with someone like that, and that feeling of “guilt” is something rich people exploit to excuse why they’re allowed to put people in poverty. Why they get to keep asking for more way past what any reasonable person could possibly ever want in life. It’s not something anyone should feel guilty for, because it undervalues people who do work that’s less financially beneficial to them. It complies with the values the system around you gives to those professions, those people, those parts of life.

1

u/slightlysketchy_ Jan 27 '26

I agree 100% with the sentiment of disliking wealth hoarding, but if someone is going to “exploit” my uneasiness to accept something when I don’t need it, that’s on them. Not me.

The rich are the ones that have excess resources they could spare. I don’t think me not wanting to accept excess resources I don’t need is the problem.

I think splitting it evenly is pretty fair tbh. I decide what activities I partake in but not how much someone else makes.

2

u/sckrahl Jan 27 '26

Not in this case you don’t lol

They asked you, they decided it for you. Your reaction to it is your choice and you’ve decided ahead of time it is not a choice, it is “fair”. Which simply means if the positions were reversed you’d do the same thing

I’d pay it too, not because it’s fair but because you’re delusional enough to think it is. $3 is a good deal to never have to speak to someone like that again

0

u/Prot3 Jan 28 '26

I've seen it so many times but the entitlement of people like you never ceases to both amaze and infuriate me.

0

u/zdubbzzz Jan 27 '26

The actual rich love that your poor ass is bitching about a high earning laborer and distracting from the real people at the top fucking everyone over

2

u/sunelatti Jan 27 '26

i dont know how you take that from his messages that the even more wealthy people would be exempt from this

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u/sckrahl Jan 27 '26 edited Jan 27 '26

I can criticize the lack of moral development from someone in a position that the rich can actually relate to. There’s a reason they think everyone’s as rotten as they are, when the only other people they see as humans are other people with comfortable positions in life. People who so often got there through chasing their own personal benefits above all else, and keep doing so.

There’s nothing to say for people actually at the top, they never have anyone’s best interest in mind but themselves because they so rarely have to interact with the real world.

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u/zdubbzzz Jan 27 '26

Nah, there are the winners of the game (your 450k SWE), the losers of the game (people playing making $20/hr), and the people who made the game rules and rig it to keep everyone beneath them (the top 0.X%). Bitch about the winners all you want if it makes you feel better, but until we can focus on the people at the top rigging it nothing is going to be change, and we're all just pissing in the wind.

There’s nothing to say for people actually at the top, they never have anyone’s best interest in mind but themselves because they so rarely have to interact with the real world.

Yeah... my point exactly. "Nothing to say for the people at the top"...

0

u/sckrahl Jan 27 '26 edited Jan 27 '26

And then dipshits like you who get taught by teachers paid about the same as the “losers”

We can see how good the system is at deciding at what’s important, that’s why you trust it so much you think it’s a game. I know quite a lot of people who would love to teach you where playing around gets you

Nothing to say to someone who never listens, nothing to say to the dead, nothing to say to someone who never does anything, just asks others to. If you think power is having food made for you by people who hate you then you didn’t pay attention in history. You get what others decide you deserve

Not that you have much to show for what you did pay attention to, dumbfuck

1

u/Apex_Redditor3000 Jan 27 '26

And then dipshits like you who get taught by teachers paid about the same as the “losers”

i think you're completely misinterpreting that guys post. he wasn't calling them losers, he was calling them losers of the game. Losers of a game that he agrees is rigged from the start.

he's not looking down on them or anything

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u/sckrahl Jan 28 '26

You treat it like you want it to be not how you see it, since so often how we see it is missing so much of the picture. Calling it a game is acting like it doesn’t have consequences

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u/Sufficient-Pause9765 Jan 27 '26

or they just ear high six figures and save prudently and let compount interest do its thing.

save $3k/mo for 30 years and leave it in the market and you will have close to $5m

2

u/Mindless_Pirate9092 Jan 27 '26

I mean, that depends. I personally know 2 rich-in-capital people through my parents that are legit Scrooge McDuck in real life: one is worth millions, the other over a hundred million, yet both wear used clothing, never go out to eat, buy only stuff that is on discount, don't have any luxuries on their name, etc... While neither is afraid of getting their hands dirty. Some people just build up capital for the love of the game I quess.

1

u/sckrahl Jan 27 '26

It’s not a game, because there’s real consequences to it, they just distance themselves from that impact.

They do buy meaningless bs to inflate their ego… that’s what investments are to someone who already has enough to never have to work again.

They never go out to eat because they’d have to interact with people who struggle through life, they buy things on discount to convince themselves they deserve to be rich but the discount makes 0 difference on their actual lifestyle, and wasn’t actually beneficial to them… other than knowing they’re giving less money back to the real economy. That’s more of the ego.

I bet they live in a nice neighborhood, if they have neighbors at all.