The Times they aren't a changing

Woe is money

They say money can't buy love or happiness or health or success. And the rest of of roll our eyes. But given that this lament has been voiced for a century, perhaps there is something to it.

First, from today's Times:

Instant Fortunes, and Sudden Headaches

By CAITLIN KELLY

So what would you do if you got your wish and suddenly came into a lot of money — by winning the lottery, perhaps, or getting a six-figure insurance settlement or a long-awaited inheritance? Financial freedom, right?

Ken Jennings, a 33-year-old former software engineer who earned more than $2.5 million by winning 74 consecutive games on “Jeopardy” in 2004, says it is not that simple.

But coming into a lot of money has always brought its share of headaches:

July 16, 1877
THE ANNOYANCES OF WEALTH
TROUBLES OF JOHN H. LICK AFTER INHERITING A PORTION OF HIS FATHER'S FORTUNE

The San Francisco Call, having learned that a new suit has been instituted against the estate of John H. Lick for information.. The account proceeds: "Mr. Lick passed into an inner room and returned shortly with a formidable bundle of letters. They were divided into two packages. Handling the smaller parcel to the reporter, he said: 'Two years ago I thought I knew all of my father's relatives by name at least, but here is a batch of 30 or so who have suddenly discovered that they are his next of kin..."

Even the wealthiest men and women alive seem to be miserable:

July 31, 1911
RICHES IRK ROCKEFELLER
HE TELLS PREACHER WHO TALKS OF WEALTH'S BURDENS HE'S RIGHT

CLEVELAND, Ohio, July 30.--His great wealth was often a burden that drove peace from his heart, John D. Rockefeller admitted to-day after listening to a sermon by a visiting preacher at his favorite church, the Euclid Avenue Baptist. The Rev. Carter Helm Jones of Oklahoma was acting for the pastor, who is on his vacation, and he referred to the "crown of wealth and its incident anxieties and tortures which banish peace from the heart."

The rich on steroids

President Bush contends the quickening pace of the concentration of wealth among the wealthy is a trend of the past 25 years. It would appear to have been going on a tad longer.

First, from today's Times:

Report Says That the Rich Are Getting Richer Faster, Much Faster

By DAVID CAY JOHNSTON

The increase in incomes of the top 1 percent of Americans from 2003 to 2005 exceeded the total income of the poorest 20 percent of Americans, data in a new report by the Congressional Budget Office shows.

The poorest fifth of households had total income of $383.4 billion in 2005, while just the increase in income for the top 1 percent came to $524.8 billion, a figure 37 percent higher.

Just after the Civil War, the IRS noticed a similar phenomenon:

February 24, 1869
OUR WORKING CLASSES

How the Poor are Growing Poorer—The Wages of To-day Compared with those of Former Years—Comparative Prices of Food

“The rich become richer, the poor poorer,” by which expression Commissioner Wells, of the Internal Revenue Service, graphically pictured the condition of the American people generally, has a special application to New York. In no part of the country has wealth more rapidly accumulated and concentrated in the hands of the few – in the manner which we have shown in a former paper—or poverty become so general and extended, as in this City. Nowhere are the poor becoming more rapidly poorer than in the wealthiest City of the Union.

This is, as some argue, undoubtedly due to the fact that against all reason and their own interests the laboring classes insist on adopting mechanical rather than agricultural pursuits, and in search of occupation in these branches crowd into large cities instead of remaining in the rural districts, where, if wages are less, the cost of living is also proportionally less. The labor market of many mechanical branches in this City is often glutted—there is no denying that, and at this time of numerous strikes in various branches of industry, this oversupply of labor is a principal source of trouble, and the cause of non-success of many strikes,

Millions and Billions

Despite our current economic volatility, billionaires are in no danger of winding up on the endangered species list. For all the world’s problems, they are cropping up everywhere – even in once impoverished nations.

From an article in today’s Times under the headline "A New Breed of Billionaire,"

The global wealth boom has created a new breed of billionaire in once-destitute countries like Turkey, India, Mexico and Russia. Propelled by their rising economies, robust currencies and globally competitive companies, they have ridden a surge in local stock markets that have reached previously untouchable heights in a short five-year time frame. Now, a number of them are using their wealth to bolster their standing and push for social changes.

In 1963, the Times marveled at a similar development – the rapidly growing fraternity of millionaires. But these new rich weren’t international so much as invisible. It seems people have been complaining for 44 years that being a millionaire isn’t what it used to be.

September 15, 1963
OUR 398 MILLIONAIRES – A NEW BREED

BY ALVIN SHUSTER

WASHINGTON—It was easy in the old days to tell the millionaire from the rest of us.

He had that private railroad car, courted Lillian Russell and assorted French actresses, imported chefs from Paris to prepare 20-course meals to be served on gold plates, swam in pools of white Venetian tile or Carrara marble, built “cottages” with 110 rooms and 45 baths and owned a Nile steamer just in case he went to Egypt.

Not so of the millionaires of today. They live well, but for the most part, quietly, without the flamboyance of their predecessors. A few even live in the house with the 100-foot lot they bought 15 years ago before they hit it big. With a few exceptions, most are a little shy about it all. And even though one of their kind reached the White House by popular demand, many still feel ill at ease when publicly identified as “a millionaire.”

The article goes on to note that many of the nation's 398 millionaires somehow manage to pay zero taxes, but they do pay an average alimony of $24,000 a year. Like the international billionaires in today’s story, many are philanthropic – giving 15 percent of their incomes to charity, however some gave fewer than $100.

The 12 months of Christmas

Second only to the dreaded Black Friday story, in which one gets sent out to interview frantic shoppers on a day when the last thing they want to do is explain to reporters why they have lost their minds, is the "earlier and earlier start to the holiday shopping season" story, which is being written in newspapers across America this week.

Michael Barbaro drew the short straw and got stuck with the assignment for The Times. Under the headline, "Shopping Bargains Before the First Bite of Turkey," he reports:

Disregarding the last known boundaries between tradition and capitalism, retailers are trying to persuade Americans to start their Black Friday shopping before the first bite of Thanksgiving dinner.

This is one of those topics that supplants discussions about the weather this time of year -- we all love to complain that the start of the shopping season is being moved back to June.

It's nothing new, of course. The trend seems to have begun at the height of the Great Depression.

October 21, 1934, p. N15

PREPARING FOR THE HOLIDAYS
Stores here will make early bid for Christmas Business

While attention at the moment centres largely on immediate and November promotions, retail executives indicated during the week that an early start will be made on plans for the forthcoming Christmas holiday season. Toy departments will be opened in many cases a week to ten days before Thanksgiving, although the early openings in past years have not been productive of much additional volume as most customers do not begin Christmas shopping until after Thanksgiving Day.

I tried to trace the very start of this conspiracy, and the best answer I could find was not in The Times, but in the Washington Post: