Millionaire households in the US raked in $80 million in unemployment benefit during the economic downturn, due to lack of means testing in federal aid programs. (Bloomberg 5th April 2013).
Which is why they are millionaires.
Epicurus believed you should live modestly, but enjoy life. Money matters less than love, friends, a sense of humor, good conversation, and an absorbing pastime or job. What sort of human being is so money-grubbing that he can spend precious time claiming bogus unemployment money? I hope these people were caught and prosecuted.
On the same wave-length. These thoughts from (partial) notes taken in college underscore core messages repeatedly emphasized in various classes a half-century ago. They turned out to be true.
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1. Some things are important, but most things are only necessary.
2. Necessary things are only important when you do not have them and are generally ignored when they are amply supplied. These include oxygen, food, drink. shelter, and all physical needs.
3. Important things are important all the time whether you have them or not, whether you realize it or not. They include love, understanding, friendship, personal growth, truth-seeking.
4. People who regard necessary things as important are unhappy and frustrated even when they get them and even if they are quite unaware that the important things exist.
5. Important things are those which can be made ends in themselves, worth seeking and worth having. Necessary things, since they are not important for their own sakes, should never made ends in themselves, but must be permitted only to be means to important ends. Thus, material wealth, power, popularity, and prestige should never be ends but only means to ends, because however necessary they may be they are never important.
6. The only thing which is important is truth, that is, the total structure of reality. The meaning of anything arises from its relationship to that total structure. The reason that material things are not important is because of the subordinate position they hold in that total structure.
7. From this point of view, important things may exist on any level of reality. For example, physical health, exercise. and coordination are important on the physical level, but are not as important as things on higher levels, even though they can be made ends in themselves.
8. On the higher levels are such things as feelings. and intellectual awareness.