The Way of Jesus

Austrian tycoon Karl Rabeder gives up fortune

Tycoon trades high life

HENRY SAMUEL

February 10, 2010

Giving it all away ... Karl Rabeder.

PARIS: An Austrian tycoon is giving away every penny of his £3 million ($5.3 million) fortune, having realised that his riches made him unhappy.

Karl Rabeder, 47, a businessman from Telfs, near Innsbruck, is selling his villa with lake, sauna and spectacular mountain views over the Alps, valued at £1.4 million.

Also for sale is his old stone farmhouse in Provence, on the market for £613,000. Already gone is his collection of six gliders valued at £350,000.

Mr Rabeder has also sold the interior furnishings and accessories business - from vases to artificial flowers - that made his fortune.

''My idea is to have nothing left. Absolutely nothing. Money is counter-productive - it prevents happiness.''

He will move out of his Alpine retreat into a small wooden hut in the mountains or a simple bedsit in Innsbruck, surviving on £800 a month while the proceeds go to a charity he set up in Latin America. He will draw no salary from it.

''For a long time I believed that more wealth and luxury automatically meant more happiness. I come from a very poor family where the rules were to work more to achieve more material things, and I applied this for many years.''

But over time a conflicting feeling developed. ''More and more I heard the words: 'Stop what you are doing now - all this luxury and consumerism - and start your real life'. I had the feeling I was working as a slave for things that I did not wish for or need.''

For many years, he said, he was not brave enough to give up his comforts. The tipping point came during a three-week holiday with his wife in Hawaii.

''It was the biggest shock in my life when I realised how horrible, soulless and without feeling the five-star lifestyle is.

''In those three weeks we spent all the money you could possibly spend. But in all that time we had the feeling we hadn't met a single real person - that we were all just actors. The staff played the role of being friendly and the guests played the role of being important, and nobody was real.''

Mr Rabeder decided to raffle his Alpine home, selling 21,999 tickets at £87 each. The Provence house, in the village of Cruis, is on sale at the local estate agent.

All the money will go into his microcredit charity, which offers small loans and advice to self-employed people in El Salvador, Honduras, Bolivia, Peru, Argentina and Chile.

Since deciding to sell up, Mr Rabeder said he had felt ''free, the opposite of heavy''. But he did not judge those who chose to keep their wealth. ''I do not have the right to give any other person advice. I was just listening to the voice of my heart and soul.''

Telegraph, London

via www.smh.com.au

Here is an example of a Downshifter.  

Thanks JR for posting this story.

The 'Luxury Prime': How Luxury Changes People — HBS Working Knowledge

What effect does luxury have on human cognition and decision making? According to new research, there seems to be a link between luxury and self interest, an insight that may help curb corporate excesses. Roy Y.J. Chua of Harvard Business School discusses findings from his work conducted with Xi Zou of London Business School. Key concepts include:

via hbswk.hbs.edu

I really found this study fascinating.  Follow the link above to a Q & A with Roy Chua.  Included in the article is a link to the full study called "The Devil Wears Prada? Effects of Exposure to Luxury Goods on Cognition and Decision Making".  I'll be referring to this study in this Sunday's teaching called Dressed and Ready.

21 Things We're Learning to Live Without - Yahoo! Finance

It's become a national question. With jobs and money scarce, consumers are taking inventory and tossing lots of stuff once deemed important into a humongous discard pile. To safeguard the essentials--a safe home and supportive community, the kids' education, Internet connectivity, sustenance for a pet--Americans are giving up lots of other things. Some sacrifices are painful; others bring surprise benefits.

via finance.yahoo.com

Dave Creek pointed me to this link.  It is research on 21 downsizing decision people have been making this past year.  Click on the above link.

"Where can I flee from your presence?" Says the Psalmist

David was speaking of God of course, but today I wonder if our identities have not been so thoroughly branded, marketed, and sold that Psalm 139 may now have a rival interpretation.  

Advertising firms secure deals by having the keys to unlocking the souls of their client's target audience.  They know how many hairs are on my head.  They know when sleep and when I rise.  And what sleep aid I didn't know I wanted but will soon need when I realize I have a restless sleep disorder.  The ubiquity of advertising is nearly omnipresent. 

Here is an article printed in the New York Times that illustrates for me the increasing pervasiveness of advertising and the commodification of reality.  I had to look it up after finishing Benjamin Barber's book Consumed: How Markets Corrupt Children, Infantilize Adults, and Swallow Citizens Whole.

Advertiser Counts on Sheep to Pull Eyes Over the Wool

Jacob van Essen/European Pressphoto Agency

A Web site in the Netherlands has a novel approach to outdoor advertising, seen here outside of Joure. One town says the ads are illegal.

• By DOREEN CARVAJAL

International Herald Tribune

Published: April 24, 2006

The latest low-technology billboards along highways in the Netherlandsare startling enough to prompt motorists to indulge in U-turns.

Or make that ewe-turns. These ads are walking, woolly flocks of bleating sheep. Early this month, Hotels.nl, a Dutch online reservations company, began displaying its corporate logo on royal blue waterproof blankets worn by sheep.

The company spends 1 euro, or about $1.23 a day, per sheep and sponsors about 144 sheep in flocks throughout the Netherlands. But commercially branded sheep roaming the bucolic meadows of the northern Netherlands have prompted a reaction.