Dispense with the Confused Ambition of Earning “F-You Money”
The poor are likely mentally freer than the financial elites
Are you familiar with the concept of “F-you money”? It derives from showbusiness, in which an actor’s goal is to earn enough money to be able to retire early and to avoid having to take on uninteresting or embarrassing projects.
The colourful phrase was popularized by the movie The Gambler (2014) in which John Goodman’s character gives a speech about a gambler’s need to acquire that financial independence to stop gambling. This movie extends the phrase’s original meaning, turning financial independence into a broader F-you to the whole society rather than just to one industry.
Here’s Goodman’s famous speech (with my emphases):
You get up two and a half million, any asshole in the world knows what to do. You get a house with a twenty-five year roof, an indestructible Jap economy shitbox, and you put the rest into the system at three to five percent to pay your taxes, and that’s your base, get me, that’s your Fortress of Fuckin’ Solitude, and you are for the rest of your life at a level of “fuck you.” Someone wants you to do something? “Fuck you.” Boss pisses you off? “Fuck you.” Own your house, have a few bucks in the bank, don’t drink, that’s all I have to say to…
