All The Money in the World

I watched the movie with Christopher Plummer in the lead role of American Businessman J. Paul Getty last night.

What a trip.

Getty amassed his fortune in the oil business during the depression. The movie was based on true events about the kidnapping of his grandson in Italy during the 70's.

The grandson J Paul Getty III died in 2011 at 54 yrs. old due to complications from a drug overdose earlier that left him a quadripalegic.

He became as fucked up as his father with his drug use while his father lived until 70 yrs old after cleaning up his life.

The movie is aptly titled because all the money in the world could not save this family from the disease of drug abuse and ealy death.

Starting with the old man who became just a Scrooge type miser in the end. It was all about the money in life and in the end while accumulating huge wealth died alone holding a painting.

The family is always struggling with the curse of making bad life decisions and early death and tragedy.

Getty sold his oil interests to Texaco for $10B and at his death the family trust went into the hands of his grandson's mother Abigail Getty Harris.

It is now worth $2B and in the hands of Gordon Getty the 4th oldest child. (Google the family for more info). He has his own problems of course but he has so far lived to be 81 years old. 

While the movie was based on the kidnapping of Junior III you can come away with some money and life lessons given out by Getty during the course of his crazy elderly years.

"Anyone can get rich but being rich takes work"

OK. he says being rich you have to work at living like a rich person and falling into the abyss. Getty says you have to learn this when without money nobody cares about you.

I dunno,  think for most it is pretty hard to get rich so they never get to learn how to BE rich. I think for most they would like to try anyway.

The guy was an art nut. Enough to start a museum in New York bearing his name. He believed in buying tangible assets that remained constant. People change but material possessions stayed the same. He liked thatabout things. He had a lot of stuff.

"If you can count your money, you don't have a billion dollars"

It's an arrogant I'm rich AF statement. He owned estates in England and California. He had billions but still died alone was cheap as fuck. He even had pay phones installed on site so guests or family members had to pay for any long distance phone calls.

My Final Lesson Learned

All the money in the world doesn't mean happiness, love, family or exempt from early death, drug abuse and tragedy.

This family just abused themselves with drugs and women. They had nothing meaningful to do with their lives it seems. I guess when you are a trust fund baby like Paul the third, life is just meant to be fucked up. I can't imagine his mother who worked tirelessly on his kidnapping to live long enough to see him overdose and become tied to a wheelchair. So f'n sad and what a waste of a fucken life!

People who have everything really have nothing. The Gettys were and are rich AF but man they have and have had big problems. Just like poor people.

The old cliche holds true, that all the money in the world won't save your kids or buy you all the happiness in the world.

We all have to find our happy, that's all that matters. The Getty family was far from happy. I hope this new generation can find some.

Having said that, I have no sympathy for people who still abuse drugs and their entitled lives. Pfft!