Is it really possible to earn too much money?

A Different View with Dave O’Connell

When one of Ireland’s greatest ever footballers was starting his stellar career back in the early nineties, he saw his wages doubled within weeks of making his debut – from a thousand pounds to two thousand pounds a week.

And in what was a more innocent era on many fronts, he confided in a reporter who had known him since his schoolboy soccer days that he had found it difficult to spend the grand he was already on – but he hadn’t a clue how he’d get through twice that amount.

Every time he tried to spend money, his agent told him that there was no need to.

You want a car? Have two – and we’ll get them sponsored by a local motor dealers.

You want a house? Let’s set up a company and buy it in a convoluted way designed to minimise tax and to keep your money in your pocket.

Same with clothes, entertainment – any of the trappings of wealth. The irony is that when you have money, it’s the time you really never need to spend it.

One wonders, therefore, how Wayne Rooney works his way through any discernible portion of his £300,000 a week pay packet.

Okay, week one you buy a house for the Mammy and within a few months, you’ve looked after the brothers and sisters who are all now sitting mortgage free.

Of course if you marry a Spice Girl who doesn’t wear the same clothes twice, it might help dig a hole in the bank account – although Posh is pretty good at raking in the cash herself – so even that doesn’t constitute a long-term plan.

The same conundrum could apply to any Premiership footballer – even reserves you’ve never heard of at Chelsea earn more than twice the salary of the Prime Minister of that now-sovereign nation.

Which all begs the question – is it possible to actually earn too much money?

Bill Gates felt it was which was why he and wife Melinda donated billions to wiping out poverty and disease – particularly Malaria, TB and AIDS – primarily in Africa, but with the aspiration to do it globally as well.

And while that’s a lofty ambition by any stretch, the $30 billion they have parted with so far represents a bigger commitment that the world’s governments have shown to date.

Warren Buffet still likes the smell of a few quid but he will eventually have donated more than 80 per cent of his wealth to the Gates Foundation; his first step on that road saw him hand over €30 billion in his own shares back in 2006.

And giving away his money is in keeping with his philosophy; he has said that his children will not inherit a significant proportion of his wealth.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.