Keynes, on how society will eventually view excessive wealth acquisition as a mental illness.

[frazzled]

32. That doesn't explain why ...

so many of these billionaires are obsessed with finding ways to KEEP their money: avoiding taxes, for example, by sheltering portions of their wealth here or abroad, etc.

When JK Rowling writes a book, she releases it into the world. It makes money (lots of it); great. Does she then spend all her mental energy on the money, not the thing (the writing) that made her the money? I hope not.

Money is a means, not an end for most people. It's the people for whom money is both the means and the end we're concerned with here. There is nothing creative or even particularly smart being done. It's just money making money. It's about amassing perceived power through the process of racking up ever larger numbers—numbers so large they are meaningless in the end. If you lost a small amount of these numbers to the government so that schools could be funded or roads paved or sick children insured it wouldn't mean you're any less successful. But somehow (some of) these people find it threatening to their personal game.