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The age does matter.

If you are elderly you can't simply go get a job. You can't start a business, much less gamble with all that you have left to start a business that may well fail.

My mother is 86. She has a modest teacher retirement. She lives in a modest house that they built themselves. She has a "decent" life. She has never seen $500,000 though.

“Decent” is a relative term. A billion or so people would be really happy with a $5,000 annual income, so what. Would you be happy with that? Would you call it “decent” just because they would?

There are many asset levels below $500,000 that I would call "decent". With the $25,000 base income you suggested....going to work at the US average wage would still put the guy $25,000 ahead of the average US wage. He should count his blessings that he has $500,000 in the bank. Most do not.

Stop taking this so personally.

I am merely pointing out that I IN NO WAY feel sorry for someone who had $20,000,000.....invested it very, very, poorly.....and still has $500,000 that most Americans do not have. There is zero sympathy there. The guy can go to work for the average US wage and do just fine with a life that the vast majority would consider "decent".

As for "decent" being a relative term....I am sure that George Soros would probably consider nearly everyone else's living "indecent". That sort of relativism means little to me, or most others. Take the $500,000 and be very happy you didn't foolishly lose it too.

Have you ever met anybody who has been rich their entire life?

No way on earth they can get a job earning the average wage.

These people are so obnoxious they have to pay their dogs to like them.

They will all try to sponge off other rich people! Guess what? Their former friends will treat them like the poor people they now are.

They will piss away their remaining assets.

Their idea of financial acumen was ‘never spend principle’! Now that’s not an option.

Well I hope you never have something of great value and lose it, either by misfortune or stupidity. So yes, I have some compassion for falling from so high so fast. I am blessed and have something to lose (not on the scale of the people from this article) but nonetheless it would be very painful to lose and I could. So forgive me if I have some sympathy for those that have lost much of their life’s work (some of these people did actually earn their wealth) by foolishly trusting someone that had been in “business” for twenty plus years.

That doesn't mean I think they deserve a single penny from the taxpayer.