Wealthy Southerners

[Anonymous]

Does anyone know what the wealth is like at the Ivy's? I'm assuming not as ostentatious, but it obviously exists. Any stories?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Does anyone know what the wealth is like at the Ivy's? I'm assuming not as ostentatious, but it obviously exists. Any stories?

Keep in mind that UT has over 50,000 undergrads. If 1% of the student population has that kind of wealth, that's 500. I'd guess it less than half of that. Considering that these students live large, it's pretty easy to notice them zipping around in their Porsches, Range Rovers, etc. You happen to notice them more than all the average students walking around, so it seems like they make up a larger part of the population than they actually do. The Ivies are all much, much smaller, so odds are, there are fewer students with this kind of wealth even though they may make up a larger percentage.

I was in of the previously mentioned "top 6" sororities (depending on who's doing the ranking, it's top 3, top 4, top 5 or top 6). Graduated from a private high school in one of the major TX cities and lived in a private off-campus dorm. Even among the wealthier sororities and fraternities, this kind of wealth, while definitely visible, was not the norm. Most come from UMC families or families who would be considered wealthy, but definitely not wealthy enough for private jets and fashion week in Paris. Even in the "wealthy" social circles, I'd estimate that less than 1% of students had this kind of wealth. And people are MUCH flashier in TX. Even people who aren't wealthy will carry designer bags, drive nice cars and live a higher-end lifestyle than they should. To an outsider, this probably makes people appear wealthier than they are.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I come from old southern money. Cotton on my daddy's side. Lumber on my mother's. My parents have a beautiful home, but certainly nothing enormous. My mother drives a nice but not flashy car. My daddy has a truck. They travel quite a bit and give a ton of money to their church. Families in the south with old money don't talk about it. Ever. Everyone knows we have money because of our name. It would never, ever be the topic of conversation. If you met my parents in D.C. you would have no idea they had money. That's just the way they are.

The majority of students at Ole Miss- you know, the college dcum loves to put down - have more money than you could possibly imagine. Especially the ones from the Delta. Rich kids in Mississippi have no interest in going to an Ivy no matter how great their SATs and grades. They go to Ole Miss.

No one who knows me in Fairfax has any idea how wealthy my family is. I was raised never to discuss money...except on an anonymous internet board

Wow, very interesting. Do you think you could give us a ballpark figure of what kind of net worth your family has? Or what kind of net worth the "more money than you could imagine" Ole Miss folks have? Because I find it hard to imagine anyone in Mississippi having more than, say, $10 M...just because there doesn't seem to be a very healthy economy in that state and everything is so cheap. But I'm open to hearing otherwise!

I believe her. I've been through the Delta and the wealth there would shock you to your core. There is no in between. You're either filthy rich or extremely poor. Mississippi is always portrayed as the poverty state. Not so. There are pockets of wealth like you have never seen.

People in the South never discuss money. Not even with family. It's considered bad manners. Most of the wealthy there never flaunt that wealth either. Farmer Brown may be wearing overalls and driving an old pickup but that pocket is full and the only bank in town stays running because of his money.

And doing something like throwing a $250,000 bar mitzvah for your kid a week after you've closed on an LBO and laid off hundreds of workers would never happen down there. It is much less ostentatious, rapacious, money-driven society.

[Anonymous]

Some southern families have a lot of money. Breeding still matters more here than in the Northeast. They're big on family connections. Very tough to break in, though I'm not sure why you'd want to anyway.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A lot of that generational wealth was literally made off the backs of others-slaves. Why weren't the plantations and farms confisiated and redistributed after they lost the war?

Ah, no. Most plantaion owners from before the Civil War ended up in ruins financially. They made up the old gentile but poor southern aristocracy after that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:According to Forbes, 37 billionaires live in Texas. Micheal Dell leads the list at 17+ billion. That doesn't count the poor nine-figure folks. The fracking boom has been led by hundreds of independent oil companies. Texas is awash in serious money.

I went to one of the schools you mentioned. I had sorority sisters who shopped for their clothes at Paris fashion week. Yes, it is "new" money, but there LOTS of it.

Very concentrated wealth in Texas. Infrastructure is crumbling, school system is an embarassment, and very few services. When I lived there I remember being so frustrated because there were no mailboxes! This is just an example. Texas is a terrible place to be poor.

It must have been a while since you lived there. The only problem with the infrastructure in Texas is trying to get around all of the cranes and bulldozers in the process of building (and rebuilding) it. The schools system is hit or miss (like the DC area), but there are excellent schools that have relatively affordable housing in the boundary area (unlike here). Texas may not be a great place to be a ward of the state (and I actually don't know if that is true or not), but the cost of living and abundant blue collar jobs make it a great place to be working poor.

[Anonymous]

Does it bother anyone that southern wealth was most likely created on the backs of slaves?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Does it bother anyone that southern wealth was most likely created on the backs of slaves?

It would if it were true. The problem is it's really not. Wealthy southern families comprised the so-called planter class in the antebellum. The lion's share of their wealth was tied up in slaves. That wealth of course evaporated into thin air with emancipation. Land in the South was also very cheap compared to today's standards, particularly at the frontier as it moved westward. After the civil war, credit markets in the south collapsed and with them land values. So, whatever was left in land value went down the tubes for a generation or more. They were essentially ruined and started again from scratch without slave labor, if they didn't lose their land to creditors.

[Anonymous]

The Civil War did a number on the social classes. You've got some families that made their money in the late 19th century, and others who always had a Name (capital letter deliberate.) As PP's have pointed out most of the wealthy planters went bust after the War.

Basically it's the same thing as Downton Abbey, you had the titled class that wasn't always the monied class, and there was always a little bit of tension between the two.

There was also the good ol' boy class (lawyers, doctors, ministers, etc.) who were suitable for socializing to some extent but not marriage, the redneck class (the blue-collar types who didn't drink it away), and the white trash class.

Blacks had their more or less parallel system what with the high yellow folks, Jack and Jill, and other organizations where you had to be both colored and wealthy to join.

Of course today this has all blurred a bit (both within and between the races*), and plenty of planters figured out how to keep the estate together and helped themselves into both the titled and monied classes. Of course, you get grandkids that blow through the family fortune, grandkids that figured out how to buy in what's become the inner and outer suburbs of Atlanta and other growing cities, etc.

(*) The caveat that things like Ferguson Blue Gang aka Police Department make it all too clear to Blacks the challenges they continue to face, although now you get enough incidents of injustice against individual Whites but nothing like the Ferguson Blue Gang.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does it bother anyone that southern wealth was most likely created on the backs of slaves?

It would if it were true. The problem is it's really not. Wealthy southern families comprised the so-called planter class in the antebellum. The lion's share of their wealth was tied up in slaves. That wealth of course evaporated into thin air with emancipation. Land in the South was also very cheap compared to today's standards, particularly at the frontier as it moved westward. After the civil war, credit markets in the south collapsed and with them land values. So, whatever was left in land value went down the tubes for a generation or more. They were essentially ruined and started again from scratch without slave labor, if they didn't lose their land to creditors.

And there really weren't that many plantations. I think in the entire state of Georgia there were under 50. So, even if 50 families ended up super wealthy we're talking a handful of people.

[Anonymous]

Old Southern money = slave holder wealth. In other words, your rich southern ancestors stole the labor of enslaved blacks. It's a pretty simple explanation, but it's not pretty.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Old Southern money = slave holder wealth. In other words, your rich southern ancestors stole the labor of enslaved blacks. It's a pretty simple explanation, but it's not pretty.

Well, you haven't read the last several posts. Never let the facts get in the way of a good story, eh?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Old Southern money = slave holder wealth. In other words, your rich southern ancestors stole the labor of enslaved blacks. It's a pretty simple explanation, but it's not pretty.

Well, you haven't read the last several posts. Never let the facts get in the way of a good story, eh?

And you shouldn't let history get in the way of your romanticized view of the south. Let me guess: You go around saying that the Civil War (oops, the War of Northern Aggression) was really about "states rights," right? You just leave out the part about the War being about states' rights...to own other human beings. You sound like a KKKassy guy/gal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Old Southern money = slave holder wealth. In other words, your rich southern ancestors stole the labor of enslaved blacks. It's a pretty simple explanation, but it's not pretty.

Well, you haven't read the last several posts. Never let the facts get in the way of a good story, eh?

And you shouldn't let history get in the way of your romanticized view of the south. Let me guess: You go around saying that the Civil War (oops, the War of Northern Aggression) was really about "states rights," right? You just leave out the part about the War being about states' rights...to own other human beings. You sound like a KKKassy guy/gal.

Well bless your heart. Others have explained that wealth connected to slavery was destroyed by the war. It wasn't "handed down" to anyone. If it makes you feel better to cling to your dogma, go ahead and do so.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Old Southern money = slave holder wealth. In other words, your rich southern ancestors stole the labor of enslaved blacks. It's a pretty simple explanation, but it's not pretty.

Well, you haven't read the last several posts. Never let the facts get in the way of a good story, eh?

And you shouldn't let history get in the way of your romanticized view of the south. Let me guess: You go around saying that the Civil War (oops, the War of Northern Aggression) was really about "states rights," right? You just leave out the part about the War being about states' rights...to own other human beings. You sound like a KKKassy guy/gal.

Well bless your heart. Others have explained that wealth connected to slavery was destroyed by the war. It wasn't "handed down" to anyone. If it makes you feel better to cling to your dogma, go ahead and do so.

Bless your heart too (well, not really--I don't play the Southern fake-politeness game). You do realize that people can tell (and have told) any lie they choose about historical events. Just because someone tells you that chattel-slavery connected wealth was completely destroyed by the Civil War doesn't make it so. If you want to believe that every plantation-owning slaveholder permanently lost their wealth in the War...well, that's your choice.