5 Taboo Topics That the World's Wealthy Won't Discuss
Here are the five taboo topics the world's wealthy won't discuss:
5. Health Issues
No family relishes an aunt's retelling of her latest goiter operation, complete with disgusting detail. They tolerate it even less at a dinner table where they're ostensibly attempting to enjoy a meal without it being rendered unpalatable by each passing phrase. That discomfort underlies the basis for avoiding most idle health-care discussions: Everyone is anxious about his or her health and well-being.
4. Religion
When the Georgia state legislature earlier this year attempted to pass a "religious freedom" bill with language targeting gay, lesbian, transgendered, bisexual and gender-queer persons, corporate interests began distancing themselves from it. 21st Century Fox, AMC (whose hit show "The Walking Dead" films in Georgia), Apple, every Atlanta professional sports franchise, Comcast, Disney, Delta Airlines, Microsoft, Dow Chemical, Paypal, Time Warner, Coca-Cola and other companies responded by voicing their intent to withdraw business from the state. Gov. Nathan Deal eventually killed the bill.
It's a scenario that's repeated, with similar results, in Indiana, Arizona, Illinois and elsewhere. While often interpreted as a political statement, it boils down to just one: People of all beliefs buy products. Alienating them doesn't create wealth.
3. Sex
How many chief executives need to lose his or her job before the rest figure out that boardrooms and breakrooms aren't connected to the bedroom.
A host of sexual harassment complaints against former Fox News CEO Roger Ailes led to his ouster earlier this year. Former American Apparel CEO Dov Charney was unseated after a company investigation claimed, among other offenses, that he'd sexually harassed employees and engaged in other acts of sexual misconduct.
2. Politics
Unless you're Donald Trump and are completely willing to have your personal brand and businesses hitched to your political platform, it typically isn't advisable to give your politics a public airing when there's personal wealth at stake.
1. Money
"For the better-off in many countries, there has often been a sense of embarrassment or guilt surrounding their wealth and, as such, it was and/or is gauche to talk about.," Green says. "There's the misplaced underlying feeling that to talk about financial privilege is to flaunt it. This shame-like sentiment is despite the fact that the wealthiest individuals have often been and continue to be some of the most important job and wealth creators and philanthropists."
