Throwing money at a problem works, when you are actually throwing money at the problem and not at a symptom.
For me currently, my car is a good example.
Problem: I need reliable transportation.
My car is almost old enough to vote here in the US and while it has been a reliable ride now things are starting to fail left and right. I could spend money replacing the parts that break as they break. Or I could simply replace the car.
My solution: Just replace the car. More expensive short term, but it’ll be cheaper and far less headache long term.
IMO that’s what the “throwing at” is meant to convey. The person doing the throwing is doing it at a distance and with low accuracy.
It works when money can purchase what is actually needed in detail, and the people on the receiving end are competent.
Im surprised nobody here mentions time. I can do alot of things myself. Like all the things that you can imagine. But my time is limited and I’d rather spend it with my family. So solving something by just spending some money saves me time and several headaches.
Throw enough money and THE expert comes to fix the problem.
Like, my fridge is broken – so I hired the entire engineering research and development department at [company] to solve the issue.
My renter complained that her dishwasher was broken. Bought her a new dishwasher. Complaints stopped because dishwasher works.
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fixing (thing) that you’ve been half assed fixing for ages
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having the right tools for the job
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I feel like Tesla and SpaceX are examples. An idiot with a lot of money at the helm that buys top talent and can afford constant failures until success comes through. Tesla is back on the way down now but was a success story for this for a while.
Every moment of every day, money solves peoples problems.
It’s kind of amazing how money realy is a problem solving superpower.Money is like batteries of performed labour.
Money is spent to leverage people’s labour.
Even heads of state - kings, presidents, dictators - need money as the lever to get people to do the work that HoS is directing them towards. Or thugs with guns, but they’re in-turn leveraged via having money.
It’s kind of important to me that people realise money isn’t “fake”, even when it becomes an abused and broken system. A currency can become worthless but money as a system will always be real.
Then why do so many rich people I meet tell me all their problems are much bigger and worse than mine?
Because their money already fixed all the kinds of problems you have. They have new problems now. They’re also exaggerating those problems.
Weird, they tell me their biggest problem is they don’t have enough money.
I don’t have that problem!
Exactly. You need more money to have that problem.
And like I said, they’re also exaggerating how much more money they need.
Rich people problems are stuff that can’t be solved with money
- how do I fix my inter personal relationships? (Treating others more nicely and talking to others as equals, usually)
- how do I become more interesting? (Don’t talk about money or fame so much)
- how do I get my subjects to forget my heinous crimes (sorry Mr President, no dice on that one)
Or problems we can have too, but they need some thought to solve. When you’re used to throwing money at problems you make others solve your problems for you and stop thinking about them beyond surface level.
E.g recurring plumbing problems or vehicle problems. Problems we cause for ourselves.
That must be why they need so much more money than the rest of us.
A few months ago I met someone who told me their returns on their portfolio only being 6% last year was a far tragedy than my mother’s prolonged death due to illness. It was glorious.
Social services. The programs that show that they save money - like rehabilitation instead of prison, that saves 4 dollars for every dollar spent. We should be funding those, but they’re not run by private prison companies, so there’s no political will to spend the money.
NASA
Sewer line always needed to be cleaned out, just replaced the whole line with a new pitch. Been great since then.
Finding employees.
Nuclear bombs, landing on the moon, for two.
I’m currently in the midst of throwing money at a problem - car’s brakes corroded after I didn’t drive for three months due to Reasons. I’m desperate to get back behind the wheel - a backlog of car-centric jobs has piled up.
Works at my work. Something broken? Throw money at someone and it’s either fixed or replaced.
They stopped throwing money so now when a fridge dies it’s just no fridge for a week.
