Karl Rabeder gives away $4.7 million fortune

Karl Rabeder gives away $4.7 million fortune, says money stops you from being happy.


*By Adam Sommers
Wednesday, February 10th 2010, 6:09 PM
http://www.nydailyn ews.com/news/ 2010/02/10/ 2010-02-10_karl_rabeder_ gives_away_ 67_million_ fortune_says_ money_stops_ you_from_ being_happy. html

*"Dear working stiffs and other people who have no money: Stop trying to berich and get ahead in life. You don’t know how good you’ve got it."

*That is exactly the message from a businessman named Karl Rabeder, who is planning to move into a small cabin in Innsbruck, Austria, after giving awaya $4.7 million fortune he has spent a lifetime amassing, according to London’s The Daily Telegraph.

Rabeder grew up poor and thought that life would be wonderful if he had money. But when he got rich, he discovered that he was unhappy, so he’sgiving away every dime."

My idea is to have nothing left. Absolutely nothing," he told Telegraph.'

'Money is counterproductive – it prevents happiness to come.”

Instead, he will move out of his luxury Alpine retreat into a small wooden hut in the mountains or a simple dwelling in Innsbruck.

His entire proceeds are going to charities he set up in Central and Latin America, but he will not even take a salary from these.

"For a long time I believed that more wealth and luxury automatically meant more happiness," he said.

"I come from a very poor family where the ruleswere to work more to achieve more material things, and I applied this formany years,” said Rabeder.

But over time, he had another, conflicting feeling, according to theTelegraph.

“More and more I heard the words: ‘Stop what you are doing now – all this luxury and consumerism – and start your real life’,” he’s quoted as saying.

“I had the feeling I was working as a slave for things that I did not wish for or need. I have the feeling that there are lot of people doing the samething.”