A few things that happen when you make money in face-saving cultures.

-In free cultures, people usually hang out with you because they like hanging out with you, and enjoy the good vibes of chatting with you.

-In face-saving cultures, when you have money, people hate you, because you make them look bad with all your money. So the tactic they use is deception, where they pretend to like you, pretend to be your friend. They then use all sorts of psychological manipulation tactics, and “invent” all kinds of “debts” that you owe them. “I cooked for you, you owe me a debt!” or “I spent the day with you when you were lonely, you owe be a debt!” or “I bought your children gifts, you owe me a debt” or “I'm your friend, you owe me a debt!”

-So in face-saving cultures, those friends, who don't really like you, in fact hate you and despise you, are going to try to find ways to take your money. And then they will brag to their other friends about how stupid you were to sign them cheques when you in fact owed them nothing.

-Second thing about face-saving cultures is that when you're rich or you have money, your “friends” and “family” are going to be very jealous, because you make them look bad.

-So those “friends” and “family” are going to pressure you to spend recklessly or invest recklessly, and they are going to use psychological tactics like “everyone's making fun of you because you're not driving or Porsche or a Ferrari” or “everyone's making fun of you because you live in an apartment, not a condo” or “everyone's making fun of you because you only own one house and don't own secondary residences.”

-Other point in face-saving cultures: people don't trust other people (including banks) with their money.

-That is, in face-saving countries, if you have money sitting still in the bank, the government, the mafia or both are going to rub shoulders and try to come up with ways to take that money that's sitting still in the bank.

-In Japan and South Korea for example, you had all those big businesses that since the 1990s have been reinvesting almost every penny they profited from. Why? Because the government kept harassing them to give up those profits, either in the form of taxes, bribes, “charity donations” (which in fact ended up in the pockets of government officials or mega-churches). So you had those big companies saying “rather than save money and take time to think about where to invest some of it, let's invest all of it, and immediately, without thinking too much!”

-In face-saving cultures, your family, your friends and the government are going to pressure you to give up your savings, profits, income and will try to take whatever they can.

-In face-saving cultures, family, friends and the government are going to use any psychological tactic they can to get rich people to give up their money, including by saying things like “this is government money that should belong to people that was stolen” or “you didn't really work hard for your money, you bribed your way up to become rich” or “the laws make it impossible for poor people to become rich, you only became rich by cheating” and things like that.

-In face-saving cultures, rich people have to compete with other rich people to acquire expensive symbols, and lacking those expensive symbols could lead to ostracism. When you're rich, you must purchase a house in a certain neighborhood, drive a certain brand of car, and establish your HQ in a certain neighborhood in so on.

-In free societies, we try to work on giving each individual strong enough individuality that they mind their own business. So any individual will have a project that defines their character and personality.

-In face-saving cultures, you are not allowed to work independently on a project that defines your character and personality. So when someone comes up to you and introduces himself and appears to be rich, non-rich people are going to be defensive, as in “I may not have money, but I'm well-educated” or “I may not have money, but I keep the traditions” or “I may not have money, but I'm polite and well-dressed.”

-In sum, in free societies, what you do is you build a strong individuality, and focus on building your individual character and what defines you as an individual. Outsiders to your individuality are “non-persons” you have shallow relationships with and don't spend too much time thinking about.

-In face-saving cultures, people tend to have no individuality, but to consider themselves members of a tribe. Tribal membership involves rank, and people want to be ranked at the top. When they can't be ranked at the top, and that someone seems to be ranked at the top, the start smearing them and questioning the individual's title as a “tribal” leader. And if possible, they try to strip the individual of his “tribal leader” rank.

-Where does Yossi Gatt stand with all this? I work hard on my individuality, and to be honest, don't really give a damn about being ranked top or bottom of any society. I focus on what makes me happy and on cultivating what makes me happy.

-But, I am surrounded by face-saving people who play all sorts of games with me. I stand at a distance from that, don't pay too much attention to that, study that, and write articles about that.

-But there really are people in face-saving cultures who meet me and talk to me and feel so “humiliated” by my “intellect” that they try to find all kinds of ways to sabotage me.

-Fortunately, those people have not interfered with my work. Face-saving usually try to create a co-dependent relationship, and to destroy people in those co-dependent relationships. I tend to stay away from any co-dependent relationship.

-This is why I like to hang out with crowds rather than with individuals. When individuals start dictating how I should behave with the crowd, because such individuals believe my relationship with them is co-dependent and that my interactions with the crowd affect their reputation, I usually keep such individuals at a distance and reined them that my crowd is my priority.

-In sum, I'm not jealous of anyone and I don't smear anyone. I don't feel the need to belong to a rank so I'm not trying to prove that I'm better than anyone. When I look at a painting I don't think like “this is beautiful” or “this is ugly.” I try to look at the patterns, colors, traits, meaning, and perhaps try to guess what emotions the painting could trigger among viewers, and what emotional state the painter was when he or she painted. That's how I work.