Just jumping in here to back you up jpmoral. In fact, I said in my original comment that I am not trying to tell anyone how to spend money and its these peoples' own lives and they can do what they want, right in the last paragraph. So I hope nobody was offended here.
On the other hand, the first reply above actually answers the question. Notice that, while cloaked as a rebuttal to my initial comment, it was actually a string of defenses as to how the author rationalizes spending money for himself, others, or both, which was precisely what I asked for. Let's take a look at the points made:
- I earned this money so I can spend it how I want
- I should not hold back on spending money because it's my personal freedom
- Do you give away 100% of your money? If not, you are no better than me so who are you to suggest this?
- We have tried to solve worldwide poverty problems and failed many times, so it won't make a difference if I donate
- The money I spend on luxurious things is helping society as it creates jobs and trickles down the supply chain, so anything I spend is actually good for the world
- It's none of your business how I spend my money
Pretty decent answer actually, when it comes down to it. The answer is simply that people come up with a relatively consistent number of ways that they can rationalize themselves spending excessively, and from these rationalizations build their psychological defense. In fact, many of the points in his answer are exactly the same as the ones from the quora threads linked in my edit above.
Now, my next question is whether any of these defenses are valid. My preliminary research indicates that a resounding "no" is the answer, however, I'm going to continue researching and do a separate writeup on this topic, as it's fairly extensive. If anyone from here is interested at all let me know on twitter or something (@jescalan) and I'll link you when it's done. This thread is fairly buried by now though so I assume not.