It’s always a pleasure read Florian’s interesting threads.

Well, without knowing the details of the story, there’s no way of knowing what happened to your friends who struck it rich. In my opinion, money cannot change people. Your friends were probably “heartless” while they were poor. Money just gave them the opportunity to express themselves better. Any hypocrite can talk about the goodness of helping others (and many do) when he doesn’t even have the means to help himself. Money doesn't change people; it just empowers them to reveal their true nature. Money cannot make a fool wise, as Som pointed out, but there are plenty more fools without money, who will never have the opportunity to reveal their foolishness.

You know Phil, we engineers have a saying of our own "It's impossible to totally foolproof anything because fools will always find a way to beat even the best systems". Experience tells me that's true.

Saying 1: Money purchases power.

Saying 2: Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Saying 3: I cannot claim I'm incorruptible, just that I haven't come up against a big enough temptation yet.

It does indeed, and more the fools, they. They forget that what got them there in the first place was their amiable behavior and lack of hubris. But a fool and his money are soon parted.

Money can ruin some people . In some way some people lose themselves to greed. At a higher cost of course.Some people's mind can be easily warped.