Rob Greenfield on Money, Health Insurance, Age and Death

Hey everyone. Rob Greenfield here

and today we are going to talk about

some bigger picture things

Money,

Health Insurance,

Age,

Death,

and how these are a part of my life

what I am doing.

A lot of people ask this.

It is one of the most common themes of

questions because I have designed my life

in a different way. There is no doubt

that the way that I am living is not typical in

the society that I live in, here in the

United States

So ... of course, I am going

to have questions of those bigger picture

things and I want to share

those things with you

Now, I have put countless hours of thought

into these topics,

into money and how it is

involved in my life, into health, and

ultimately, the question of health

insurance, into what I am going to do

when I am older (I am 33 years old now)

and the though of death

These are central parts of our life and I

have put so many hours of thought into

them. In fact, almost everything that I do

is very much designed, through many hours

of thought, through much practice,

and through general consciousness,

deciding to live in the way that I want.

Now, my life is designed around living

in a way that is beneficial to the Earth,

my community, and myself. That is the

central theme you are going to see

running through all of this. I have

designed my life to try to live in a way

where I am imparting goodness into

the world, and not destruction, giving

back or giving to, without taking. That

is really the design. To start with, I am

going into money a little bit first. I

have committed to living below the

Federal poverty threshold. What I mean is

making less than what is considered the

Federal poverty threshold. I am not trying

to simulate poverty. That is not what I am

doing at all. For me, what that is, is

it is a way to create a measure to make

less than that per year, to keep my life

not focused on money and only make the

money that I need. Currently, in 2019, the

Federal Poverty Threshold for an

individual is about $12,000. My lifetime

commitment is to make less per year than

the Federal Poverty Threshold, which

changes from year to year. At the same

time, I have made a lifetime

commitment to donating 100% of my media

earnings directly to non profits. Not be

paid any, but to have it, instead

donated directly to nonprofits. It

says in my contracts, with TV, with books,

that I am not being paid. They are making

a donation to environmental nonprofits.

Now, some people look at my life, and

think that I am not contributing,

by deciding to earn minimal money,

then I am not contributing

and one of the big ones is taxes.

I have intentionally made a

commitment to not pay

federal taxes

and the reason why is because

I do not support war, and a

huge percentage of our taxes go into war.

they go into the

destruction of our planet. So,

the thing about or tax system is,

it is not a just system, it is not an

equal system, and it is causing

destruction to the world. I am not going

to put money there.

that is something that I decided.

But what I have done is, I have

given myself, basically, a 100%

tax. 100% of media income goes

directly to nonprofits.

Those are underfunded things,

in our society, that need

more, that benefit our society as a

whole, so I chose nonprofits that

really are working at benefitting

people, especially benefitting people

that are under served, those taxes that

are being disproportionately sent

around and not being sent to the under

served people and, of course, the under

served species.

So, the idea is not paying into what I do

not support, and paying into what I

really support, and what is beneficial to

the bigger picture. Now,

because I have committed to that,

that means I am not paying into Social

Security. Because of that, I have made a

commitment to not withdraw from Social

Security. My goal through this is always

to be fair, to be honest, and it is

easy for people who might not believe

in what I am doing to just make their

assumptions, like "Oh well, he is going

to take Social Security." or

"He is going to mooch off the system,"

butI, again, have thought this out very

deeply. I have decided that I will not take

from social security. If social security even

exists in the future,

when I will be eligible for it. But not

taking from social security