"Yup," they’ll say as if they have some incredible business acumen that I obviously lack, "I bought the place for 75 cents and half a bag of jelly beans back then, and I just sold it for $450,000."

I hate those people.

Even if they are old and dear friends — particularly if they are old and dear friends.

"Yeah," they will say, slapping their bellies and smacking their lips, "I found twice as big a house with 40 acres to buy in upstate New York for a third of what I sold my little joint for on Long Island. I just don’t know what to do with all that money."

I’d like to tell them what they could do with it, but I am far too much of a gentleman.

They are the undeserving rich, who like the lilies of the field (Luke 12:27), neither toil nor spin while the rest of us (wrote Thoreau) lead lives of quiet desperation.

As annoying as the real estate nouveau riche can be, they’re mere pikers compared with some people you hear about.

For instance, this guy named Phil Purcell.

For eight years, Phil was chairman and chief executive for Morgan Stanley, a very large investment bank, but he had to resign under pressure from the company in June after a number of key Morgan Stanley personnel quit and shareholders revolted because of his leadership.

According to The Associated Press, here’s the severance package Phil, 61, is getting from the company: (I am not making this up.)

A total of $43.9 million in bonus money, plus $250,000 per year for the rest of his life, health benefits and even $250,000 per year for office help. Morgan Stanley is also giving $250,000 per year to charity in Phil’s name.

We can only imagine what he’d be getting if he had been more successful at what he did.

There are more than 100 people who recently lost their jobs when The Hospital in Sidney (which was a very inadequate name for a place with so many dedicated people working there) closed down.

They didn’t get any severance pay.

Let’s see ... one guy who messes up royally gets millions while dozens of competent people struggling to make ends meet for their families get nothing.

Maybe it’s me, but something is wrong with that.

Wait, there’s more.

Unlike Phil, Terrell Owens is very good at what he does, which is being a wide receiver for the Philadelphia Eagles. Before the 2004 National Football League season, Owens signed a seven-year contract worth about $46 million.

But he says 46 million bucks aren’t enough.

So he fired his longtime agent and hired a hotshot named Drew Rosenhaus, who apparently believes a contract is just so much paper. Owens threatened to boycott training camp when it opens Monday but had a change of heart.

"I’ll be there. But I won’t be happy, I can tell you that much," Owens told the Philadelphia Inquirer. "Take from that whatever you want."

I take from it that he’s greedy and delusional not to be ecstatic about getting $46 million. Another Rosenhaus client is Javon Walker, a wide receiver for the Green Bay Packers, who also is under contract.

Rosenhaus threatened to keep Walker out of training camp because the contract calls for him to be paid "only" $515,000 this season.

"I can’t let this player go out on the field and jeopardize his career for that kind of money," Rosenhaus told HBO. "I just can’t fathom it."

Fathom this: "That kind of money" is more than half a million dollars.

For half a million dollars a year, I would spend every day from now until the Super Bowl as the Green Bay Packers’ tackling dummy.

Reality for most of us is being two paychecks away from poverty, living month-to-month while trying to pay our bills and not get too close to our credit card limit when the car breaks down.

There are kids in college — or who might need help when their college loans come due — gas, clothing, and have you noticed how ridiculously high prices have gotten at the supermarket?

There are small-business people and their employees who do without health insurance, and elderly parents we can’t help as much as we’d like because we just don’t have the money.

There is the almost-daily violence, noise, squalor and drug activity at some trailer parks where people are forced to live because they just can’t afford anything else.

"The only point in making money," said Humphrey Bogart, "is you can tell some big shot where to go."

I’d like to tell some big shots — with their real estate, business or athletic riches — to take a good look at America. They’ll find it will take them a very long time to count their blessings.

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Sam Pollak is editor of The Daily Star. He can be reached at spollak@thedailystar.com or at (607) 432-1000, ext. 208.