The Rich Want to Be Richer

Homer: Mr. Burns, you're the richest guy I know. Way richer than Lenny.
Mr. Burns: Oh yes. But I'd trade it all for a little more.

— The Simpsons, "Mountain of Madness"

So there are people out there with money. A lot of money — enough money to buy a country, even. You'd think they'd be satisfied with such a fortune, right? Most would be. But some people, no matter how rich they are, are always hungry for even more fortunes, and will go to great lengths to achieve this goal.

Unlike The Scrooge, whose goal is simply to spend as little of their own money as possible, thereby ensuring they retain the level of wealth they've already gained (to the point where they are willing to live in squalor and lack of comfort), this type of character is intent on gaining extra money to add to their fortune, even if they already have enough money for them to live in the lap of luxury for the rest of their days. Simply put, enough is never enough for them.

Characters with this trait are often antagonistic characters who cause problems for others because of this selfish goal. In the more extreme examples, these people are willing to go to absurd lengths to attain a fortune that is a mere fraction of their current funds. They may sometimes be a Corrupt Corporate Executive, but this isn't always the case.

A Sub-Trope of Greed and Capitalism Is Bad. Compare with Money Fetish, for when characters love money for no reason. See also Loves Only Gold and Gold Fever for the gold/precious metals-specific trope. Can overlap with Greed Makes You Dumb if the character loses their wealth because of their greed.

Compare Get-Rich-Quick Scheme.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Flame of Recca: This is the explicit reason why Big Bad Mori Kouran is an Immortality Seeker: he wants to enjoy exploiting others forever. Him being the richest man on the planet, with a near-complete Artifact of Doom collection and a time-traveler for a son, is considered by him as chump change compared to whatever he can obsess over next.
  Mori: Infinite Greed.

Comic Books

• The Condorito character Maximo Tacano (lit. Maximum Greedy) is a rich businessman who's a friend of Condorito. Despite having a fortune, Maximo still wants to get more money, usually offering loans to his friends with higher interests, Played for Laughs, obviously.
• Disney Ducks Comic Universe:
  • Scrooge McDuck is the richest person in the world but is always eager to become even richer, willing to use business savvy, grand adventure, hare-brained schemes, or (at his very worst) dirty dealings to accomplish this goal. This eventually results in an epic rant from his nephew Donald in The Treasury of Croesus:
    "I've had a bellyful of both of you! Year in and year out, you bring grief on yourselves! All for the sake of getting rich, staying rich, or getting richer still! You'll never be happy, because you always worry about what you'll do next to complicate your own greedy lives!"
  • Worse examples include Flintheart Glomgold and John D. Rockerduck, who much more readily resort to underhanded acts to increase their fortunes.
  • Gladstone Gander never has to work a day in his life, due to his extraordinary good luck ensuring he will always have more than enough to live comfortably. Despite this, he often gets involved in treasure-hunting contests, such as in one storyline where he signed up to hunt for a ruby on the beach.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic (IDW): During the "Convocation of the Creatures" two-parter, it is discovered that, years ago, Equestria bought land from Griffonstone that the ponies apparently never paid the agreed-upon price for, and thus must return it to Griffonstone. The Griffon Lord Goldstone is pleased to hear this, as it means his own personal holdings will increase as a result. When a document is discovered that proves the debt was settled, Lord Goldstone orders his underlings to destroy it, so he can still profit.

Films — Animation

• The Curse of the Were-Rabbit has Lord Quartermaine act as a charming Gold Digger to Lady Tottington. His overtures aren't much about loving her, rather they're about getting his hands on her fortune.
• Frozen: Prince Hans of the Southern Isles turned out to be a Gold Digger who sought to become King of Arendelle by faking his romance with Anna and "staging an accident" for Elsa. He's already wealthy due to his status as a foreign prince but wants to become a King by any means possible because of his status as the Spare to the Throne back home, and killing his father and 12 older brothers, who are ahead of him, would raise eyebrows. He has been confirmed to be a subversion of the Prince Charming trope Disney is known for.
• The titular Treasure Planet is where the notorious space pirate Nathaniel Flint stored "the loot of a thousand worlds." When the RLS Legacy arrives at Treasure Planet, the tall tale proves true: Captain Flint died on a throne surrounded by several metric tonnes of gold and jewels. Of course, being a space pirate means there's nowhere he could go to spend it without risking capture for his capital crimes. Yet, Flint is so selfish that he rigs an Earth-Shattering Kaboom Booby Trap to prevent anyone from absconding his trove.

Films — Live-Action

• Discussed in Aladdin (2019), when Genie is first explaining his wish-granting powers. He mentions that a lot of people ask for power or money.
  Genie: Do me a favour, do not drink from that cup. I promise you there is not enough money and power on Earth for you to be satisfied.
• Black Lightning (2009): Aside the unanswered mystery of how Viktor Kuptsov is planning to get away with destroying the capital of Russia for personal profit, his organization already borders on Fiction 500, so it's unclear why he wants these raw diamonds specifically besides it just being his obsession.
• Chinatown: Multi-millionaire Noah Cross engages in a scheme to control L.A.'s water supply despite his already vast wealth. Private detective Jake Gittes confronts him about this.
  Jake Gittes: I just want to know what you're worth. Over ten million?
  Noah Cross: Oh my, yes.
  Jake Gittes: Why are you doing it? How much better can you eat? What can you buy that you can't already afford?
  Noah Cross: The future, Mr. Gittes, the future.
• James Bond:
  • Ernst Stavro Blofeld, the nefarious head of SPECTRE and Bond's primary Arch-Enemy, is already wealthy thanks to his criminal empire having vast resources rivaling those of the superpowers, but his evil plans do involve world domination, and he'll do it by Playing Both Sides against each other.
  • Austrian tycoon Auric Goldfinger already has wealth from his many industries and his sizable hoard of gold. Yet, his Evil Plan involves setting off a nuclear device inside the vault of Fort Knox, which would make the United States' trove useless. In turn, the value of Goldfinger's stash would increase exponentially. By villain standards, totally worth it.
  • A View to a Kill: A former KGB agent turned business tycoon, Max Zorin's Evil Plan is very similar to Goldfinger's scheme, but with more collateral damage involved. Zorin wants to corner the microchip market by triggering a super-earthquake in the San Francisco Bay Area, which would destroy his competition and kill millions.
  • Elliot Carver in Tomorrow Never Dies is an interesting subversion: his global media empire influences every nation on Earth except China, inspiring him to instigate a possible full-scale war between China and England simply to gain Chinese broadcasting rights. He's willing to spend a fortune on his plot because he's greedy for influence over money.
• Richie Rich: Lawrence Van Dough starts out as the well-paid CFO of the Rich family's company, but he tries to actively murder his boss and his family just on the off-chance of becoming even more wealthy.
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014): Eric Sacks concocts a scheme with Shredder to drain the turtles of their blood and then bomb New York with a virus and sell the antidote made from said blood. The man was already the CEO of a major company that made millions daily, but it wasn't enough and he wants to be "stupid crazy rich".
• The Duke Brothers from Trading Places already have seats on the New York Stock Exchange, and clearly have lives of wealth and leisure. Nevertheless, they hatch an Evil Plan to corner the market on orange juice futures, just so they can be obscenely rich. And that's not even getting into the fact that they ruined the life of one of their best employees (and put a lot of effort into replacing him with a street hustler) over a wager where the winner received a single dollar...

Literature

• Osborne in Gorky Park fits this trope to a T; an already incredibly-wealthy fur importer, he kills two Soviet citizens and an American in an effort to smuggle live, breeding sables out of the Soviet Union to make himself even wealthier. Lampshaded by Arkady Renko:
  Renko: Why did you kill the people in Gorky Park?
  Osborne: You know why; you solved it.
  Renko: I know how you did, but why?
  Osborne: For the sables, as you know.
  Renko: Why did you want your own sables?
  Osborne: To make money. You know all this.
  Renko: You already have so much money.
  Osborne: To have more.
• A Song of Ice and Fire. Lampshaded by Jaime Lannister's aunt Genna, in a discussion of how a rival House might try to assert their claim to Riverrun despite already owning profitable lands. "Why does a man with one pot of gold need another? Men are greedy."

Live-Action TV

• Fargo Season 3: V.M. Varga is a walking, talking embodiment of this trope. The head of an international corporation called Narwhal, wealthy enough to afford several jets, sophisticated computer equipment, and a private army of thugs, Varga's only goal in life is to stockpile money for himself by any means necessary (including blackmail, fraud, and murder). He reasons that a human's only true value in life is proportionate to the amount of money they make.
• Hannah Montana: Rico is the son of a very wealthy man, and runs his own beach-based store, happily overcharging customers for his merchandise (and demanding extra for such things as straws and using the bathroom).
• Outer Banks: Ward Cameron is a successful businessman who uses his wealth to aid his treasure hunt, as well as frame and blame his competitors.
• Power Rangers Time Force: Mr. Collins is the head of BioLab, a highly successful company. But over the course of the series, he first builds a weapon to help the city of Silver Hills battle Ransik, then commissions a private security force called the Silver Guardians to protect people who can afford them, often pitting themselves against Ransik's powerful mutant warriors to do so (with usually painful results). Time Force Red Ranger (and Collins' son) Wes is not pleased with this, and calls Collins out on it:
  Wes: People are getting hurt, and all because you want more money. How much is enough for you, dad?
• This is the hat of the Ferengi from Star Trek. No matter how rich they are, the Rules of Acquisition demand that they amass greater and greater fortunes.
  Rule of Acquisition #18: "A Ferengi without profit is no Ferengi at all."

Video Games

• EXTRAPOWER: Attack of Darkforce: Fei's primary problem with his Kinreikan employers is that the wealthy organization will use any emergency to enrich themselves, up to and including the ongoing alien invasion. Platinum, who is also well aware of them, tries to avoid accruing a debt for their help, but Fei insists that they should take any opportunity to take advantage of the Kinkrekan's incredible wealth.
• Final Fantasy VII: The Shinra Electric Power Company is a MegaCorp that has influence over the entire planet, providing power by draining the Mako (lifeforce) of the Earth itself, and selling weapons, vehicles, Super-Soldier armies, and so much more to many nations. But the President of the company wants more, planning on locating the legendary "Promised Land", a place rich in Mako energy, where his company can build an entire city, and charge people a fortune for the chance to live there.
• Resident Evil: The Umbrella Corporation was the biggest pharmaceutical company in the world, but this wasn't enough for the guys in charge; they started researching viral weaponry, intending to sell their creations to the highest bidder.
• Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time: Penelope Mouse turned out to be a Gold Digger who sought to conquer the planet by faking her romance with Bentley to convince him to build weapons to sell on the black market. She's already wealthy due to her status as a champion ace pilot and from the wealth of the Cooper Vault but wants to become a Queen by any means possible. She's practically the Distaff Counterpart of Prince Hans from Frozen.
• Super Mario Bros.: Mario's arch-rival Wario is depicted as being quite wealthy, but is constantly trying to get his hands on more money, either through treasure hunting or running his own video game company.
• Uncharted 4: The antagonist, Rafe Adler, is already pretty wealthy but is disgruntled because he's Idle Rich i.e. the wealth was inherited to him rather than earned. And so he wishes to find the treasure of Henry Avery so he can have a part of his wealth that he gained himself despite having to rely on the Drake siblings to point him where he needs to go to find it.

Web Comics

• Dominic Deegan: Serk Brakkis, the antagonist of the "Battle for Barthis" arc. Already the owner of a successful sports team, his plan is to use the death of his star player and Barthis having been destroyed in a previous arc to build a stadium over the ruins of the town despite the protests of the town's residents and isn't above bribing officials and spreading false rumors to make it happen.
  Dominic: So that's what this is all about. Money. Nothing more. Just making money...and it doesn't matter how many lies he tells or how many people he ruins, just as long as he's making more and more money.
• Freefall has Mr. Kornada, the "Vice-President of Paperclip Allocation" at Ecosystems Unlimited. He implements a plan to "kill" (lobotomize to non-sentience) his planet's robots so he can steal their wealth. Thankfully he is as stupid as he is greedy — when his robot lackey presents the completed plan that will put seven percent of the planet's wealth in his pocket, his first question is if he can get control of the other ninety-three percent.
  Mr. Kornada: I was struck by the unfairness that others should have their money and I don't.
• Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal:
  • This trope is exploited by forcing insider trading firms to do their business through increasingly complex technological means, incentivizing the corporations to develop new transportation and energy technologies to keep up. This eventually results in a post-scarcity society where everyone is rich forever. At which point the Trading Firms freak out because the real purpose of their greed is to buy status by exploiting others. Then they go to war themselves (in tanks) so they can force others to worship them.
  • A Unitarian ethics computer overlord is hijacked by an anomalous sociopath who manages to gain genuine exponential happiness; every penny he earns from the sweatshops gives him more quantifiable happiness than what all his workers combined could ever feel. By his command, the computer enslaves humanity for the sole purpose of making the happiest man alive happier than the combined happiness of a utopia, in direct contrast to its actual purpose. He still demands suppression of free speech because he still wants even more happiness from being the only storyteller in the world.

Western Animation

• American Dad!: In "I Can't Stan You", Steve and Roger pull a real estate scam to gain $100,000, which they split between themselves. Steve (who had been the Butt-Monkey of their previous jobs), manages to take Roger's half by distracting him with a single dollar bill, which Roger leaps to catch, despite his already considerable earnings. The note Steve leaves in its place sums Roger up well:
  "You taught me that everyone's either a sucker, a crook, or just plain greedy. You're all three."
• Camp Lakebottom: Jordan Buttsquat is the son of the owners of Camp Sunnysmiles. His parents are rich enough to give him yachts (out of packs of ten), yet Buttsquat often tries to butt in on the Bottomdwellers' treasure hunts, and take the treasure for himself.
• Detentionaire: This is Cassandra's motivation for betraying "His Eminence" and the Council, believing that if she can open the pyramid without waking up all the serpents, she can steal their technology and make a fortune off of it. Her daughter Kimberly points out they are already so absurdly rich and don't really need it, only for Cassandra to reply that you can never have too much money. Kimberly then freezes her mother while she is distracted from fighting Lee to get the second pyramid key, lampshading that she finally realizes how crazy she is.
  Kimberly: (Sighs) Okay, my mom totally needs therapy. I get it.
• DuckTales (1987): Scrooge McDuck and Flintheart Glomgold act as two sides of the same coin. Both are immeasurably wealthy and obsessed with heaping more upon their (literal) piles of money. The only difference between them is that Scrooge has scruples, while Glomgold doesn't.
• Family Guy: Peter's father-in-law Carter owns a multi-million dollar company but is always eager to earn a little more money. In Carter's case, it's for the challenge running his business gives him rather than just the money itself, as shown when Lois convinced him to retire to Florida in one episode. With nothing to strive for, Carter turned into a near-catatonic shell of himself within a few days.
  • In "Scammed Yankees", he read a con e-mail asking for 10,000 dollars, with the false promise of a $1,000,000 payback, and eagerly went along with it.
  • In "Carter and Tricia", he bought the Pawtucket Patriot brewery and ordered them to start making beer cans out of a cheap yet toxic metal, all so he could save a few dollars. Ironically, the metal he wanted to replace the cans with was "the one they make prison toilets out of" because he assumed they're cheaply made, while in reality they're made of stainless steel.
• In the Fleshier Studio short "Greedy Humpty Dumpty", Humpty Dumpty is rich, but he's greedy and wants even more money. Believing there is gold in the sun, he builds his wall into a Tower of Babel until it reaches space, upon which he breaks open the sun and is essentially punished by the heavens and, as in the nursery rhyme, falls off his wall and is broken to pieces.
• Futurama: In "A Head in the Polls", Bender becomes rich after literally selling his body (he's a robot so he can survive with just a head), and manages to get even richer by cheating at a casino.
• George of the Jungle: When Super Chicken learns one of his former classmates literally stole Rhode Island, he wonders why someone who's already rich would steal and an old school picture of said classmate says it's to become richer.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic: In the season six episode "Viva las Pegasus", Con Artist brothers Flim and Flam gain ownership of a popular resort, the profits of which will in all likelihood have them set for life. But in all their later appearances, they still pull scams, planning to use the profits to have the resort expanded, all so they can make even more money.
• Ruby-Spears Superman: In "Destroy the Defendroids", when Lex Luthor tells Miss Morganberry what crime he plans to use the Defendroids for, she points out he's already rich. Luthor says his father taught him one can never have enough.
• The Simpsons: Mr. Burns, the billionaire owner of the local nuclear power plant. He's easily the richest man in town but is always on the lookout for more money.
  • In "Old Money", Grampa is left $106,000 in his girlfriend's will. Not knowing what to do with it himself, he requests that anyone who wants it should come and make their case for him to give it to them. One of the people who sees him is Mr. Burns, who literally begs Grampa to give the money to him. When Grampa points out that he's already rich, Burns responds with this:
    "Mr. Simpson, I dread the day when $100,000 isn't worth groveling for."
  • In "Monty Can't Buy Me Love", loveable billionaire Arthur Fortune gives out free dollar bills to those attending the opening of his latest megastore. Mr. Burns zaps Ned Flanders with a cattleprod so he can take the dollar Flanders picked up.
  • After being fined $3 million for illegal dumping in "Marge Vs. The Monorail", Burns shows up in a Paper-Thin Disguise, wearing a fake moustache and calling himself "Mr Snrub", at the town meeting to try and convince the town to give the money back to the plant, even though it's such a paltry sum for him he was literally carrying it around in his wallet.
  • In "Who Shot Mr Burns?", Mr. Burns resorts to disguising himself as the teenaged Jimbo to try and trick Principal Skinner into signing over the school's new oil well to him. When this fails, he outright steals the well using a slanted oil rig. This episode in particular is notable, as Mr Burns' behavior escalates into supervillain-level of greed, culminating in him blocking off the sun so he can gain a complete energy monopoly over Springfield. He earns so many enemies from his actions that when someone shoots him, virtually everyone in town is a suspect. Ironically, what got him shot was even pettier than all of the above — he tried to steal Maggie's candy. And failed, with his gun accidentally going off in the struggle. Over a lollipop.
• South Park:
  • In "The Tooth Fairy's Tats! 2000", the boys get involved in a "tooth fairy racket" (tricking the parents of rich kids into thinking they put a tooth under their pillow, then taking the money they put there before anyone realizes), and are soon rich enough to afford a number of luxuries. But when they see a news report (actually a lure for a dentist's sting operation) proclaiming that an ill child will be given $600 for an operation he needs by the tooth fairy, they leap to get the money.
  • In "Red Man's Greed" the townspeople, needing to save the town from being bulldozed and replaced by a new road, pool what funds they can together and bet it all on a game of roulette. Miraculously, they win enough to save the town... but decide to play again so they can win even more money, despite the kids urging them to take the money and leave. As a result, they end up losing everything.
• Mr. Krabs from SpongeBob SquarePants is a very rich and successful business owner. However, he is still cheap and on one occasion nearly rips off a man's arm for a penny.
• Talking Tom and Friends: The CEO is a multi-millionaire businessman, but he is intent on gaining even more riches (usually by trying to steal and take credit for Tom and Ben's latest creations).

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