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Children of the Yuan Percent: Everyone Hates China's Rich Kids

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Re: Children of the Yuan Percent: Everyone Hates China's Rich Kids

#111

Post by bostonpete »

veidr wrote: post #68
littletimmy wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really liked this sentiment of Oscar Wilde on charity: “[Charity] is not a solution [to poverty]: it is an aggravation of the difficulty. The proper aim is to try and reconstruct society on such a basis that poverty will be impossible…Just as the worst slave-owners were those who were kind to their slaves, and so prevented the horror of the system being realised by those who suffered from it, and understood by thos…

That quote has always bugged the shit out of me, because: those were only the worst slave owners for future generations of sociology and history students (who mostly didn't descend from slaves). For the actual slaves themselves, the worst slaveowners were the ones who whipped and tortured their slaves in an attempt to extract more value (or just for fun), those who separated children from parents, raped the women or…

I think it's obvious from the context that he means "worst" from a macro perspective. I don't really see why it bugs you so much -- the fact that any given person likely prefer a "kind" slaveowner, or prefer that the rich be charitable seems to go without saying.

Re: Children of the Yuan Percent: Everyone Hates China's Rich Kids

#112

Post by cryoshon »

0xcde4c3db wrote: post #24
k__ wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wasn't "The 1%" really "The 0.001%" in the US already?

Pretty much. The bottom of the 1% is the elite of people who still actually work for a living, such as lawyers, dentists, and doctors.

This is why wealth is a better measure than income in terms of inequality.

It'd also help if people's first homes to own weren't counted, too. You'd see a real disparity.

Re: Children of the Yuan Percent: Everyone Hates China's Rich Kids

#113

Post by analyst74 »

gozo wrote: post #27
EliRivers wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a bit out of context. The full quote radically changes the meaning: "There are two groups of poor people. One is, you don’t work hard. You deserve to be poor because you don’t work hard. Second is, you work hard but can’t succeed. I think we should help the second group of people."

Which is still ridiculous because the Chinese are the hardest working people I've ever seen. I would assume she and her friends are by far the least hard working demographic in China. It's a just world fallacy if anything.

It's a selection bias, because the lazy and stupid ones don't qualify for economic immigration, and there is no easy way to illegally cross the pacific ocean.

Re: Children of the Yuan Percent: Everyone Hates China's Rich Kids

#114

Post by olalonde »

joshuaheard wrote: post #64
talloaktrees wrote: post #38

I had trouble understanding this title, and I realized it's because I speak Chinese. "Yuan" doesn't sound anything like one. it's more like "you" + "an"

I was told in China it was pronounced "wahn", so the title makes sense to me.

It's more like yü-an actually (similar to how "u" is pronounced in French): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Zh-yu%C3%A1n.ogg

Re: Children of the Yuan Percent: Everyone Hates China's Rich Kids

#115

Post by iamcurious »

aianus wrote: post #101
timwaagh wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

most people i know do need to work if they dont want to sleep in the streets. i program others wait tables or clean out the garbage. you think somebody does that for 'pride'? it does not matter if the country is developed or not you still have to work because real estate is expensive even if food is not. if you dont well congrats but then you (and your buddies) are one of these second generation dandies.

You could program 5 hours a month remotely and make more than a university graduate working full-time in Vietnam. So yeah, the vast, vast majority of U.S. programmers are ultimately doing it out of reasons other than survival, whether they realize it or not.

What stops said Vietnamese for working the same 5 hours a month remotely?

Re: Children of the Yuan Percent: Everyone Hates China's Rich Kids

#116

Post by codyb »

AngrySkillzz wrote: post #81
themartorana wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What will become of the already unstable Middle East when oil begins its inevitable (likely slow) decline as a dominant power source?

Most of the oil-rich nations have reasonably large sovereign wealth funds, so they have broad investment exposure to the rest of the global economy. I think the plan is to draw on those as necessary to transition their economies into something more diversified and sustainable.

And it looks (at least in Saudi Arabia's case) that they were trying to diversify towards renewables in a vast way [0], although my google search also turned up more recent articles indicating they're pushing that back [1]. The thing about the Saudi Arabian royal family is that they're all guaranteed allowances and the family grows at a near exponential rate since they all have multiple wives. I couldn't find any good sources on numbers but in a book about Saudi Arabia by former CIA operative Robert Baer "Sleeping with the Devil: How the US Sold it's Soul for Saudi Crude" [3] [4] I believe he estimated the current number to be about 60,000 (Wikipedia estimates 15,000 so I may be remembering that wrong [5]), aka an unsustainable population growth in royal family members.

[0] - http://www.arabnews.com/news/458342 [1] - http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/news/2015/01/saudi-arabi... [3] - http://www.amazon.com/Sleeping-Devil-Washington-Saudi-Crude/... [4] - (heartily recommended, although because most of these things are classified, truly it is his word. In his other book about Iran, his conclusion was to bring Iran to the playing table and recognize them as a regional and world power, so it doesn't seem to follow a strictly American narrative, and in my opinion, gives him a bit of credence. Others may beg to differ, I'm not sure.) [5] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Saud

Re: Children of the Yuan Percent: Everyone Hates China's Rich Kids

#117

Post by justicezyx »

rcarrigan87 wrote: post #11

Further down in the article, some interesting points about the motivations behind philanthropy. "philanthropy is about more than just social responsibility—it’s about social stability." So other than a genuine desire to do good or vanity seeking that can motivate philanthropy, you have a third element in China - preventing a revolt by the poor on the rich. If you give just enough, you'll keep the poor subdued. I wond…

No its not about revolt by the poor. Because there is basically no effective law enforcement on the rich, the poor are in real danger of harmed or even killed by the rich, and the rich would not be punished accordingly.

Caveat, the poor do get punished accordingly. As always.

There are regular cases of the rich kids drive a fancy car drunk, kills a few, and silently received a few years in jail, where the poor will probably get half life time. Then in a year or so, the guy suppose in jail suddenly appear on the street... Jesus, you got to be worried walking on street and killed by a drunk rich kid...

All in all, it was not motivated by preventing revolt. The Chinese riches in generally are just too evil...

Re: Children of the Yuan Percent: Everyone Hates China's Rich Kids

#118

Post by analyst74 »

littletimmy wrote: post #46
rcarrigan87 wrote: post #11

Further down in the article, some interesting points about the motivations behind philanthropy. "philanthropy is about more than just social responsibility—it’s about social stability." So other than a genuine desire to do good or vanity seeking that can motivate philanthropy, you have a third element in China - preventing a revolt by the poor on the rich. If you give just enough, you'll keep the poor subdued. I wond…

I really liked this sentiment of Oscar Wilde on charity: “[Charity] is not a solution [to poverty]: it is an aggravation of the difficulty. The proper aim is to try and reconstruct society on such a basis that poverty will be impossible…Just as the worst slave-owners were those who were kind to their slaves, and so prevented the horror of the system being realised by those who suffered from it, and understood by thos…

That's a silly notion.

If all slave owners treated their slaves really well, provide them with decent housing, gourmet food, education, social activities and entertainment, vacations, and etc, with the condition that they have to work, then there is probably not going to be a rebellion, and we'd still have slavery today.

Oh wait, did I just describe the condition what most of us live in?

In the end, rebellions happen when people don't have basic security. If in a future society, where the 1% people countrols 99% of the wealth, but even the poorest people get all the food, shelter, entertainment etc they need, I don't think there is going to be a rebellion like we see in history books.

Re: Children of the Yuan Percent: Everyone Hates China's Rich Kids

#119

Post by chuckcode »

blazespin wrote: post #10
lordnacho wrote: post #2

Well it sounds like they have the same problems other rich kids have. Mainly that it's hard to get away from from your parents' influence, and anything you achieve is credited to the family. Also there's a wariness about new people, and a feeling of being disconnected from ordinary society. I know a couple of heirs, and they've handled it differently. One kid works in the family office, investing the family fortune.…

TBH, if you can accept a lower standard of living, few people really need to work that much - at least in developed nations. Most people work for social pride and connection to the community. Which is a good reason. I just wish we could remake how to generate this social pride. Buying a nice car or nice house shouldn't be a reason to feel proud. Teaching, doing or learning something new and useful for your community…

Having kids and generally rising US prices for housing, energy, childcare, school and health care certainly make it feel like I need to work. Certainly didn't feel as important before having a family. Kind of ironic as you have to work more to provide for for them materially at a time when your family most needs your presence.

I for one would like to see us pay teacher in the US a lot more so they can do something good for the community and their family at the same time.

Re: Children of the Yuan Percent: Everyone Hates China's Rich Kids

#120

Post by _nedR »

o0-0o wrote: post #54
blisterpeanuts wrote: post #20

I visited China in 1982, when the capitalist revolution was just getting started. Such wealth did not exist, but there was a deep, simmering anger among the people over Communist corruption and general unfairness and inequity. I witnessed it personally. Now that there's a bit more prosperity and availability of material goods, but still no freedom and still a simmering resentment of government corruption, this fuerda…

Large scale social unrest is just what the communists fear the most. To me, that's not worrisome - it's hopeful. Just opining, and I understand that the collateral costs would be worrisome for everyone in the short term.

You probably don't know what you are wishing for.

Just scroll through this list : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_and_anthropogenic...

4 out of the 10 most deadliest human conflicts in human history happened in China. I have a suspicion that the Chinese leadership is acutely aware of this, and their world-view has been moulded by this (favouring stability over everything else including justice, freedom or human rights). When things go wrong there, they tend to go wrong in a big way.

edit: To get some idea of the scale, The An Lushan Rebellion that occurred in the 7th century wiped out 15% of the world population at the time.

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