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I Stop Celebrities from Blowing Their Money

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Re: I Stop Celebrities from Blowing Their Money

#121

Post by adwi »

myroon5 wrote: post #6

"I charge a 5 percent commission rate, which is pretty standard" 5 percent of what?

Gross income.

I interviewed a potential business manager that was recommended by a few celebrity-actor types a few years back.

The idea of someone taking financial responsibility off your plate full-stop was definitely intriguing, but I did the math about what that would cost vs. just a full time personal assistant and I couldn't justify it.

He did immediately recommend a new bank for me which I had never heard about. Was fantastic advice, been happy with them since.

Re: I Stop Celebrities from Blowing Their Money

#122

Post by gonvaled »

rock_hard wrote: post #112
bjl wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do people still really believe that cases like this are the result of ignorance? It's been years since GDPR was made into law, seems to me the only explanations are severe negligence or malevolence.

Maybe some people just decided to don’t give a shit about GDPR...hard to blame them. They law (while well intended) is totally out of proportion and puts the internet in danger. It’s insanly stupid and backwards...just like the new copyright laws the EU is working on. Europeans are shooting themselves right back into the dark ages...and I probably wouldn’t care if they weren’t ruining it for everyone else too. And be…

Maybe europeans are ruining it because (insert here giant US Corp) has been stealing tax revenue, and because the US gov is spying on europeans.

Re: I Stop Celebrities from Blowing Their Money

#123

Post by peteypao »

adwi wrote: post #121
myroon5 wrote: post #6

"I charge a 5 percent commission rate, which is pretty standard" 5 percent of what?

Gross income. I interviewed a potential business manager that was recommended by a few celebrity-actor types a few years back. The idea of someone taking financial responsibility off your plate full-stop was definitely intriguing, but I did the math about what that would cost vs. just a full time personal assistant and I couldn't justify it. He did immediately recommend a new bank for me which I had never heard about…

which bank was that?

Re: I Stop Celebrities from Blowing Their Money

#124

Post by hyperpape »

I can't find the story, but several years ago, an NBA player bought a bunch of fast food franchises, and there was collective head-scratching about why he'd do that. Matthew Yglesias pointed out that it was brilliant: the value of the franchises was that they were illiquid, so that he had a backstop against overspending or family members asking for money.

About that last point: for those of us who come from middle class backgrounds, it's easy to think "just be reasonable about what you give people". It's a much harder proposition if your entire family has been struggling your entire life--especially if they made sacrifices for your dream (I think John Wall's mom once let the lights get cut off to pay for something basketball related for him).

Re: I Stop Celebrities from Blowing Their Money

#125

Post by jorvi »

isostatic wrote: post #71
Brotkrumen wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There has to be a catch. Maybe high copays? 1500$ a year is ridiculously cheap

Typical health care costs in developed countries is on the $3k-$5k per person per year range [0] (The U.S. is nearly $10k a year) However, on average the U.S. government (thus taxpayer) funds half of the health care costs, meaning that the private sector has to fund about $5k per person per year. That would suggest the SAG employer is paying $3500 a year and the SAG employee $1500 a year. [0] https://data.oecd.org/he…

Here in The Netherlands we pay ~€90~€120 premium to insurers. The €90 package only gives you access to select hospitals per region for non-emergency care, and you aren’t covered for ‘extras’ like physiotherapy. The €120 package is pretty much the ‘all-in’ package.

On top of that you have a ~€380 deductible. Everything except medicine costs goes from this deductible first. If you really trust your health (or have the money to cover it) you can raise the deductible to ~€800, which will drop your monthly premium by ~€20.

GP visits are free and act as a sort of filter for access to the ‘real’ healthcare system. Anything minor (prescriptions for various minor diseases, mole removal, etc) goes through him and if he thinks something warrants further research you get blood work done or see a specialist, waiting times usually 1 week, 2 weeks tops.

All in all its a really nice ‘hybrid’ sort of system. It isn’t 100% socialized like some countries around us, but the end result is that we have the best healthcare system in Europe (and thus probably the world) :)

Re: I Stop Celebrities from Blowing Their Money

#126

Post by beat »

carlmr wrote: post #77
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It really shows how us Plebians are ground into dust by the healthcare industry Or the benefits of collective bargaining, even in limited context like procuring healthcare.

This is one of things I always wonder about. Libertarians and other free-market enthusiasts should actually be for collective bargaining and unions. Because in an actual free market it's legal to form unions, just like it's legal to form a corporation. Collective bargaining is a feature of a free market. If you don't like the idea of unions and collective bargaining, you don't like free markets.

Agreeing with this and referencing Peter Thiel, which I do a lot. In Zero to One, Thiel argues that the pure, ideal free markets that politicians and economists dream of drive profits to zero. Think about the math - it's obvious. You see this in high competition markets for effectively identical products, like groceries or gas stations. Razor-thin margins. The only way to profit is via some sort of localized monopoly, which is what "unique value proposition" of any sort actually means. This isn't a defense of old-school robber baron monopolies (which break the math in the other direction), but it's to Thiel's broader ideas about how to build a high profit company.

The need for labor unions is a product of the free market, and a way to build a unique value proposition. With employees that are totally fungible, totally replaceable parts, the marginal value of labor itself is driven to zero. Wages become a race to the bottom, and working becomes unprofitable. But by saying "Only members of the union can work here", the union sharply decreases the available labor pool, thus creating a unique value proposition.

In other words, it's a market response to a market problem.

The people who call for "free markets" and rail against unions basically don't understand what it is they're asking for. They're in love with an ideal, not thinking about how profit actually works in the real world, as a function of economics. It's straight-up ignorance reinforced by puritan idealism.

Re: I Stop Celebrities from Blowing Their Money

#127

Post by jerf »

sh4z wrote: post #58
ainiriand wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That can be accurate, but keep in mind that the people ins Silicon Valley are there using the brain and therefore more aware of the financials of their lives. Artists and sportists on the other hand can be a bit more detached from how much they make. I am not saying that this happens in 100% of the cases but there is a correlation.

I kind of agree with your sentiment but you make it sound a bit like artists don't use their brain, or are outright stupid - which I don't think you meant and I don't think is true.

There's going to be a lot of difference in practice between accumulating a lot of money over the course of decades until you're in a pretty good place in your 50s, and having all of that dumped on you in one fell swoop when you're 19.

Among the things that a SV engineer who manages that has to think about is if they have children, what happens when they die. It's nice to pass some things on to your children, but at the same time, plopping a million dollars in assets down on your kid all at once may not be doing them favors. Best to look at your options. (I'm not going into it here just because it's really more than fits into an HN message, nor should you take the advice from me; I'm aware that there are options.)

Re: I Stop Celebrities from Blowing Their Money

#128

Post by ahartman00 »

wastedhours wrote: post #90
elgenie wrote: post #34

The US does a terrible job of inculcating basic financial literacy in the populace. The only way that paying someone 5% of assets / income just to avoid ruination can be a sound investment is if the person is utterly clueless about how money in general, and compound interest in particular, works.

Not only the US, but in a lot of places. A large number of these people will have been outside of the "real world" for a good proportion of their adult (and often, child) lives. Without comprehensive financial education early in schools, and with careers in industries detached from a lot of financial pressure, surrounded by hanger-ons and perceptions of lifestyle. I actually have a lot of empathy for these groups who…

"people will have been outside of the "real world""

This. I met a woman who was a nurse practitioner or something like that. She had a young boy and girl. Her plan was for them to be a pro football player and actress. So she would take them out of school to go to football or acting camp. She actively discouraged them from focusing on school. If these kids are successful, they will be lacking basic skills we take for granted. Think about the average person's understanding of math, and imagine someone actively discouraged from learning it.

It could be tragic if they were successful, which is such an unreal thing to say. Even worse, the odds aren't good, and they don't have skills to fall back on.

Re: I Stop Celebrities from Blowing Their Money

#129

Post by golergka »

carlmr wrote: post #77
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It really shows how us Plebians are ground into dust by the healthcare industry Or the benefits of collective bargaining, even in limited context like procuring healthcare.

This is one of things I always wonder about. Libertarians and other free-market enthusiasts should actually be for collective bargaining and unions. Because in an actual free market it's legal to form unions, just like it's legal to form a corporation. Collective bargaining is a feature of a free market. If you don't like the idea of unions and collective bargaining, you don't like free markets.

As long as there are few different competing unions, none of which has any special status in the law, I'm all for it. Sadly, that's rarely the case.

Re: I Stop Celebrities from Blowing Their Money

#130

Post by biggc »

InitialLastName wrote: post #120
wink wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I compare that to German health insurance, it comes out to an income of ~1600 EUR per month before taxes, but you pay more of if you earn more. Quite an interesting concept though that their rates don't seem to up no matter if you just get by or make millions...

Why should health insurance be progressive? I'd be willing to bet that healthcare costs scale sub-linearly with income, so why would a private insurer charge more to somebody who makes more money? In the case of a properly functioning public healthcare system, I totally buy and support it, though.

My complete guess would be that this is an intra-union agreement. The insurer could be charging a fixed rate per member with the union enforcing a progressive scheme.
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