Why would anyone be happy with the money they have in a world where the next day your fortune may change and you lose it all? Capital is a self-hosted safety net.
Why Aren’t Rich People Happy With the Money They Have?
91–100 of 358 posts
Re: Why Aren’t Rich People Happy With the Money They Have?
#92There was a well written comment on Reddit a few years back about how your life changes at different levels of wealth: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/2s9u0s/what_do_i... The main gist was that in the $10-30 million range you can live a comfortable life without having to worry about finances again. In the $30-100 million range you can start doing "rich people" things like have a private jet (though this m…
> in the $10-30 million range you can live a comfortable life without having to worry about finances again This statement strikes me as very disconnected from the reality that the vast majority of people on this planet live in, and honestly, a little bit irritating. I'm well aware that many here on HN would be millionaires, but as somebody who grew up in poverty and is now a full-time uni student with no savings in t…
> If somebody were to give me a hundred thousand dollars to invest, I am quite certain I could live comfortably for the rest of my life
This shows a pretty big disconnect. And is something no one in their 30s+ would say.
The common rule of thumb is you can live off of an investment at 4% indefinitely(assuming 6% return and 2% inflation). This gives you $4,000 a year. Crappy insurance: $4,200 a year. Crappy 300 sq ft efficiency in cheaper town: $5,400 a year. Cost of owning a car: $5,000 a year(you could skip this expense, but you'll be spending most of it in increased cost of living in area with great public transit. You could also bike but not everyone's knees last forever)
And this doesn't include food/entertainment/travel/internet/phone/medical bills etc.
Re: Why Aren’t Rich People Happy With the Money They Have?
#93Earlier quoted context omitted.
The number says "a comfortable life". University life is not the entirety of a persons life. And these numbers are for the US anyway, where university isn't free, and that alone would cost you more than $10k/year... in fact, far more than $10k/year. I think you need to revisit this in 10 or 20 years. I think you'll have a different opinion on this number. $10k is not comfortable. That is poverty. And the question was…
Nowhere have I said that $10K per year is comfortable. I have a dentist appointment tomorrow that I don't yet know how I am going to pay for. I can't remember the last time I got a Christmas or birthday present, or the last time I went on a holiday. It sucks, but there are people worse off than me. And there are three orders of magnitude between $10K and $10M. If anyone thinks they need $10M to feel secure and comfor…
Similar situation here. I live on 7000 GBP p/a and any other income I can find elsewhere which isn't guaranteed. There was a post on Reddit personal finance sub the other day asking for advice on whether they should leave their 320k USD p/a job for a 325k GBP p/a job as an entry level analyst for a hedge fund. Most people just have no idea what it actually is to live close to poverty and so 10 million is easy to come by as a figure for where you're comfortable. To be honest it makes sick. That said I'm the happiest I've ever been and enjoy being a PhD student. You learn s lot by the constraint of minimal income such as how to cook good food and enjoy life without materialism. Not that I was that way before I started my current programme.
Re: Why Aren’t Rich People Happy With the Money They Have?
#94Earlier quoted context omitted.
This might sound odd, but there is some real health benefits in perceiving oneself as having high social status. A few of those are better immune system, successful aging, lower stress hormones, lower risk for illness and depression, faster recovery, and just general higher energy and confidence. It can have a very strong positive effect on ones social network. It is a very powerful and deeply biological aspect of li…
I think it's generally assumed that more money equals better physical health, but the psychological aspects are very underrated. Money equals certainty for a lot of people. It lets them count on certain things always being there. Having your own home, respect, clout totally builds your confidence and lets you face life with positivity. You can afford to be wrong more often, so you don't mind sticking your neck out -…
I wouldn't be surprised if the levels of inequality are negatively impacting innovation. There has to be an optimum level but I don't think we are anywhere near it in the Anglo-sphere.
Re: Why Aren’t Rich People Happy With the Money They Have?
#95Earlier quoted context omitted.
> we accept with the presumption that no one would offer so much money if it weren't very important That seems to be overthinking motivation. If a sponsor was offering $500k for someone to stand on a streetcorner and sing Weird Al songs most people wouldn't consider that was an important job but they'd still do it for the money. Because the money provides opportunity to buy or do things that are worthwhile. Money is…
The example I thinking of is the common counterargument to "this job/industry/company is total BS": it can't be BS, because if it was no one rational would pay someone to do it. This presupposes that everything operates in a perfectly efficient market where pay corresponds directly to utility to someone, somewhere. The 2008 financial crash, for instance, arguably demonstrated that a lot of practices in the finance in…
Bear Stearns employee comp is solely about the value the employees provide to the firm. The ones making that kind of money would easily be bringing in a multiple of that in sales, etc.
Just because the company got wiped out by a black swan style event means nothing about whether their employees were providing a lot of value to the firm.
Re: Why Aren’t Rich People Happy With the Money They Have?
#96If you judge worth by others, you can be in trouble. If you judge worth by impact, what others get can be hugely significant. Somewhere between the two is a movable balance point where what people say influences how you believe they are impacted.
This works for people making huge donations, people of less financial worth donating their time and work, but alas also justifies the Kardashians who perceive impact somewhat differently.
Re: Why Aren’t Rich People Happy With the Money They Have?
#97A while back I noticed that my HN karma was rising at a rate that would put me on the leaderboard, so I decided to make an effort to submit content and post quality comments just to see if I could crack the top 100. After a few months I did it, and kept rising up to a high of 85 (today I'm #88). Then I realized I was spending way too much time on HN, and how easy it was to fall into this trap of thinking I was doing…
In terms of machine learning money is the opposite of regularization. The more money the less regularization the more over-fitting to your specific self-chosen environment. A not rich person will have to learn to cope with obstacles. A rich person can remove obstacles. But it is impossible to remove all obstacles which will lead to increased hostility towards those remaining annoyances - like for example with SUVs in…
Money is an insanely toxic mental, political, and social poison, for exactly these kinds of reasons.
It's also a social reward function that privileges egotism and narcissism over empathy; exploitation, scamming, and rent-seeking over creativity, curiosity and invention; and short-term gain over long-term damage.
Like the hardest of hard addictive drugs, it's an almost irresistible modifier of behaviour and attitude.
Re: Why Aren’t Rich People Happy With the Money They Have?
#98Some thoughts from Seneca: "Let me share with you the saying which pleased me to-day. It, too, is culled from another man's Garden: "Poverty brought into conformity with the law of nature, is great wealth." Do you know what limits that law of nature ordains for us? Merely to avert hunger, thirst, and cold. In order to banish hunger and thirst, it is not necessary for you to pay court at the doors of the purse-proud,…
One of my favourite philosophers and one I try to follow the most, but the unacquainted reader should be made aware before reading his commendations of poverty that Lucius Annaeus Seneca was the richest man in the Roman Empire.
Re: Why Aren’t Rich People Happy With the Money They Have?
#99There was a well written comment on Reddit a few years back about how your life changes at different levels of wealth: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/2s9u0s/what_do_i... The main gist was that in the $10-30 million range you can live a comfortable life without having to worry about finances again. In the $30-100 million range you can start doing "rich people" things like have a private jet (though this m…
> in the $10-30 million range you can live a comfortable life without having to worry about finances again This statement strikes me as very disconnected from the reality that the vast majority of people on this planet live in, and honestly, a little bit irritating. I'm well aware that many here on HN would be millionaires, but as somebody who grew up in poverty and is now a full-time uni student with no savings in t…
I don't think you are fully grokking "not worrying about finances". Your scenario requires consistent outsized market returns to give you less money than the poverty level. You will be wiped out by inflation, a recession, a newborn child, or a myriad of other unexpected expenses that will quickly blow through your poverty-level allowance.
That's nowhere near "not worrying about finances". "Not worrying about finances" means you never have to work a job for income, you don't depend on the social safety nets of a single country, you never have to worry about affording a place to live, getting optional healthcare and so-on.
You're thinking that people who don't constantly have to worry about finances is what the poster is talking about, but that's worlds away from never worrying about finances again.
>I'm just amazed that anybody would think they need $10 million to be comfortable.
Seriously, read the thread again. This has nothing to do with comfort, it's about FU money.
Re: Why Aren’t Rich People Happy With the Money They Have?
#100Earlier quoted context omitted.
I fell in to the karma trap on reddit years ago and I ended up trying to conform to trends to maximize my karma. Its a really boring way to use a website and I found myself not saying a lot of things because I know they will be downvoted and I will lose my internet points. These days I don't give a shit about karma and I say whatever I want. I feel better about sharing opinions and I say what I really think.
HN will shadowban your account if you dont conform to popular opinion enough Aside from saying unpopular things, a net negative karma will also do it, which is a reflection of the same outcome Always check your post history from an incognito browser to see if others can see it
> HN will shadowban your account if you dont conform to popular opinion enough
Bollocks.