Earlier quoted context omitted.
Poor people with shitty, cheap, old cars have these problems more than others. Because they're poor.
See the Sam Vimes "Boots" Theory of Economic Injustice
That's pretty much it in a nutshell, very well done.
Climbing the Wealth Ladder
311–320 of 323 posts
Re: Climbing the Wealth Ladder
#312Earlier quoted context omitted.
Exactly, we can't even save our way to retirement (we need to invest), let alone expect frugality to translate to wealth. If you aren't in business for yourself, pay raise is the way up.
> pay raise is the way up Not if the person spends it all, like they did the earlier lower salary. Better beer, bigger TV, new cars, etc and you can easily blow through quite a decent raise.
Sure. But ultimately, spending it is what it's for.
Re: Climbing the Wealth Ladder
#313Earlier quoted context omitted.
Here's the thing: if instead of spending your money, you invest it, guess what you end up doing with that money? Owning the means of production. Period.
What happens if you bought Enron?
It's well known there are risks, and not all investments work out.
Re: Climbing the Wealth Ladder
#314Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, I replied to the correct one. I am pointing out some of the benefits of stock ownership and "no decision making power."
I suppose if you want to point it out to others. I'm well aware of them and own plenty of stocks.
> So you own something, but have absolutely no rights to the profits and practically no decision making power. In the spirit of the usual definition of "owning" something, you do not own anything with stocks.
I would disagree.
I can sell those stocks I own and (hopefully) get more money than I paid for them. Sometimes they pay me a dividend too (share of profits). Sounds like ownership to me. I don't care about decision making power within the company. I LIKE that I have delegated that responsibility.
Re: Climbing the Wealth Ladder
#315Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yup. I see this kind of logic in personal finance discussions all the time but it's bullshit. There simply aren't any spending decisions you can make that will change you from not wealthy to really wealthy. Those things can just move you from poor to middle class at best, or to a better level of middle class. Outside of real outlier status where you're paid really, really large amounts of money for your services (lik…
> like notable entertainer or cardiac surgeon Google says cardiac surgeons make $400-800k, assuming that's true a very talented engineer at FAANG can easily match this (staff or senior staff level) without being mired by an additional 10 years of school. I personally know engineers making 7 digits in liquid compensation. Obviously these are not your average engineers, but it's doable if you're the 1% (to be good enou…
There are 4000 Cardiac Surgeons in the USA.
Do you think there are 4000 engineers that make over $500k?
Re: Climbing the Wealth Ladder
#316Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your point is? a lot of the USA's railroads where funded by Investment trusts based in London and Edinburg which had small middle class investors going back to the 19th century.
The point is that if you want to "own the means of production", as was discussed somewhere above, buying stocks as a middle class investor is not going to get you there.
By that notion, most wealthy people do not own the means of production either. There are billionaires from hedge funds that own no controlling interest in any companies.
Partial ownership is still ownership.
Re: Climbing the Wealth Ladder
#317Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Outside of real outlier status where you're paid really, really large amounts of money for your services (like notable entertainer or cardiac surgeon) the way to wealth is to own the means of production. Period. This is a lazy view, or a really privileged one at least. I know a couple of people in their fifties who have retired from putting as much money into the market as possible (post-tax and pre-tax) while livin…
> Views like the one you espouse are insidious because they give people a justification to stop trying and spend everything they make. Nah. I think it's views like the one you're espousing that are insidious, because they present the illusion that the difference between normal people and the genuinely wealthy is just a matter of some personal self sacrifice, rather than a set of fundamental policy failures that have…
> between normal people and the genuinely wealthy
Ah, the convenient goal post shift to imply that people who retire early don't have wealth. Wealth is now redefined to mean "an amount of assets large enough to make a convenient political out-group".
Re: Climbing the Wealth Ladder
#318Earlier quoted context omitted.
Having enough money to retire early is having wealth. Sort of. There's two pieces to FIRE. Saving aggressively, yes. But also by learning to live modestly, you need less wealth to retire. So half of FIRE is accumulating wealth, but the other half is needing less wealth.
Exactly. At some point the decrease in annual spending converges with the increase in annual income, and that's FIRE. It's not like people have to retire at that point either. The general idea is that they can do what they want and aren't tied to a specific field, career, job, and so on...
Right, I didn't imply that they had to retire. It's just that even having that option means you are wealthy. People who can live a middle-class lifestyle in the US without working are super fucking wealthy on a global perspective.
Re: Climbing the Wealth Ladder
#319Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Outside of real outlier status where you're paid really, really large amounts of money for your services (like notable entertainer or cardiac surgeon) the way to wealth is to own the means of production. Period. This is a lazy view, or a really privileged one at least. I know a couple of people in their fifties who have retired from putting as much money into the market as possible (post-tax and pre-tax) while livin…
Are you aware of the fact that your anecdotal evidence from the fifties may no longer be pertinent? Have you seen what happened to wages since then? To the cost of living? To the cost of homes?
Wow, learn to read.
>I know a couple of people in their fifties
Re: Climbing the Wealth Ladder
#320Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think that depends on who you ask. People in their 20s still think people in their 50s are old.
Life expectancy is somewhere roughly in the 70s-to-80s. So it's not entirely surprising that if you tell someone "statistically, I have as much remaining time to live as you've been alive" they're going to think you're old. Now if you actually step back and move the early part of life where you can't do much you can see it's much closer to middle-age than it is to death.
Interesting. I could tell that to myself, but I don't feel old.