How People Get Rich Now

Right. Even if you knew 100 people that all made startups and made 10M+ it would still prove nothing. What percentage of startups do you think succeed?

Yes, the easiest way to see it is in the lack of income security and wage stagnation for the vast majority. You have to hustle, your employer may not be around for your working lifespan, or they might be obviated by cheaper labor from overseas and/or technology and automation.

Edit: Another example is health insurance is tied to your employer in the US. It costs anywhere from $400 per child per month to $1k per month per adult, with a $17k out of pocket annual maximum. Imagine you've scraped together some savings for a house or a business or kids' education, and a wage earner becomes ill or injured, and can't work. Now you have giant expenses coming your way at your most vulnerable, and government help from Medicaid (for subpar quality healthcare) doesn't kick in until after you've exhausted all your assets, so you are at risk of getting sent back to square 1.

Is income inequality a problem? In my opinion, the real problem would more accurately be defined as peoples inability to afford their basic needs: housing, food, and to a degree healthcare. Some might argue to throw education/training into the mix as well, and I wouldn't fight that too much as long as people remember more affordable options like community/technical colleges. Many who argue income inequality is a problem tend to imply that it means people can't afford their basic needs. I agree if people can't afford basic needs that's a problem. But my neighbor simply having 10000000x more "wealth" than me isn't a problem. Great for them.

Where things become a problem is when people can't afford their needs. But lets be honest about what needs really are. Housing/shelter's needs demand a space for someone to stay dry/warm, with a toilet and running water (to keep things sanitary). We don't "need" a 3500 sq ft mansion even if you are a family of 16. Though the trend year after year, is we're spending more and more money on bigger and bigger homes for smaller and smaller family sizes (see https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/new-us-homes-today-are-1000-s...), which subsequently cost more and more money to heat/cool. Not to mention the fact that more people are getting mortgages for larger and larger and longer and longer amounts... there are even mentions of > 30 year mortgages on the horizon... while mortgages help you get into a home, the typical 30 year mortgage today results in you paying ~1.5x+ over the cost of the actual home (300k home costs ~450-550k depending on interest rates). Not too long ago, many people built their own homes, mortgage free. Yea, they weren't fancy homes. Typically a box with a roof. But they lived within their means.

Back in the day more people heated homes "for free" using wood they chopped themselves back in the day. And few had AC (none did if you go back far enough). Back in the day people didn't have a microwave, toaster oven, toaster, oven, stove top, panini press, smoker, bbq, coffee maker, etc all in their one home. Depending on how far back you go, they had none of these things and still survived.

Back in the day you didn't "need" the latest iPhone every 12-24 months, or the biggest TV. You didn't need a new car every X years. You didn't "need" an international vacation every few years.

The point I'm trying to make is our spending habits can take on some amount of blame (how much can be argued)... especially when you consider the demand impact of everyone willing to overspend and go into debt on items they don't truly "need". Take a look at the FIRE community (financial independence, early retirement) and you'll see real life examples of people who scale back their living to their needs + a few wants, on small amounts of income and how they're able to still put money aside every month. The community tends to highlight those that can save 50%+ of their income on a 6 figure salary... but there are plenty of examples of people saving on small amounts of income.

With all that being said, I'd agree income to house cost ratio isn't great in a lot of areas in the country, and is trending in the wrong direction. That's a problem. Healthcare's rising costs isn't great--that's a problem. But also keep in mind people are living longer now than ever before (https://www.statista.com/statistics/1040079/life-expectancy-...), and I'd assume the longer people live the more expensive their healthcare becomes... so while this is a problem, I think it's false to say it was "solved" decades ago. Educational costs are skyrocketing too--that could be argued a problem. But there's also more of us spending more money going into more debt to get all of these things, driving the demand up for each of them. Massive corporations using anti-competitive practices to crush small up and coming competition is a problem. Companies failing to pay out a decent salary is a problem.

I think there are things that need to be addressed when it comes to peoples ability to cover basic needs + some ideal wants. However I have yet to hear a convincing argument that my neighbor getting filthly rich somehow leads to my inability to afford my basic needs.

Does that apply to Theranos? I can't tell you how many class action lawsuits I've received lately too. Looks like move fast a break things is infecting everything. I suspect eventually the government will HAVE to catch up and redistribute the wealth for the wealthy.

That or the people will do it with some kind of sharp, pointy object I'm sure.

I think the problem here might be the different meanings of "money is tight".

https://www.financialsamurai.com/scraping-by-on-500000-a-yea...