Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Just Be Rich

keenen.xyz

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 1001 posts

Re: Just Be Rich

#71

Post by [deleted] »

routerl wrote: post #61
Barrin92 wrote: post #49

I'm just gonna quote what I think is a very important part from the Graham piece itself >" People who don't look any deeper than the Gini coefficient look back on the world of 1982 as the good old days, because those who got rich then didn't get as rich. But if you dig into how they got rich, the old days don't look so good. In 1982, 84% of the richest 100 people got rich by inheritance, extracting natural resources,…

Thanks for that comment, I largely agree. Let me try to summarize it: Old money wants subjects, new money wants worshippers.

[deleted]

Re: Just Be Rich

#72

Post by raspasov »

runarberg wrote: post #59
raspasov wrote: post #51

Every time I see wealth inequality being talked about, I remember this quote: "It's not greed that drives the world, but envy.".

I hate that quote. Personally I’m not envious of the rich, I despise them. I hate the fact that there are rich people, not because I want to be one some day, but because they ruin the party for the rest of us. The climate disaster is disproportionately the fault of the rich, yet it is the poor who are disproportionately affected by it. I don’t envy the rich. When I see the rich, I see pitiful humans that work too muc…

Inequality is a normal state in most systems.

"The climate disaster is disproportionately the fault of the rich".

Most disasters would affect a poor person more than a rich person. If I lose my job but have years of savings, it's no factor that I lost a job. Sorry, I don't see that as a strong argument, not even discussing the evidence for it.

But you got me at dogs.

Re: Just Be Rich

#73

Post by [deleted] »

ackbar03 wrote: post #39
d_silin wrote: post #7

A lot of people who are just as smart and motived as Elon Musk or Steve Jobs will never be able to start their own companies and get rich. Because they have family obligations that take priority. Because they live outside high-income countries. Because they have no access to support network, so when they fail, they fall all the way to bottom. Because they may have made a crippling mistake in their pasts that now prev…

While I agree to some extent with the point your trying to make, the way you phrase and portray this sounds like more of an excuse than a strong argument. >Because they have family obligations that take priority This is on you. If your serious about it you should see this coming. Elons familial situation isn't exactly all flowers and roses. A lot of my friends who managed to start successful business started yong pre…

[deleted]

Re: Just Be Rich

#74

Post by atweiden »

d_silin wrote: post #7

A lot of people who are just as smart and motived as Elon Musk or Steve Jobs will never be able to start their own companies and get rich. Because they have family obligations that take priority. Because they live outside high-income countries. Because they have no access to support network, so when they fail, they fall all the way to bottom. Because they may have made a crippling mistake in their pasts that now prev…

> And so on and on. While I would still recommend everyone to pursue the dreams over never trying to do so - being poor is the single most powerful force that prevents people from doing that.

IMO this is what offsets the dystopia of the coming human IPO market. Many millions of humans would economically benefit from having their own board of directors.

Re: Just Be Rich

#75

Post by iancmceachern »

donnythecroc wrote: post #64
Barrin92 wrote: post #49

I'm just gonna quote what I think is a very important part from the Graham piece itself >" People who don't look any deeper than the Gini coefficient look back on the world of 1982 as the good old days, because those who got rich then didn't get as rich. But if you dig into how they got rich, the old days don't look so good. In 1982, 84% of the richest 100 people got rich by inheritance, extracting natural resources,…

The problem is all down to the basic human need of a home. In the 70s and 80s even 90s someone on a teacher's salary could own their own home in a major world city - say London. Now, literally zero chance. Because homes have become an asset class and the rich can outbid regular people so they are pushed out. That's the problem. I couldn't care less how many billionaires there are if regular people can afford a decent…

This. 100% agree

Re: Just Be Rich

#76

Post by o_p »

baron816 wrote: post #58

Inequality by itself is not a bad thing. Let's start from there. If 90% of the population had a (sustainable) lifestyle of current dollar millionaires, and the remaining 10% had a (sustainable) lifestyle of dollar billionaires, there would be lots of inequality, but it wouldn't be problematic. Inequality is only bad if you're in a zero-sum game. The rich do have the power to extract rents and "rig the system" to ceme…

Economy is closer to a zero-sum game, after all theres limited resources in a period of time. We cannot be all rich because we cannot all own the capital, if we did, who does the work? To invest you need workers, to produce you need consumers, to rent you need renter, etc. Then the rich class exist because theres a poor class, a zero-sum game.

Re: Just Be Rich

#77

Post by 314 »

bartvk wrote: post #66
Leary wrote: post #54

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. It was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness. It was the epoch of self-made tech billionaires, it was the epoch of stagnant median wages. It was the season of free knowledge, it was the season of credentialism. It was the spring of Hope, it was the winter of Nope.

I don't get it, what are you trying to say?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Tale_of_Two_Cities

The intro paragraph is enough for you to get their point.

Re: Just Be Rich

#78

Post by nullptr_deref »

This is pretty accurate. When I went through that essay (by PG), I got the similar idea.

The essay read to me like, "Oh, you are white guy, your parents are well off, you must have been studying in some tier 1 school, why not risk 1/2 yrs of your life to start a company, while you are in college. Chances are you may get some money from us too! You should try a lot. Infact the more you try, the better we earn."

edit: What PG misses is worldwide perspective. Everything in his essay is limited to Silicon Valley and the social circle around it. Some people from east may have connections with the valley, and that can benefit them.

He even goes to mention, startup succeed because of social factor. There is a very small chance that people in US would trust a revolutionary product built outside. So unless the product is able to bootstrap itself in the home country, the chances are slim. And not every part of the world is as fortunate as SV folks and have startup culture.

You may say, why not move to one with good culture. My answer, "Goodluck getting out of third world country."

Re: Just Be Rich

#79

Post by missedthecue »

xupybd wrote: post #29

Absolute wealth has increased as the wealth gap increased. Standards of living for everyone have gotten better, but there is still an issue. Wealth is not just about your buying power it's also about your social status and power. A lot more status and power is concentrated with the few. This is a big problem if you care about individual freedoms. They tend to erode very quickly with a concentration of power.

I don't think there is a very clear line where money turns into political power. After all, the most influential non-elected people in Washington aren't billionaires or close to it, and if the 2020 election cycle taught us anything, it was that the effect money has on political advantage is hilariously overestimated.

How much did Bloomberg sink into his own race, as well as into backing the Florida Democrats, and also into backing McConnell's opponent in Kentucky? In excess of a billion dollars, and all of his backed candidates including himself failed spectacularly in their races.

Re: Just Be Rich

#80

Post by runarberg »

donnythecroc wrote: post #64
Barrin92 wrote: post #49

I'm just gonna quote what I think is a very important part from the Graham piece itself >" People who don't look any deeper than the Gini coefficient look back on the world of 1982 as the good old days, because those who got rich then didn't get as rich. But if you dig into how they got rich, the old days don't look so good. In 1982, 84% of the richest 100 people got rich by inheritance, extracting natural resources,…

The problem is all down to the basic human need of a home. In the 70s and 80s even 90s someone on a teacher's salary could own their own home in a major world city - say London. Now, literally zero chance. Because homes have become an asset class and the rich can outbid regular people so they are pushed out. That's the problem. I couldn't care less how many billionaires there are if regular people can afford a decent…

There was a house for sale close to where I live. It was at a fairly comfortable price, a normal family could have potentially gotten a normal mortgage for it and paid it over time, eventually owning it. It was a modestly sized house, perhaps around 70-80m² enough for a couple with one kid and a dog. It needed some repairs, not anything serious, but some work over time; and the homeowners could live in it, perhaps get some savings over the next 5-10 years before starting the costly repairs. I was hopeful. I did consider it, but I thought if I didn’t get it some other nice working class family could move into it.

Alas, no mortgage agency would loan for this property, there was no central heating system, and the roof was suboptimal. Only people that had $200k at hand could possibly consider it. And off course a cash offer came from a rich family who lived there for a week, did some renovations and sold it again for more then double the price, more then anything that a normal family could afford, even with a mortgage.

Things are bad indeed.

Post reply on HN