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Just Be Rich

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Re: Just Be Rich

#151

Post by nindalf »

OP mentions PG’s article arguing against a wealth tax. That article is short, simple and to the point - Modelling a Wealth Tax (http://www.paulgraham.com/wtax.html). It is so compelling, but also misleading and wrong. Its not easy to spot the sleights of hand he uses. I wrote more about it here - Modelling a Wealth Tax Correctly (https://blog.nindalf.com/posts/wealth-tax/).

And yet, I think the simplicity of PG’s arguments is going to convince a lot of people. Simplicity sells, even if it deliberately obscures the truth.

Re: Just Be Rich

#152

Post by sgt101 »

It's also worth noting that many startups are used to launder trust funds and family money. Daddy (or the family office) invests in my friends startup, I (I wish) get a job as "chief growth officer" or "chief of staff" or "COO" or similar - or even as an early stage dev. Daddy gets preference shares - ofc - I get early stage employee shares, Daddy gets a tax break and Daddy's investment ushers in Venture funding. With Venture funding & Daddy the company goes well (pretty often) and goes to a early exit which sees the investors make a minimal profit and the early employees (me, I wish) get a nice bonus too - and onward.

Re: Just Be Rich

#153

Post by jiofih »

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…

Your mention of Musk should raise an alarm to your sense of reality. He comes from a well off family, moved to Canada at 17 to attend university. This alone already puts him at the top 1% of humanity in terms of privilege. Then he went on to attend Stanford...

Not that it takes away from any of his achievements, but you are failing hard at realizing what things actually look like.

> It's also totally feasible to position yourself so that even if you fail you can still land on your feet, you just have to be conscious of it

This is the famous “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” said by someone who’s obviously never had to.

Re: Just Be Rich

#154

Post by lordnacho »

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…

The thing that I'd expand upon is the support network.

Somehow I have a wider range of friends and family than most people, and the thing that is missing from this conversation is that most people by far don't know anyone wealthy, especially if they're not themselves wealthy.

The issue with that isn't just the money and connections themselves. There's a cultural gap of "I couldn't do that, only people on TV do that" whether it's starting a startup or pursuing one of those one in a million type careers like acting or sports.

There's a risk behaviour that is also affected by background. Basically you're pushed to not take too much risk: your parents' entire productive output has gone into your education, you can't just take a chance on it.

Case in point is my family. The parents all got spread around the world as refugees back in the 1970s. Everyone worked really hard but they told their kids to go the safe route.

I have a cluster of cousins in the bay area, what do they do? None of them do startups. Doctors, nurses, and Google.

Re: Just Be Rich

#155

Post by heymartinadams »

Thank you. This needed to be said.

I was thinking the same when I read PG’s essay. Unfortunately, I sensed arrogance and entitlement rather than humility and reasoned thinking behind his words.

It’s a shame, really. This world needs not only more successful people, it also needs more compassionate people, too.

Re: Just Be Rich

#157

Post by js2 »

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,…

> And my answer to that question would be, arguably yes. Why? Because at least old money understands the concept of noblesse oblige. The real sinister psychological thing going on behind the Graham argument is that it's not at all about meritocracy, it's that this mentality of earned wealth completely rids the owner of any sort of responsibility.

Michael Young wrote this two decades ago now:

The business meritocracy is in vogue. If meritocrats believe, as more and more of them are encouraged to, that their advancement comes from their own merits, they can feel they deserve whatever they can get.

They can be insufferably smug, much more so than the people who knew they had achieved advancement not on their own merit but because they were, as somebody's son or daughter, the beneficiaries of nepotism. The newcomers can actually believe they have morality on their side.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2001/jun/29/comment

Re: Just Be Rich

#158

Post by jwr »

The really shocking quote from the article is the part of the caption below one of the charts:

"Data for families in the first quintile (bottom 20%) are not shown. Their median wealth was as follows: 1989 — $0; 1998 — $0; 2007 - $36 and 2016 — negative $1,099."

BOTTOM 20%. Has has zero or negative wealth. And that has only changed for the worse during the last 30 years.

If one FIFTH of your country has $0 or negative wealth, and your country is the richest country in the world, I would say there is a significant problem.

Re: Just Be Rich

#159

Post by sbacic »

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…

> 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.

You can still have that. All you need is a real estate tax. But nobody wants that. People don't want cheaper homes, they want to become part of the home-owner elite and get their own appreciating asset.

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