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Just Be Rich

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Re: Just Be Rich

#211

Post by Closi »

imtringued wrote: post #193

That's what happens when inflation is incredibly low. Wealth taxes are just a hack to introduce artificial inflation for the worst offenders of society. Wealth beyond a certain point is highly deflationary. At some point you are earning so much you cannot possibly spend it all. Any factor that accelerates the growth rate of your wealth just makes it worse because the spending portion goes down as a percentage of your…

I don’t agree with this at all - you see stocks as a place to “keep money” while stocks are actually part ownership in another company. When you invest your money in stocks you are using your money to buy means of production - it’s an asset that generates you more money.

And when you own the stock, you own more of the means of production in the economy, and get more money that would have gone to other investors.

Re: Just Be Rich

#212

Post by alexgmcm »

kortilla wrote: post #165

The author posts some charts about wealth, then writes: > Paul paints a rosy picture but doesn't mention that incomes for lower and middle-class families have fallen since the 80s. If you don’t know the difference between wealth and income, maybe you shouldn’t be blogging about these topics. This is not meant to be some low-brow dismissal. How can you have any serious discussion when two completely different things a…

It's probably due to the issue that Piketty noted in his book, getting reliable and comprehensive data on wealth is far, far harder than doing so for income.

I agree with your criticism but it doesn't seem entirely honest when the "hollowing out" of the Middle Class has been a well observed phenomenon for at least the past decade if not several more.

Re: Just Be Rich

#213

Post by saberdancer »

jwr wrote: post #158

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…

If you are in depth, your wealth is negative.

After I finished school, as a software engineer I bought a home and a car (by taking a loan) and effectively I had negative wealth. I was by no means in a bad situation, I just consciously took a loan against my future earnings to improve my life quality now rather than after I saved up.

Many of these charts ignore this.

Re: Just Be Rich

#214

Post by raspasov »

RHSeeger wrote: post #168
raspasov wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"it's much easier to become wealthy if you're already wealthy or have access to wealth" If this was true in reality, then why are there so many new wealthy people that didn't come from wealth? [1] How do you define "access to wealth"? [1] My definition of wealth: having more money than you can spend in a lifetime.

You seem to be making the assumption that "A is easier if B" implies "A is impossible without B", which is not what is being said. I guess the question is, of the new wealthy, how many came from a situation of already having access to wealth (either directly or by proxy)?

I didn't make such an assumption.

I ask again: How do you define "access to wealth"?

Re: Just Be Rich

#215

Post by scrollaway »

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 aristocrats and oligarchs of the olden days might have been corrupt, debauched and half-useless, but at least they knew it.

You out of your mind? What could possibly make you say "they knew it"? The amount of people rich-by-inheritance who are selling their bootstraps stories is stupidly high, and a lot of them believe it. One famous example got banned from twitter a couple months ago.

Re: Just Be Rich

#217

Post by hit8run »

That's actually what I do the whole day. I give people good advice. I call myself a generous problem fixer. Yesterday a poor man was complaining that the steel company he worked for closed a few years ago and since then he did not get any job. I saved his life by telling him the following: "The solution to your problem is easy. Stop being poor and start being rich. You made a mistake by choosing to be poor so my second advice is to stop making mistakes."

He thanked me and I am quite of proud that I saved his life. Going to write a book now.

Re: Just Be Rich

#218

Post by abelaer »

jusssi wrote: post #134
abelaer wrote: post #15

Isn’t it agreed upon that the Gini coefficient is misleading though? According to it, the worst inequality can be found in the Netherlands and the Scandinavian countries, just because borrowing money for a house is cheap and safe.

There's a big divide between those who can get a mortgage, and those who can't. When you buy, pay the maintenance expenses, and for a limited time (well, not Sweden, what they do is essentially renting from a bank) you pay back the loan to the bank and interest for it. When you rent (because you don't have enough income to get a loan big enough, or have otherwise messed up your finances), you pay the maintenance expe…

Sure, I'm not saying the housing market is in an especially healthy position, just that the Gini index measures the wrong thing. Its increase alarms people, but it just puts you higher on a list with relatively very equal social democracies at the top. They go into some more detail here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ot4qdCs54ZE

Note that I'm also not arguing that a large Gini index is good, it just measures something very specific that doesn't really say a lot about inequality.

Re: Just Be Rich

#219

Post by frashelaw »

SequoiaHope wrote: post #185

“You would think, after having been on the side of labor in its fight with capital for almost two centuries, that the far left would be happy that labor has finally prevailed.” This is listed as a quote from the PG essay. It seems to represent a fundamental misunderstanding of what “labor” means here. When the left fights for “labor” it is for all laborers to get a fair shake. PG seems to be talking about the fact th…

Exactly. PG's essay completely misses the point of the left: it makes it about some vague idea of labor being a potential path to wealth. The left fights for worker solidarity, power, and people's democracy to end exploitation from the owning class.

Re: Just Be Rich

#220

Post by Kaizeras »

reader_mode wrote: post #82
ironman1478 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. Poverty doesn't just cause immediate issues it can also cause long term issues that can effect not only adults, but the children who grew up in that environment. This is largely because families in poverty tend to also abuse their kids at higher rates (this includes mental abuse) or at least foster an extremely unhealthy environment due to the stress it causes. So even a generation later it can be difficult for…

I grew up in a family of 7 (4 younger siblings), during civil war, father was into gamling and drinking, mother was unemployed and constantly on the verge of a mental breakdown (understandable given the conditions she was living in). To paint the picture, I have vivid memories of vomiting a boiled onion I ate after not eating for days (I think I was arround 5 years old). And we were poor well into my early 20s untill…

I had a similar life and I fully concur to your sentiment - it took me the better part of my life to get out of poverty, and I missed out on so many things that normal people regard as a given.

These days I‘m studying physics and mathematics while having a cushy engineering job and I‘m so genuinely happy that I can sit down and study for hours without having to worry about making ends meet at the end of the month. It’s a blessing.

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