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

281–290 of 1001 posts

Re: Just Be Rich

#281

Post by WalterBright »

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…

It's never been easier to start a company in the US. All you need is a computer. You can create a product on it and reach a worldwide audience, all for free.

As for Jobs, he started Apple for a few hundred bucks. It's a pretty low bar.

Re: Just Be Rich

#282

Post by jefftk »

> incomes for lower and middle-class families have fallen since the 80s.

This is core to their argument, but it's false. Looking at the mean income of the lowest quintile in the US, historical and adjusting for inflation:

    1980  $4,310  $13,757
    1990  $7,166  $14,420
    2000 $10,190  $15,563
    2010 $10,994  $13,260
    2018 $13,995  $14,658
https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/statistics/household-income-...

(And, of course, internationally income has improved dramatically)

Re: Just Be Rich

#283

Post by euske »

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…

> when they fail, they fall all the way to bottom.

Thank you for this. I love when HN provides a view outside a typical Western middle-class cohort.

At a larger scale, I think the same thing could be said to an entire society. In a poor society, your small mistake might lead to loss of healthcare, loss of voting rights, arrest by secret police, mob lynching, public shaming, or other forms of social bullying. There are many rich people who live in such a society, but they're always in a somewhat precarious position. I don't envy that.

Re: Just Be Rich

#286

Post by herbst »

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…

I think its more than just that. I think less people are interested in actually owning their housing.

For me housing is the least thing i want to worry about, so i gladly rent and simply can fix any problems by calling my landlord who is by law obliged to keep the house in a liveable condition.

Also flexibility, i can move whenever i want without worrying about the value of my house (which in reality likely only looses value)

Re: Just Be Rich

#288

Post by onethought »

mordae wrote: post #181
TheTrotters wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The obvious solution is to build more housing. We know how to do that! The obstacle is politics, not technology or economics.

Not really. Some countries have wealth tax. Some countries don't. It's sensible to park your money somewhere, where it's not taxed. If you build more of it, yes, you will meet some of the housing demand (basically just for the richest), but housing is competing with rich people saving. You need to tax unproductive behavior to rid of it.

Jurisdictions in China have started taxing investment properties on a sliding scale that ramps up a lot the more properties you own.

They have also put heavy restrictions on bank lending.

Basically they are desperately trying to slow/reverse responsibly an out of control housing bubble.

That said they have unique cultural and geographical issues in terms of the sheer scale of their urbanisation

Re: Just Be Rich

#289

Post by watwut »

lordnacho wrote: post #232
goatinaboat wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a cluster of cousins in the bay area, what do they do? None of them do startups. Doctors, nurses, and Google. I wouldn't describe this as risk-averse behaviour. The simple fact is in the modern startup ecosystem, even if the startup has a successful exit, even early stage engineers will see very little wealth having been massively diluted, and would have been much, much better off having worked for an establis…

Maybe I should have expanded upon it. When I went to visit SF with a startup, I naturally thought one of my dozen cousins in the area would know someone who did something with one of the many startups in the world's startup capital. They don't just not work in startups, they seem to not have any connections to it. Granted, I didn't do a thorough survey, but if they knew someone in a prominent firm I think they'd have…

Honest question: why do you think working for startup would be better for them then working for google? Why do you think a doctor would be better off or happy working for startup? Why do you assume having seeking connection to startup world is a think they miss in their lives?

On hn, there is sort of bubble of people who think that working for startup is best thing ever and everyone else is selling the soul. What if it is not true and some people really wanted to be doctors/nurses or find their job at google happy place?

Re: Just Be Rich

#290

Post by piva00 »

marvin wrote: post #227
piva00 wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, all mainstream economists put the blame on massive increase of regulation all around the developed world ? I really doubt it's happened everywhere, from NYC, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Houston, Portland, Seattle to Berlin, Paris, Stockholm, Copenhagen, Oslo, München, Vienna, Brussels, Amsterdam and so on. Everywhere housing prices went way up, I doubt everywhere had the same issues with regulations since the 7…

Yes - GP is right. When they say regulation, they mean preventing market forces from building as much prices allow. This NIMBYism is a global phenomenon and the root cause. All the other factors certainly contribute , but cheap credit only affects how much the most desperate buyer is able to pay. This becomes the limiting factor almost everywhere, meaning that prices would be equally unaffordable if credit wasn’t che…

> cheap credit only affects how much the most desperate buyer is able to pay

I disagree with this statement, cheap credit allows banks to offer longer term mortgages and buyers able to afford a larger principal with the same per-month cost, pushing the prices upwards due to keeping payments low on a per-month basis, due to low interests and longer term plans.

This definitely pushes the price of all market upwards. It's a similar effect to tuition costs in the US, cheap credit, bankruptcy laws make them pretty safe for banks to take risk, flooding the market and allowing universities to hike prices.

Building is fundamental, but cheap credit has an upwards pressure in price, magnifying the effect.

All in all, I completely agree with your take on the solution. Build fucking more, population and specially cities have grown quite a lot on the past 3-4 decades, we still live with most dwellings built then than now.

Post reply on HN