Famous historical sentence of Marie Antoinette
"Let them eat cake"
The phrase was supposedly said by Marie Antoinette in 1789, during one of the famines.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Let_them_eat_cake
Just Be Rich
521–530 of 1001 posts
Re: Just Be Rich
#522Earlier 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…
Whenever this topic comes up, I like to link to these excellent and eye-opening articles: • 5 Things Nobody Tells You About Being Poor , May 27, 2011: ( https://www.cracked.com/blog/5-things-nobody-tells-you-about... ) • The 5 Stupidest Habits You Develop Growing Up Poor , January 19, 2012: ( https://www.cracked.com/blog/4-things-politicians-will-never... ) • 4 Things Politicians Will Never Understand About Poor Peop…
The 2nd link is a duplicate. Here's the correct one
The 5 Stupidest Habits You Develop Growing Up Poor:
* (https://www.cracked.com/blog/the-5-stupidest-habits-you-deve...)
Re: Just Be Rich
#523There are a lot of people in the comments here pointing to environmental or exogenous factors, things that "aren't your fault": where you're born, family obligations, stress levels and their effects on cognition, the behavioral economics of risk and scarcity, shocks for the poor vs. the wealthy, and a host of other things.
These things are real. However, I want to point out that there are other very real things going on too. Particularly, there are real, and strong, effects from natural selection. The people who tend to succeed really are smarter, harder working, healthier, stronger, etc. The natural selection at work is obvious to any scientist thinking about it, but it's difficult or impossible to talk publicly about it these days. Hating on such an obviously true thing in order to show off to your friends is unfortunately very trendy :-( This is a problem because it means we look for invisible boogeymen rather than having a correct understanding of the situation and going from there.
Re: Just Be Rich
#524Earlier quoted context omitted.
Its very similar in many european coutries. The problem is that cities are owned by someone else than people living in it. Many flats are empty because development cartels can wait long time before they rent it. This way they push the price and cost perception more and more. They will do so to infinity because they have monopoly.
I've heard this a lot, but is it true? I know some flats are empty because they're between tenants or being renovated, but how many are actually empty for years at a time? The idea that not earning any rental now (and paying tax on the place) in the hope that you'll bump up prices years down the line seems risky to me.
I am not sure. I know how is it in my city. It got bought out by few foreign companies. The property tax is not very significant compared to having much higher rent in a year for foresable future.
Don't forget if nobody is renting then nobody is "destroying" the property. That's other tactic. You reconstruct everything so its "too good" to be rented cheap. This way you lower the pool of "normal" flats so their prices go up to a point where the "too good" is the only option.
It's apparent from the increasingly huge differences between rent prices. Often times the longtime landlords who own maybe one building are renting so it makes them enough money to take care of the property + good profit on side and they are happy. They don't check market prices often and are 30%+ cheaper. The rent prices are completely fabricated with no relation to running costs or price of the property.
Re: Just Be Rich
#525Earlier quoted context omitted.
Where am I saying that ?
Sorry if my comment came across as insensitive, especially since it's your own family history, but you should be aware that people might read your comment that way: "father was into gamling and drinking [...] So I don't think it's something you can solve with money alone". And yeah, the "working poor" I mentioned is a "first world issue" (even though, for the people involved, it's still not a good situation), other c…
> > worse problems
Much worse problems. When I see people in the US advocating semi-socialist policies, I wince.
PS I grew up in Bulgaria. I live in the US since 2007.
Re: Just Be Rich
#526A 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…
All this is true but you've left out an even big key differentiator: most people cannot get a 250,000$ "business loan" from their mom and dad like eg. Bezos did.
Re: Just Be Rich
#527Earlier quoted context omitted.
It not a matter of a founder not starting a company, it doing it somewhere else than the US. Didn’t some study show a majority of founders are foreigners? They choose to come to the US. They can choose not to in the future.
Because of a tiny wealth tax that is already lower than in many other countries? You think a relatively well off individual from a less wealthy country facing many systemic problems for business will pass up the opportunity to migrate to the US because they may need to pay a couple percent if they strike gold?
I mean, isn’t that exactly what Singapore did to attract talent and capital? And it worked? And didn’t one of the Facebook founders give up his US citizenship and move there? Sure it’s one case, but it’s evidence at least some are motivated by taxes.
Sure, not every founder will make that choice and not right away, but you could see a slow shift over decades to more tax friendly locations.
Re: Just Be Rich
#528Earlier quoted context omitted.
So you think you could end up homeless under a bridge even trough you would do everything you can do avoid that? I dont think so. Long time homeless people are a very niche type of persons that "gave up" for whatever reason. Usually mental health, age, drugs. I worked for 2 year with someone who was homeless for a few months. The reason he wasn't anymore and other still are is solely his own actions. But he was young…
I think you've changed what you were talking about. Suddenly you're talking about "long term" homeless, which makes me think you realised you made a mistake and now are backtracking. I see that you're also presenting one single case known to you; this is effectively meaningless, and you know it.
No, I talked about the risk of becoming homeless due to striving for wealth and total failure on the way.
I see this risk as extremely minimal, not because people can get out of homelessness or only experience "shot term homelessness", but because I dont think you ever end up in this situation in the first place. Going 100% at becoming wealthy doesn't mean you turn stupid and irresponsible and also loose any friend and everything that could keep you afloat if you totally fail. That's just not realistic.
The example I bough up may be anecdotal but It wasn't mean to show that people can get out of homelessness if they mess up and end there but rather to underline my argument that homelessness in general is only an "option" for a very niche type of person. There are also way way less female homeless people and it certainly isn't because females are somehow more capable to avoid total failure.
The person I worked with was homeless due to his family abandoning him (they where part of a religious sect) before he ever had the chance to stand on his own feet. But he was not the type of person that would accept homelessness and that's the sole reason he isn't anymore.
In the end people are scared to fall really low by trying to go high but while you indeed fall longer and further down when you fall from high you dont really end up lower. It just hurts more especially if you worked very hard to get up. With the exception of age/metal decline and health problems you very very likely get back up higher than where you started no matter what causes you to fail.
Re: Just Be Rich
#529Earlier quoted context omitted.
The commenter is referring to the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protestant_work_ethic which is the cultural handmaiden of contemporary american capitalism.
No. "Silicon Valley money wants to remake people in their images, they have a Protestant zealotry associated with their money that makes any oligarch look straight up sympathetic in comparison" The comment literally suggests that Silicon Valley billionaires (which it juxtaposes with old money) have a Protestant fanaticism associated with their money.
I found insightful, and completely agree with, the original "Protestant zealotry" assessment - it's not a religious argument, it's a philosophical one.
It has everything to do with a moral perspective - that righteousness and wealth go hand in hand, and it does indeed come from the culture of the European Reform. It's not a matter of Christianity, it's mostly absent from Catholicism, and I suppose other strains.
Think of the meaning, the moral implications, of the phrase "the deserving poor". Try translating it into other languages, and see what happens.
Re: Just Be Rich
#530Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's simply not true. Economists who try to explain the housing crisis have pointed to increased regulation, cheap credit leading to an asset bubble, speculation, ill-advised tax cuts for homeowners, NIMBYism (not by government but by current residents), irrational buy vs. rent decisions, changing preferences for city vs. suburb, relaxed downpayment requirements, changing lifestyles and demographics with bachelors…
What about just, people buying multiple houses/apartments to rent them out? IANAE, but I have a sinking feeling the situation would quickly improve if ownership had per-person limits (and no easy way to pool the limits into a company). Countries could build new housing faster than the population grows, but as long as it can be scooped up by the wealthy for renting out, the scarcity would prevail.
Interesting that for natural monopolies (water supplies, power distribution, telco, radio spectrum) governments tend to regulate and de-monopolise. For real estate it's almost opposite and oligopolies are protected.