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Just Be Rich

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Re: Just Be Rich

#681

Post by [deleted] »

rychco wrote: post #663
chrisseaton wrote: post #549

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Owning a house is becoming more and more a thing for the upper classes Something like 60% of US people own a home. 30% even own their home completely outright, with no mortgage. Obviously 30%, let alone 60%, of the population cannot be considered 'upper class', and 'middle class' is probably even a stretch. The home ownership rate seems broadly stable since the 60s to me, with gentle ups and downs with the economy,…

As someone in their mid 20’s with a tech job, it blows my mind that 60% of people own a home. I can’t imagine having enough money to own a home in a major city.

[deleted]

Re: Just Be Rich

#682

Post by jimbokun »

pydry wrote: post #518
qPM9l3XJrF wrote: post #510

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suggest you watch the documentary Inside Bill's Brain https://www.netflix.com/title/80184771 Bill is way too invested in this stuff for it to be a cynical PR effort. And he himself states it was his mother who inspired him to give: https://www.businessinsider.com/bill-gates-mother-inspired-p... If Bill's giving was a cynical PR play, why would he be pushing other HNWs to give through the giving pledge? Wouldn't it…

I didn't state that it was completely a cynical PR effort nor do I think it was, but it's a reaction to a guilty conscience nonetheless. I think it's partly his way of resolving his cognitive dissonance over him not being a good person in pursuit of wealth and power. For what it's worth, though, saying "my mother inspired me to do this" is precisely what a PR flack would advise him over "I was guilt tripped into this…

> I didn't state that it was completely a cynical PR effort nor do I think it was, but it's a reaction to a guilty conscience nonetheless.

And you are pulling that theory completely out of your ass.

I highly doubt you have met Bill Gates or spent time with him or have the slightest idea about what his private thoughts are on anything.

Re: Just Be Rich

#683

Post by datacruncher01 »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #333
stdbrouw wrote: post #202

Earlier 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.

It's a hard problem to tackle as it would have to be a national law but that goes into individual state jurisdiction. I would say if our goal is to increase affordable housing we just need more of it.

Ban renting of single family dwellings, but allow and encourage it where increased density is achieved (apartments, condos, multiplexes, etc). Owners of single family dwellings will scramble to convert their rentals to duplexes / multiplexes and create the additional inventory while companies acquire multiple properties to convert into apartment complexes.

Re: Just Be Rich

#684

Post by filleduchaos »

danillonunes wrote: post #138
EvilEy3 wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because they have family obligations that take priority. Is that "I have kids!" I hear now? > Because they live outside high-income countries. Well then move to high-income country. > Because they have no access to support network, so when they fail, they fall all the way to bottom. That's unfortunate, but that's life. A lot of people don't have that safety. And not all of them are poor. > Because they may have mad…

> Well then move to high-income country. You can't just take an Uber to a rich country. You have to do a lot of work to get there. All that work is wasted years compared to someone who was just born there in the first place and can focus 100% on their actual path of getting rich.

> You have to do a lot of work to get there.

For some of us, no amount of work is enough. You're simply at the mercy of whoever is supposed to process your papers.

Re: Just Be Rich

#685

Post by wing-_-nuts »

Mauricebranagh wrote: post #667
kjcharles wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the problem is the supply of housing hasn't kept up with that demand due to artificial limits placed on the market. Single-family zoning has made it illegal to build more of the dense housing that's needed in cities today. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/06/18/upshot/cities...

cough Grenfell Tower fire. Lots of tiny Jerry built flats in tower blocks are not the answer - even more so when the rise of WFH is taken into account.

The answer is to update codes to require new buildings have sprinkler systems, and not to put extremely flammable cladding on the side of a damned building. We absolutely need to be able to build more medium density housing more easily.

Re: Just Be Rich

#686

Post by WhompingWindows »

RJuall wrote: post #639
timwaagh wrote: post #545

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the Netherlands we already have wealth tax (capital gains tax, but doesn't care whether you gained or not). It's nothing particularly disruptive. We still have the most wealth inequality in all the world. It might be a bit pointless to tax wealth in addition to capital gains though. You could just raise the former instead.

A quick look at Wikipedia ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_income_eq... ) shows that the Netherlands does not have the most wealth inequality in the world. What an odd assertion.

You looked a bit too quickly, you linked to "Income equality" there. Look here at Wealth Equality and sort by 2019 Gini: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_wealth_eq...

Re: Just Be Rich

#687

Post by comeonseriously »

yarcob wrote: post #573
McScroogy wrote: post #535

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The rich outbidding poor people is not what is causing a housing shortage. There are only so many houses a rich person can occupy. Even if you assume that every rich person keeps a number of spare houses, there are not enough rich people to cause a housing shortage.

The problem isn't a "housing shortage". The problem is that interest rates are so low, so everyone who has a bit of money on the side tries to invest in the real estate market. The result is that for every house thats sold, there isn't just someone who wants it as a living space, but also 5 people who want it as an investment. So 5 people outbid each other, the highest bidder gets it, and then the sucker who wanted t…

Interesting video that makes some of the same points:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBb9zf_zWvU

Re: Just Be Rich

#688

Post by jimbokun »

kortilla wrote: post #192
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,…

Interesting CS Lewis quote considering it’s frequent usage against government regulation from busy bodies who “know best” on how the economy should work.

Yeah, that quote gave me more of a moralizing woke-person vibe, than tech billionaires.

Re: Just Be Rich

#689

Post by microtherion »

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,…

"Silicon Valley money" also got you the Monterey Bay Aquarium, the Computer History Museum and lots of other nice things. You see a Hewlett, a Packard, or another legendary Silicon Valley name on almost every Nice Thing in the Bay Area.

Re: Just Be Rich

#690

Post by goos »

Bootvis wrote: post #655
csomar wrote: post #608

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A bit surprising, huh? According to this Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_wealth_eq... The Netherland, indeed, is the worst. It's close to having a minority own everything while everybody else has 0 (a 1.0 coefficient).

I’m really surprised. It went up a lot from 2018 and 2019 so I don’t fully trust the result but that might be bias talking.

Our friendly Australian economics man made a concise video about it a couple of months ago[1].

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ot4qdCs54ZE

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