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Just Be Rich

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Re: Just Be Rich

#891

Post by tjs8rj »

Joker_vD wrote: post #551
janeroe wrote: post #448

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

The pro-communist argument really is founded on two points: a) it's impossible for everyone to be a (successful) businessman: somebody has to be an employee and do the actual work, y'know? b) to be "actually rich" -- which is not just "being on the level of personally comfortable standard of living", it's more of "having certain level of personal influence" -- you have to own a share in a commercial enterprise and ge…

These points seem to forget about income mobility. How about the fact that almost nobody under 40 is a millionaire (rich), but just about 20% of Americans over 65 are? We can’t all be rich at the same time, but we can all be rich by taking turns, which tends to be what happens as people accumulate wealth over decades. The rich people today were more often than not the poor and middle class of yesterday.

Re: Just Be Rich

#892

Post by dougmwne »

solipsism wrote: post #880
dougmwne wrote: post #807

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If 90% of the population had a (sustainable) lifestyle of current dollar millionaires, and the remaining 10% had a (sustainable) lifestyle of dollar billionaires, there would be lots of inequality, but it wouldn't be problematic. I strongly disagree with this and I think it runs counter to human nature. You're looking at quality of life as if there were some kind of absolute measure of it, but it really doesn't wor…

You've made the case that what you call "social suffering" exists, but you haven't made the case that we should care about it. There are people struggling to survive, even in a country like the US. We have people dying in hospitals at differential rates based on their poverty level. One sweet day when everyone is guaranteed the most basic of human necessities, maybe then we'll start caring about the anxiety a (small-…

In a democracy the concerns of everyone are brought to the table, both the starving and the well fed.

Re: Just Be Rich

#893

Post by jjav »

cloverich wrote: post #841
gmadsen wrote: post #815

Earlier quoted context omitted.

that hypothetical can't exist though, so what is the point in entertaining it. The world have finite resources, money (no matter the inflation) is a way to ration this to people. Not every single person can have a mansion in SF.

Not a mansion in SF, but a super computer in their pocket? Point being, only some resources are limited, but wealth in general is not.

A phone in your pocket is not wealth, hard to believe this example comes up so often in these discussions.

It's a gadget, a depreciating asset.

Actual wealth produces more wealth, which is why the very rich get richer even while they sleep. A gadget makes its owner a tiny bit poorer every day as it depreciates.

Re: Just Be Rich

#894

Post by soheyl »

dougmwne wrote: post #807
baron816 wrote: post #58

Inequality by itself is not a bad thing. Let's start from there. If 90% of the population had a (sustainable) lifestyle of current dollar millionaires, and the remaining 10% had a (sustainable) lifestyle of dollar billionaires, there would be lots of inequality, but it wouldn't be problematic. Inequality is only bad if you're in a zero-sum game. The rich do have the power to extract rents and "rig the system" to ceme…

> If 90% of the population had a (sustainable) lifestyle of current dollar millionaires, and the remaining 10% had a (sustainable) lifestyle of dollar billionaires, there would be lots of inequality, but it wouldn't be problematic. I strongly disagree with this and I think it runs counter to human nature. You're looking at quality of life as if there were some kind of absolute measure of it, but it really doesn't wor…

But is it really "human nature"? Go back a few centuries, and everything belonged to a monarchy, and by everything, I mean even your life and your family. Were people unhappy "because of it"? For the vast majority of humans, I doubt it. They had just learned not to compare themselves with the king.

For something to be human nature, I think it needs more time. And if peasants knew that comparing themselves to the king just does not make sense, maybe we can learn to have the same attitude towards Jeff Bezos.

Re: Just Be Rich

#895

Post by Ambolia »

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,…

>Because at least old money understands the concept of noblesse oblige.

You can just count in your city how many buildings, libraries, concert halls and similar have been built by the rich of old, and how many by the rich of new.

Maybe the new rich give to ONGs instead, but ONGs can be seen as just another institution to exert power, influence markets, and buy people by giving them a position in ONGs where you invest heavily. On the other side infrastructure is infrastructure, yes, it makes you look good, but you have to build something real and solid that is easy to evaluate.

Re: Just Be Rich

#896

Post by WalterBright »

etripe wrote: post #543
WalterBright wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Don't underestimate the tremendous advantage both Wozniak and Bill Gates had even having access to computers at the time. And that access was simply not available to most people. Similarly, "all you need is a computer" is still very much an indicator of privilege on a global level. Good luck if you live in a favella in Brazil or slums in South Africa or India. It is easier than it was in the 70s, but by no means univ…

I am not very familiar with other countries, I am talking about the US.

Last week, here in the US, I bought a decent laptop for $40 from the pawn shop. It was marked down to $40 because the battery didn't work (it worked fine on the charger) and there was cosmetic damage to the underside.

The US is a country where nearly everyone has a computer in their pocket that is thousands of times more powerful than ones in the 1970's.

If I recall correctly, Woz hand-assembled his early Apple software. That implies he did not have access to a computer running an assembler. Hand assembling code on notebook paper is tedious, but is certainly possible.

By the late 70's, there was a Byte shop within walking distance with many different PCs one could buy, and a heluva lot did and started businesses. Apple and other PC makers' success did not come from selling computers to the 1%.

Re: Just Be Rich

#897

Post by Ambolia »

AlexandrB wrote: post #712
nindalf wrote: post #662

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah Bill Gates - terrible guy. Spending money trying to eradicate diseases that kill poor people. What's worse, here's him in 2015 ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Af6b_wyiwI ) wasting money and faffing on about some pandemic. As if that's going to happen, and even if it does the pandemic won't affect rich countries in any way.

Here's an alternative perspective: https://newrepublic.com/article/162000/bill-gates-impeded-gl... . Bill Gates may want to eradicate disease, but he's not willing to give up on IP protection maximalism while doing so. Whether his approach is net-positive or net-negative remains to be seen.

Does he want to eradicate disease? Or does he want to influence the Health Markets heavily on which he probably has a lot of money invested, and make sure they move in directions that are beneficial to him, or that at least don't reduce his power.

Maybe he doesn't even tell himself that, but works like that subconsciously.

Re: Just Be Rich

#898

Post by futureshock »

soheyl wrote: post #894
dougmwne wrote: post #807

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If 90% of the population had a (sustainable) lifestyle of current dollar millionaires, and the remaining 10% had a (sustainable) lifestyle of dollar billionaires, there would be lots of inequality, but it wouldn't be problematic. I strongly disagree with this and I think it runs counter to human nature. You're looking at quality of life as if there were some kind of absolute measure of it, but it really doesn't wor…

But is it really "human nature"? Go back a few centuries, and everything belonged to a monarchy, and by everything, I mean even your life and your family. Were people unhappy "because of it"? For the vast majority of humans, I doubt it. They had just learned not to compare themselves with the king. For something to be human nature, I think it needs more time. And if peasants knew that comparing themselves to the king…

I would guide the comparison to the people closest to you, peers, bosses, schoolmates, people whose pet pictures you look at on Facebook. If those people are doing a lot better than you then it can cause some seriously negative emotions. I think the negative impact of social media is that we would have been previously unaware of the lives of more distantly related social connections such as old school friends or coworkers we'd fallen out of touch with and would only have people from our own family and town to compare with. Now you can see that Jimmy just got promoted at Google and took his last vacation to Nepal and you know for sure you've fallen behind on the hedonic treadmill.

Re: Just Be Rich

#899

Post by Ambolia »

qPM9l3XJrF wrote: post #265
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,…

Wealth tech people are giving their money away younger than the previous generation of billionaires: https://outline.com/mtGgFW I think they understand noblesse oblige. But it's a 2-way street. Don't expect them to feel a sense of obligation if you're going to assume the worst about them just because they are rich.

Putting your money into ONGs that you control is not giving away anything. It's playing the meta-capitalist game, influencing markets at another level, markets in which you invest money while you pave the path for your investments by using your ONGs to work together with governments.

This is nothing new either: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rockefeller_Foundation

Re: Just Be Rich

#900

Post by soganess »

dougmwne wrote: post #840
bko wrote: post #832

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I strongly disagree with this and I think it runs counter to human nature. You're looking at quality of life as if there were some kind of absolute measure of it, but it really doesn't work like that. Quality of life is always measured relative to the people around us or to whom we are exposed in media or social media. If you're looking for validation and happiness based on what you see in social media, quality of…

If human nature wasn't greedy, vain and materialistic, the modern economy would not exist.

And if pithy comments didn't exist... we'ed have to accept that no single thing, or small cohort of factors decided the overall trajectory of society.

Wealth, and power carry a social momentum. Antipodal to that is the high amount of frictional cost associated with change at scale. Those properties of our current economy effect what change is possible and when.

The modern economy exists in this unequal hodgepodge for the same reason some animal look alien to you, because it was not planned. Unfortunately for us, unlike animal evolution, the rate of change of the economy, tech progress, political winds, and all the social tendrils that stem from that unholy amalgam grow rapidly and defy organization.

You can call it the expected end result of human nature if it eases you. But. to me, it looks like a problem looking for some good engineering.

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