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Just Be Rich (2021)

keenen.xyz

31–40 of 320 posts

Re: Just Be Rich (2021)

#31
post #26
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They were builders, they had businesses building for other people and invested their own money and time into these buildings for their own family. Luck in exactly what sense ? Yes, they did not die of dysentery on the trail, so evidently some luck was involved, but the wealth building seems very intentional and causal.

In the context of a discussion about wealth, its true that the financialization of real estate and runaway values of the greater Silicon Valley were a stroke of luck, but when talking about building wealth, housing has intrinsic value that I think takes a lot of that kind of SV luck out of the picture.

Housing value is land value. Did you buy or build in the right location? Luck!

Did commercial real estate know WFH post Covid was going to obliterate CRE values? Again, bad luck.

Re: Just Be Rich (2021)

#32
post #21

"Paul paints a rosy picture but doesn't mention that incomes for lower and middle-class families have fallen since the 80s." Doesn't look like it: median income in 2019 was $44K, in 2001 it was $31K. That's adjusted for inflation. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_in_the_United_States I don't like it when the facts look wrong after two minutes' googling.

It is interesting how much easier the stats for 50th percentile plus are easier to find than anything below that. Also only 2 minute of googling, but 6/6 pages I checked provided either median or median as well as 60-99th percentile. None showed anything below.

Not speculating on what those stats are, and I'm sure they're out there somewhere, but certainly less available or SEO'd.

Re: Just Be Rich (2021)

#33
post #21

"Paul paints a rosy picture but doesn't mention that incomes for lower and middle-class families have fallen since the 80s." Doesn't look like it: median income in 2019 was $44K, in 2001 it was $31K. That's adjusted for inflation. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_in_the_United_States I don't like it when the facts look wrong after two minutes' googling.

The left likes to constantly watch and complain of how much money others have.

It's amazing how petty they are, behaviors frequently seen in 5 year old children, and in leftist adults.

Waaaah waaah, the size of his cake is bigger. Waaaaah

Re: Just Be Rich (2021)

#34

> Wealth inequality is just a radical left fairy tale to villainize the hard-working 1%. The problem with that mindset is that we know how it's going to end up: it's not only the 0.1% or 1% that are going to suffer the wealth tax. It's the 30%. At first the "tax on billionaire" was supposed to be that: a tax on billionaires. But then there are already publications explaining how "taxing anyone who has more than a mil…

Is this the best example? It looks like France's dept to gdp is significantly lower than the US (110% vs 122%)

Re: Just Be Rich (2021)

#35
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you not see how this was luck? Certainly, actions were taken to encourage an outcome (holding an asset of potential future value), but luck as a component of a favorable outcome cannot be overstated.

They were builders, they had businesses building for other people and invested their own money and time into these buildings for their own family. Luck in exactly what sense ? Yes, they did not die of dysentery on the trail, so evidently some luck was involved, but the wealth building seems very intentional and causal.

Luck that their grandpa built the duplex. I am unlucky that my grandpa did not build a duplex. Luck that their parents held the assets and did not sell it.

Re: Just Be Rich (2021)

#36
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wealth is unelected power, a bug. It’s reasonable to say there should be limits on wealth, considering most wealthy people were lucky (either by birth or “right place right time”) but attempt to post rationalize it as anything else. Would you want someone who won a lottery ticket to have power over your life at scale? Because that’s what excess wealth is, a power dynamic powered by a suboptimal system masquerading as…

How many people who win lottery tickets become wealthy? Most of them squander the money they win, so your point about simply being lucky is not true. As for your question lottery winner having the power proportional to his money, is much better than bureaucrats having power to take anyone's money.

Obtaining excessive wealth is the same as winning the lottery (the billionaire founder class).

Edit: Q: If you downvote this comment, do you believe someone like Zuckerberg was predestined to be a billionaire?

Re: Just Be Rich (2021)

#37

This article feels like an attempt to morally wash one's hands of the moral stink of capitalism. Do you really think that because you're in tech and not mining, that the accumulation of wealth is any less driven by exploitation? By the way, I don't know the answer to this. I myself am a landlord. But if we're getting into morality, let's fully examine this. 11.5% of Americans are below the poverty line. The same econ…

> By the way I'm pulling punches here.

Out of curiosity where can I find the unabridged version of this?

Re: Just Be Rich (2021)

#38

Not only are the poor poorer but now they feel like crap from the tech social media dystopia they inhabit.

Yes, it's 24/7 gaslighting. One article after another telling us that things are a certain way and showing us all sorts of up-trending charts while we can see with our own eyes that it bears no resemblance to our reality... So then we start thinking "Maybe, it's true, everyone else who is not in my social group is doing well. Maybe there is some kind of conspiracy against me and my kind... Maybe that's why none of my startup project are allowed to get any traffic from Google and why bloggers and journalists never respond to my emails, not even the ones with less than 10k followers.'

Re: Just Be Rich (2021)

#39
post #33
post #21

"Paul paints a rosy picture but doesn't mention that incomes for lower and middle-class families have fallen since the 80s." Doesn't look like it: median income in 2019 was $44K, in 2001 it was $31K. That's adjusted for inflation. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_in_the_United_States I don't like it when the facts look wrong after two minutes' googling.

The left likes to constantly watch and complain of how much money others have. It's amazing how petty they are, behaviors frequently seen in 5 year old children, and in leftist adults. Waaaah waaah, the size of his cake is bigger. Waaaaah

Building strawmen and characterizing roughly 50% of the population as crying babies on the basis of you not agreeing with their politics sure seems like something a very mature and collected person would do.

Re: Just Be Rich (2021)

#40
post #21

"Paul paints a rosy picture but doesn't mention that incomes for lower and middle-class families have fallen since the 80s." Doesn't look like it: median income in 2019 was $44K, in 2001 it was $31K. That's adjusted for inflation. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_in_the_United_States I don't like it when the facts look wrong after two minutes' googling.

Dam, I didn't know the 80s started in 2001. Or is it just that that's the chart you can find with "two minutes' googling" and so that has to be good enough because that's the amount of effort it takes to find something that vaguely seems to satisfy your confirmation bias?

Okay, though, let's just look at the chart you link. Let's assume that "inflation adjusted dollars" tracks purchasing power parity perfectly over that period and look at these numbers in relative terms, because that's what actually matters for stuff like "Who is competing to buy the limited housing stock available" or other things that actually matter to people and aren't just numerical games

31k to 44k? Cool. Seems like a lot. That's a 33% increase in the median income over that period! Over the same period, the top 20% bucket on the same chart grew from about 67k to about 103k, or by about 50%. The .0001% income bucket grew from 30m to about 60m, or about 100%. Keep in mind that the marginal value of extra dollars is considerably higher the fewer dollars you're making. So over this period of time, the Gini Coefficient, which measures inequality, has drastically increased, which is what you'd expect given the argument the article is making

Now, maybe your point is that the one number, the median income, that you're talking about has gone, I dunno, vaguely up in some period of time. It seems like this misses the point of the article in favor of nitpicking about a minor factual error. "Look!", you might say, "they said median income went down when really it went up!" That seems to be your entire argument here, and it's fucking stupid, because if you're going to fixate on a minor factual nitpick, at least get your facts right. 2001 is generously a whole decade and some change out from the 80s

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