301–310 of 829 posts
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So it does for many ordinary people. Money can't buy happiness but nether could the absence of money. It's not really a good argument against money.
What? Money absolutely CAN buy happiness. What do you even talk about? Probably all of the current problems in my life could be solved with money.
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The incentives for the ultra-rich are screwed up. I remember a few years ago Mark Zuckerberg announced that he was donating 99% to charity. The internet got very angry about it, based on flimsy reasoning: https://qz.com/564805/5-criticisms-of-billionaire-mega-phila... Bill Gates has saved millions of lives through his philanthropy, and the internet is full of malicious rumors about him. Other billionaires who do far…
Bill Gates gets a lot of hate for good reason. His business practices killed off a lot of good products. BeOS, anyone?
His actions since then have been far better.
The hate he gets now tend to be from people attacking his more recent actions. "Trying to cure malaria - clearly mind control" sort of stuff.
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In Bill Gates's post about changing his charitable giving goal to give most of it away in the next 20 years, he references Chuck Feeney as someone he admired. from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuck_Feeney Until he was 75, he traveled only in coach, and carried reading materials in a plastic bag." He did not own a car or a house and wore a $10 Casio F-91W watch He gave away most of his fortune and required recipient…
>He gave away most of his fortune and required recipients not to reveal the source of the donation. I suppose that's one way to avoid the bad press :-P
NYT article(1):
..when asked what had driven him into such deep secrecy:
“I feel it’s my life,” Mr. Feeney said. “I’d be the last guy to tell a wealthy person what to do with their money. They’re entitled to do whatever they want.”
quote from his kid: "...he sheltered us from people using the money to treat us differently,” Leslie Feeney Baily said. “It made us normal people.”
when asked why he had chosen to reveal himself:
“A lot of wealthy people, they don’t realize they have the alternatives of spending the money for good,” he said. “If they knew it gives so much satisfaction, I wouldn’t have to persuade them."
This was the most demonstrative part for me: PERSPECTIVE. The wealthiest person I have spent time with makes about $400mm/year. i couldn't get my mind around that until I did this: OK--let's compare it with someone who makes $40,000/year. It is 10,000x more. Now let's look at prices the way he might. A new Lambo--$235,000 becaome $23.50. First class ticket internationally? $10,000 becomes $1. A full time executive le…
Very little, that's why wealth tends to increase in the 8-10% a year increase but income doesn't.
The referenced reply is dull. It's very pretentious but just reiterates common knowledge, it doesn't convey any useful information. For example I wish someone told me about the existence of Miele kitchen equipment before I accidentally rented an apartment of a well-to-do woman. She renovated it for herself but then rented out when circumstances changed. Similarly it took me a long time to realize just how much better…
On a personal level I know several guys who are worth $10-30M, one who's worth probably $40M, and one who's worth around $700M, this is LNW. Not much in the Reddit reply checks out for me. It's true that the $700M guy socializes with "Senators/Congressmen/community leaders." He travels a lot, and comfortably, but has no ownership in a jet. He retired young-ish and no longer works so maybe that's why. He doesn't flash…
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> The grandparents would be absolutely horrified if they saw what their family was turning into. I wonder if they somewhat expected it. The 'third generation curse' is a widely known effect. Question is whether there is anything that could have been done to avoid it.
Donate their wealth before they die and leave only a token amount for the kids. Enough to give them a headstart, but not enough that they never have to try.
I want to give my kids just enough so that they would feel that they could do anything, but not so much that they would feel like doing nothing.
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> but it lasts 5-10 times longer I find it such a weird argument. Ok, your furniture from 1900 is still doing great, fantastic. The problems are: 1. Your great-grandfather had a different sense of esthetics, so shit just didn't fit your modern apartment. 2. You moved to a different country, and shipping fees of the furniture were ten times the cost of brand-new chipwood furniture (literally). 3. The furniture was des…
Not a universal view. I don't have a modern apartment (I've lived in them and don't enjoy the æsthetic of a straight, unornamented beige and glass box full of postmodern slab furniture). I have a stone cottage from the 1600s. If anything, my 19th-century solid wood furniture is too modern!
Is that a thing wealthy people buy but ordinary people know nothing about?
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On a personal level I know several guys who are worth $10-30M, one who's worth probably $40M, and one who's worth around $700M, this is LNW. Not much in the Reddit reply checks out for me. It's true that the $700M guy socializes with "Senators/Congressmen/community leaders." He travels a lot, and comfortably, but has no ownership in a jet. He retired young-ish and no longer works so maybe that's why. He doesn't flash…
what does LNW mean?
"Liquid net worth", I'd assume.
Through some odd circumstances I found myself receiving a lot of catalogs and sales solicitations for a reasonably wealthy person. Most of the stuff was what you'd exoect-- expensive furnishings, clothing, home goods. The two that were most interesting were the travel-related (guided trips in exotic locales w/ profiles and resumes of the local guides), and oddly specific and highly-focused catalogs (gardening, specif…
The referenced reply is dull. It's very pretentious but just reiterates common knowledge, it doesn't convey any useful information. For example I wish someone told me about the existence of Miele kitchen equipment before I accidentally rented an apartment of a well-to-do woman. She renovated it for herself but then rented out when circumstances changed. Similarly it took me a long time to realize just how much better…