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The great wealth transfer reality check

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Re: The great wealth transfer reality check

#41

Post by lisper »

alephnerd wrote: post #32
SoftTalker wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It may look nicer, and have more features, but it's probably not built any better. Older homes were built with copper plumbing, plaster walls, solid hardwood floors, wood trim, and plywood subfloors, roof deck, and sheathing. New homes use PVC or PEX pipes, drywall, OSB (basically glued-up wood chips) instead of plywood, laminate floors, and plastic or styrene trim. The only things really better today are insulation…

In California, a big difference is earthquake retrofitting. Older houses often aren't retrofit until sale, and retrofitting is expensive. Also, I've noticed newer houses (2000s-present) are airier and have more natural light compared to older (pre-90s) houses.

Newer CA homes also tend to do better in fires.

Re: The great wealth transfer reality check

#43

Post by loeg »

SoftTalker wrote: post #29
skybrian wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In many places you couldn't even buy "starter houses" like they had anymore. They wouldn't meet modern building codes. When people do manage to buy a house, it will likely be a nicer one.

It may look nicer, and have more features, but it's probably not built any better. Older homes were built with copper plumbing, plaster walls, solid hardwood floors, wood trim, and plywood subfloors, roof deck, and sheathing. New homes use PVC or PEX pipes, drywall, OSB (basically glued-up wood chips) instead of plywood, laminate floors, and plastic or styrene trim. The only things really better today are insulation…

The new building methods and materials are genuinely better.

(Criticizing OSB and glazing plywood is crazy. They're both just composite wood products. OSB is totally fine for what it's used for.)

Re: The great wealth transfer reality check

#44

Post by NoDodgeQuestion »

>baby boomers are sitting on at least $93 trillion in assets

> $36 trillion in baby boomer wealth will pass to Gen X and millennial heirs over the next 20 years after subtracting liabilities, excluding the top 1 percent of households (the outliers in how they spend their wealth)

Why the fuck would you be allowed to include top 1% in first number but not second? They are outliers, yes, so what?

Re: The great wealth transfer reality check

#45

Post by loeg »

Scubabear68 wrote: post #18
alephnerd wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not all households are as dysfunctional as the ones you described. And there's a reason why trust and wealth planning has becoming increasingly common. And while I am optimistic about AI's capabilities and am by no means an AI Luddite, assuming AI will take all jobs in the near future is ludicrous.

"Not all households are as dysfunctional as the ones you described". This comment of course needs to be taken in the context of HN. In the wider world, we have literal tens of millions of people in the United States who are in poverty and experience daily hunger and deprivation.

We do not have tens of millions of hungry people unless you're including being a bit peckish before lunch time.

Re: The great wealth transfer reality check

#46

Post by Jtsummers »

citizenpaul wrote: post #24

What is shocking to me is how can so many boomers still have a mortgage? They could buy a house when you could easily get one for >plant to do a Skip gen trip? I have no earthy idea what this could mean but they just casually drop it in there. Thats how you can tell what social class you were born into. I had a school friend whom's grandparents were one of these in the list it seems. The bought him a 3bed/bath house…

> >plant to do a Skip gen trip?

> I have no earthy idea what this could mean but they just casually drop it in there

It's defined in the paragraph above the image you misquoted:

> Skip-generation trips, where grandparents travel with grandchildren without their parents, are a clear example of how the wealth transfer is not just about money. These trips turn wealth into time together, shared memories and a way to pass down values across generations.

Re: The great wealth transfer reality check

#47

Post by sokoloff »

nullorempty wrote: post #37
paulpauper wrote: post #20

Gen X and millennials are ahead of boomers on per capita wealth at the same age This runs counter to the popular media narrative of poor millennials, but it makes sense. Millennials rose a tailwind of surging stock prices since the '09 bottom, fat white-collar salaries (such as in tech, consulting, finance), and surging home pries, buoyed by cheap mortgages from 2010-2022 thanks to 14 years of near-zero interest rate…

Let's not assume that 6 figure salary is close to 999,999. In reality it's closer to 100,001. And when you factor in inflation and increased housing cost the comparison starts to differ greatly. Millennials have it pretty tough.

I think every generation would self-report that they had it pretty tough.

I remember my (Boomer) school teacher parents sitting at the kitchen table with an LED calculator adding up their bills and making sure they could make ends meet or getting blocks of government cheese for some reason (that made great grilled cheese, BTW).

Was it 10% easier for them than Millennials? Maybe. Was it 50% or 100% easier? I don’t think so.

Re: The great wealth transfer reality check

#48

Post by sokoloff »

add-sub-mul-div wrote: post #26
paulpauper wrote: post #20

Gen X and millennials are ahead of boomers on per capita wealth at the same age This runs counter to the popular media narrative of poor millennials, but it makes sense. Millennials rose a tailwind of surging stock prices since the '09 bottom, fat white-collar salaries (such as in tech, consulting, finance), and surging home pries, buoyed by cheap mortgages from 2010-2022 thanks to 14 years of near-zero interest rate…

Everything that can be done is being done to ensure that white-collar labor transitions from skilled workers to low-cost fungible operators of AI. Even if no further jobs are lost it will be a massive hit to the average salary.

Why do you think it will be low cost operation rather than highly paid specialized talent (but only very few of them)?

If AI becomes a widespread job displacer, I think we’re going to see an amplification of the value of talent. If you think there’s 2x or 10x talent now, you might find there’s 10x or 50x talent with AI.

Re: The great wealth transfer reality check

#49

Post by loeg »

nullorempty wrote: post #37
paulpauper wrote: post #20

Gen X and millennials are ahead of boomers on per capita wealth at the same age This runs counter to the popular media narrative of poor millennials, but it makes sense. Millennials rose a tailwind of surging stock prices since the '09 bottom, fat white-collar salaries (such as in tech, consulting, finance), and surging home pries, buoyed by cheap mortgages from 2010-2022 thanks to 14 years of near-zero interest rate…

Let's not assume that 6 figure salary is close to 999,999. In reality it's closer to 100,001. And when you factor in inflation and increased housing cost the comparison starts to differ greatly. Millennials have it pretty tough.

$100k is and was a historically high salary, especially when millennials were entering the job market (~1999-2018). Inflation adjusted to 2026 dollars, that's $132-200k. Median adult full-time income is $60-72k.

Re: The great wealth transfer reality check

#50

Post by vinaigrette »

malfist wrote: post #35

This whole premise is bullshit. They include the 1% in the wealth calculation, and then exclude it from the wealth transfer to say "see how much taxation is happening?" If you don't want to include the 1% in the second number, don't include it in the first number.

I was equally stunt, but get this : Visa wants to know how much people are going to spend using their services. This is not a sound socio-economic analysis of the wealth transfer. I think overall few people read this type of report.

Instead, it gives insight on a phenomenon that is expected to be an "event". They show that it's going to be gradual, that it already started. Maybe it is a way to inform potential investors in Visa ? Maybe it is a report intended for the business side customers (i.e. commerces) ? I don't know.

Plus, it gives an interesting insight on how the "_real_" economy is still a topic of research where every discourse seem to be on financial performances. I found it interesting after having a repulsed reaction to what I considered a grossly irrelevant account of socio-economic dynamics of the so called "great wealth transfer" (horrible name), like you.

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