The great wealth transfer reality check • Hacker News Board

Re: The great wealth transfer reality check

#101

Post by aianus » Sat, Aug 01, 2026, 12:40 AM UTC

mfro wrote: post #90

irishcoffee wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Food insecurity is the limited or uncertain access to enough safe, affordable, and nutritious food to live a healthy life. It means people do not know where their next meal will come from or cannot buy enough healthy food because they lack money or other resources Pretty big gap between literal starving and food insecurity.

Pretty big gap in quality of life between people who have no worries about their next meal and those who have to stress over every one.

If you make $2000 and your rent is $1800 are you food insecure or rent insecure?

This is a miscategorization imo, food is incredibly cheap compared to any American income or welfare program.

Re: The great wealth transfer reality check

#102

Post by cucumber3732842 » Sat, Aug 01, 2026, 12:42 AM UTC

SoftTalker wrote: post #70

loeg wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.)

Having seen OSB fall apart when it gets wet vs plywood which can delaminate but is still solid wood, I would disagree. OSB works if you can ensure it stays dry.

>OSB works if you can ensure it stays dry.

Plywood is getting to be almost as bad.

The glue changed and got categorucally worse 10-20yr ago.

Re: The great wealth transfer reality check

#103

Post by cucumber3732842 » Sat, Aug 01, 2026, 12:45 AM UTC

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…

>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 These are the same people who sold the industrial economy to east asia because pollution, as if we don't all share the same space rock. Inability to think long term or several steps ahead is kind of their thing.

Re: The great wealth transfer reality check

#104

Post by mfro » Sat, Aug 01, 2026, 12:47 AM UTC

aianus wrote: post #101

mfro wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty big gap in quality of life between people who have no worries about their next meal and those who have to stress over every one.

If you make $2000 and your rent is $1800 are you food insecure or rent insecure? This is a miscategorization imo, food is incredibly cheap compared to any American income or welfare program.

My comment didn’t really portray what I’m getting at. Food insecurity is obviously an indicator for financial confidence. I know people can afford food, on top of the fact they will choose to pay for it because they have to. I know people who have chosen to eat and fall behind on rent. The point is, if you’re worried about your meals, you’re not living the rest of your life with confidence. It’s not something to be brushed aside.

Re: The great wealth transfer reality check

#105

Post by RickJWagner » Sat, Aug 01, 2026, 1:11 AM UTC

atleastoptimal wrote: post #3

80% of the GDP over the next two decades will be siphoning money out of baby boomers (medical care, retirement homes, luxury cruises) before their children see a cent of it. Coupled with AI taking everyone's job, the end result is neo-feudalism where familial dynasties call all the shots.

Siphoning money out of…? Really?

What about when you reach retirement age? Will you consider medical care, a new house, or a cruise to be siphoning off of money that presumably belongs to someone else?

The money is theirs to use as they see fit. Maybe they earned it, maybe they inherited it. It doesn’t matter. You make your own fortune in this world, and then you get to decide how to spend it.

Re: The great wealth transfer reality check

#106

Post by garciansmith » Sat, Aug 01, 2026, 1:17 AM UTC

Kirby64 wrote: post #88

hollerith wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If drywall is better than lath and plaster, then why is lath and plaster still used today -- in high-end construction?

The same reason many inferior materials are used in higher end goods: there’s some mystic that its superior for one reason or another, potentially aesthetically, and the higher cost is sometimes a draw by itself. There’s nothing you can’t achieve with drywall that you can with lath and plaster. There’s no reason ever to use marble over quartz designed to look like marble… but some people do anyways.

I disagree about drywall versus plaster, save for ease of repair. Maybe it's just in most cases you won't encounter the highest quality drywall, nor will the installation be well done and actually last even if, in theory, it could be done well. E.g., my 100+ year plaster is still there and totally fine save in high-moisture rooms, whereas my friend's 20-year-old house has screws or nails starting to pop out of the drywall everywhere.

I was speaking to an architect about this very issue a few weeks ago, and he also noted that there are also acoustic properties to plaster and lathe that make it much nicer for residences (and if you have an old home and can afford it, repair the plaster and don't replace it with drywall).

Although maybe texture and acoustics count as aesthetics to you (same with real wood floors looking far better than vinyl). When it comes to materials used in residences, aesthetics matter to a lot of people.

Re: The great wealth transfer reality check

#107

Post by Kirby64 » Sat, Aug 01, 2026, 1:26 AM UTC

garciansmith wrote: post #106

Kirby64 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same reason many inferior materials are used in higher end goods: there’s some mystic that its superior for one reason or another, potentially aesthetically, and the higher cost is sometimes a draw by itself. There’s nothing you can’t achieve with drywall that you can with lath and plaster. There’s no reason ever to use marble over quartz designed to look like marble… but some people do anyways.

I disagree about drywall versus plaster, save for ease of repair. Maybe it's just in most cases you won't encounter the highest quality drywall, nor will the installation be well done and actually last even if, in theory, it could be done well. E.g., my 100+ year plaster is still there and totally fine save in high-moisture rooms, whereas my friend's 20-year-old house has screws or nails starting to pop out of the dr…

> whereas my friend's 20-year-old house has screws or nails starting to pop out of the drywall everywhere.

This is a drywall installation issue, though, like you said. Lath and plaster can have the same exact issue with popping. And unlike drywall, lath and plaster has issues with cracking especially if done poorly.

Regarding acoustics, you can easily improve acoustic performance of drywall in many ways. Double layering, acoustic sealing caulk, rockwall in walls, etc. You don’t need plaster to do that.

The only reason I can think that lath and plaster would be superior now is that the floor for how poorly it is done is likely lower, purely because it’s a bit of a lost art.

Re: The great wealth transfer reality check

#108

Post by casey2 » Sat, Aug 01, 2026, 1:56 AM UTC

atleastoptimal wrote: post #3

80% of the GDP over the next two decades will be siphoning money out of baby boomers (medical care, retirement homes, luxury cruises) before their children see a cent of it. Coupled with AI taking everyone's job, the end result is neo-feudalism where familial dynasties call all the shots.

What "shots" are the familial dynasties calling if nobody cares to work? I thought AI replaces prompt engineering

Re: The great wealth transfer reality check

#109

Post by dgudkov » Sat, Aug 01, 2026, 2:34 AM UTC

While the article doesn't talk much about it, but the math in it implies that most of the wealth will be transferred to the government in the form of inheritance taxes. So yes, the great wealth transfer. Just not in the direction everyone presumed.

Re: The great wealth transfer reality check

#110

Post by 0x262d » Sat, Aug 01, 2026, 2:52 AM UTC

AshamedBadger56 wrote: post #61

Keep in mind these charts are almost useless if you're trying to determine how much the typical millennial or gen x person has compared to boomers. I'd go as far as to say it's misleading at best to portray "The kids are alright" and that "Gen X and millennial heirs are starting from a position of strength", when the charts used to back that up are based on net worth per capita, a very poor metric to use for this. Th…

Right, that was egregiously misleading. Well, I'm not sure how misleading it is because the average is a meaningless metric for most people's experience, so probably very.