Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Degrees of Wealth

jaapgrolleman.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 85 posts

Re: Degrees of Wealth

#51

Post by mkozlows »

hackyhacky wrote: post #5

This is an insightful article but it misses the elephant in the room, which is wealth inequality . In Shanghai, there is vastly more wealth inequality than in Netherlands. The reason why nannies are affordable in China is because those nannies aren't paid very much, and consequently enjoy a much lower standard of living than their employers. In Netherlands, nannies are relatively expensive, but you the employee is mu…

I think the article actually _does_ call that out, noting that the reason for some of these things is due to how wealth propagates through society, even noting the minimum wage specifically. (But it does bring to mind the Agatha Christie quote about never imagining she'd be so rich as to afford a car, nor so poor as to not have a maid.)

Also, though, I think some of the weird poverty-culture stuff of the Netherlands is just a culture thing. Netherlanders are absolutely rich enough to buy paper towel if they wanted to, it's just a cultural thing that they don't. And air conditioning is a whole cultural hot button flashpoint issue for reasons that have nothing to do with money.

Re: Degrees of Wealth

#52

Post by Xirdus »

hackyhacky wrote: post #12
credit_guy wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wealth is not a terrible measure of good life. "Money does not bring happiness" is a trope that rich people would like poor people to believe. I don't think poor people fall for it, though.

The more accurate version is "Money does not bring happiness, but poverty really sucks." A billionaire is not orders of magnitude happier than a millionaire. But a millionaire is much happier than someone who is worried about being able to pay rent, afford food, etc. Thus, the solution to maximize happiness is to distribute wealth evenly.

Kind reminder that in 2026 USA, a millionaire is somebody who paid off their house mortgage and has 12 months of salary in savings but not much else.

Re: Degrees of Wealth

#53

Post by JumpCrisscross »

arjie wrote: post #42

It’s just the age of the civilization. The Dutch were the originators of much of modern trade capitalism - the joint stock corporation being instrumental to their ability to run long voyages and so on. This happens to everyone. They prosper and then switch to retirement mode and start extracting wealth from the younger people. The speed of your growth determines the top most point of your arc (which is not parabolic…

> Dutch were the originators of much of modern trade capitalism - the joint stock corporation

“The earliest records of joint-stock companies appear in China during the Tang and Song dynasties” [1].

What the Dutch pioneered were tradeable shares, which in turn massively increased the amount of capital a society could rally from its population.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint-stock_company

Re: Degrees of Wealth

#54

Post by triceratops »

betaby wrote: post #32
hackyhacky wrote: post #5

This is an insightful article but it misses the elephant in the room, which is wealth inequality . In Shanghai, there is vastly more wealth inequality than in Netherlands. The reason why nannies are affordable in China is because those nannies aren't paid very much, and consequently enjoy a much lower standard of living than their employers. In Netherlands, nannies are relatively expensive, but you the employee is mu…

> The reason why nannies are affordable in China is because those nannies aren't paid very much, and consequently enjoy a much lower standard of living than their employers. In Netherlands, nannies are relatively expensive, but you the employee is much closer to the socioeconomic stratum to that of their employer. In Canada there are people making peanuts and living very poorly while technically inequality is low. Th…

> The problem in Canada and other developed countries is excessive taxation of salaries. That's an orthogonal to wealth problem.

I'd argue it's part of the same problem. Salaries are excessively taxed in developed countries because wealth is so lightly taxed. People with wealth have outsize influence in law and policy. They can make all sorts of fancy arguments for why taxing wealth is bad. But money for government services has to come from somewhere.

So regular working stiffs end up screwed.

Re: Degrees of Wealth

#55

Post by arjie »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #53
arjie wrote: post #42

It’s just the age of the civilization. The Dutch were the originators of much of modern trade capitalism - the joint stock corporation being instrumental to their ability to run long voyages and so on. This happens to everyone. They prosper and then switch to retirement mode and start extracting wealth from the younger people. The speed of your growth determines the top most point of your arc (which is not parabolic…

> Dutch were the originators of much of modern trade capitalism - the joint stock corporation “The earliest records of joint-stock companies appear in China during the Tang and Song dynasties” [1]. What the Dutch pioneered were tradeable shares, which in turn massively increased the amount of capital a society could rally from its population. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint-stock_company

Definitely a critical but unintended inaccuracy on my part. I absolutely intended to mean the tradability etc. A Splendid Exchange has a good bit on this. I suppose I meant the public corporation or whatever. Thanks for the correction.

Re: Degrees of Wealth

#56

Post by bluGill »

hackyhacky wrote: post #31
phyzix5761 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't say they're happier. They have other things they're stressed about. An undisciplined mind finds things to be dissatisfied with no matter what the financial situation of the individual. Billionaires have desires and aversions just like people living in poverty. Yes, those desires and aversions are about different things but its the mechanism of desire and aversion that causes unhappiness not the external si…

> They have other things they're stressed about. Sorry, but I don't buy this. Equating stress about whether my company's stock price stays about $200 with stress about whether I will be able to afford a meal for my children is simply not on the same level. Billionaires may choose to be emotionally involved in their financial situation, but a person in poverty has no choice. A bit of mindful meditation will solve the…

I don't know about billionaires, but I do know couples who between the two are earning nearly a million dollars per year - yet because their spending has grown to match their income they are stressed about having enough food to eat the last few days of every month - even worse than poor people I know who have almost nothing. Sure they both are driving new cars, living in a large house (near mansion?), their kids are getting music lessons and many other things that make their life much better than the poor families, but at the end of the month they are out of money and stressed about it. This isn't stress about their stock value (I haven't asked but I suspect they are maxing out their 401k and so have a nice amount in stocks that they can't touch), it is about enough food to eat today. The stress is exactly the same despite a much richer life.

Re: Degrees of Wealth

#57

Post by [deleted] »

hackyhacky wrote: post #5

This is an insightful article but it misses the elephant in the room, which is wealth inequality . In Shanghai, there is vastly more wealth inequality than in Netherlands. The reason why nannies are affordable in China is because those nannies aren't paid very much, and consequently enjoy a much lower standard of living than their employers. In Netherlands, nannies are relatively expensive, but you the employee is mu…

[deleted]

Re: Degrees of Wealth

#58

Post by steveBK123 »

iambateman wrote: post #33
steveBK123 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do worry that the “app / gig economy” independent contractors with weak i9 verification is basically trying to import the developing-world inequality permanent underclass service sector here.

I would say this is true, but should be understood in the context of sharecropping, Jim crow, and slavery as a long and continuous outworking of poorly-checked capitalism. I’m not saying that you meant to say that it’s our first round with this…just pointing out that Americans have significant experience at maintaining a underclass.

Right, it's not the first time we've built upon a permanent underclass, but it feels like a quiet reversion that doesn't get a lot of attention.

Arguably migrant workers working the harvests on farms is similar and bridges the Jim Crow era to now, but that has been more behind the scenes and didn't have the veneer of "tech".

Re: Degrees of Wealth

#59

Post by bluGill »

CPLX wrote: post #25
a34729t wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree: Re happiness is greatly increased by not having stress of worrying about paying bills. Re wealth distribution, that works for a generation or two maybe, but you do need people to actually work eventually. Otherwise you get the Europe situation where everybody wants benefits, 6 weeks of vacation and a 30 hour work week. That's great, but when China and the US are slobbering to take over every industry (or obs…

> Otherwise you get the Europe situation I love when people use this as an argument. As far as I can tell “the Europe situation” is the most successful model for social and economic governance the world has produced so far.

That is a matter for debate. Europe generally doesn't have a bad life. However depending on what you personally value you might find it could be better. Would you be willing to compromise the lower work hours for more money - that might be the better choice for some people.

Re: Degrees of Wealth

#60

Post by heaney-555 »

>In broad strokes, the Netherlands is a small-scale, low-tech society. Small-scale in that the city hall here has just one window open to queue at, whereas Shanghai has hundreds of citizen service centres, each with dozens of desks. There’s one ATM I know of, and a small library (which, I must say, had a lot of visitors, from young to old).

It sounds a lot like the author is comparing their small town in the Netherlands to one of the largest cities of China.

Post reply on HN