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

The real use of money is to buy freedom

paraschopra.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 303 posts

Re: The real use of money is to buy freedom

#171

Post by gress »

malandrew wrote: post #166
gress wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A 1950's upper middle class lifestyle involved owning a relatively large house, and sane working hours with in many cases only one wage earner. It's simply false that you can live this way today on the same dollar amount.

Even in among the lower middle class lifestyles, you'd have exactly the same minus the "relatively large house". However, if you go back 50 years earlier, the lower class lifestyle was not that different from the favella living in slums around the world, where entire families lived in one or two rooms and everyone in the family who was able was responsible for contributing to making ends meet.

The lower middle classes can't own any house at all with just one wage earner.

Your second point (which I agree with) seems to imply that the US standard of living peaked in the 50's

Re: The real use of money is to buy freedom

#172

Post by malandrew »

Artistry121 wrote: post #106
flyinglizard wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that's a simplistic view. Most rich people became rich because they provided a particular value to society. This value is exchanged for money, which allows the rich to draw back this value as they see fit. Lets imagine that Steve Jobs, instead of getting paid for his iPhones, sold them in exchange for a person's time. The average hourly wage in USA is approximately $24, meaning an iPhone would retail for abou…

And those involved in creating the iPhone (in countries with strong property laws) all entered into a trade agreement where they provided their time or skills in exchange for a certain amount of money. Bill Gates had to give 30 cents of every dollar he earned to the US government to avoid going to prison. That's domination - the threat of force if penance is not paid. Wal-mart never made anyone work for them. They si…

And the government invested in the Transitor, Computers and DarpaNet; all things that were enablers for Bill Gates to make his fortune.

The same applies to every company that has to get their physical goods to market on the Eisenhower Interstate Highway System.

Re: The real use of money is to buy freedom

#173

Post by refurb »

gress wrote: post #152
randallsquared wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both can be true at once. The richest are farther ahead than the richest were, in monetary terms, but the poor have made huge strides in absolute wealth as well: it's possible to live a 1950s upper middle class lifestyle on almost the same dollar amount in 2013. Our idea of what a middle-class lifestyle entails, though, is now far above that.

A 1950's upper middle class lifestyle involved owning a relatively large house, and sane working hours with in many cases only one wage earner. It's simply false that you can live this way today on the same dollar amount.

Actually houses have gotten significantly larger since the 1950s.

Re: The real use of money is to buy freedom

#174

Post by malandrew »

reginaldjcooper wrote: post #134
Artistry121 wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And those involved in creating the iPhone (in countries with strong property laws) all entered into a trade agreement where they provided their time or skills in exchange for a certain amount of money. Bill Gates had to give 30 cents of every dollar he earned to the US government to avoid going to prison. That's domination - the threat of force if penance is not paid. Wal-mart never made anyone work for them. They si…

Just what we need, some more Objectivism. If the free market ensured that all people were given a wage that adequately reflected their value, the bottom 40% of earners would be getting more than 10% of the income. Bill Gates paid 30 cents of every dollar in exchange for access to an educated and healthy workforce, use of the interstates for shipping, use of the police and military for protection, and use of a contrac…

Completely agree. To be fair, every government of major superpower also pursues the same policies of "embrace, extend, extinguish;", including ours, the US Government.

Re: The real use of money is to buy freedom

#175

Post by gress »

refurb wrote: post #173
gress wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A 1950's upper middle class lifestyle involved owning a relatively large house, and sane working hours with in many cases only one wage earner. It's simply false that you can live this way today on the same dollar amount.

Actually houses have gotten significantly larger since the 1950s.

Houses affordable by single wage earning families? I think not.

Re: The real use of money is to buy freedom

#176

Post by akgerber »

malandrew wrote: post #166
gress wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A 1950's upper middle class lifestyle involved owning a relatively large house, and sane working hours with in many cases only one wage earner. It's simply false that you can live this way today on the same dollar amount.

Even in among the lower middle class lifestyles, you'd have exactly the same minus the "relatively large house". However, if you go back 50 years earlier, the lower class lifestyle was not that different from the favella living in slums around the world, where entire families lived in one or two rooms and everyone in the family who was able was responsible for contributing to making ends meet.

The lower middle classes can't afford a house/apartment in places with laws that make it difficult to build new houses or apartments, including many places with lots of tech jobs. But in rural areas, or many Midwestern cities, or much of the Sunbelt, a house is still very much within reach. But many of the most productive regions of the country are zoned such that very little new housing is built, and rising incomes for some just mean more competition for existing housing.

Re: The real use of money is to buy freedom

#177

Post by frenchy »

coldtea wrote: post #142
miles wrote: post #21

Tim O'Reilly on money: It’s easy to get caught up in the heady buzz of making money. You should regard money as fuel for what you really want to do, not as a goal in and of itself. Money is like gas in the car — you need to pay attention or you’ll end up on the side of the road — but a well-lived life is not a tour of gas stations! Source: http://radar.oreilly.com/2009/01/work-on-stuff-that-matters-...

> You should regard money as fuel for what you really want to do, not as a goal in and of itself. A little ironic coming from Tim, who cheapened the whole publishing house he had built, and then added those horrible techno-babble conferences for quick bucks.

Maybe making a first-class publishing house wasn't really what he wanted to do.

Re: The real use of money is to buy freedom

#178

Post by sliverstorm »

coldtea wrote: post #144
dbecker wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The real problem is: This additional freedom you can buy with money means less freedom for somebody else. This assumes that wealth is a zero-sum game, so it can be traded around but not created. It's hard to reconcile that view with the fact that standards-of-living have been growing, more or less worldwide , for the two centuries.

> This assumes that wealth is a zero-sum game, so it can be traded around but not created. And it very much is. > It's hard to reconcile that view with the fact that standards-of-living have been growing, more or less worldwide, for the two centuries. Those are not personal wealth. Increased standards of living are a kind of background element, as they are more or less shared by the population. Statistically they eve…

Increased standards of living are a kind of background element, as they are more or less shared by the population.

You seem to have gone backwards, and defined wealth as "only the things other people don't have", in which case of course it becomes a zero-sum. But that isn't what wealth is.

The modern understanding of Wealth is the abundance of valuable resources or material possessions. [...] In this larger understanding of wealth, an individual, community, region or country that possesses an abundance of such possessions or resources to the benefit of the common good is known as wealthy. -- Wikipedia

Re: The real use of money is to buy freedom

#179

Post by onedev »

Killah911 wrote: post #95
downandout wrote: post #36

The importance of money is a matter of perspective. Anyone that has the author's attitude toward money has never been poor. Ask a homeless person, or any of the 50% of the US population that has a net worth of zero or less what their opinion on money is, and it will be markedly different than the author's. The opinion that money doesn't matter is a luxury that only the wealthy can afford.

Therein precisely is a HUGE problem. I was nearly homeless, then made more money than I could have ever imagined. I turned into a monster. 9 cars (yes, all for me) and other stupid crap that I'm ashamed even to recall now. Come to think of it, some of my buddies who made it out of the ghetto did the same thing, at first. It does take a while of being "secure" that the money isn't going to be taken away, before you st…

I desperately want you to be Ghostface Killah. Fantastic story by the way.

How did you acquire your wealth if you don't mind me asking?

Re: The real use of money is to buy freedom

#180

Post by bmelton »

gress wrote: post #152
randallsquared wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both can be true at once. The richest are farther ahead than the richest were, in monetary terms, but the poor have made huge strides in absolute wealth as well: it's possible to live a 1950s upper middle class lifestyle on almost the same dollar amount in 2013. Our idea of what a middle-class lifestyle entails, though, is now far above that.

A 1950's upper middle class lifestyle involved owning a relatively large house, and sane working hours with in many cases only one wage earner. It's simply false that you can live this way today on the same dollar amount.

Well, definitions have changed, completely. The average home size in 1950 was ~1000 square feet, while the average home size in 2004 is ~2400 square feet.

Similarly, the 'sane working hours' you mention, generally speaking, were 48 hours a week or more. In the 'upper' middle class, more hours were spent at the office as well. Today, the average worker works ~37 hours.

Assuming job accessibility (which I have no idea if there's a guarantee of or not), and more reasonable home purchasing, I think it's not "simply false" that one can live the same way as they did in the 50s on the equivalent working wage, one simply has to make more apt comparisons to see that the goal posts have shifted.

The average 1950s family only owned one car, while the average family of today owns more than one (likely, to support the second job). If each of us bought houses half the size of what we're currently buying, and half the cars, we'd likely be in greater parity with our 1950s brethren. Also, they had to pay less than half of what we did for college, and they also likely didn't borrow in order to afford it, which factors in even further in measuring debt load.

Anyway, I think your comparison is somewhat rose-colored.

Post reply on HN