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The real use of money is to buy freedom

paraschopra.com

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Re: The real use of money is to buy freedom

#231

Post by humanrebar »

coldtea wrote: post #147
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.

Well, there are also intangibles that nobody cares to measure, that matter a lot. A 2013 "middle class lifestyle" might be far ahead a 1950 "middle class lifestyle" in pocessions, access to products, etc, but there are important differences too. For example, in all likely the 1950 "middle class" family could get all they needed by only one person working. And that person work an 8 hour day, with benefits and security…

I believe your assertions about the 1950s need substantiation. I'd like to see some empirical data about things like poverty levels, life expectancy, job security, bankruptcy, and so on.

Keep in mind that this is only a couple of decades (at most) from the Great Depression. Even if the 1950s were clearly better, it's a rather cherry-picked data point considering how much worse the 1930s clearly were.

That being said, I'm not too excited about the intangibles of the 1950s. The Korean War was in the 1950s and Jim Crow was in full swing. Life expectancy was much lower. Just about any consumer good from today is clearly superior to the 1950s equivalent.

Re: The real use of money is to buy freedom

#232

Post by kamaal »

agonz253 wrote: post #168
coldtea wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

>This assumes that wealth is a zero-sum game, so it can be traded around but not created. >And it very much is. You may be confusing wealth with money, which is in fact a zero-sum game. Wealth, on the other hand, can be created and it's been constantly created all the time throughout history. The section on the Pie Fallacy in this article may help clarify it: http://paulgraham.com/wealth.html

Yes, wealth can be created. But creation of wealth isn't uniformly distributed, And beyond all it is a zero sum game at constant points in time.

Re: The real use of money is to buy freedom

#233

Post by catonthe »

bmelton wrote: post #180
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.

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…

> The average 1950s family only owned one car, while the average family of today owns more than one (likely, to support the second job)

Actually, it's an even greater difference than that. The median household income in 1955 was about $4k, while today it's about $50k. In 1955 the cheapest Ford cost about $2k, or half the median household income, whereas today the cheapest Honda costs about $16k, or a little less than a third of median household income.

If we just leave it at that, it sounds like things are about the same. However, the cheapest Honda today comes with airbags, air conditioning, power windows and locks, an FM radio, and a whole host of other features that were luxuries reserved for the most expensive cars (if they were even available at all). On top of that, my (and others') experience with modern Hondas is that they can easily go for 200k miles without major repairs or tune-ups, whereas 100k miles was considered a major achievement for a Ford of that era. Realistically, this difference in longevity alone means that a car from the 1950's cost about three times as many working hours as a car of today.

Re: The real use of money is to buy freedom

#234

Post by vkou »

bmelton wrote: post #180
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.

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…

The average worker works 37 hours these days, because of a big shift to part-time no-benefits jobs. So, you've got people working 30 hours to make ends meet, and you've got people working 50 because 'that's what's expected if you want to go anywhere.'

Re: The real use of money is to buy freedom

#235

Post by gress »

ak217 wrote: post #224
gress wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depression is also rising to epidemic proportions, suggesting that improving economic indicators may simply not have anything to do with quality of life.

More like, mental health is not directly correlated with quality of life. Freed from the preoccupation of having to fight or work hard for basic needs, many people fail to find meaning in their life.

Poor mental health = a low quality of life

Re: The real use of money is to buy freedom

#236

Post by im3w1l »

flyinglizard wrote: post #93
nexttimer wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The real use of money is to buy freedom The real problem is: This additional freedom you can buy with money means less freedom for somebody else. Inequality (wealth-based) means nothing else than domination. If you are richer, then you dominate the poorer people. And richer countries dominate poorer countries. This is the most basic and fundamental injustice [0] we seem to accept in our Western culture. Because we…

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…

I cannot choose that Apple not pay campaign contributions to senators. It is not the only thing money does, but it does buy zero-sum power.

Re: The real use of money is to buy freedom

#237

Post by eruditely »

gress wrote: post #153
trevorstrohman wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This Hans Rosling talk from a few years ago shows how most indicators are improving worldwide (e.g. reductions in child mortality, GDP per capita). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVimVzgtD6w

Depression is also rising to epidemic proportions, suggesting that improving economic indicators may simply not have anything to do with quality of life.

Measuring averages from the extreme is not-accurate(via Taleb)

Re: The real use of money is to buy freedom

#238

Post by bmelton »

vkou wrote: post #234
bmelton wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The average worker works 37 hours these days, because of a big shift to part-time no-benefits jobs. So, you've got people working 30 hours to make ends meet, and you've got people working 50 because 'that's what's expected if you want to go anywhere.'

To be fair, I probably misstated. The average of working hours is ~37, which doesn't necessarily mean that the average worker works that at all. It could be the averages are between 40 hour weeks and 20 hour weeks, and that's where it falls. Honestly, I don't know, nor was I attempting to ascribe motivation to the numbers, except to point out that stated premise was factually incorrect -- workers in the 50s did not work fewer hours, nor did they have larger houses.

Re: The real use of money is to buy freedom

#239

Post by Killah911 »

downandout wrote: post #227
Killah911 wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry to disappoint but I am another yet another programmer/techie who picked his handle based on early hip hop influences. Most of the money was thanks to entrepreneurial endeavors and code. I love building things. I still build, focus is just a bit different now.

Well hopefully your experience will be reflective of mine one day. My entrepreneurial ambitions and coding skills combined with multiple failed projects have taken me on the opposite journey - from relative wealth to relative poverty. I got screwed out of the one success I created - a company I was the technical co-founder of that was acquired for $64 million - by an unscrupulous partner who basically stole my $12.8…

Well, I'd love to say it was my sheer wit and coding genius. But truth of the matter is, there's a good bit of luck involved as well. The secret to success: get lucky. I got unlucky too. Found myself scrubbing toilets for $4/hr back in NYC at one point. It's nice to not have to do that anymore.

If you can code, sure you might not be overrun with money, but at least you can still earn a decent living. At the end of the day, the most "successful" people I know do not measure their life in money stashed.

The billionaire I mentioned, showed me that I didn't necessarily need to become a billionaire to be successful. He happened to be a billionaire and is successful because he's satisfied with who he is and what he is doing. Still wakes up at 4am to change the world for the better as he sees things, with what's in his capacity to do.

When I was in NYC scrubbing toilets for a living, I shared my sandwich with someone else who needed it. That was positive impact I could make given my resources. When I got money, I just bought into the "good life" BS and became a consumer. I lived for nothing else but me. Turned into a certifiable asshole. It's hard to see it when you're in the midst of it.

Once I began to see that I was lying to myself saying, "I'll start being me once I've made $x". I could be someone I'm happy to be, now. Six months of planning, get rid of crap, and learning to live with less and asking myself a many times a day, "am I living up to someone I can be happy with" seemed to remedy the problem.

I've lost a good bit of $ to startups. Friends say maybe I'm afraid of making money, maybe they're right. But I sure as heck am happy being able to help. I hope I can get myself disciplined enough to the point when I get my next hit, I'll know whom beside me the money is going to.

Wish you the best. Screw the losses, you know what you've built and nobody can take that away from you. Do the best with what you have, to me that's success. And if luck should shine upon you, hope you're still successful afterwards because that's where it's easy to slip up and take it easy. (Sorry if I'm too preachy, obviously I feel strongly about the subject)

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