151–160 of 303 posts
How could you possibly know why people run after money? It takes being dirt poor to know why having enough money is a goal to attain. This is the last post I want to read by someone who's never been in total despair and tries to reason about why people want money.
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Is the standard of living really growing for everyone ? Or are there more people now (%wise) in poverty ? This is an honest question as several people have mentioned the standard of living argument before on HN. I've read however that the rich-poor divide is growing and thus am just wondering about this..
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.
It's simply false that you can live this way today on the same dollar amount.
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Is the standard of living really growing for everyone ? Or are there more people now (%wise) in poverty ? This is an honest question as several people have mentioned the standard of living argument before on HN. I've read however that the rich-poor divide is growing and thus am just wondering about this..
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
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I have grown up in a typical middle-class household where one is rightly nurtured into not being extravagant. I was taught to value money (which I thoroughly appreciate). Even though, in my childhood, I always got whatever I wanted, the truth is that I never wanted big, expensive toys. The author did not grow up in poverty.
Read the link I provided. India middle class < America poverty.
India's middle class can typically own property and afford servants, and live a life that is far more pleasant than is available to those in poverty in the US.
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-...
> 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…
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Why gender neutral language ? I think it makes big difference for men and women. Women are way more attracted to status/wealth than men are and I think it's important for yours (or parent's) point to specify their sex.
Ummmmm No... Really? Men are not attracted to status/wealth? Come on, dude. Odd, I personally know more men sponging off their female counterparts then the other way around. It will never cease to amaze me people who will go out of their way to display their total ignorance.
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I recall a colleague once (~10 years ago) telling me that some people he knew felt that 5k GBP would be enough to solve all of their (money) worries. I thought it absurd, i.e. too low given things like planning for old age. I guess there are people who would think my estimate too low if I said I needed 5m for the same purpose. (not saying 5m is the right number for me or anyone else.)
5k seems absurd, though there is a big differential in the UK between those who own a house and those who do not. If I lived in London, 1e6 GBP would be necessary for housing alone, a ridiculous sum compared to the average wage.
A few years ago, my grandmother died and left me a healthy pile of money. Enough that I don't have to have a day job for several years yet, even if I hadn't invested a bunch of it.
I live alone in a two-bedroom apartment in a very walkable part of Seattle. I don't own a car, I don't have kids. I spend my days mostly drawing comics, without troubling myself much with deadlines, or whether they're "what the market wants" - I'm two years into a complex and ambitious comic about a lesbian robot lady with reality problems because it's a story I want to tell.
I have the freedom to do this instead of grinding out commissions, working as a minor cog in animation or games, or doing weird web-dev things in the intersection of "good artist, half-assed programmer". And I have this freedom because of money. I can afford to travel to several comic book conventions every year and make enough to at least cover my costs, and not stress when a new con turns out to have sales so shitty that I walk away from the last day to hit the beach instead.
It is fucking awesome and I really hope I can continue to enjoy this freedom for a very long time.
Now it's also possibly that if we view money through the lens of a Nash equilibrium, that in the long term we are doing what is best for all of us by constantly seeking greater productivity. Therefore, "On a long enough time scale, the real use of money is to buy freedom for every one as money is traded with those that can achieve the greatest productivity." Money is the lubricant that permits the human machine to find the most efficient means of production.
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5k seems absurd, though there is a big differential in the UK between those who own a house and those who do not. If I lived in London, 1e6 GBP would be necessary for housing alone, a ridiculous sum compared to the average wage.
Do you have a large family or a need for an enormous space? London's expensive, but it's not that expensive. You can get a nice, but not huge, apartment in a central area for £400 / week which would work out to £20K per year. Source: this was true as of 2011 when I stayed with friends in a 2BR apartment paying exactly that.
- I then realise he's probably talking about buying rather than renting
- I read this report which claims that the median value of residential property in fancy parts of London (what the report calls 'Prime London') is 1m GBP, and the mean is about 1.4m GBP: http://www.marshandparsons.co.uk/news/research/item/1519-lon...