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What do wealthy people buy, that ordinary people know nothing about? (2015)

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Re: What do wealthy people buy, that ordinary people know nothing about? (2015)

#241

Post by impossiblefork »

immibis wrote: post #66
BurningFrog wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without people to buy from, money is worthless.

Sometimes it's fun to realize that if we all just decided dollars were worthless, they would be. There'd be nothing the government could do about it. Crypto ain't it, though. Even the better-scaling blockchains still don't scale very well. I've heard of a few different mesh-network currency projects, and I wonder if any of them could scale by essentially giving each user their own blockchain. However, in a mesh-netwo…

No, they wouldn't. There'd still be debt in dollars, which would lead to people losing collateral etc.

What you say is true of Bitcoin though, since there's so little debt denominated in Bitcoin.

Re: What do wealthy people buy, that ordinary people know nothing about? (2015)

#242

Post by lazyasciiart »

magicalhippo wrote: post #197
JohnBooty wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I think this is something that people in countries like the US don't instinctively understand, or at least I didn't. My Filipino friend explained to me that back home, if you have more than a certain amount of money, it's seen as incredibly selfish not to employ people as housekeepers, etc. I'd imagine that's true in a lot of places with income disparity and/or high unemployment numbers. It made a lot of sense t…

My mom visited a professor in an African country a few years back, as part of a project. She told me the professor had a guy employed to open and close the gates for when he drove to work and came home in the evening. That's all the guy did. Full time job. Sounded so preposterous at first, but after thinking a wee bit I came to a similar conclusion that the alternatives might be a lot worse. It was steady income, alb…

I assume he also stayed actively present at the gates during the day and/or night and functioned as some kind of watchman?

Re: What do wealthy people buy, that ordinary people know nothing about? (2015)

#243

Post by 47282847 »

JohnBooty wrote: post #128
drewcoo wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And it would be heartless not to. Those housekeepers need jobs and incomes.

Yeah I think this is something that people in countries like the US don't instinctively understand, or at least I didn't. My Filipino friend explained to me that back home, if you have more than a certain amount of money, it's seen as incredibly selfish not to employ people as housekeepers, etc. I'd imagine that's true in a lot of places with income disparity and/or high unemployment numbers. It made a lot of sense t…

I understand where this is coming from but that argument simply doesn’t make sense. There are many ways to give back to society; providing low-status jobs is only one of them. And a poor one, because it locks people in that status and heteronomy. Within 10 minutes, anyone can come up with some ideas that would contribute to other people’s development and growth in a more sustainable fashion.

It serves other purposes. That narrative is a convenient collective lie, full stop.

Re: What do wealthy people buy, that ordinary people know nothing about? (2015)

#244

Post by gadders »

steveBK123 wrote: post #41

Having worked at a few 100~1000 person companies run by billionaires, this tracks. Most of the difference in lifestyle is the quantity and quality of housing they can afford, and having people to take care of problems for them. But they ALL universally have messed up personal lives with multiple messy divorces, embarrassing affairs, NYPost Page Six appearances, etc. The one thing you'd think it gives them is freedom,…

I think I heard a quote by Chris Williamson recently that the ideal level of fame is "Everyone knows your name, but no-one knows your face."

Re: What do wealthy people buy, that ordinary people know nothing about? (2015)

#245

Post by Flamentono2 »

florbnit wrote: post #135

It’s funny how emotional responses questions like this become on part of the people answering everything but the question. If some one asks in a sports forum what the best exercises are that pro tennis players do that novices don’t know about you wouldn’t expect the majority of answers being in the line of “Tennis players never experience true love! If all you have is tennis you’ll be depressed!”

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Re: What do wealthy people buy, that ordinary people know nothing about? (2015)

#246

Post by Flamentono2 »

HardCodedBias wrote: post #5

I really like this post since it shows how very little there is for the wealthy to buy other than status goods. The life of the rich, other than status, is very much like the life of upper middle class. The same phones, the same digital entertainment, the same appliances in their homes. We have very few items for the rich to buy. Honestly, it is a problem it breaks incentives and it drives the rich more towards statu…

[dead]

Re: What do wealthy people buy, that ordinary people know nothing about? (2015)

#247

Post by Flamentono2 »

never_inline wrote: post #32
HardCodedBias wrote: post #5

I really like this post since it shows how very little there is for the wealthy to buy other than status goods. The life of the rich, other than status, is very much like the life of upper middle class. The same phones, the same digital entertainment, the same appliances in their homes. We have very few items for the rich to buy. Honestly, it is a problem it breaks incentives and it drives the rich more towards statu…

If I were rich, I would have a personal data center, an aeronautics lab, a tropical farm, mediaeval fort, things like that. Not this yatches and crap.

[dead]

Re: What do wealthy people buy, that ordinary people know nothing about? (2015)

#248

Post by safety1st »

alexey-salmin wrote: post #176

The referenced reply is dull. It's very pretentious but just reiterates common knowledge, it doesn't convey any useful information. For example I wish someone told me about the existence of Miele kitchen equipment before I accidentally rented an apartment of a well-to-do woman. She renovated it for herself but then rented out when circumstances changed. Similarly it took me a long time to realize just how much better…

On a personal level I know several guys who are worth $10-30M, one who's worth probably $40M, and one who's worth around $700M, this is LNW.

Not much in the Reddit reply checks out for me. It's true that the $700M guy socializes with "Senators/Congressmen/community leaders." He travels a lot, and comfortably, but has no ownership in a jet. He retired young-ish and no longer works so maybe that's why. He doesn't flash his wealth around except to women he likes, and it's an absolute magnet for them, he gets pretty much any woman he wants to sleep with him simply by being a decent guy who's also worth $750M. I mean, they know that as long as he's dating them they will have a life of permanent luxury travel and not have to work, so not a surprise.

But beyond that he's pretty unassuming, doesn't flash his wealth, and mainly just likes to talk about finance and give people business advice.

The $10-30M people don't seem much different from me. Their contingencies for dealing with potential financial catastrophes run a lot deeper than mine. Their property is worth more and they do travel a bit more frequently and lavishly than I do. Idk nobody I know is doing this stuff where they're really fixated on getting into the best restaurant in town, or they're totally inaccessible except through their "people" and personal assistants.

I don't know a lot of it sounds like a type of person I don't associate with I guess, maybe I am not flamboyant and rich enough. I know there are rich people out there who spend like this guy describes; I interact with them very occasionally and briefly; I'm sure I am super boring to them; I question whether they remain that rich for very long :)

I don't know anyone who hobnobs with celebrities nor wants to. The comment is 10 years old, maybe Hollywood has lost its cultural cachet. Eureka, that's it: this is probably a post about Hollywood people.

Re: What do wealthy people buy, that ordinary people know nothing about? (2015)

#250

Post by mykowebhn »

madaxe_again wrote: post #208
lm28469 wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Buying "things" really is the level 0 of wealth. What matters is that you don't have to sell your time for money, that alone changes your entire existence. Then you have access to better healthcare, education, seeing your kids grow, &c. That's why a lot of poor people who unlock large amount of money go broke quite fast, they still think like poor people

Time is indeed a very major thing, but it’s more accessible than most realise - I am only marginally wealthy, high 7/low 8 figures, and that’s ample for me to not need to work for a living and live very comfortably. Frankly, once you have even $1M in free liquid capital, you are in the endgame, as money makes money far more efficiently than labour. I spend perhaps 20 hours a year farting around with our finances, pla…

I agree with this so much.

I'm not your level wealthy, but I don't work, live comfortably, and I'm happy.

I prefer not to eat at expensive restaurants, but I enjoy restaurants that serve good food. I don't really want to fly to an expensive city and spend lots of money. I'd rather spend time in nature, hike, try to ID plants, and spend time with my wife and our animals.

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