Just Be Rich • Hacker News Board

Re: Just Be Rich

#391

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 10:06 AM UTC

ironman1478 wrote: post #48

d_silin wrote: post #7

A lot of people who are just as smart and motived as Elon Musk or Steve Jobs will never be able to start their own companies and get rich. Because they have family obligations that take priority. Because they live outside high-income countries. Because they have no access to support network, so when they fail, they fall all the way to bottom. Because they may have made a crippling mistake in their pasts that now prev…

This. Poverty doesn't just cause immediate issues it can also cause long term issues that can effect not only adults, but the children who grew up in that environment. This is largely because families in poverty tend to also abuse their kids at higher rates (this includes mental abuse) or at least foster an extremely unhealthy environment due to the stress it causes. So even a generation later it can be difficult for…

[deleted]

Re: Just Be Rich

#392

Post by H_Pylori » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 10:07 AM UTC

ramblerman wrote: post #221

reader_mode wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I grew up in a family of 7 (4 younger siblings), during civil war, father was into gamling and drinking, mother was unemployed and constantly on the verge of a mental breakdown (understandable given the conditions she was living in). To paint the picture, I have vivid memories of vomiting a boiled onion I ate after not eating for days (I think I was arround 5 years old). And we were poor well into my early 20s untill…

Unfortunately the dysfunction and poverty may go hand in hand a lot of the time. There is strong indication that scarcity affects cognitive function. "Scarcity: Why having too little means so much" is a great book on this. In essence it is not that people in poverty have less innate executive control / cognitive capacity, but that the situation of poverty causes anyone to lose some significant points of executive con…

Being poor means that you can't delegate a task like wealthier person would do. When you are poor you are often forced to become your own mechanic/doctor/accountant/lawyer (with results that can go from decent to tragic) and this takes a lot of mental cycles away from you. A part of your brain is always engaged in the process of allocating your scarce resources. All of the above takes quite a bit of effort that could be better spent studying or working, so there is some truth to what you are saying. It must also be said that a lot of poor people just aren't that bright and make very, VERY, poor decisions in life. Anybody who grew up in a dysfunctional family can attest that.

Re: Just Be Rich

#393

Post by camhart » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 10:09 AM UTC

throwaway77770 wrote: post #343

camhart wrote: post #247

Income inequality is growing, yes. But are the wealthy somehow responsible for it? Is their "getting richer" directly responsible for it? There seems to be a growing consensus on the left that they are. I have yet to see a convincing argument to show this though. Someone who builds a company worth 100m didn't have to steal money from me (or anyone else) to do it. If they did steal, then that's what needs fixed. Preve…

> But it's not the governments job to legalize theft and pick the winners and losers, it's the governments job to fix the underlying issues. So in other words, don't try to paper over the flaws of capitalism by instantiating a welfare state from taxes; instead abolish capitalism directly? Probably not what you meant, but it could be read that way.

You are correct. I never said, or intended to say, capitalism was the problem.

For example, waste is estimated to account for 25% of healthcare costs. I've worked with with hospitals, and they do things incredibly inefficiently due to all sorts of bureaucratic and political nonsense. There's a massive amount of resistance to change. I believe they're allowed to get away with it primarily because hospitals generally aren't allowed to fail. I'm not arguing we need to close up hospitals, but something needs to change there to encourage improvement.

Re: Just Be Rich

#394

Post by gjulianm » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 10:10 AM UTC

stdbrouw wrote: post #360

TeMPOraL wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about just, people buying multiple houses/apartments to rent them out? IANAE, but I have a sinking feeling the situation would quickly improve if ownership had per-person limits (and no easy way to pool the limits into a company). Countries could build new housing faster than the population grows, but as long as it can be scooped up by the wealthy for renting out, the scarcity would prevail.

Not an expert in macroeconomics either, but in a perfect free market there shouldn't be a lot of difference between renting and buying: if you can get a 5% yearly return by renting out a house, then the person renting from you can probably also get a 5% yearly return by investing their freed-up capital elsewhere and/or by not having to pay interest. If renting is too expensive, you buy, and if buying is too expensive…

> If renting is too expensive, you buy, and if buying is too expensive, you rent.

Buying a house is not that easy. You need a bank to approve your mortgage, plus pay upfront money (plus pay for furniture and such) that people might not have because high rent prices stop them from saving money. More renters and less buyers might cause more wealthy people entering the market for speculation, compensating the decrease of people that want to buy to live. And on the other hand, given that housing is a necessity and not something that people can live without, landlords can still push prices up even with increased offer.

In general, I see a lot of takes on the housing market that focus too much on the theory and forgets the reality: people need houses, moving is not easy nor cheap, speculators and realtors can push prices up without that much pressure, and a lot of people don't have enough to face the expenses of buying a house.

Re: Just Be Rich

#395

Post by ZephyrBlu » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 10:13 AM UTC

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #330

d_silin wrote: post #7

A lot of people who are just as smart and motived as Elon Musk or Steve Jobs will never be able to start their own companies and get rich. Because they have family obligations that take priority. Because they live outside high-income countries. Because they have no access to support network, so when they fail, they fall all the way to bottom. Because they may have made a crippling mistake in their pasts that now prev…

Success is 100% luck.

That's a very cynical perspective. How did you come to believe that?

Re: Just Be Rich

#396

Post by CryptoPunk » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 10:14 AM UTC

>>Paul paints a rosy picture but doesn't mention that incomes for lower and middle-class families have fallen since the 80s.

This is misleading.

https://www.cato.org/cato-journal/winter-2019/us-median-hous...

>>Average household size declined from 3.28 persons in 1967 to 2.62 by 2000 and 2.54 by 2017 (Census 2017b). Larger households can be expected to have greater income earning potential from the availability of more potential workers. It is thus important to adjust for household size in assessing the long-term growth of household income. Otherwise, the larger households at the beginning of the period would tend to exaggerate the income levels relative to household incomes toward the end of the period.

Re: Just Be Rich

#397

Post by varispeed » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 10:14 AM UTC

namdnay wrote: post #382

varispeed wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are born poor it is extremely difficult to escape poverty, especially because of high taxes that you are going to experience as soon as your education and determination lands you a good job. This severely inhibits your means to save or to invest. The progressive taxation is like a back-stop to keep everyone in check and prevent people from going up the class ladder. Meanwhile the rich, that are supposed to be…

> If you are born poor it is extremely difficult to escape poverty, especially because of high taxes that you are going to experience as soon as your education and determination lands you a good job That's very easy to test, by comparing social mobility in countries with more or less progressive tax rates. I think the results say the opposite: progressive tax rates encourage greater mobility (because those taxes go t…

Most countries (at least here in Europe) have very high taxes, so whenever you go, you'll pay pretty much the same. So if people move, they do it for what they can get back for the money they pay. However the problem is that the system is setup so that it penalises ambitious people while protecting the rich. In many countries the governing parties see people as their clients and in their interest is to keep everyone dependent on benefits or being on the verge of needing them. That's how you game democracy and as a side effect you severely inhibit growth. (Good example is how little "unicorns" Europe has)

Re: Just Be Rich

#398

Post by varispeed » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 10:16 AM UTC

distances wrote: post #384

varispeed wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are born poor it is extremely difficult to escape poverty, especially because of high taxes that you are going to experience as soon as your education and determination lands you a good job. This severely inhibits your means to save or to invest. The progressive taxation is like a back-stop to keep everyone in check and prevent people from going up the class ladder. Meanwhile the rich, that are supposed to be…

Do you have any examples of countries where progressive taxation would be a hindrance for escaping poverty? This frankly sounds like a made-up argument against taxation.

Good example is UK. As a specialist you would be in area of 40% effective tax rate, but going over 50% is not uncommon (after IR35 changes some workers have to pay employer's NI) plus there are other taxes like council tax or high VAT.

Re: Just Be Rich

#399

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 10:17 AM UTC

d_silin wrote: post #7

A lot of people who are just as smart and motived as Elon Musk or Steve Jobs will never be able to start their own companies and get rich. Because they have family obligations that take priority. Because they live outside high-income countries. Because they have no access to support network, so when they fail, they fall all the way to bottom. Because they may have made a crippling mistake in their pasts that now prev…

[deleted]

Re: Just Be Rich

#400

Post by eevilspock » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 10:19 AM UTC

stdbrouw wrote: post #360

TeMPOraL wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about just, people buying multiple houses/apartments to rent them out? IANAE, but I have a sinking feeling the situation would quickly improve if ownership had per-person limits (and no easy way to pool the limits into a company). Countries could build new housing faster than the population grows, but as long as it can be scooped up by the wealthy for renting out, the scarcity would prevail.

Not an expert in macroeconomics either, but in a perfect free market there shouldn't be a lot of difference between renting and buying: if you can get a 5% yearly return by renting out a house, then the person renting from you can probably also get a 5% yearly return by investing their freed-up capital elsewhere and/or by not having to pay interest. If renting is too expensive, you buy, and if buying is too expensive…

You cannot have a "perfect free market" when huge swaths of the population are simply not anywhere near as free as the wealthy and privileged swaths. See the top comments for details.

Side note: It's heartening that the HN community has evolved in the last 10 years -- the current top comments wouldn't have been at the top 10 years ago, or even 5 years ago. While I think there is still a long way to go, it has come far from almost unbridled worship of PG, libertarianism and "meritocracy".