41–50 of 280 posts
As for renting out property, it's never effortless or risk-free. If it was, the rate of return would drop to that of other minimum risk assets (e.g. treasury bonds).
> I lucked into money. The basic point is that he gets paid more whilst not doing more "work". For those whom "Work" is the only lever they use to convert into money, they see inequitable work:cash ratios as "unfair" (a morality statement). Market economies do not function on work, but on value. He did the same work in a high value scenario. A glass of water provided in the middle of a developed city is worthless and…
I couldn't disagree more. As a society (and this goes from a community to a global scale) we should make it a priority to give everyone the resources to meet their maximum potential. I don't mean that we should give everyone a million dollars to invest of their own. What I mean is that we should ensure that everyone gets provided with a good education and food/water/shelter, etc. The author specifically mentions the…
> I lucked into money. The basic point is that he gets paid more whilst not doing more "work". For those whom "Work" is the only lever they use to convert into money, they see inequitable work:cash ratios as "unfair" (a morality statement). Market economies do not function on work, but on value. He did the same work in a high value scenario. A glass of water provided in the middle of a developed city is worthless and…
> Low placed people may not be able to "work" their way to upper echelons, but they can invent, intuit or otherwise create high value leverage of their's and others' work. How would you suggest slave-labor in Qatar, who's lives are literally disposable to our global society, create this leverage? [serious]
Property tax is $15 per month in South Bend for a house? Wrong. Capital gains is taxed lower than income? Wrong -- sometimes it is, sometimes the other way around. Multiple factual errors.
This is actually true. You can make up to $75,900 on capital gains alone if you're married, and pay zero income tax on that.
http://www.schwab.com/public/schwab/nn/articles/Taxes-Whats-...
> [in the US] people who don’t need their income are taxed less than people who do I'm not American; I don't know the tax structure. But I can't even imagine that this could possibly be true, or what is true that is meant. Without looking it up, I would assume that the USA subscribes to progressive taxation, under which the richer pay more tax in both absolute and relative terms. Even if it has a flat rate of tax, (a…
The metric the author is using is the fantastic state American politics are in.
So this is the part 2 to the "how to retire at 34" article from a few years back..
Agree - seems to be a greatest hits of personal finance ideas with current buzzwords mixed in like "basic income" and "privilege" that aren't central to the post. Be a saver not a spender. Invest in things with strong cash flows relative to the purchase price. Use your personal connections, such as family members that can make good business partners. Take lucrative boring jobs if you can stomach them. Be lucky.
> Be lucky.
Being lucky and being privileged are definitely related. Privilege isn't just the color of your skin but the opportunities you're born with (rather than earned).
Basic income is also related, because it's purported as a system to fix the inequalities discussed in the article. Whether or not it will fix those inequalities is another discussion, but it's certainly relevant to the topic.
> [in the US] people who don’t need their income are taxed less than people who do I'm not American; I don't know the tax structure. But I can't even imagine that this could possibly be true, or what is true that is meant. Without looking it up, I would assume that the USA subscribes to progressive taxation, under which the richer pay more tax in both absolute and relative terms. Even if it has a flat rate of tax, (a…
Taxes on investments, as this author is likely alluding to, are taxed at a different rate that can sometimes be lower than, say, someone in the top 20% is paying, even though the person earning the money through investments may be making millions and have a net worth of $1 billion. Warren Buffet posts his taxes each year, if you want to see a simple example of this. There are various arguments for and against this, but most of them are too simple and focus on the extremes. Overall though, this could be improved and optimized.
US taxes are weird (I think?) in that there are the posted rates, and then we all deduct lots of things (mortgage interest, charitable contributions, etc) and end up with an effective rate that is sometimes significantly lower.
> [in the US] people who don’t need their income are taxed less than people who do I'm not American; I don't know the tax structure. But I can't even imagine that this could possibly be true, or what is true that is meant. Without looking it up, I would assume that the USA subscribes to progressive taxation, under which the richer pay more tax in both absolute and relative terms. Even if it has a flat rate of tax, (a…
I believe the author is referring to the lower tax on capital gains than on income in many situations. I haven't read it personally, but I understand that Thomas Piketty's “Capital” discusses this at length where there's a built-in structural favoring towards capital's rent over labor's wages.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If they literally are "stuck" . Here we get into a nasty debate about spectrum of probability vs effort and the multipliers that should be reachable by end of life. I definitely agree that a 0 probability despite maximum effort is unfair. In between is a grey area though.
Effort is irrelevant though, if they spend their effort on something that could never succeed or is useless or irrelevant to the market then their effort should obviously fail and it is not unfair. So it matters a lot what they choose to apply effort to. Generally life is an IQ test and rewards those who make optimal choices WRT events in their life.
Do you think that if you'd been born in a slum you would have a decent chance of winning in the IQ test & optimal choice events in your life? I would imagine that almost anyone reading these comments has been unbelievably fortunate to be born into relatively wealthy circumstances & had things like "books" around to help bolster their IQ.
> [in the US] people who don’t need their income are taxed less than people who do I'm not American; I don't know the tax structure. But I can't even imagine that this could possibly be true, or what is true that is meant. Without looking it up, I would assume that the USA subscribes to progressive taxation, under which the richer pay more tax in both absolute and relative terms. Even if it has a flat rate of tax, (a…