Wealth is having the freedom to do whatever you want to do.
Ask HN: What is Wealth?
61–64 of 64 posts
Re: Ask HN: What is Wealth?
#62Why do you want to narrow the definition? What about it isn't working for you? I'm going to guess that you intuitively feel that there is "good" wealth, like a bicycle repair shop, and "bad", like speculating on housing prices. The problem is that, at any given moment, you can't tell between the two -- they're both useful, and both have their places, and in some circumstances both are useless and counterproductive to…
In my book, "bad" wealth (so to speak) would be any scheme for getting "money" (the paper thing, or the number in your bank account) without actually doing anything useful to anyone. For example, selling your shares in a bubble/ponzi company at a high price. Sure, these shares might have been something that someone wanted, but it's a form of fraud. What you earned is what someone else ends up losing, for nothing. I a…
Putting a sell order in at a given price is an indicator that you would prefer to have the cash than the item you're selling. In my book that doesn't constitute fraud since there's no deception involved.
Re: Ask HN: What is Wealth?
#63In physics, energy is the ability to do work.
Wealth is the ability to do what you want to do.
I think wealth as money or futures contracts should be qualified as "potential wealth" (as in potential energy).
I don't go by definitions that rely on money or definitions that rely on the net worth of individuals. The power of money is not absolute. Net Worth is a false measure in our nonlinear world.
"What people want" is only wealth to you if those people have what you want.
Re: Ask HN: What is Wealth?
#64My take: http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2008/02/what-is-wealth.ph... "Wealth is a measure of your ability to do what you would like to do, when you would like to do it - a measure of your breadth of immediately available choice."
I've heard it phrased as "money doesn't buy happiness, but it does buy options."