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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)

#661

Post by mixmastamyk »

em500 wrote: post #273
tinco wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing I didn't quite realize is that they accidentally spend significant amounts of money. At a party I talked to someone who was like a financial coach for super wealthy people and he helps them clean up their shit. The way we might accidentally have a running $50/mo subscription for something we don't use any longer, they might have a $500/mo club membership they never go to. Or prebooked vacation rentals they…

If you're over 100m net worth and get 5% returns, you get over 400k/month income on capital. At that point it might not be worth your time and attention to save $50 or even $500/mo if it takes any effort.

Or you could pay an advisor a thousand to clean that up. Then donate excess to charity and get a tax break. Win win.

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

#662

Post by jmknoll »

adolph wrote: post #577
mattmaroon wrote: post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would be the ultimate status symbol, paying the world’s best dishwasher engineer to design you a custom one off dishwasher.

Or an interactive AI primer for your grandchild.

I dont know if this is just baader-meinhof at work or the fact that AI is so prominent in cultural discourse at the moment, but I feel like I am seeing Diamond Age references everywhere I look

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

#663

Post by PeterStuer »

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…

Honestly, Miele is the brand of choice for anyone middleclass over 40, at least in Europe, so I'm sure most (grand)patents would have told you. Not exactly a 'secret'.

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

#664

Post by canucker2016 »

bluGill wrote: post #643
canucker2016 wrote: post #632

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note, I and, I assume, the parent commenter weren't talking about home automation. "Virtual personal assistant" to me meant a computer program that could understand speech and carry out a limited set of actions based on that speech - the computer equivalent of a human personal assistant/secretary.

That has been getting much less common. My dad used to have "his secretary" do tasks like schedule is meetings and book travel - the secretary was a department secretary for a couple dozen engineers and was kept busy just serving those needs. Today I don't have a secretary for several hundred engineers. My computer is better at scheduling meetings than the secretary ever was. Go back 100 years and the rich would have…

I would love a virtual assistant that could handle the tasks a human personal assistant does. VA would be available 24x7, would perform consistently regardless of time of day/how long they've been running/awake, would know/ understand my particular habits/preferences.

Maybe there's some bespoke software firm that does provide such a service for rich-enough people. Of course it'd have to run mostly locally/on-premises - none of this cloud stuff/monetizing my behaviours to bump their revenues.

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

#665

Post by 0cf8612b2e1e »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #402
jajko wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure why the fixation with Ikea, they provide decent value at given price point (as in better than competition, but still within their cost band). Anyway one prime example I can see - we have rather bigger kitchen, and storage is its prime function. Anything below waist needs to have pullout drawers, its supremely more practical and simply more efficient for storage. You don't need to go on your knees every time…

> provide decent value at given price point That is the reason for the fixation on IKEA: the "decent" part. If their peers are Target, Walmart, then to be sure IKEA are decent . Even during assembly though I've had joints fail such that the finished piece of furniture is, say, 90% structurally sound. But then trying to disassemble the piece so I can move ... I'm lucky if I am able to disassemble it without additional…

Disassembly is the mistake. If you need to move Ikea furniture, you do it as constructed. If it breaks, c’est la vie. I have successfully moved several Ikea pieces without issue.

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

#666

Post by blharr »

refurb wrote: post #235
candiddevmike wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet people still hate the thought of a "maximum wage" or limit to wealth. Everyone should have a life of comfort, not just those who won the lottery or were born into it.

It’s easy to determine what income would be if everyone made the same amount - average income, which is $72,000 per worker. That includes everyone who filed a tax return from the kid working at McDonald’s to Warren Buffet. Not sure what you’d call a comfortable life but a single mom making $72,000 per year would be struggling in many major cities.

What a complete non-sequitur. A wealth cap of, say, a billion dollars would have none of the same implications

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

#668

Post by saltcured »

throwanem wrote: post #507
fragmede wrote: post #495

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Scale the dollar amount up a few orders of magnitude But that's what makes it "weird". Most people can't afford to do that. As you point out, it mashed a certain amount of sense, but we're in the midst of an housing crisis. People who have enough money to own, not just multiple houses, but so many cars that they got tired of different cars so they just bought more of the same? Weird because I've never done that. Ho…

I didn't say that it wasn't grotesquely flagrant consumption, only that I can follow the reasoning behind it. And I have made no admission of which I am aware.

Hmm, could this whole side-thread be summarized as: a meta thing rich people can do is wield larger sums of money without hitting the same "qualitative boundary exceeded" circuit trips that regular people might hit?

It feels like a bit of a tautology, but I think has some reality to it as well. When you're steeped in a more frugal mindset, it can be hard to remain rational or detached when analyzing consumption patterns "just a few orders of magnitude" larger...

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

#669

Post by mixmastamyk »

rcbdev wrote: post #667

The one thing I have learned here is that Americans seem very obsessed with Miele-branded appliances for no apparent reason. Did they somehow strike marketing gold an entire ocean away? Why not Bosch, Siemens or Elektra Bregenz?

Marketing yes, and exporting only the high end. Like Mercedes… Americans are mostly not aware that they also sell cheap busses and taxis in Europe.

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

#670

Post by rcbdev »

ty6853 wrote: post #646
bane wrote: post #488

Grew up poor, made it a little in life - could maybe retire now. The things I and the people I grew up with don't know how to do at all can be shocking. People who grew up similarly and ended up in middle class seem to be similar unless they put real time into it: - how to buy stocks, what ETFs are, what a 401(k) is, etc. - hiring people to clean your house, do yard work, etc. - traveling out of the country, or in ma…

The real cost of hiring people to do stuff for your house is it's actually hella expensive to get licensed and bonded legal employees with references that attest they aren't thieves, and if you don't eventually they steal your shit or they get hurt and sue you for a billion dollars. I could easily hire people to do it, but I sweat bullets everytime I am guilt tripped into letting a neighbor kid mow the lawn because I…

The quintessentially American perpetual fear of lawsuits is sickening to the unwitting bystander.
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