91–100 of 107 posts
A happy find is an exhibition catalogue on the theme of the numinous pre- and post-photography:
Clair, Jean. Cosmos from Goya to De Chirico, from Friedrich to Kiefer: art in pursuit of the infinite (2000)
https://openlibrary.org/works/OL19133047W/Cosmos?edition=key...
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The average American might be able to save more and work fewer years if the average American didn't make the economically self-harming and unnecessary average spending decisions that average Americans make on social status signifiers, luxury goods, depreciating liabilities, etc.
Right, exactly. And that consumerism is no small part of what fuels stock growth. If that disappears, then paradoxically your investments won't get you as far.
Further, consided that the top 10% are responsible for half of all consumer spending, and the bottom 50% combined control just 2.5% of all assets. The bottom 60% ceasimg all spending would barely even move the needle, they're insignificant in the macro picture.
You are also making assumptions about my portfolio makeup, chiefly regarding long exposure to US equities that are primarily or substantially beneficiaries of consumer spending. This is not true for me personally, and moreover, there is plenty of money to be made in markets with or without tiny consumer spending blips.
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There appears to be an unspoken normative view being asserted throughout the thread that people who do not invest their money and take advantage of compounding should achieve outcomes comparable to those who do invest their money and take advantage of compounding, essentially idealizing the elimination of the opportunity cost of not strategically deploying capital, discounting the benefits accrued to those who can do…
The point is that you can’t catch up, even making more money than you could ever reasonably hope to earn. If you had $220,000,000, you can catch up to Bezos in 60 some-odd years; but by then he will also have been compounding at 7% per annum, and will have north of $19,000,000,000,000, which is around 2/3rds of America’s GDP today. Of course, Jeff Bezos will be dead in 60 years, but this leads us to the core of the d…
7% annual compounding is a decent floor, but it's an iron law that sophisticated investors can't outperform. AMZN is has certainly compounded much faster than 7% per year over the last two decades, and access to that investment was democratized the entire time.
Wealth isn't morality, being wealthy isn't a sin, and wealthy people's offspring have no burden of justification to "deserve" their wealth.
Insisting otherwise is a direct attack on the fundamental right to private property that underpins western civilization.
When the US government provides the same equal protection to all citizens, including those who contribute nothing but violence and suffering to everyone around them at the expense of taxpayers, what horrific atrocity are Jeff Bezos' children of that warrants confiscation of millions or billions of lawfully and voluntarily acquired wealth?
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>Do you really believe that everyone gets the same amount of usage from, and contributes to the same amount of wear and tear on, municipal and infrastructural resources? No, I do not believe that, but it's worth noting that taxing income has no direct relationship to usage-based taxation of public resources. There are people who pay millions in income taxes while making negligible use of roads, and there are net tax…
Of course! I think carbon taxes and the like are a great idea. If we had the social technology and the social consensus to enact pay-what-you-use schemes for everything, we might be close to a utilitarian utopia already. (For example, I have no idea how to compute the marginal benefit to an individual derived from living in a society that values egalitarian access to higher education, even if that individual does not…
Taxes are a disincentive - this is why we tax vices.
We want to disincentivize rampant, mindless consumerism that fuels the externality costs, right?
Tax buying things - any things - all things - much heavier, tax the act of working to earn an income to survive much less.
Want to buy a car? Pay a big tax. Want to work hard to earn money to pay your bills and feed your family? Shouldn't be taxed for that.
> consider the individual buying power of a billionaire This is what I never understand about posts like this. The buying power of an individual for their own selfish purposes becomes meaningless at a surprisingly low number. One billion cannot even be spent as one or a few transactions.
How much does a sports franchise cost? A newly constructed high-rise? A private island? A contract for a ~~private army~~ security force? A bribe?
Almost all of those are part of running a business. In the case of bribes, nobody would ever go along with it if it was only one person impacted.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There appears to be an unspoken normative view being asserted throughout the thread that people who do not invest their money and take advantage of compounding should achieve outcomes comparable to those who do invest their money and take advantage of compounding, essentially idealizing the elimination of the opportunity cost of not strategically deploying capital, discounting the benefits accrued to those who can do…
The point is that you can’t catch up, even making more money than you could ever reasonably hope to earn. If you had $220,000,000, you can catch up to Bezos in 60 some-odd years; but by then he will also have been compounding at 7% per annum, and will have north of $19,000,000,000,000, which is around 2/3rds of America’s GDP today. Of course, Jeff Bezos will be dead in 60 years, but this leads us to the core of the d…
That's not the point at all. You cannot catch up with anyone who is ahead of you and you follow the same investment protocol.
> What did Jeff Bezos’ children do that would warrant their wealth?
Allow me to reframe. Why should anyone else get it? It's Bezos' money and he can distribute it as he sees fit.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The point is that you can’t catch up, even making more money than you could ever reasonably hope to earn. If you had $220,000,000, you can catch up to Bezos in 60 some-odd years; but by then he will also have been compounding at 7% per annum, and will have north of $19,000,000,000,000, which is around 2/3rds of America’s GDP today. Of course, Jeff Bezos will be dead in 60 years, but this leads us to the core of the d…
I don't need to catch up or get anywhere remotely close to Bezos be financially satiated. If tens of millions of people can achieve financial independence, comfort, and safety, without the privileged upbringing, essentially just through the decision to strategically navigate life with financial independence as a goal, rather than social conformity as a goal, why does it matter if others have more? 7% annual compoundi…
Those who didn't have no justification to complain about it.
I'm rather angry with myself for not investing in Nvidia.
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The point is that you can’t catch up, even making more money than you could ever reasonably hope to earn. If you had $220,000,000, you can catch up to Bezos in 60 some-odd years; but by then he will also have been compounding at 7% per annum, and will have north of $19,000,000,000,000, which is around 2/3rds of America’s GDP today. Of course, Jeff Bezos will be dead in 60 years, but this leads us to the core of the d…
I don't need to catch up or get anywhere remotely close to Bezos be financially satiated. If tens of millions of people can achieve financial independence, comfort, and safety, without the privileged upbringing, essentially just through the decision to strategically navigate life with financial independence as a goal, rather than social conformity as a goal, why does it matter if others have more? 7% annual compoundi…
No one does. The issue comes when they start using that money to acquire political power. He wasn’t joking about seeing your margin as his opportunity.
> Insisting otherwise is a direct attack on the fundamental right to private property that underpins western civilization.
Western civilization includes a history of taxation, expropriation, and probate fees. No amount of libertarian revisionism will change this.
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Right, exactly. And that consumerism is no small part of what fuels stock growth. If that disappears, then paradoxically your investments won't get you as far.
59% of Americans can't cover an emergency expense of $1000. Economically disadvantaged people developing emergency funds and basic financial solvency is not going to destroy consumer spending. Further, consided that the top 10% are responsible for half of all consumer spending, and the bottom 50% combined control just 2.5% of all assets. The bottom 60% ceasimg all spending would barely even move the needle, they're i…
Agreed, though in this thread I don't think we're speculating about just having an emergency fund, but rather going and investing a decent chunk of income going forward. Closer to China savings rate than US savings rate, for example.
I personally think it would be great if people saved more, even if it means a current small-ish percentage no longer have the ability to live off of investments without working.
> Further, consided that the top 10% are responsible for half of all consumer spending, and the bottom 50% combined control just 2.5% of all assets. The bottom 60% ceasimg all spending would barely even move the needle, they're insignificant in the macro picture.
The bottom 50% certainly spends on food, rent, etc.
If you look at the consumer market in places (like China) with much higher savings rate, there are definitely difficulties with trying a US style approach of financial independence from purely stock investments and withdrawing a sizeable 3%+ per year.
> You are also making assumptions about my portfolio makeup,
Sorry I didn't mean you specifically, I mean the royal you as in the average person in the US. Who, if they're gonna invest, are gonna be probably at least 60% in US equities.
Certainly any random specific individual can make a portfolio resistant to whatever edge case. If you go 100% crypto, maybe you make out like gangbusters if people spend less. If you go 0% crypto, maybe you make out like gangbusters if crypto totally crashes. Etc etc.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The point is that you can’t catch up, even making more money than you could ever reasonably hope to earn. If you had $220,000,000, you can catch up to Bezos in 60 some-odd years; but by then he will also have been compounding at 7% per annum, and will have north of $19,000,000,000,000, which is around 2/3rds of America’s GDP today. Of course, Jeff Bezos will be dead in 60 years, but this leads us to the core of the d…
> The point is that you can’t catch up That's not the point at all. You cannot catch up with anyone who is ahead of you and you follow the same investment protocol. > What did Jeff Bezos’ children do that would warrant their wealth? Allow me to reframe. Why should anyone else get it? It's Bezos' money and he can distribute it as he sees fit.
This is true and a major critique of capitalist growth economics; it privileges those who were born into wealth and those who were simply born earlier than others. To an extent, this is natural. An elder in a tribe of hunter gatherers will necessarily possess more knowledge than an infant, but no one would seriously suggest that this kind of inequality could be done away with. The issue is when that advantage compounds exponentially year over year. If it just stopped there we could all get rich and live with robot butlers, but the general tendency in these kinds of scenarios is for the new money to take control of the political process via media influence, bribery, or force, and to use political power to acquire further wealth, not via competition and creative destruction, but by monopoly (I would argue a lot of the tech giants are technically already here).
As a long-time and well-regarded member of this forum, I assume you are familiar with Peter Thiel. Thiel and a number of his affiliates have been funding political influencers for the last ten or so years. JD Vance and Blake Masters both came out of Thiel’s camp. The goal here is ultimately not to remain agents of competitive market capitalism, but to seize control of the political process. There’s an argument to be made that the world would be better off with the political process being under the control of technologists than the various democratic mafias that comprise post-national states, but I don’t think it’s a very compelling one. First, it undermines the entire premise that capitalism as a social arrangement enfranchises everyone via the market (if this were true, political power would be superfluous). Second, we are talking about the people who gave us Facebook, YouTube, and Reddit (2005) and then gave us Facebook, YouTube, and Reddit (2025); they have a proven track record of making things drastically worse than when they started.
The whole critique of capitalism (which is not necessarily a critique of markets in and of themselves) is that exponential growth will lead to economic inequalities that will inevitably be exploited by unscrupulous actors who then undermine the entire system to benefit themselves.
> Allow me to reframe. Why should anyone else get it? It's Bezos' money and he can distribute it as he sees fit.
Bezos will be dead by then. The question then follows: Why should we respect the wishes of dead men, when there is no obvious social benefit to respecting these wishes? There is a feasible (if contentious) argument that Bezos “created” and thus “deserves” his wealth, but it seems undeniable that his children did not earn it, so the only justification we have left is a dead man’s wishes. It may be that the social benefits of inheritance are greater than the potential benefits of confiscation (dividing Bezos’ wealth would only yield about $31 per person). I have reservations about both theories; I’m just presenting them as well as I understand them.