But who "generates" those assets you are investing in or trading? Will the action of investing or trading generate them? The cycle must start somewhere.
> Software particularly. A couple thousand hours of sweat, toil and despair and you might just create a perpetual cashflow generating machine.
Perpetual may be a strong word no? Your software will need attention, improvement, etc., its value will drop in time, someone will launch a slightly better version of your software in an attempt to capture your success, or even launch a company where people rent their money to produce something you simply can't compete with.
What about the rest of the things the world needs and are beyond the possibilities of an individual but not beyond those of large groups renting their time? Imagine a highway, or a spaceship.
> But who "generates" those assets you are investing in or trading?
This is irrelevant to the individual. The cycle already exists.
> Perpetual may be a strong word no?
Yes, I'm being slightly facetious. But the possibility of a creating a money-making asset that is unpegged from a 40 hour work week is very real.
Of course there's still work to do but the work is invested in an asset that you own rather than being rented out to an employer. This makes all the difference.
> This is irrelevant to the individual. The cycle already exists.
Sorry to be so blunt but that's a very superficial view and mostly wrong. The cycle isn't "already there" more than the internet, running water, or toilet paper on shelves are "already there". You're asking why would any farmer bother raising cattle and growing crops when they could just go to the supermarket for milk, meat, etc. It's only irrelevant if you don't care about understanding what we're talking about.
> Of course there's still work to do
Your premise was to build a system that generates revenue without your presence being required, in contradiction to your follow-up.
> the possibility of a creating a money-making asset that is unpegged from a 40 hour work week is very real
Agree on this. I'm sure working a classic job is not the only way to make money but my point was different.
So far all of the ways mentioned here for making money by decoupling yourself from the 40h work week are either actually conceptually the same as "renting your time", or work because so many others are renting their time, and they are the niche.
You're either self-employed (you invest the money, produce the asset, and collect profit), or you employ others to bring you profit (you don't produce the asset, just invest money and collect profit). Either way there's no way to remove the "asset producer" from the equation without turning it into 0=0. And just like anything else on the market the higher the supply, the lower the price. The more people only invest for a living, the smaller the returns for each and the fewer assets that are actually created.
But who "generates" those assets you are investing in or trading? Will the action of investing or trading generate them? The cycle must start somewhere.
> Software particularly. A couple thousand hours of sweat, toil and despair and you might just create a perpetual cashflow generating machine.
Perpetual may be a strong word no? Your software will need attention, improvement, etc., its value will drop in time, someone will launch a slightly better version of your software in an attempt to capture your success, or even launch a company where people rent their money to produce something you simply can't compete with.
What about the rest of the things the world needs and are beyond the possibilities of an individual but not beyond those of large groups renting their time? Imagine a highway, or a spaceship.