Money amplifies personality, both virtues and vices.
The reason why the rich so often seem absurd is because, unlike most people, they can live out their impulses. Money reveals who they are. Many people without money are probably equally absurd, but they have not crossed the horizon of "doing weird things because they can afford it."
The first time my business partner and I made a significant sum of money, he expressed surprise at how I dealt with it.
He said that in his years, he's seen lots of people gain a sudden amount of significant wealth and, every time, they go a little crazy. Or, worse, they turn into assholes or become self-destructive.
He said that I was the only person he'd seen who literally didn't change at all. I told him it's because I've never hidden my crazy.
The same goes the other way around, many of these "chill do-gooders" and gurus of life are that because the can afford to be.
Put them 5 years working 2 minimum wage jobs and barely making rent every month and you'll see an very different person, saying and doing the same things every other person under the same circumstances says and does.
The idea that rich only are dumb is retarded if you have lived more than 10 years on this planet and have been to more than 3 parties in your life.
The same people who criticize somone for buying a 5 milion car are the same who buy a 1000 iphone when they have 0 savings which would shock the starving africans.
People are all the same. Rich, poor, all this is quite artificial with respect to actual personality
My favorite example of this is that Mark Wahlberg has a chain of restaurants called Wahlburgers. You know that had to start as a drunken joke that most people just wouldn't have the ability to make a reality.
In US, I feel like I am always in phase 1. While I am very well in the top 5% in terms of wealth, I also feel I am only one serious illness away from bankruptcy and that is stressing me out. If comfortable retirement (living a middle class life) is only available to people with a multi-million dollar retirement fund, I see no purpose in even aiming for a retirement in US.
> I am only one serious illness away from bankruptcy and that is stressing me out
Well, you're only one serious illness away from death. I'm not trying to be flippant here; there are more things that can properly kill you rather than just make you seriously ill and bankrupt you, provided your health insurance is decent.
I do want to emphatically underscore that this isn't an endorsement of the system. It's just that if you're worried about almost dying and you're not worried about actually dying, you're probably miscalibrated. The best we can do is minimize the risk of Really Bad Outcomes. No one, no matter how rich, can avoid them altogether. All of us are gonna die.
IMO, a great number of things are worse than death because dead me can’t suffer while live me can. Death isn’t unpleasant, it’s a bad outcome for me only in that it prevents the pleasure of living well. My death is a concern for those who care for or are dependent on me, but so is my incapacity and suffering.
In some important ways it absolutely can be, and the emergency exit doesn't help.
If I die, life insurance pays out. If I commit suicide, it doesn't.
If I die, there are some basic optional-but-socially-mandatory costs around disposal of the corpse and a memorial ceremony. Those are fixed and measured in thousands, not tens or hundreds of thousands. My property and assets pass to my heirs. They are grieving but financially secure.
Prolonged illness can sap my reserves dry and drain me of wealth in a manner matched only by the retirement home industry. My family can watch me suffer and wilt away while watching their potential financial security drip through a hose into my veins.
Hahaha bankruptcy worse then death??? It's like saying a divorce will break you. Man, imagine these people living with common people who go through this stuff all the time.
Health insurance in the US isn't 'decent'. Chronic illness, long-term care, catastrophic events excluded from coverage - these are real things that daily wreck American families.
Of course one may be only a serious illness away from death, and I don't take that as flippant. But the far more common circumstance is that one is several illnesses and/or a long chronic medical decline away from death, with both circumstances likely to be hugely expensive in the US compared to other first world nations.
The economic fallout can mean that family members can't get a good education, can't move to take a better job...all the things that, sometimes, just a little more $$ can make possible.
The US hasn't prioritized its citizens' wellbeing to the extent they deserve. In that regard, OP is spot on: the US is not a place to retire.
It is really difficult to imagine someone who's in the top 5% of either income earners or net worth (they didn't specify) and still does not have access to quality healthcare. This is a trope, and it's not nearly as accurate as people want to believe, it seems.
Top 5% of US income earners are around $343k[1] and top 5% of net worth is over $1MM[2].
If you are in this bracket - by either measurement - and are actually fearing bankruptcy from a medical expense, then you are clearly screwing up somewhere in your financial life, and likely living well beyond your actual means.
Let us play this to the end. Let us say I retire today with $1MM and I am 50. Top 5% in the net worth bracket, right?
A safe 4% withdrawal limit gives me about $50K per year. Net taxes, it is around $43K or $3580 per month. A two-bedroom apartment in a city will cost around $1700. Medical insurance for me, my wife and one of our kids is around $650. Car expenses (one car paid off, insurance, gas, maintenance) is around $650. Food expenses are $500, utilities around $150 and I am already over the budget. Assuming I get tax credit for the insurance and it is free, I am still right at the edge where my car breaking down is a major disaster.
If you have a disaster, you just draw slightly more than 4% for that year. Ideally you have good and/or lean years, as well, but if you don't you might have to way to modestly supplement your income.
Also, it's very unusual for a married couple with kids to have a million dollars in retirement savings and no owned home. There's a lot going for owning a home, but in this toy model there's two main factors:
1) Your "housing cost" (mortgage payments) are fixed in nominal dollars, unlike rent, and unlike the 4% draw, which are both fixed in real dollars (and in places with artificially limited housing supply, rent may unfortunately grow much faster than inflation). So effectively, it shrinks over time. Plus you may finish paying off the mortgage at some point.
2) Tax efficiency. Your house can be viewed as an "income producing asset": it produces the value of the rent you'd pay to someone else to stay in it. But you don't pay any tax on that value.
Finally, this model disregards Social Security, which isn't insubstantial. If you're Top 5%, you'd probably be drawing pretty close to the max. So you could redline your withdrawals a little bit beyond 4%, knowing that at 67 or so you could juice your income with the SS payouts.
Thanks. Those are points I did not consider clearly, esp. the SS. While I do own a house, the mortgage, tax and insurance is more than $1700 and hence I moved it out of equation for this hypothetical scenario.
My point is that if I get dropped in US with a million dollars, it puts me in top 5% in the wealth category, but I would be living hand to mouth with the fear that the money can quickly disappear. That gives me PTSD :)
Your [1] link is “Average Annual Wages” for the entire bracket, not the minimum wage to reach that income bracket. Top 5% is around 187,000k in the US, and that’s not as high as it sounds due to recent inflation. https://dqydj.com/income-percentile-calculator/
However, that doesn’t necessarily include any benefits. It’s expensive and relatively uncommon to get long term disability insurance that will cover lost income if you’re an hourly 1099 contractor, which is necessary for any chronic condition that prevents you from being able to work. Think offshore oil workers for someone that’s most at risk while being in that income bracket.
If you're a 1099 Contractor, then you know the gig, and it's up to you to save/pay for things like medical. It's not a surprise - so if you're still worrying about bankruptcy, you are definitely living outside your means.
There's no way around it. $187k is a lot of money - no matter where you live in the US.
It’s a fuck of a lot of money per year before tax, as long as you can keep working.
Disability insurance can easily run more than 4% of your after tax income at that salary. Not such a big deal if your job’s secure, but many contractors making that salary however don’t have much job security and may expect long periods of unemployment when the oil sector does poorly etc. So perhaps you want to save 1/3 your after tax money for unemployment + 10% for retirement, and have disability, life, and health insurance…
Don’t get me wrong it’s still a lot of money, but the more you try and hedge the less money it actually is so many people end up taking risks.
Only a fool would depend 100% on Social Security for retirement.
Start early, and start young. Get a job that offers a retirement plan - even fast food chains do this now. Get the maximum match possible - it snowballs so much faster than people think.
Don't count on the government to provide for you. That is a serious tactical error.
Plan as-if Social Security will not be there. Then, if you get anything at all, it's just gravy.
I don't have a snowball's chance of landing a job with retirement plans. I'm currently part-time and it's the best job I've ever had. The last time I had a job with a retirement plan was 1999, and I lasted 4 months.
Several years ago, I started looking toward my future and wondering how I was going to manage it. I looked into how Social Security works, and I discovered to my horror that I hadn't worked enough to draw Social Security on retirement. This was a big consideration because of my finances and my disability.
So I realized that what was going to happen is that I would work diligently at whatever job I could get, as many hours as I could muster, for as long as it took to earn those sweet Social Security credits, and then see what happens.
I made it to my goal, so my Social Security benefits are now "assured" as much as anything can be. This is the last job I'll ever have. Once I'm no longer able to do this job, I'll apply for SSDI, and then look forward to Social Security in retirement. As for health insurance, I'll have Medicaid, and perhaps I'll die before I'm 65. Good times.
I didn’t explicitly do this but I started to take some cues from the FIRE (Financially Independent, Retired Early) crowd, in particular the FI part. If, by the time I’m 50 (call it 20 years from now), I don’t have to work in order to pay the bills: success. At that point, I always love my job (barring the occasional rocky period) or I bounce, no second thoughts.
To that end, most of my disposable income (admittedly, as a relatively high earner) goes first to max out the employer contributions to my 401(k) (might as well be extra salary), then to max out my yearly contributions to my HSA, then to an ITA at a hedge fund. (My income recently passed a threshold which lowered my maximum yearly contributions to a Roth IRA so I stopped regular contributions to that in order to avoid the need to keep track of what my limit actually is. This isn’t recommended; I’m just lazy.)
> it snowballs so much faster than people think
Indeed, I seem to be well on my intended track and I didn’t start doing this in earnest until ~5 years ago. As it’s been said: best yesterday, second best today.
> My income recently passed a threshold which lowered my maximum yearly contributions to a Roth IRA so I stopped regular contributions to that in order to avoid the need to keep track of what my limit actually is.
Look into a backdoor Roth IRA - you may still be eligible to contribute the full amount.
> Only a fool would depend 100% on Social Security for retirement.
This has plenty of "let them eat cake" vibes. There's plenty of folks struggling just to make ends meet without the luxury of putting much away for retirement. Like a poor old lady I saw working in a CVS in Cambridge recently, hooked up to an Oxygen bottle (probably due to COPD) and still working stacking shelves.
there was a financial advisor at Apple who gave talks to employees and iirc they did mention that they used a rough percentage for advising clients with for what to expect from Social Security. It may have been 2/3 or 3/4 or 70%. I don't think it was as high as 80.
Maybe not much consolation, but even crummy health insurance plans have yearly limits where you'd "only" ever have to pay, like, twenty grand a year out of pocket on medical expenses. Significantly lower for better plans, of course.
...
Assuming your plan is willing to cover the remaining expenses in the first place.
I also just learnt that Medicaid can place a lien on your house in some cases. Maybe, the solution is to move out of US, but that is equally difficult with an Indian passport.
In California, having your assets (home included) in a living trust shields those assets from Medicaid/Medical lookback forfeiture. [1] A living trust is a good idea for other reasons as well.
If you’re in the top 5% of wealth in the US, you already have over $1M net worth. How do you believe that a serious illness could wipe you out? Are you insured?
Unless you’re pretty close to retirement already, turning your $1M into $2M is pretty easy in 10 years with smart investing and average returns. It becomes $3M in less than 15 years. You should be on autopilot to a multimillion retirement if you’re in the top 5%.
I am close to 50.. My point is that I still have to survive and work for next 15 years and nowhere close to be doing things that I am passionate about (but not income earning) even though I am in the top 5%.
You are doing something wrong. I'm close to 30 with a tenth of your wealth and a disability that is quite limiting to me, yet I never had the feeling that I'm living to just survive. Shouldn't you be in a position to make your work enjoyable?
Having interacted with "poor" people recently way more than I have in the past. I realized that one very quickly adapts and forgets that life below a certain level of "income" is indeed possible.
It's made me look at all the places in my life where all that "money" is being sucked away from me. Silly examples like that convenient 4$ Starbucks coffee on the way to work, or at the ground floor of your office building. It's easy, simple, delicious, and just a tap of a card to get. But poor people aren't able to do this, heck, they forego such things and simply drink water. Apply this kind of thing to a myriad of things that happen daily (and monthly as they come off your bank account).
In many European countries, freedom of attention is attained by having strong social support (eg free day care, education, health care, quality food, strong employment and tenant laws).
Many people in Europe live without thinking about money 24/7 but are in absolute terms less rich than high paid people in nyc and sf.
As a Brit, I don't really understand the mindset that everyone is a mistake away from being penniless, to be honest.
It feels mostly like a healthcare thing specific to the US. And it ignores the fact that most severe healthcare outcomes will ruin you in more ways than just the financial.
Aside from healthcare, there are no real expenses I can think of that would suddenly "ruin my life".
The two real examples I can think of are:
- an uninsured house fire/collapse, mitigated by... insurance
- severe mental illness / breakdown that results in spending my life savings
Otherwise, it's like, ok, beyond age 21 I have at least a few months savings.
The problem is 50% of the people in the US are spendthrifts and absolutely terrible with saving money.
It doesn't matter what their income is. A spendthrift can always find something to spend all their money on no matter how high their income is.
The American spendthrifts are also the types to have huge levels of debt to service.
If you always spend everything you have and everything you are credit worthy of you are not going to be able to handle an unexpected financial shock. Even if healthcare was free in the US, there would be some other shock that would be a problem almost by definition of being a spendthrift.
These discussions are always so pointless because the relationship people have to money is so hugely varied.
It is also why it was a huge disservice to spendthrifts in the US to pause student loan payments for this long. Not only is that student loan payment gone for 50% of the people but it is probably actually servicing additional debt after this long.
There are thousands of homeless people out here who didn't understand that mindset either.
Yet many became homeless because of one glitch, or perhaps a series of mistakes, that cascaded into a catastrophic failure.
Once in 1997, I was living in a homeless shelter, and a TV reporter came to interview us. One of the residents went on camera to say "Every one of us who is living paycheck to paycheck just doesn't realize that we're one mistake away from losing it all." And that's the truth, because there are so many Americans who indeed live "paycheck to paycheck" without any building or planning for the future beyond next month.
I've been homeless and I sure didn't anticipate it, but it was inevitable, the way I was mismanaging my finances, my relationships, my employment, and my housing.
Last year I would've been ruined by medical debt if my father didn't swoop in to pay it all off. I was trying to do things the hard way; I went to the hospital about 5 times in 12 months, and they all hit me with enormous bills. I couldn't get coverage, I couldn't negotiate them, I was hardly aware of their existence at some points until they were sent to collections.
Medical debt will well and truly ruin some of us around here, even if we're insured, because it's designed to be ruinous. Now into this mix you add some mental illness or executive dysfunction and we have a real crazy time dealing with paperwork and bills, much less holding down a job.
One of the horrific things about hospitalization is that you're cut off from the outside world and you can't take care of your affairs. I would worry about paying my rent and bills. If those were late, there could be ruinous fees or the eviction process could begin. I could become homeless just for being hospitalized too long. Some of us have nobody "on the outside" to assist in these matters. The hospital won't give you a computer or cell phone or WiFi access.
Most people would greatly benefit from both disability insurance and long-term care insurance. The latter is very expensive, but if you need long-term care then those costs are going to devour every penny you've saved anyway. So it's a good idea to front-load that and perhaps you'll pay less in the long run. Private disability insurance is great and can pay out cash when you need it the most. It really helps to be insured for these eventualities. I wish I could afford all of that.
But that's what a welfare state is for, isn't it? To act as a kind of collective insurance, paid into by everyone, that mitigates these sorts of disasters. You've just lost your job? Here is some money for the time being to tide you over, and support for finding a new job. You've just had a health emergency? Here's sick pay from work, and the potential for support if this is a long term issue that prevents you from working (and the healthcare is already covered). Your house was destroyed in a freak accident? Here's temporary accommodation, and a bunch of organisations who will try and stop it happening next time.
Fwiw, this is all pretty idealised, and in practice a lot of these institutions can break down, or don't provide as much support as they should, or whatever else. I agree that insurance is really valuable in a lot of these cases, and you should get it if you can.
But I think there's generally a problem if these sorts of benefits are only available to those whose parents are rich enough to provide that safety net.
"Wherever you go, there you are" -- While I do think you can move to a lower cost of living area, you can't outrun your relationship to money. If you have a tendency to spend on things you don't need, then you will be forced to think about money all of the time.
Accepting less, living below your means, and finding happiness in non-material things could be one way to escape this.
Of course, there is also the option of moving to developing countries and leveraging your financial privilege as an American, e.g. South America/South East Asia.
For real. Deepen your relationship with money so that it's more comfortable, nuanced, and stable. Like a relationship with an old friend. Even if you lose touch for a while, they're still there for you.
Otherwise there will still be a tendency to view money in "have it / don't have it" terms, or similar lines of thought that will require not only thinking about money all the time, but doing so in a way that takes far too much personal attention and energy.
A lot of people have the false belief that thinking about money too much is a sin, or an unwise mistake. But you can also look at this tendency as beginner-level money-ing. Education and deep experience / analysis of the topic really help.
IMO you can also still retain happiness in material things if you develop your relation to/with them, too. For example, understanding them as symbolic totems or touchstones, or pointers toward a higher quality of life in terms of any perspectives they may symbolically suggest independent of your own established perspectives. (Once you start to do this you'll start to eat away at merchants' profit margins since your concept of worth & value will deepen, and a sort of optimization skill will set in. :-))
"Money don't buy what you really need
It make an ice man cry, it make a stone man bleed
But when you get right down to it, no matter who you are
It rules your life like a virgin queen
One day you might get over it, but in the meantime
It rules the world like a green machine"
-- The Alan Parsons Project, "Money Talks"
If you can live with the high taxes, then scandinavia is nice. The social safety net makes money less important. Free health care is the big one. Not having to worry at all about hospital bills(ever) is a great relief.
People in Europe will plan their life around best exploiting government monetary benefits, so I'm not sure if I can really agree with your point. From things like deciding what month to get pregnant in order to maximize some welfare benefit, to entire businesses specializing in getting corporate welfare instead of actually producing anything, to farmers growing stuff they have no need for in order to get over a square meter threshold to increase their subsidy. I've had the misfortune of listening to hours upon hours of these boring conversations, with everyday people giving each other tips to get as much as possible from the government. Wether it's a financial benefit or the benefit of getting more days to stay at home on your couch and watch TV.
Give me the American flavor of greed any day. At least some great ideas and some great stories come from it.
I live and work in Europe, even in a country with one of the best corporate and government wellfare. It is true that a lot of people think about how to exploit the system regularly. That said, i am not one of them (at least not for a big amount), and a lot of people really enjoy being more relaxed about the possibility of getting ill or loosing a job, without fear of bankruptcy. This while liking their job and putting a lot of effort doing it well. So i guess some bias kicked in by having been surrounded by people of the former type...
In America it's the corporations that do all this maximizing of government subsidies and regulations, only they get to write those regs themselves through regulatory capture. If you want subsidies, the US is only slightly behind the EU for farm subsidies.
So you know. Same thing except all that money flows to the top, and the bottom still has to think about medical bankruptcy.
Europe and America are not so different in all those things. Regulatory capture is alive and well on both continents. But there exists a kind of spirit and individualism and entrepreneurship in America that you hardly ever see in Europe. Fueled by greed for sure, but the greed of wanting to change the world and become a billionaire, instead of European small-time greed of wanting to buy some condos and let your children live on rent income.
For all the good and bad, a service like Uber could never have been invented in Europe. I remember when it was accepted that taking a taxi was just for rich people.
Well I prefer to live in a democracy. The US stopped being a democracy a long time ago:
“Multivariate analysis indicates that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence.”
that would be great to actually turn into an investigative documentary in video format. I'd be curious to get a taste of experiencing what you experienced.
It's not terribly exciting, from the conversations of everyday people that I have had to listen to, some examples:
A couple of house owners discussing putting solar heating on their roofs because the government launched a subsidy for it and one of them heard about it. With the subsidy the panels would start giving a modest return on the investment after an estimated 25 years. These people had no interest before in "green energy".
A young wife being asked by her aunts when she's going to have kids. The answer: I have to finish my degree, then work for at least two years so I can qualify for the maximum benefits when I go off on maternity leave. In the context of getting that degree and job for that specific purpose.
The most boring of all was listening to small business owners and their endless small time scheming with putting everything as a business expense to deduct on their taxes. I'm all for not paying a dime in taxes, but what kind of life do you end up having?
So the above is just life, everyday life for everyday greedy people. That's why I wrote give me the American flavor of greed any day. That greed that goes into creating things like the high tech stuff discussed here on HN every day.
This is an interesting form of market distortion of volition if you will where the confines of self interest take on somewhat strange shapes under specific directed ends and incentives offered by government programs. This is in contrast to unspecific non-directed open ended ends of a free(er) market economy letting self interest take on whatever shape it will unprovoked.
I wonder if that open ended structure encourages or at least gets out of the way of people who do the creative value producing thing. Interesting thoughts about the mental path of least resistance and where the thoughts of a subpopulation find themselves when shaped and prodded in a certain direction.
Poignant essay. I was in the author's shoes twenty-five years ago. I was an immigrant from India in my early twenties searching for a job in San Jose. At one point, I had $7 in the bank and had to live in my hatchback for a few days. One of my strongest memories is finally finding a job and resolving never to be in that situation again. I learned all I could about investing, budgeting and saving. Now in my mid-forties, my wife and I can retire if we want to.
Turns out my fear of poverty and homelessness, rather than any positive thoughts on how money can be an enabler, has been my biggest motivator.
This is a well established idea. See Precariat.[1]
"... existing without predictability or security, affecting material or psychological welfare.
Unlike the proletariat class of industrial workers in the 20th century who lacked their own means of production and hence sold their labor to live, members of the precariat are only partially involved in labor and must undertake extensive unremunerated activities that are essential if they are to retain access to jobs and to decent earnings. Classic examples of such unpaid activities include continually having to search for work (including preparing for and attending job interviews), as well as being expected to be perpetually responsive to calls for "gig" work (yet without being paid an actual wage for being "on call")."
> Many parents believe that working hard and making money is how they express their love for their children, but miss the fact that their children may not see it the same way.
Seems to be a bit of a meme these days for parents (usually dads) to talk of “building intergenerational wealth,” often as a euphemism to being a workaholic.
It’s pretty gross because it attempts to paint their own vice/not showing up as virtuous on a larger timescale. And they know this, which is why they cast it in some grand terms in a performative manner.
TBF, not every use is about this. But I keep seeing it crop up.
as a parent, can't replace time you spend with your kid. it is so valuable and forms a bond. unfortunately many people don't see taking the time out to have fun with your kid consistently as the virtue, they see the vacation as the virtue. it is unfortunate.
euthanasy when one stops on being selfsufficient is the last gift to your own family, insteads of sqaundering hundreds of grands to keep the heartbeat going.
Hey we just want you to pay your fair share! On top of the sales tax people paid when they bought your employer’s products, the payroll tax your employer paid, the income tax you paid, the sales tax you pay when you buy anything, and the inheritance tax you’ll pay when you die.
In fairness, most proponents of inheritance tax see it as solving the problem of wealth pooling in certain places and not continuing to be redistributed. You cannot claim to have a fair, meritocratic, and egalitarian society if there is a certain segment of the population who can automatically afford to outbid the rest of the population on anything that matters. If there's a limited supply of teachers and you can afford all the good ones, then we aren't going into the race with equal opportunities.
I'm also sceptical of the rhetoric about wealth disappearing within a couple of generations, because that has historically not been the case in Europe at all. Germany hasn't had kings for a long while, but generational wealth lasts, and you can still see the effects of it in various descendants to this day. In the UK, generational wealth has a huge impact on outcomes, with a system of highly expensive private schools that institutionalise the privileges of wealth.
> If there's a limited supply of teachers and you can afford all the good ones, then we aren't going into the race with equal opportunities.
There is probably a very small supply of that. But I see little evidence that the rich monopolize them. They can't, because it's impossible to evaluate good teachers (and this probably holds true no matter what metric you hold to be the one that measures "good").
Why would a "good" teacher be noticed by anyone? Is it when they win the popularity contest, and the local paper does some article about how they're some small town treasure? I don't think those are good teachers, they're just "liked" teachers. And besides, even if "liked" means "good" to you, the rich aren't swooping in and hiring them as private tutors or even putting them into private academies. The public, misfortunate or fortunate, gets to keep those.
Are they running some NSA-like intelligence gathering operation, seeing that one teacher that has some sort of impossible classroom grade average in urban hellhole schools? Because I am more than a little certain, even great teachers (again, by whatever metric you want) just aren't doing that. Those children fail not because they have bad teachers, or at least not only for that reason.
> I'm also sceptical of the rhetoric about wealth disappearing within a couple of generations, because that has historically not been the case in Europe at all. Germany hasn't had kings for a long while, but generational wealth lasts, and you can still see the effects of it in various descendants to this day. In the UK, generational wealth has a huge impact on outcomes, with a system of highly expensive private schools that institutionalise the privileges of wealth.
Sure, that's probably true. But who the hell looks at that and concludes "I've seen families that have remained wealthy for centuries and what I want for my own descendants is to become peasants and wage slaves instead"?
Do you hate your own children, your own nieces and nephews so much? Do you just love everyone else's children more than them, somehow?
And it's not like you can even succeed. They've had the loopholes planned for 50 years now. At some point you might manage to rabblerouse enough that you get the no-inheritance laws passed, but for people who can buy a passport in another country they'll just take it with them. One way or another. It's almost as if it's not about the billionaires at all, not the 1%, but about the people who are sitting from 80-82%. They managed to squirrel a million or two away, not even in cash, just a family farm or a home, or some other little piece of real estate. Fuck those guys, the ones not quite rich enough to abscond to some paradise island.
So that's my plan. Get rich enough, myself or my kids or grandkids, to get the hell away from the envious before they manage to hijack the government and use it to steal from me.
One can review teachers much like one reviews any other profession. You review their CV, invite them to an interview, see if they know their stuff, put them in front of classrooms, check their references, etc.
We don't need the NSA to tell us who the best and worst developers are, right?
> Sure, that's probably true. But who the hell looks at that and concludes "I've seen families that have remained wealthy for centuries and what I want for my own descendants is to become peasants and wage slaves instead"?
That's the thing, neither of those options are acceptable to me. As Raymond Hettinger says (admittedly about easier problems to solve), there must be a better way. I think it's possible to have a society with neither oligopolistic structures benefiting only the rich, nor wage slavery for anyone who doesn't make it. And moreover, I think the best possible result for my children is not that I or they manage to ascend to the upper echelons, but rather that they live in a society where those upper echelons aren't present in the first place.
> One can review teachers much like one reviews any other profession.
I'm not sure how you think this is relevant. One can, but they aren't reviewed in any meaningful way. And as anyone who has read through a few Amazon reviews would tell you, relying on "reviews" for anything important is just asking for grief.
> We don't need the NSA to tell us who the best and worst developers are, right?
Most companies would love nothing more than to be able to tell which is which. And we get fizzbuzz and other interview fads every 18 months. It's not even clear that bad developers are bad other than in specific environments... the guy who was shit at the shit job might turn around and be pretty good at another non-shit job, and those who are "good" often have other issues.
But even for developers, there are at least some (bad?) metrics to measure by other than "some percentage of these brats didn't flunk the standardized testing". If my code failed on 40% of computers for no other reason than that the owners of those computers lived in one zip code and not another zip code, I'd probably be a worst developer too.
> That's the thing, neither of those options are acceptable to me.
Which makes it great for me that what you find acceptable has nothing to do with how the world actually works.
> As Raymond Hettinger says (admittedly about easier problems to solve), there must be a better way.
You're a monkey with a Dunbar number of about 250. Maybe on up to 300. There is no utopia for you, not even a "better but not utopia" once you're up past that number locally. So unless the population falls under 3 or 4 million, you're just fucked. You'd have to become a new species, something wildly different than the primate you are.
That's not impossible I don't think. But most of us don't want to become the termite people with you. Not that that's stopping you... the number of sterile worker drones that read my comment here is ironically very high, I think, for me to be writing this. Hell, maybe you could speciate in a few hundred years if there were no other obstacles.
> but rather that they live in a society where those upper echelons aren't present in the first place.
That's easy. The Soviets figured it out decades ago. Have you tried Stalinism?
My dad took our family through a rags-to-riches-to-rags arc, so for me... (1) I never want be in 'rags' again (2) I never take for granted what I've got (3) I'm guilty of having a 'scarcity mentality' (quick to save, slow to spend or share).
Your list sounds good. #3 is important to have a savings / investing mindset. Don't lose it. It will help you to slowly grind to a multi-millionaire in your 50s with diligent saving and investing.
Real question: What was the emotional impact of the "way back down" (riches-to-rags)? Can you share any anecdotes of things that stay with you?
Hmm, I'm 51 next week and those multi-millions aren't quite in my grasp yet. But I live happy and comfy, which is great considering that many people don't/can't.
We were truly never rags to proper riches, but...
- initial "rags" was moving around between shitty towns a lot, changing schools and losing friends, occasional homelessness, occasional food scarcity, and having no role models for sustainable lifestyle, job, and economic practices.
- "riches" was living in (renting) a nice house with a pool in a nice upper-middle class neighborhood and attending a good private school. and having a slick-ass 386sx PC with ATI VGA Wonder and Soundblaster Pro ;)
I was in college when the house of cards came falling down, so it meant trying to stand on my own two feet while my dad lost his house and got incarcerated and my little sisters had to work at walmart and apply for welfare. I had to take care of my mom at the same time that I was getting married and starting a family.
It was a very humbling experience. What stayed with me? Humility. Empathy for people who are less fortunate. A disdain for unrestrained capitalism, and sympathy for its victims. A strong work ethic. An aversion for taking financial risks.
> freedom money can buy as it relates to your work.
> power of money resides in its ability to provide a better life for our families.
I really hate this mentality, it sees money as power to buy freedom and eventually to "buy family".
For me the key is to minimize expenses to some reasonable minimum. It does not matter how much I make, it does not affect my lifestyle much. Maybe I would buy a nicer laptop. I gave up on being slave to money long time ago.
That includes being a slave to family! I am open to serious relationship, but most people think I am cheap bum. I have no reason to change their opinions!
Look into article, it is all Phase 1, Phase 2.... like an elevator. And absolute top is helping community like proper tradcon. It does not even count with possibility, that people do not really care about such things. There is no basic reasoning about "should we do it"? Usual endgame is to settle down with bad partner.
I like hiking and traveling. I am always in climate that has nice temperatures, usually near sea. Sometimes I sleep on beach, sometimes in hotel. All via super cheap deals (you get very good at that over time).
If I would have less money, I would probably live healthier lifestyle. I would cut alcohol and meat, eat more veggies. I would also take long term lease, make some friends, that is another win for mental health.
If you're in a position of saying "if I had less money [...] I'd take a long term lease" you already pretty far on the "buy freedom with money" ladder compared to a lot of people. (Or underestimating the difficulty in many places of getting a long term lease without having much money or steady employment without sacrificing some of your other things like nice climate.)
You just did a different thing with your freedom. So the part of the mentality you just hate is that "once you have freedom you can provide for your family"?
Had to look up "tradcon". Sounds pejorative. "...but should we?" is a good question, I agree. You mention that people _assume_ "building community" is a good thing we should do, and that you are unconvinced that people really care about such things.
You end your paragraph suggesting that longer term lease (a more stable physical location) + make some friends = win for mental health. This would be my basic description of building community. What do you think?
Changing locations every few weeks wears you down, some recovery is needed.. And "making some friends" is an euphemism for mating if you have to know, very hard to get quality stuff if you are just passing through.
I get the whole "building community", some people are really into it, but some others are not!
Well it seems like you do agree that there is value in building a community and even stability. It's not that you refute the value, you just don't want it forced down everyone's throats as some self-righteous ideal and measure of a man. I agree with that.
edit to add: re: "...very hard to get quality stuff" lol yeah that's funny, I came back to this because "the good stuff" in my experience has to do with intimacy, and that takes some kind of earned connection over time, I don't want to make any moral argument, connections can come in various ways, who am I to say. So purely observational, interesting to think about the idea of quality (physical) connections whether there is some necessity for more "tradcon" concepts as you mention.
Your position seems a little hypocritical? Your life style wouldn't be possible without other people valuing community - nothing wrong with it or for pointing out other ways of living, but you are coming off as kind of hostile towards a structure you depend on and it bothers me.
Not necessarily, because other locations that have lower cost of living may also have services lacking like average bandwidth, electricity outage rate, food security, political instability, etc.~ can't ignore the hidden costs.
Those hidden costs are part of the cost of living, no?
Just in the US, though, I think it's hard to argue that a person making $200k/yr in New York City is meaningfully making more than a person making $50k/yr South Bend, Indiana.
Yes, it's good to keep a good perspective by thinking our position relative to the world but relative to our surroundings and cost of living too. Probably living the US, we're near the top for expenditures/costs too.
I feel like this stat is useless. Sure, it gives perspective that people in some other country don't value money, but they also aren't stuck on a computer all day doing a job they don't like.
Interesting blog. The article is a good reminder of common introspections on money. I like the points on freedom: "freedom-as-leisure (vacations)", "freedom in work", and "freedom in attention". TLDR: what is wealth _really_? probably it's freedom in attention. But there is some baseline survival threshold to get to, and that's much lower than people may realize.
Anyway, some constructive feedback if the author comes across this discussion:
1) The post is sooooooo long. I appreciate long-form content - I love Atlantic articles - so it doesn't have to be a 30 second TikTok clip, I just think it can be tightened up. A lot.
2) The illustrations lack their own context enough to be understood on their own. It's mildly annoying to look at them and have no clue what they express unless you read the before and after paragraphs. Consider adding enough context for them be self-contained.
That said, I appreciate your labor and signed up for your newsletter!
This sounds like some kinda CEO "You should love your job and strive to do a job you'd do for free!" "It's not about the money!" propaganda nonsense written by some asshole CEO trying to defend their subpar wages lol.
Edit: OMG LOL the predator/parasite "stop villainizing rich people" image.
As someone who previously made millions of dollars and is now reduced to a single broken suitcase[*] for all his possessions and is homeless, living in a sleeping bag, this article resonates with me. I help a lot of other homeless people and it is very, very hard to totally reboot your life when all you have in the world is the one set of dirty clothes on your back.
[*] it was a wheelie suitcase I found, but I wore the wheels completely off it carrying cans of food from the food pantries for everyone.
Didn’t you read the comment? His landlord got hit in a head-on collision and refused an ambulance because he was carrying a stack of rent cash in his car. You have to assume the landlord died and OP became homeless 3 days later.
(I’m joking lol. I definitely want to call cap on the sleeping bag homeless situation.)
They appear to be either mentally ill and/or prone to fabricating outlandish stories to make a relevant & interesting comment. The 10 years in jail story is rather consistent, though, so I wouldn't be surprised if it was true and perhaps related to their... odd comments.
I think almost anyone that ends up in jail is somewhat mentally ill. I've seen various statistics concerning the mental illness of confined persons, but the percentages seem low compared to my personal experiences from being inside.
Most sane people will not commit a serious crime or put themselves in a position where they are arrested and have to fight to prove their innocence.
I don't understand how a person falls into complete homelessness, barring severe mental illness or addiction. Don't you have family or friends you could at least stay with temporarily? I moved to a country where I have zero family, but even here I have friends I could stay with if I ended up being unable to pay the rent.
'I moved to a country where I have zero family, but even here I have friends I could stay with if I ended up being unable to pay the rent.'
Not parent post but...
Imagine a scenario where friends and family are the last people on Earth you are going to ask for help. Not everyone is of the same mindset you describe.
Pride, mental health issues, family history, etc all play a part. I was homeless once, a combination of these things is what stopped me asking for help.
I have relatives who are regulars on the Sunday Times Rich List, some good loyal friends and 3 siblings. Go figure.
I moved to the USA, I have zero family here. I went to jail and every single friend I had over here decided to forget I existed. I had one useful friend left in the UK. I'm wanted by ICE too, which doesn't help. I do not have anyone I can stay with.
Not everyone has friends or family capable of helping them… or doing so without it significantly impacting their family/friends ability to avoid falling into the same situation.
Additionally, temporarily is fine when you have prospects to lift you from having to resort to relying on the generosity of friends/family but for those that don’t, it’s difficult to ask for help (don’t want to burden those you “love”), and difficult to provide any (“want to help but can’t afford it”)
The first millions I made from Beanie Babies in the mid-90s. The second was from running a TV torrent site. I recklessly spent pretty much everything both times and didn't really save anything. I had a lot of nice things, but then I ended up in jail and when I got out I had literally zero. Well, I had a COVID stimulus check and that was it. Then I went back to jail again and got reset to full zero.
I doubt the super rich are afraid of "losing it all", as the author claims. They can simply put aside a certain percentage of money and not risk it. And they have access to financial instruments that allow to control risks better.
Ok he's listening is the megaphone of @google mocking a suicide inb4 reddit celebrate under Ashooh
Filed under: Openly flaunting psychological warfare at scale coordinated between big tech entities. Unaccountable malice, should be felony conspiracies/racketeering. Pichai and others should be indicted for agreeing to the secret gag orders by DoD via Schmidt instead of resigning.
This was going on before Obama's administration, but Obama signed an order for big tech to perform behavior control experiments at scale..
Google targeted a newly wealthy person by abusing the trauma of a suicide.
My electricity provider has a program which accepts voluntary additions to my bill to fund projects for creating wind and solar farms (among other things). As far as I know, this is the single most valuable thing I can do with my money with respect to reducing my carbon footprint.
It’s not precisely a bad heuristic that buying many things is wasteful (as I assume this comment intends to argue) but “throwing things away” is the measure, rather than “spending money”.
What you're saying is a bit like offsetting your footprint. Ideally we should rather have very low consumption. Partly agreed on throing away, a car is not thrown away frequently, even if it's an EV, it has a large footprint from its maintenance and all the services and infrastrictures dedicated to cars, 25% of our cities space. Same for a swimming pool, for a tourism boat, planes etc..
It's better to consume very few electricity, produced from nuclear for example, than setting up solar energy (with a significant loss on conversion and a footprint in materials, as well as nuclear plants, but what I mean is it's more our lifestyle that matters rather than the solutions themselves
Indirectly consuming few electricity means you've few devices which also have a number of footprints, so it's quite a large gain
The only counter example to what I said is maybe buying land to convert it to a food forest / permaculture, and save it from another guy building a villa with swimming pool
Money amplifies personality, both virtues and vices.
The reason why the rich so often seem absurd is because, unlike most people, they can live out their impulses. Money reveals who they are. Many people without money are probably equally absurd, but they have not crossed the horizon of "doing weird things because they can afford it."