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It's not even just that it's hard to be upper middle class (build wealth), but that people aren't even being taught to build wealth. Learning to build wealth is

It's not even just that it's hard to be upper middle class (build wealth), but that people aren't even being taught to build wealth. Learning to build wealth isn't taught in schools. It's passed down from parents to children and it was far more common to find families where the parents taught these skills when there were lots more mom&pop businesses and homesteads where they built their own wealth and taught the skills to their progeny. The rise of the company man and the firm all but eliminated the need to teach about wealth building. People outsourced thinking about wealth building to pension plans. Now that pension plans have failed we have 2-3 generations now that have lost a lot of the teachings of how to build wealth.

war1025 8y ago
This is something I think a lot about. If you have a pension plan, you have zero incentive not to spend all your money. You have guaranteed income to maintain your standard of living. Having money for a rainy day becomes someone else's problem, just like you said. I guess I don't have anything to add, just struck a nerve because that is exactly how I feel, so I wanted to say something.
- malandrew 8y ago
  I would also add that if you had a pension and pensions are a cultural norm, you not only have an incentive to spend everything, you also have no incentive to teach your children to save and invest in anything except maybe education (so they can get a job with a good pension), since you expect pensions to still be a thing when they hit retirement age. Pensions were a form a corporate welfare that essentially wiped out the cultural norm/practice of investing in your own future and made people dependent on the firm. No one foresaw a time when pensions would end up being a massive corporate expense that would lead bigger companies with them to fall behind nimbler upstarts without them.
Latteland 8y ago
So can you give more detail about this strategy to build wealth? Today the strategy might be get a good education, marry someone also well educated, get good jobs in lifetime possible careers (uh, doctors or programmers), buy a house of lasting and increasing value, buy stocks in low-cost mutual funds, don't waste money. This worked for me but this world was barely beginning in 1950, even though it was probably common in the 1960s. It's only available to a few fortunate fields today.

war1025 8y ago

This is something I think a lot about. If you have a pension plan, you have zero incentive not to spend all your money. You have guaranteed income to maintain your standard of living. Having money for a rainy day becomes someone else's problem, just like you said. I guess I don't have anything to add, just struck a nerve because that is exactly how I feel, so I wanted to say something.

malandrew 8y ago
I would also add that if you had a pension and pensions are a cultural norm, you not only have an incentive to spend everything, you also have no incentive to teach your children to save and invest in anything except maybe education (so they can get a job with a good pension), since you expect pensions to still be a thing when they hit retirement age. Pensions were a form a corporate welfare that essentially wiped out the cultural norm/practice of investing in your own future and made people dependent on the firm. No one foresaw a time when pensions would end up being a massive corporate expense that would lead bigger companies with them to fall behind nimbler upstarts without them.

Latteland 8y ago

So can you give more detail about this strategy to build wealth? Today the strategy might be get a good education, marry someone also well educated, get good jobs in lifetime possible careers (uh, doctors or programmers), buy a house of lasting and increasing value, buy stocks in low-cost mutual funds, don't waste money. This worked for me but this world was barely beginning in 1950, even though it was probably common in the 1960s. It's only available to a few fortunate fields today.