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As far as the fees being so cheap, and every one else guessing about how expensive it would be to do it in a normal banking situation, F. Scott Fitzgerald is re
by compiler-guy 7y ago
As far as the fees being so cheap, and every one else guessing about how expensive it would be to do it in a normal banking situation, F. Scott Fitzgerald is relevant:
"Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me. They possess and enjoy early, and it does something to them, makes them soft where we are hard, and cynical where we are trustful, in a way that, unless you were born rich, it is very difficult to understand. They think, deep in their hearts, that they are better than we are because we had to discover the compensations and refuges of life for ourselves. Even when they enter deep into our world or sink below us, they still think that they are better than we are. They are different." (The Rich Boy, 1926)
All of the information normal people--like you and me--use to price transactions like this is completely irrelevant. Rich people have access to many services and price structures that are completely different than normal people. Any guess about what it costs to make a transaction like this via normal channels is likely completely wrong (other than "free", assuming they are doing business with the bank in question).
- mlindner 7y agoImportant qualifier on that that's missed for most "the very rich". The "rich" are often quite penny pinchers. My grandfather is "rich" (several millions, and in a very cheap place to live in the midwest) but he lived his entire life being extremely strict on spending and controlled personal finances very carefully. He still complains when there's large money to be spent on something that should be cheap.
- umvi 7y agoI found out that my grandfather was a multimillionaire later in life as well, but I would never have guessed because he lives in an inconspicuous house in a middle class neighborhood and drives an inconspicuous car (Honda CR-V). He complains about milk and gas prices like most people and basically just doesn't telegraph his wealth at all (except by buying exclusively Wheaties as his breakfast cereal). He grew up during the great depression though, so maybe that has something to do with his miserly ways.
- hurrdurr2 7y agoMaybe this is just me, but I don't actually consider having a couple million dollars as "rich", I know a couple folks worth hundreds of millions, and the way they behave are certainly different.
- maxerickson 7y agoIt's enough to maintain a swell lifestyle without working. It is meaningfully different than not having enough money to stop working. That there's people with even more money is true enough.
- trenning 7y agoIf you only know person worth $2 million, they're rich. If you know 10 millionaires, the person with $2 mil might not seem so rich to you anymore.
- geggam 7y agoThe United States farm real estate value, a measurement of the value of all land and buildings on farms, averaged $3,140 per acre While the average farm size has been increasing approximately two acres per farm each year since 2012, the number of farms is decreasing. Today, the average farm size is 444 acres. 444*3140 1,394,160 US average farmer is a millionaire. Go ask one if he feels rich.
- tudelo 7y agoDo most farmers actually own the land that they work on? I was under the impression that most farming is done by large companies and that there are not many small independent farmers that exist.
- geggam 7y agoWhen I was working on farms ( 30 yrs ago ) most farmers were still on property they owned. During that time I saw the shift to corporate farms and I dont know that answer as I have found less labor intensive work. Most of the corporate structures I saw were family or a combination of family and friends.
- tictoc 7y agoYeah. The very rich intrigue me. I wonder what they think, where they go, what they eat, and what they watch. Can't be the same shit we got.
- bdamm 7y agoFrom what I've observed, the very rich don't generally "watch" much at all. For example, Gates, Buffet, and Musk are all widely reported to read voraciously. Its almost impossible to have a big TV watching habit and also a big book habit. As for the rest of your verbs, I'd expect the spread to so wide as to be unusable in forming a singular data point. While certainly having access to institutions I could never approach, even billionaires have been known to eat McD's, and I'm sure that Bezos has eaten at Whole Foods. They're just people, after all.
- donalhunt 7y agoIsn't the problem that rich people are better at accessing the "value" of something... i.e. if there is no / limited value then it should be cheap... Is value synonymous with ROI in this case?
- lucas_membrane 7y ago"The wilfully idle man, like the wilfully barren woman, has no place in a sane, healthy, vigorous community." -- Theodore Roosevelt In America, we pretty much all agree that wealth originates in labor. The crucial open question is, 'Whose labor?'
- graton 7y agoReminds me of the book, "The Millionaire Next Door". Seems like many of the people who have accumulated wealth tend to be fairly frugal.
- jorvi 7y agoReminds me of a German saying I can't quite remember (something like 'erber, gerber, versterber'). Basically the first rich generation is very frugal because they had to work hard to attain it. The second generation maintains it, not really adding more but not frittering it away either, and the third generation throws it away on ski resorts and fancy cars. That's also one of the few things I do respect about 'old money': they really drill it into their kids to not be ostentatious and wasteful with the familial wealth, thus escaping the aforementioned trap.
- 0xcafecafe 7y agoI have heard it in english too: First generation earns it, second learns it, third burns it.
- kamyarg 7y agoIs it this one: > Die erste Generation schafft Vermögen, die zweite verwaltet Vermögen, die dritte studiert Kunstgeschichte, und die vierte verkommt. > Bismarck (1815–1898) EN: > The first generation creates wealth, the second manages wealth, the third studies art history, and the fourth degenerates.
- scrumbledober 7y ago“My grandfather rode a camel, my father rode a camel, I drive a Mercedes, my son drives a Land Rover, his son will drive a Land Rover, but his son will ride a camel” - Sheikh Rashid bin Saeed Al Maktoum
- ColanR 7y agoFrom what I understand, that penny pinching is often why the rich are rich (excluding those born into more wealth than they can spend). Edit: I'm getting the impression that a large subset of people replying ignored my parenthetical comment.
- mikeryan 7y agoPenny Pinching does not make people rich and is not "often" why they're rich. This is a horrible misconception.
- swsieber 7y agoIt's not the sole cause, true. But it'd definitely a differentiator. Sort of how like practice isn't the only contributing factor to being skilled, but talent without practice is useless too, soo...
- the_gastropod 7y agoIt sounds like you may hold the misconception. Only ~12% of millionaires inherited their wealth. The remainder are "self-made", in that they lived below their means, and saved.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- magashna 7y agoMillionaire doesn't mean too much these days considering you can take a long road there with fairly conservative investing and a decent income.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y agoThere's a difference between spending below one's means and penny-pinching. Penny-pinching is refusing to tip the waiter, it just makes you an asshole.
- mikeryan 7y ago
- merpnderp 7y agoMy grandfather was similar. Died a millionaire while never making more than $30k/year. He just paid for things in cash and made sure to always invest. The only luxury he ever spent was on my grandmothers car. Everything else was on a budget and cheap as could be.
- tudelo 7y agoI feel like a life void of luxury is... not preferable.
- lutorm 7y agoSpending little money frees up your life from having to earn a lot of it. That trade-off starts looking pretty attractive after you've been chained to a desk for a decade.
- filoleg 7y agoJust like most things in life, I feel like it is all about the right balance. Penny pinching and then dying a millionaire sounds awful, because what's even the point of having all those millions if you lived like you had nothing the whole time? Just a number on some imaginary scorecard? Wasting away all your earnings and living a life of "luxury" with nothing in your savings is at least just as bad, because if something catastrophic happens, you got nothing. Gotta strike that happy balance, where you get to enjoy the money, yet still have a substantial chunk of it saved.
- owenmarshall 7y ago> Penny pinching and then dying a millionaire sounds awful, because what's even the point of having all those millions if you lived like you had nothing the whole time? Building generational wealth for your progeny. GP said their grandfather died a multimillionaire. That money can go to his children; managed well over their lifetime it will double several times over. And learned frugality on their part means they have an even greater sum to hand to any children they have (like GP!) And if a catastrophe struck - be it a local one like joblessness or divorce, or a global financial crisis, whatever - grandfather knows that his austerity guaranteed his children shelter, food, and education in the future. That's a powerful reason to make decisions. Hell, in our animal brains, that's probably one of the most powerful drivers of decisions: what should I do to benefit my family?
- esmi 7y agoA time proven way to get rich by old age is to not spend money. It's a decent way to stay rich too. P.S. If it "should be" cheap doesn't it make sense to complain when it's expensive?
- riffraff 7y agomy dad used to tell a story of him working at gas station in italy in the 60's as a small kid, a guy with a Ferrari came by and asked to fill his tank, and when paying there was some not-insignificant amount of change, so my dad asked "so, I'll keep the change, ok?" and the guy replied "You know kid, I have a lot of money, really a lot. You know how I made them? I never gifted anyone anything. Now, hand over that change.."
- bluntfang 7y agoWhile I don't disagree that your grandfather was wealthy enough to not worry about things, "several millions" isn't in the same ballpark as the people we're talking about in this thread.
- isostatic 7y ago> how expensive it would be to do it in a normal banking situation No idea about the billionaires, but I can shift £5k from a current account to another current account with another bank for the princely sum of £0.00
- hurrdurr2 7y agoAre you talking about wire transfers? In the US both banks would charge a transaction fee.
- gnur 7y agoProbably, it's the same in The Netherlands, wire transfers are instantaneous and free.
- graton 7y agoNormal ACH (Automated Clearing House) transactions in the US tend to be free. I can move money from one bank to another bank without any fees. It usually takes anywhere from 1-4 days. This is moving US dollars. Not sure what the cheapest way to move USD to EUR is and likely not free.
- monocasa 7y agoDepends on the bank. Wells Fargo nickels and dimes you on this kind of stuff for instance.
- hoffs 7y agoSEPA has a fee of 41 euro cents.
- Symbiote 7y agoSEPA has a fee of "the same as a national transaction within your country", so in many countries it's free.
- mikeryan 7y ago
- drcross 7y agoNaval gazing about what a subset of a subset of people are like, while most of us on HN are mostly still in the global 1% (through nothing more than a birth lottery) doesn't really help anyone and is downright unproductive.
- hutzlibu 7y agoWell that asks for Hemingways (fictional) counterquote: "Fitzgerald: The rich are different from you and me. Hemingway: Yes, they have more money."
- Smithalicious 7y agoThis post appears to me like two paragraphs of correct and important information, cut in two by a seemingly unrelated quote that summarizes to nothing more than "rich people are evil". People with greater wealth having access to certain services and procedures that normal people don't is unrelated to all rich people supposedly looking down on everyone else.
- cptskippy 7y ago> a ... quote that summarizes to nothing more than "rich people are evil" But that isn't at all what the quote says, that's what you attributed to it.
- jessaustin 7y agoA rich person would read that quote and summarize it as "rich people are good". So really GP is just outing his or herself as not rich.
- hnal943 7y agoRich people would consider being soft and cynical as virtuous? There's no way to read the quote in a positive manner.
- coldtea 7y agoOf course there is: soft => more refined and subtle, cynical => more wise to the world.
- eswat 7y agoThat is how I read it as well. I’d imagine being someone that is cynical and wealthy protects your wealth from forces that would suck less cynical people dry (multilevel marketing, get-rich-from-real-estate seminars, stocks currently riding the wave of the hot rumour of the week).
- 7y ago
- thomk 7y agoHoly sh*it that quote. Thank you, I'm adding that book to my amazon cart right now.
- all_blue_chucks 7y agoYou could transfer it for free, by check. It would take a while to clear, though.
- KingFelix 7y agoGreat content here. Please post more frequently
- bjornjaja 7y agoI would say it depends on the rich person. Vladimir Putin is rich but I doubt he is “soft”
- ComputerGuru 7y agoKeep in mind that Fitzgerald is quite likely simultaneously criticizing both the aristocracy with their snobbery and the advantages they are born into while also very sardonically ridiculing the idea that taking such an obviously simplistic view of the situation could ever actually be a valid view.
- stcredzero 7y agoNote that the difference in wealth applies over time. A middle class Irish person today would seem fabulously wealthy to an Irish peasant of the mid-1800s. (Estimated by some to be on average about half as wealthy as a contemporaneous American slave.)
- kazinator 7y agoRich people have access to plenty of services and price structures that rip them off. There is a whole industry comprising of essentially leaching off rich people. If you're rich, you're an marked target for every Tom, Dick and Harry out there looking for a quasi-free ride (not even counting the outright criminals).
- blue11 7y agoI'm wandering what services and price structures you are referring to. Examples? While there are vast differences between what's available to low income vs., say, upper middle-class people, the differences on the other side of the distribution curve are not that dramatic. For example, wire transfers in the US are fixed price regardless of the amount, ACH transfers are practically free, mortgage rates cannot go lower than treasury notes, etc. Or maybe I am misinterpreting who you consider as "normal people".
- MiroF 7y agoOne example - hedge funds.