7 ms·

"Why doesn't everyone just get rich?"

by SamBam 7y ago

logicchains 7y ago
Because a good chunk of people suck at delayed gratification so are incapable of saving money. Even on an average income it's not unfeasible to retire a millionaire if saving a significant percent (and indeed there are people who do this, small businesspeople and tradespeople, the "millionaires next door").
- anoncake 7y ago
  When people are incapable of something, it isn't feasible for them. It doesn't really matter why "everyone getting rich" doesn't work.
pksdjfikkkkdsff 7y ago
Arguably, almost everybody in the Western world has gotten rich. Go visit a medieval castle sometime. The standards that now everybody has required an army of servants in the old days. It is just a hateful lie of the left to claim "being rich" is dependent on exploiting poor people.
- SketchySeaBeast 7y ago
  That's silly - compared to cavemen, even workers in third world countries are "rich", being able to trade things for goods and services and not being required to hunt and gather. Inequality solved?
  - kofejnik 7y ago
    yes, exactly; to have equality, you'll have to reduce everyone to the lower common denominator, which will be rather low Also, I don't see why exactly inequality is inherently bad. I'm poorer than Bezos, _and that is a good thing_. Pretty much like Steph Curry is better than me at basketball and so he should have a lot more ball possesion should we be playing on the same team, Bezos is much better than me in allocating resources, so he should have a lot more resources to play with.
    - SketchySeaBeast 7y ago
      > Bezos is much better than me in allocating resources, so he should have a lot more resources to play with. How do you know that, though? Have you had the opportunity to be in the exact same place he was for the exact same time? Do you sincerely believe there aren't, in the billions of people on earth, someone with better resource allocation skills than Bezos? Having more money is not proof of ability.
      - pksdjfikkkkdsff 7y ago
        We know that because he did it. He literally proved it by becoming a Billionaire. Yes, lots of people were alive in the exact same time when he started Amazon.
        SketchySeaBeast 7y ago
        How is that proof of ability more than luck?
        pksdjfikkkkdsff 7y ago
        He has been going at it consistently for many, many years now. He just happened to be lucky year after year? Most people don't even try, but it doesn't stop them from accusing people who put in the work and who take the risks from just being lucky.
        SketchySeaBeast 7y ago
        The problem I think is that people attribute all of success to the sheer iron will and willingness to suffer of the individual, when that just isn't the case. Are you attributing all of Amazon's success to Bezos solely? If he left do you assume Amazon would immediately start to fail? Was it Bill Gates alone who kept Microsoft afloat? You have to consider luck, there's a ton of people in the world who put in the work and didn't get anything, and it's not just because they didn't work hard enough.
  - pksdjfikkkkdsff 7y ago
    Why exactly is inequality a problem? Because people suffer from their envy? People starving, having no health care, low life expectancy, that sort of thing, are problems. Their neighbor having more money in the bank is not really a problem. There are also actually differences in skills, performance, diligence, and so on. It would be very unfair if some people weren't allowed to earn more money than others. Whether it should be possible to be arbitrarily rich is another question.
    - ianleeclark 7y ago
      > People starving, having no health care, low life expectancy, that sort of thing, are problems. Their neighbor having more money in the bank is not really a problem. Most people, when they critique wealth inequality, aren't critiquing their neighbors because most people in the same zip code are going to be at similar levels. When people critique wealth inequality, they're talking about the Koch brothers, or other parties who leverage capital to gain unfair advantage and political powers and then work against the first half of your statement. > Whether it should be possible to be arbitrarily rich is another question. I, too, am in favor of a 100% wealth tax upon death. No more freeloading failsons.
      - pksdjfikkkkdsff 7y ago
        "Unfair capital advantage" Well, again, start accumulating capital, if it is such an unfair advantage. "I, too, am in favor of a 100% wealth tax upon death. No more freeloading failsons." I am absolute against such a thing, in fact I consider it an insane proposal. It seems one of the fundamental human rights should be people being allowed to provide for their children. People work to have successful children. It is absolutely incorrect that all children should have the same starting positions for a fair world. If a couple works hard to earn money, and others don't work and instead pop out 10 children, why on earth would it be fair to take money from the hard working parents to distribute it to all? I know many people who would like to have more children, but feel they can't afford them. Why should they be punished for being responsible. It even starts before people have children. They work hard to be attractive and find a good mate, to improve the odds for their children. That is basic human nature. The acts of their parents are not the children's fault, of course, and everybody should be given a fair chance to make it in life. But there are limits. Both strategies can be valid (have few children and try to give them a good head start in live vs having as many children as possible and leaving them to their own devices), but it would be unfair to politically punish one strategy over the other. At the very least, if you take away money from the responsible parents, you should have to limit the behavior of the irresponsible parents. The only way to make things completely equal for everyone is to disallow people to have children, and instead rise future children in clone factories. Why should that be considered desirable? And even more basic than that: people should be allowed to do with their money as they please. Including giving it to their children.
- simoom22 7y ago
  Are you saying poor people aren't exploited?
  - kofejnik 7y ago
    not the parent's OP, but yes; I'm saying the whole notion of exploitation is rather silly
    - simoom22 7y ago
      We'll, I guess all notions can seem silly from some perspective. Children climbing up chimneys or adults wearing diapers to meet chicken plucking quotas can seen silly from a certain perspective, but usually not a first person one.
  - pksdjfikkkkdsff 7y ago
    Presumably there are people who are being exploited in the world. But to claim in general poverty is a result of exploitation seems very questionable. Start with basics. People live in the woods, with nothing. Some start building a hut from sticks, others don't. The ones living in huts suddenly are richer than the ones who don't, even though they haven't taken anything away from the ones who don't have huts. And of the ones who don't have huts demand some of the huts from the people who built them, who is doing the exploiting?
    - bigger_cheese 7y ago
      People in huts eventually band together into villages, villages start to trade goods with one another. Eventually the largest village is able to coerce (either using the threat of force via superior military or through infiltration, bribery subversion etc) the smaller villages into giving it the best deals. The largest village gets very rich while extracting all the resources and goods from the smaller villages around it. The largest village is able to ram through treaties, trade pacts etc that favor it's interests, it is able to interfere in politics of surrounding villages and sometimes provides backing to despots or outright overthrow leadership of smaller villages that might be doing something the largest village does not agree with.

"Why doesn't everyone just get rich?"

by SamBam 7y ago

"Why doesn't everyone just get rich?"

Because a good chunk of people suck at delayed gratification so are incapable of saving money. Even on an average income it's not unfeasible to retire a millionaire if saving a significant percent (and indeed there are people who do this, small businesspeople and tradespeople, the "millionaires next door").

anoncake 7y ago
When people are incapable of something, it isn't feasible for them. It doesn't really matter why "everyone getting rich" doesn't work.

pksdjfikkkkdsff 7y ago

Arguably, almost everybody in the Western world has gotten rich. Go visit a medieval castle sometime. The standards that now everybody has required an army of servants in the old days. It is just a hateful lie of the left to claim "being rich" is dependent on exploiting poor people.

SketchySeaBeast 7y ago
That's silly - compared to cavemen, even workers in third world countries are "rich", being able to trade things for goods and services and not being required to hunt and gather. Inequality solved?
- kofejnik 7y ago
  yes, exactly; to have equality, you'll have to reduce everyone to the lower common denominator, which will be rather low Also, I don't see why exactly inequality is inherently bad. I'm poorer than Bezos, _and that is a good thing_. Pretty much like Steph Curry is better than me at basketball and so he should have a lot more ball possesion should we be playing on the same team, Bezos is much better than me in allocating resources, so he should have a lot more resources to play with.
  - SketchySeaBeast 7y ago
    > Bezos is much better than me in allocating resources, so he should have a lot more resources to play with. How do you know that, though? Have you had the opportunity to be in the exact same place he was for the exact same time? Do you sincerely believe there aren't, in the billions of people on earth, someone with better resource allocation skills than Bezos? Having more money is not proof of ability.
    - pksdjfikkkkdsff 7y ago
      We know that because he did it. He literally proved it by becoming a Billionaire. Yes, lots of people were alive in the exact same time when he started Amazon.
      - SketchySeaBeast 7y ago
        How is that proof of ability more than luck?
        pksdjfikkkkdsff 7y ago
        He has been going at it consistently for many, many years now. He just happened to be lucky year after year? Most people don't even try, but it doesn't stop them from accusing people who put in the work and who take the risks from just being lucky.
        SketchySeaBeast 7y ago
        The problem I think is that people attribute all of success to the sheer iron will and willingness to suffer of the individual, when that just isn't the case. Are you attributing all of Amazon's success to Bezos solely? If he left do you assume Amazon would immediately start to fail? Was it Bill Gates alone who kept Microsoft afloat? You have to consider luck, there's a ton of people in the world who put in the work and didn't get anything, and it's not just because they didn't work hard enough.
- pksdjfikkkkdsff 7y ago
  Why exactly is inequality a problem? Because people suffer from their envy? People starving, having no health care, low life expectancy, that sort of thing, are problems. Their neighbor having more money in the bank is not really a problem. There are also actually differences in skills, performance, diligence, and so on. It would be very unfair if some people weren't allowed to earn more money than others. Whether it should be possible to be arbitrarily rich is another question.
  - ianleeclark 7y ago
    > People starving, having no health care, low life expectancy, that sort of thing, are problems. Their neighbor having more money in the bank is not really a problem. Most people, when they critique wealth inequality, aren't critiquing their neighbors because most people in the same zip code are going to be at similar levels. When people critique wealth inequality, they're talking about the Koch brothers, or other parties who leverage capital to gain unfair advantage and political powers and then work against the first half of your statement. > Whether it should be possible to be arbitrarily rich is another question. I, too, am in favor of a 100% wealth tax upon death. No more freeloading failsons.
    - pksdjfikkkkdsff 7y ago
      "Unfair capital advantage" Well, again, start accumulating capital, if it is such an unfair advantage. "I, too, am in favor of a 100% wealth tax upon death. No more freeloading failsons." I am absolute against such a thing, in fact I consider it an insane proposal. It seems one of the fundamental human rights should be people being allowed to provide for their children. People work to have successful children. It is absolutely incorrect that all children should have the same starting positions for a fair world. If a couple works hard to earn money, and others don't work and instead pop out 10 children, why on earth would it be fair to take money from the hard working parents to distribute it to all? I know many people who would like to have more children, but feel they can't afford them. Why should they be punished for being responsible. It even starts before people have children. They work hard to be attractive and find a good mate, to improve the odds for their children. That is basic human nature. The acts of their parents are not the children's fault, of course, and everybody should be given a fair chance to make it in life. But there are limits. Both strategies can be valid (have few children and try to give them a good head start in live vs having as many children as possible and leaving them to their own devices), but it would be unfair to politically punish one strategy over the other. At the very least, if you take away money from the responsible parents, you should have to limit the behavior of the irresponsible parents. The only way to make things completely equal for everyone is to disallow people to have children, and instead rise future children in clone factories. Why should that be considered desirable? And even more basic than that: people should be allowed to do with their money as they please. Including giving it to their children.
simoom22 7y ago
Are you saying poor people aren't exploited?
- kofejnik 7y ago
  not the parent's OP, but yes; I'm saying the whole notion of exploitation is rather silly
  - simoom22 7y ago
    We'll, I guess all notions can seem silly from some perspective. Children climbing up chimneys or adults wearing diapers to meet chicken plucking quotas can seen silly from a certain perspective, but usually not a first person one.
- pksdjfikkkkdsff 7y ago
  Presumably there are people who are being exploited in the world. But to claim in general poverty is a result of exploitation seems very questionable. Start with basics. People live in the woods, with nothing. Some start building a hut from sticks, others don't. The ones living in huts suddenly are richer than the ones who don't, even though they haven't taken anything away from the ones who don't have huts. And of the ones who don't have huts demand some of the huts from the people who built them, who is doing the exploiting?
  - bigger_cheese 7y ago
    People in huts eventually band together into villages, villages start to trade goods with one another. Eventually the largest village is able to coerce (either using the threat of force via superior military or through infiltration, bribery subversion etc) the smaller villages into giving it the best deals. The largest village gets very rich while extracting all the resources and goods from the smaller villages around it. The largest village is able to ram through treaties, trade pacts etc that favor it's interests, it is able to interfere in politics of surrounding villages and sometimes provides backing to despots or outright overthrow leadership of smaller villages that might be doing something the largest village does not agree with.