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My job is stable and my portfolio is up for the year. This is a pretty common situation among most of the STEM people I know. So does that mean we're all rich?
by war1025 6y ago
My job is stable and my portfolio is up for the year. This is a pretty common situation among most of the STEM people I know.
So does that mean we're all rich?
I mean, objectively we are in most senses of the word.
But that's generally not what people mean when they say "the rich"
- em500 6y agoYeah, what people mean when they say "the rich" is "richer than me".
- effingwewt 6y agoNot at all there is definitely a wealth point. There are classes of wealth its extremely disingenuous to pretend everyone is simply complaining some people have more than others.
- Ericson2314 6y agoYou are right, but there is also a sad history of people trying to exclude themselves with e.g. euphemisms like "upper middle class".
- cvhashim 6y agoNot you but 1 percent of the 1 percent
- atomicnumber3 6y agoIt's not enough to just have the direction be right. The markets are up, sure, so yes all my STEM friends are also "up" in a strictly directional sense with respect specifically to their bank/brokerage assets. The gist of it is that if the stock market goes up X% and generates a billion dollars of capital gains, the percentage of that billion that Joe Schmoe gets is vanishingly small compared to Buffet or Bezos or Gates. Sure everyone is up, but most of the gains went to those that already have the most (by definition, since that's how capital gains works, yknow).
- war1025 6y agoThis worldview seems like a great way to end up very bitter about life.
- gred 6y agoAnd vice versa.
- nopriorarrests 6y agoWhat worldview? This is purely objective point. If you have 5% of AMZN, Besos has 95%, I have none and AMZN stock doubles in value, you can easily calculate the outcome in terms of dollar gains and how much inequality had risen.
- gred 6y ago> It's not enough to just have the direction be right. That's a subjective value statement, not an objective fact.
- atomicnumber3 6y agoAre you suggesting that that one should be OK with this kind of world, or simply observing that a world like this ought to make one bitter? To be clear, I'm not condemning this system. Just explaining that this is what a K-shaped recovery might mean. That those with very little are left out when most of the "recovery" comes from the Fed propping up asset prices while everything that isn't sufficiently similar to a security crumbles.
- jeffbee 6y agoWell, my portfolio is up by multiples this year because I had lottery-ticket puts on SPX futures in March, and I just bought an investment property at a massive discount. But I don't think that being a lottery winner at the end of civilization is a great position in general. I think it leads to violent uprisings.
- war1025 6y agoSince when were we at the end of civilization?
- jeffbee 6y agoI give it until January 20, 2021.
- AnimalMuppet 6y agoOptimist. I'm worried about November 4, 2020. (And I'm worried about it no matter who wins.)
- FlyMoreRockets 6y agoMaybe the trickling in of mail-in ballots will soften the blow.
- Filligree 6y agoEnd of the United States, maybe. Europe will go right on functioning.
- jeffbee 6y agoI'm sure that having a deranged, nuclear-armed psycho who refuses to step down as dictator of America, who is up to his eyeballs in international crimes, and who is best friends with the Russian autocrat is going to cause Europe at least some slight unease.
- ForHackernews 6y agoYes, you are rich, and that is what people mean when they say "the rich" (maybe it's not what you mean -- almost everyone prefers to imagine they're 'middle class'). You're likely in the top decile: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/06/the-birth-of-a-new-american-aristocracy/559130/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/06/the-bir...
- perl4ever 6y agoThere's always ambiguity. People often say "billionaires" but if things get to the point of executing billionaires, it will probably keep going until the rich includes everyone with a white collar job. Or who wears glasses. (on the evacuation of Cambodian cities) "On arrival at the villages to which they had been assigned, evacuees were required to write brief autobiographical essays. The essay's content, particularly with regard to the subject's activity during the Khmer Republic regime, was used to determine their fate...those occupying elite professional roles were usually sent for reeducation, which in practice meant immediate execution or confinement in a labour camp"
- ForHackernews 6y agoSorry but wake me up when the wealthy have to contend with even a new slightly higher tax bracket, and then I'll listen to their hyperbole about the Khmer Rouge. If this is genuinely something you're worried about, maybe a good idea to head it off at the pass by supporting a more equal society today.
- D2187645 6y agoWe have to protect the rich from this fate with more tax cuts.
- perl4ever 6y agoMy salary is in the $50s. But I wear glasses. You're a perfect example of why people who aren't billionaires have something to fear. The billionaires will have their private armies when the revolution comes. And there are only a few of them. I don't care if the billionaires get executed, but there is nobody who wants to do it that will be sated by that.
- segmondy 6y agoRich is also relative. if you have $100k, and I have $100k we are equal. if my $100k goes to $50k or $0. you are now richer. I'm poorer.
- AlexTWithBeard 6y agoI like definition of rich as those who don't have to work to sustain their lifestyle. The only problem is with the homeless guy next to the station who also matches this definition. May be he's also rich in some sense?
- ac29 6y agoPersonally, I'd call that wealthy. There are plenty of folks who are what I'd consider rich that do need to work to sustain their expensive lifestyle (but might not need to work with a more modest lifestyle).
- mensetmanusman 6y agoYou are the top 1% of the world.