5 ms·

Every time that guy says "generational wealth" I throw up in my mouth a bit.

plumeria 3y ago
I found funny the $1e7+ notation.
narinxas 3y ago
is the type of wealth that makes land be worth more in some places than in others this gets really difficult when consdiering that the same unit of wealth also prices food, AND gambling
mschuster91 3y ago
Thing is, he's correct. Early shareholders of many unicorns have cashed out dozens of millions of dollars post-IPO - that kind of wealth has no other name but generational, since even if you blow half of it in early stage VC and a quarter on "hookers and blow", the remaining quarter will pay enough in yearly dividends that you and your entire offspring will never have to work a single day in their life again. A side note: the fact that there are so many tech unicorns in the US is self-reinforcing, because the founders and early employees of IPO'd unicorns have usually invested their money into either their own venture or those of some random people they knew, and repeated the cycle. The rest of the world barely got anything from the insane valuation explosion in the tech sector of the last 15-20 years.
- Hizonner 3y ago
  Well, yes, but you see, talking that way about "generational wealth" is meant to signal approval for wanting to create a permanent dynasty of rent seekers. Even a lot of billionaires disapprove of that.
  - mschuster91 3y ago
    > Even a lot of billionaires disapprove of that. Yeah, a few of them are very high-profile in that [1], but they're a) an utter minority (there's ~3k of billionaires vs 236 that signed the Giving Pledge) and b) for most of them, even if they'd give away 90% of their wealth, their kids would still be effectively landed gentry. It's a sham to placate the masses. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Giving_Pledge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Giving_Pledge
    - Hizonner 3y ago
      I might very well make my kids "landed gentry" myself, given the chance, but I wouldn't go around pretending it was a virtuous choice on my part. Nor would I write as though somebody else were evil because they happened, for largely unrelated reasons, to disrupt my plans for doing it. Whereas this toady is so bent on having an overclass that he's doing that on behalf of others. ... and the pledge thing is the same, really. In order to have some hypocritical desire to signal adherence to some ideal, you first have to believe it's an ideal. Those people have no need to "placate the masses" in the sense of there being an imminent risk of torches and pitchforks. They're doing it at most for prestige... and prestige only counts if it's among people whose opinions you actually care about.
  - xyzelement 3y ago
    What is the point of generating wealth if not to pass it down to your children? In your value system, is blowing it on yourself better? EDIT: to be clear, the main point of generating wealth is to generate value for society. Society then pays you for that value with the wealth that you get... Now I am pointing out that on the personal level, helping your future generations is a totally admirable goal.
    - Hizonner 3y ago
      You're missing more than one other option there...
    - barelyauser 3y ago
      False dichotomy. You and your children are not the only humans to exist on earth.
      - edgyquant 3y ago
        >False dichotomy I don’t think you know what this means
    - kelnos 3y ago
      > In your value system, is blowing it on yourself better? Maybe? Like, certainly it's nice and good to pass along something to your children. But giving them the ability to just sit around and play video games every day for the rest of their life? What's good about that? (Yes, I know, many inheritors end up doing productive things with their money.) I would advocate for dropping the inheritance tax exemption to something much much lower, and then taxing nearly all (or even all) of an inheritance above that amount. As much as I am not a fan of Bill Gates, I 100% approve of his plan to earmark pretty much all of his wealth for philanthropy before he dies. I am still uncomfortable with the idea that we have to depend on the largess of a few billionaires in order to direct resources to make the world better. But I think that's massively better than passing on tens or hundreds of millions of dollars to offspring who didn't do anything to earn it. > to be clear, the main point of generating wealth is to generate value for society. Society then pays you for that value with the wealth that you get... That sounds like an overly idealized view of how things work. Many people get super rich for reasons that have little to do with generating wealth for society. And even if they do generate wealth for society, their reward is usually comically greater than the wealth they generate.
  - logicchains 3y ago
    >create a permanent dynasty of rent seekers Living off inherited wealth isn't rent seeking; your dynasty doesn't need to collect any rents if you've left a large enough sum of money to them in a trust. They're living entirely off the money you earned fair and square.
    - mschuster91 3y ago
      > They're living entirely off the money you earned fair and square. And who actually makes that money? Those who pay rent, either in actual rent if you invested into real estate, or in one or another kind of fees, that you(r kids) can set (almost) at will. Getting to that point where you are a rent seeker is the core issue at heart of SV-style capitalism. Use and burn enormous amounts of VC to destroy entrenched industry by price dumping (and in some cases like taxis, actually providing a better service), then either acquire or destroy your competition, and finally you have complete control over the market in a way that it would require enormous amounts of money to even be anything close to a threat to you (and at that point, you acquire them). Additionally, use the income from your market stranglehold to pivot into new ventures, because you can do so with ease. The best examples for how that played out are Microsoft, Facebook, Amazon, Google and, to a bit, Apple. Utterly dominant in their respective fields, and all at the control of one or more money spigots. And this is why these companies were and are valued at the valuations they have... investors assess companies on their chance of getting to such a dominant position, to then reap the benefits of the money spigot.
      - edgyquant 3y ago
        Deployment of capital is not the same thing as rent seeking.
    - kristianp 3y ago
      Living off inherited wealth is kind of the economic definition of rent-seeking. Rent is a technical term in economics, going back to the times of lords and serfs.
oh_sigh 3y ago
So, you threw up in your mouth twice.
- Hizonner 3y ago
  They were especially flavorful, though.

I found funny the $1e7+ notation.

is the type of wealth that makes land be worth more in some places than in others this gets really difficult when consdiering that the same unit of wealth also prices food, AND gambling

mschuster91 3y ago

Thing is, he's correct. Early shareholders of many unicorns have cashed out dozens of millions of dollars post-IPO - that kind of wealth has no other name but generational, since even if you blow half of it in early stage VC and a quarter on "hookers and blow", the remaining quarter will pay enough in yearly dividends that you and your entire offspring will never have to work a single day in their life again. A side note: the fact that there are so many tech unicorns in the US is self-reinforcing, because the founders and early employees of IPO'd unicorns have usually invested their money into either their own venture or those of some random people they knew, and repeated the cycle. The rest of the world barely got anything from the insane valuation explosion in the tech sector of the last 15-20 years.

Hizonner 3y ago
Well, yes, but you see, talking that way about "generational wealth" is meant to signal approval for wanting to create a permanent dynasty of rent seekers. Even a lot of billionaires disapprove of that.
- mschuster91 3y ago
  > Even a lot of billionaires disapprove of that. Yeah, a few of them are very high-profile in that [1], but they're a) an utter minority (there's ~3k of billionaires vs 236 that signed the Giving Pledge) and b) for most of them, even if they'd give away 90% of their wealth, their kids would still be effectively landed gentry. It's a sham to placate the masses. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Giving_Pledge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Giving_Pledge
  - Hizonner 3y ago
    I might very well make my kids "landed gentry" myself, given the chance, but I wouldn't go around pretending it was a virtuous choice on my part. Nor would I write as though somebody else were evil because they happened, for largely unrelated reasons, to disrupt my plans for doing it. Whereas this toady is so bent on having an overclass that he's doing that on behalf of others. ... and the pledge thing is the same, really. In order to have some hypocritical desire to signal adherence to some ideal, you first have to believe it's an ideal. Those people have no need to "placate the masses" in the sense of there being an imminent risk of torches and pitchforks. They're doing it at most for prestige... and prestige only counts if it's among people whose opinions you actually care about.
- xyzelement 3y ago
  What is the point of generating wealth if not to pass it down to your children? In your value system, is blowing it on yourself better? EDIT: to be clear, the main point of generating wealth is to generate value for society. Society then pays you for that value with the wealth that you get... Now I am pointing out that on the personal level, helping your future generations is a totally admirable goal.
  - Hizonner 3y ago
    You're missing more than one other option there...
  - barelyauser 3y ago
    False dichotomy. You and your children are not the only humans to exist on earth.
    - edgyquant 3y ago
      >False dichotomy I don’t think you know what this means
  - kelnos 3y ago
    > In your value system, is blowing it on yourself better? Maybe? Like, certainly it's nice and good to pass along something to your children. But giving them the ability to just sit around and play video games every day for the rest of their life? What's good about that? (Yes, I know, many inheritors end up doing productive things with their money.) I would advocate for dropping the inheritance tax exemption to something much much lower, and then taxing nearly all (or even all) of an inheritance above that amount. As much as I am not a fan of Bill Gates, I 100% approve of his plan to earmark pretty much all of his wealth for philanthropy before he dies. I am still uncomfortable with the idea that we have to depend on the largess of a few billionaires in order to direct resources to make the world better. But I think that's massively better than passing on tens or hundreds of millions of dollars to offspring who didn't do anything to earn it. > to be clear, the main point of generating wealth is to generate value for society. Society then pays you for that value with the wealth that you get... That sounds like an overly idealized view of how things work. Many people get super rich for reasons that have little to do with generating wealth for society. And even if they do generate wealth for society, their reward is usually comically greater than the wealth they generate.
- logicchains 3y ago
  >create a permanent dynasty of rent seekers Living off inherited wealth isn't rent seeking; your dynasty doesn't need to collect any rents if you've left a large enough sum of money to them in a trust. They're living entirely off the money you earned fair and square.
  - mschuster91 3y ago
    > They're living entirely off the money you earned fair and square. And who actually makes that money? Those who pay rent, either in actual rent if you invested into real estate, or in one or another kind of fees, that you(r kids) can set (almost) at will. Getting to that point where you are a rent seeker is the core issue at heart of SV-style capitalism. Use and burn enormous amounts of VC to destroy entrenched industry by price dumping (and in some cases like taxis, actually providing a better service), then either acquire or destroy your competition, and finally you have complete control over the market in a way that it would require enormous amounts of money to even be anything close to a threat to you (and at that point, you acquire them). Additionally, use the income from your market stranglehold to pivot into new ventures, because you can do so with ease. The best examples for how that played out are Microsoft, Facebook, Amazon, Google and, to a bit, Apple. Utterly dominant in their respective fields, and all at the control of one or more money spigots. And this is why these companies were and are valued at the valuations they have... investors assess companies on their chance of getting to such a dominant position, to then reap the benefits of the money spigot.
    - edgyquant 3y ago
      Deployment of capital is not the same thing as rent seeking.
  - kristianp 3y ago
    Living off inherited wealth is kind of the economic definition of rent-seeking. Rent is a technical term in economics, going back to the times of lords and serfs.

oh_sigh 3y ago

So, you threw up in your mouth twice.

Hizonner 3y ago
They were especially flavorful, though.