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Comment by ryandrake | Hacker News Reader

I knew someone who was so aggressively proud of their success, having founded and grown a successful business. He'd talk your ear off about how people like him were the ones adding value to society and how unsuccessful people are just lazy and don't try hard enough or don't take enough risks, or are just deadbeats, and how successful, hard working people are punished with taxes--you know, the standard soapbox speech. I mean, reading that description, he sounds like that cliche "Cartoon Republican Villain", but it really was that way!

What he wouldn't easily admit was how this successful business was his sixth try, having blown what, to me, seemed like a small fortune on each of his previous attempts. He always had a rich family to fall back on, living off of them while he dreamed up his next attempt to "add value." Finally (inevitably), one of them stuck, so obviously this is proof that he's self-made and his success was due entirely to his own "hard work".

If you grow up poor without a fallback, you pretty much have one shot, if you're even able to save up for that one. You mess up, and you're pretty much hosed. On the other hand, with an infinite money cushion, you get to keep shooting until you hit the target. What's the saying? Going from $0 to $1M is almost impossible--going from $1M to $2M is almost inevitable.

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> Going from $0 to $1M is almost impossible--going from $1M to $2M is almost inevitable.

I know plenty of people who inherited money and blew it all.

Very, very few people, even children from ''rich'' families, have an ''infinite money cushion''.

People who come from poverty or communities rampant with discrimination often times have to work harder for opportunities. But hard work is hard work, and there is fierce competition at every level, no matter who you are. I hesitate to take anything away from anyone's success.

And if you think making your first million from scratch is ''almost impossible'' you should look around any suburb of Silicon Valley at the many, many immigrants who came here with nothing and have saved up that amount, or more. Lots of luck, to be sure, but lots of planning, discipline, deferred gratification, and hard work too.

If they're talking like the person that was described was talking, I absolutely would take away from their success, especially because they've never had to worry about any of the stuff that someone who doesn't come from means has to worry about.

Don't get me wrong; finding success is hard, and whenever someone does find it, it should be celebrated. But those that do find it shouldn't discount the struggles of those who aren't able to try, especially if it takes them several tried to find it themselves.

>I absolutely would take away from their success

Why? Because they are an asshole about it? That doesn't reduce their success in any way. If they have offset the losses of their previous endeavors, they have provided a net gain and it's still a success.

Because they're an asshole about it, and because they're ignoring the pure luck advantages they had which made their success possible. And it doesn't matter if they've offset the losses of their previous tries, they still took multiple tries (in and of itself not a problem), which is something most people don't get.

Let me ask a question - what does your attitude benefit you? It seems mostly to make you bitter about things that were never in your control, which seems like an unvarnished negative. Maybe you've found something more helpful.

I don't think many people have an attitude of "we need to recognize built-in advantages, and should call out people who try to play down or hide them" to benefit themselves - it's an attitude and position adopted to try to benefit those without those advantages. E.g. by showing a beneficial side of certain social safety net policies, or the downside of the default position becoming graduating with massive amounts of student debt, etc.

I'm not bitter, I just think that guy is an asshole.

With that attitude, nobody could ever take any credit for success because there is someone else that had it harder.

"Warren Buffet didn't do anything impressive because he grew up with his parents."

What a petty way to live.

Warren Buffet doesn't discourage and shit on those who haven't been able to do what he has. Again, I would discount the person's success because they're an asshole, and refusing to acknowledge that they were given many privileges and benefits by pure random luck. Buffet routinely acknowledges that he had lots of help getting to where he is today.

thats both a false dichotomy and a strawman.

Well played

Because a lot of humanity wants to shit on others' successes. It's why it's mostly futile to seek outward validation.

It depends on where one lives. Where I currently live, it takes about $25M in wealth just to get out of middle class and into lower upper class. And, to get into the true upper class requires maybe $500M to a billion. And, at that level, it is effectively infinite money (like > $250k a day in passive income, at the lowest level).

-4 in less than 30 minutes. that's a record for me. I must have said something controversial. So, glad that I could help :-)

I'm not aware of any place on earth where someone who has $24 million in wealth is considered 'middle class'.

That's $180,000 annually at a measly 0.75% interest (what my peon savings bank currently gives) for doing absolutely nothing. If you can quit your job and ride on 180k passive, risk-free income, you're not middle class.

You're not alone - trust me. Most people don't believe me.

But, then, I grew up in a place where many if not most household incomes are less than $15k / year.

It's all relative though - I have enough saved up to probably live as a rich man in probably 99% of the earth. Yet, I keep pushing myself to get into the upper class of a minuscule area of the world. It's kind of screwed up.

Sorry, I should have been stricter with my phrasing.

There is no place on earth where you can consider yourself middle class only having $24m in net worth. What you are referring to is likely a small community filled with people with net worths above $100m, but that doesn't change the class level because of what I pointed out. If you can quit your job and make 6 figures off of interest, you are not middle class anymore wherever you live.

Just because you can't afford a penthouse apartment in downtown Manhattan doesn't mean you are middle class.

I get what you're saying - but the reality is that globalization is to blame. Years ago, if one was born ambitious and able, with enough luck they'd get relatively 'rich' and most likely stop when they hit that point. Nowadays, the same type of person has to accumulate a much larger amount to feel any satisfaction. And, it doesn't help that those with wealth have clustered together.

Can you give us a hint as to where this place is? I believe that you believe this, and it may be true, but the rest of us are having a hard time figuring out where this place is that the upper class is half a billion dollars, and tens of millions only makes you middle class. Again, within a city or perhaps some particularly small but remarkably wealthy country, maybe. But which one?

Places such as the UK have a socio-economic class system where class really has rather little to do with money - upper class here means aristocracy not just rich. Money really doesn't have that much to do with it.

You're not alone - trust me. Most people don't believe me.

It might help if you actually stated where you live. As it stands, you're talking about your girlfriend who "goes to a different school". Which school, and what's her name?

Loudoun county, which is ranked as the highest income county in the US.

According to this, middle class in Loudoun county is ~$150K household income.

http://www.loudountimes.com/news/article/the_loudouns_at_122...

Looking at Zillow, it's cheaper than where I live (Boulder, CO).

Thank you for clarifying. Virginia, and not Tennessee, I take it. What that means is that few, if any, in Loudon County, VA are middle-class. It does not mean that you need $25 million to be middle-class in Loudon County. It means you need to be rich to live in Loudon County.

LOL - of course many of you just seem to want to rebuke me. Makes sense, given today's culture. But, you're just adding to the problem.

Most current problems in our society stem from people getting more satisfaction out of pushing web buttons than doing real things out in the real world.

Oh, well, sucks to be many of you but I guess really good to be me. It's just really sad. Especially sad given how poor I grew up.

It's sad that you have been sucked into a life of such competitive materialism that you can't find satisfaction with a net worth less than 25m. If you grew up poor and have 20m now and are still not satisfied, there is likely no number that will ever satisfy you.

If you're earning over $180k (which you would on the interest of $24mm), you'd be in the top 0.2% of earners for Loudoun County.

That's not middle class at all.

That seems really off, considering that the top 1% (down with the 1%, etc.) make at least $428k nationwide.[1] Where are you getting the information?

[1]: http://www.kiplinger.com/article/taxes/T054-C000-S001-what-s...

I got it from here [0].

I just rechecked my numbers, and it turns out I was reading from the wrong column, earning >$180,000 a year would put you in the top 2.7%

https://datausa.io/profile/geo/loudoun-county-va/#income_dis...

I've lived in Loudoun county, VA. Your characterization of middle class in that place is totally inaccurate. There are probably less than 50 square miles on earth (if that) where a net worth of $24MM places you in the middle class.

Well then you'd know that Loudoun is a large county. I'm sure you lived in the eastern part - probably ashburn where they build dense complexes of 450k townhouses that span as far as the eye can see - to house all the 'creative class' workers who make 100k a year and feel good about themselves.

I can't reply to ap22213 for some reason, but I agree with everyone else - people are not middle class in Loudon County unless they have more than 25 million. That's clearly wrong, you don't understand what middle class means. Your next door neighbors might all have a billion, and your 15 million feels like not much, but that doesn't make you middle class, you are still rich.

In Seattle, there's this area where a bunch of billionaires live on Lake Washington. If you live next door in your 5 million dollar house to bill gates, that doesn't make you middle class. It just makes you poorer than he is.

> That's $180,000 annually at a measly 0.75% interest

Actually that 0.75 is negative in real terms (after taking off inflation currently 1.1% - not to mention taxation). A person drawing $180k would be burning their capital.

Is the $25M in US dollars? If so, that seems like plenty to be upper class in any place I'm aware of. For example, at 4% return on investment, that'd yield $1M US annually. 500K would be enough money to, e.g., rent two rooms at the Mayfair Hotel in London, or the Contemporary Hotel at Disneyland for the year and eat out every night. Maybe you live in a place more rarefied than Mayfair or Disneyland, but there aren't many of those places, so your experiences may not be typical.

>People who come from poverty or communities rampant with discrimination often times have to work harder for opportunities. But hard work is hard work, and there is fierce competition at every level, no matter who you are. I hesitate to take anything away from anyone's success.

Tell that to the kid making iPhones in the Foxconn facility. Success isn't where you are, it's how far you've come. By that metric the most successful thing you can do in life is have a father like Sam Walton.

Hard work is requisite, not satisfactory. You can dig ditches in your own yard for 14 hours a day and you aren't going to be successful. Similarly, you can start a business with your $1 million inherited wealth, but it has an extremely high probability of failing without hard work.

>Tell that to the kid making iPhones in the Foxconn facility.

I'm not even sure what your point is. GP was pointing out that competition at every level is fierce. Not sure what that has to do with the Foxconn employee. Are they known for not being competitive?

>Hard work is requisite, not satisfactory.

If you're one of the Rich Kids of Instagram, hard work doesn't seem to play much of a role in their lives.

The point about Foxconn is obvious. How many Foxconn employees have a realistic chance of topping the rich list?

Hard work, like the idea of being a self-made person, is largely a self-serving mythology.

Real hard work is doing the same shitty job for 10-12 hours a day six or seven days a week and earning barely enough to pay the rent.

That's the reality of hard work for much of the population. Fetishising the hard work of the already-rich discounts that ground truth.

> Tell that to the kid making iPhones in the Foxconn facility.

The kid in the Foxconn facility is better off if he works there than if he did not have any job. If it were otherwise he would quit the job (since the kid is a poor worker, but not a slave). So indeed having a job at Foxconn lead to a better (though still bad) life for the kid. The kid should rather complain at his parents that they, as poor people, gave life to him - they should know that because of their poverty he would lead a miserable life and hazarded the consequences.

Most of the successful immigrants I personally know who have made it in silicon valley came from families with money or power back home.

I mean, there are other stories to, of course, but the student visa and then technical visa course is one mostly reserved for people who come from well off families.

(I am not trying to knock anyone or diminish their achievements, some of these people have worked hard and achieved a lot. I am just saying that if you can get a student visa or a technical work visa, you probably did not come from a poor or powerless family.)

85% of American millionaires are self-made. Source: "The Millionaire Next Door" book.

85% of wizards are educated at Hogwarts. "Harry Potter" book.

Hogwarts isn't even the largest school, that'd be Uagadou.

Woah I didnt know there were other schools and the world was so rich. Thats cool. My numbers were incorrect.

I hope theres more of a fleshing out of the harry potter world in future books or movies.

An mmo would be pretty tight lol.

Wheres the ACTUAL study? Or did the author just call up 5 rich dudes?

Seriously are we taking this number as legitimate.. simply because it comes from a BOOK?

Is that how low our scientific standards have become?

Frickin Pixar verified that talking cars exist. Good enough for me!

The book describes the studies they used. (Correction, it's 80%. I had misremembered it.) You can get the book for $2.50 from Amazon, not a bad investment if you are interested in the topic.

The numbers are not correct or even science.

Its one dude who uses that number to sell his pop psychology book.

Heres a blog from the author about where he gets his numbers:

'In my thirty plus years of surveying and studying millionaires'

http://www.thomasjstanley.com/2014/05/america-where-milliona...

A blog post of a couple of paragraphs does not give any information about the rigor, correctness, or value of the contents of a book.

That's exactly what OP is trying to point out. It's easy to be "self-made" when you can get a million dollar loan from your dad to get your real-estate business off the ground. It's easy to be self-made when your dad works at Seattle's most prestigious law firm and can arrange an introduction with IBM's PC hardware division. It's significantly more difficult to be self-made when you have no connections and no capital.

I don't understand. none of those examples are 'self-made'

In US, 'self-make' means 'privileged'

What's your definition of self-made? I like "Someone with significant wealth who didn't receive inheritance or trust fund money."

Someone with significant wealth who reached 18 without any cash/value other than what he earned himself. Meaning self-funded university studies, pretty hard in US from what I heard. Would earn great respect not only from me.

In more lenient fashion, somebody on top of this who finished university without debt, and no money apart from self-earned.

But they're still usually counted as such. Both Donald Trump and Bill Gates are regularly touted as "self-made" Xillionaires. And, at least in terms of that book, we don't know what definition of self made is used, or how they counted it.

That's the point. They're saying that those 85% of self-made American millionaires aren't as "self-made" as they claim.

Like me: I could talk about starting with almost nothing in my bank accounts, getting a job, working through the ranks, buying a home, and working toward my first million... conveniently leaving out all the advantages that I've had to get me to this point (cultural expectation that I'd go to college instilled in me from a young age, a family well-off enough to support that financially, uninterrupted time to work on the hobbies that grew into a career, etc).

Quanticle seems to be relating the origins of Donald Trump and Bill Gates. Donald describes his fortune as self-made. Bill Gates has been described as self-made. It's true, if you only consider that their wealth is much greater than any gift they've ever received. It's false from the perspective that anyone could do it with enough hard work.

Honestly no one is self-made. People who don't have financial cushions still rely on others to back their idea and hard work.

Problem is everyone on HN is talking about how to make millions when that's backwards mentality because then you'll never be satisfied. People need to strive for modest salaries and things that benefit society and the planet not filling one's pockets.

> People need to strive for modest salaries and things that benefit society and the planet not filling one's pockets.

It's a lot easier to do projects that benefit society and the planet if you have millions in your pocket that you can spend/invest on them (say for paying employees or simply having financial runway).

There is some truth in what parent is saying though. We have reach a point in the West were a comfortable life is basically possible for everyone. However, we still have the bullish culture from after the war that paints a guy that want a simple life as some sort of loser.

So we go on holiday and marvel at the simple life of artisans, farmer or other, but we teach our children that such a lifestyle is a failure.

Everybody who thinks that their salary is too large is free to donate a large(r) part of the salary to things that he cares of. So if you think you earn a more modest salary, do so. The problem is that most people who talk of "more modest salaries" mean "others should have more modest salaries". Better call this envy.

> So we go on holiday and marvel at the simple life of artisans, farmer or other.

I surely don't.

> We have reach a point in the West were a comfortable life is basically possible for everyone. However, we still have the bullish culture from after the war that paints a guy that want a simple life as some sort of loser.

And what made it possible that leading a comfortable life is basically possible for everyone? Surely not the people who want a simple life.

I can accept that technology has become too complicated for most people to grasp. I am among the first to accept this as a problem. But if this is your opinion, start to develop technology that is easier to grasp instead of complaining how complicated anything has become. The same holds for laws, too.

> And what made it possible that leading a comfortable life is basically possible for everyone? Surely not the people who want a simple life.

But is pushing everyone to push the boundaries even if they are not driven or motivated not counterproductive at some point ?

Well I may be biased by living in London and working in the financial industry, where personal enrichment seems to be the only accepted way of life. But all the scheming that is done to be on top is definitively keeping competent people out of the loop. Keeping your job is a more valuable skill that excelling at your job, and you don't need much corporate experience to know that there is a very thin overlap between the 2. I see people that are great with children, amazing artists, ... that are just grinding at their job just to keep living a life where they can afford the socially acceptable brand of car, clothes and activities, but dream of the day when they can spend more than a few hours a month doing what they are really good at.

More generally, what about all the support jobs ? Tech is very far away to replace teacher or nurses. Those jobs are loser jobs in a world that only value "potentially world changing career". You are more likely to become a millionaire as a random Goldman Sachs cannon fodder as you are as a nurse. What kind of criminal parent would encourage their kid to teach instead of getting a degree that let them into finance ?

These are two insightful and underrated points. I'm going to store them away somewhere if you don't mind. Have an up vote!

> Keeping your job is a more valuable skill that excelling at your job, and you don't need much corporate experience to know that there is a very thin overlap between the 2.

This is true in most companies, not just finance. The fact that these 2 activities are orthogonal and require entirely different skill sets is one of the more frustrating aspects of corporate life, giving rise to: very talented people who end up grinding away as drone#19221 because they aren't great at "managing upward" and smooth talkers who BS their way into higher and higher roles.

> I see people that are great with children, amazing artists, ... that are just grinding at their job just to keep living a life where they can afford the socially acceptable brand of car, clothes and activities, but dream of the day when they can spend more than a few hours a month doing what they are really good at.

Again, welcome to work everywhere. For most people, a job is the thing you do for money so you can live, and save up to finally do what you are good at or love when you're old and retired.

> People need to strive for modest salaries

So true. In today's US economy just simply having a salary, period, is something one must strive for. Continuity and regularity of compensation has become difficult to obtain.

We wouldn't have nice things like computers, coffee, indoor plumbing, jeans, books, teeth, etc. if people were satisfied with modest salaries and not filling their pockets.

Yes we would. Long before capitalism was invented the great creators of the world made great strides with inventiveness. While necessity is certainly the mother of invention, there's no limit to human curiosity.

Examples: Arabic numerals, Da Vinci, Mozart, Galileo, Maxwell, Einstein, Turing, etc. That's where a lot of those modern things come from.

Then along comes the capitalists to exploit the true discoveries for personal gain. Mass produce this-and-that, destroy the environment, etc. Build atomic bombs.

I'm curious about when you believe capitalism was "invented". Post-Einstein?

If you are born in the Western World, it is like starting a marathon 5 km away from the finish line and still be in the same race than the one starting at the beginning.

When you start thinking everything you get for free, even just in a lower middle western family, compared to someone born in a war torn village in Africa, the concept of "self-made" becomes really meaningless.

That's why a stable government that protects life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness is necessary. The opportunity flows from that.

Gates was already a multimillionaire from Microsoft before the DOS deal. IBM also went to Gary Kildall first.

Bill Gates was probably a multimillionaire from the day he was conceived.

No need to guess. Biographies of Gates and Microsoft are plentiful.

Read this book if you want the sources, they are cited there and are too many to list here.

The point is that most folks that "make it" have some advantages from the start. Their parents might not have been rich, but decently well off. Went to decent schools, were able to make business contacts and network. Might not have had to work while in school either. If their business failed, it didn't mean they were sleeping on people's couches: They had a room at their parents if it got that bad, but they could usually weather the storm.

Again, contacts help with that.

The folks growing up in poverty don't have much of that. Schools are by chance, and often folks work through college so there isn't as much time for networking. Besides, networking costs money. If this person fails, they are simply homeless.

Simply moving up to lower middle class takes some work.

Sure, they are possibly "self-made", but they weren't fighting lack of opportunity.It is simply easier to make it if you have a good foundation.

(0% of families dissipate their wealth within three generations. This suggests that there is a constant up welling of people who accumulate wealth. The proposition that there is some fixed group of rich people sitting at the top is absurd.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB100014241278873246624045783346...

Edit: the actual figure is 90%

For other people struggling to read this comment: "(" is on the same key as "5" on Azerty keyboards.

It's also a capital 9. I'm so ashamed. The number is supposedly 90%.

Oh, my bad, I got confused with the brackets (which are not on a digit key). I really should have checked. See, we all make mistakes!

Did you know you can edit your post? I think yours deserve it.

It appears that after a certain amount of time the edit capability is unavailable.

There is a force not unlike gravity, constantly pulling on all outliers, reverting them to the mean over time. However, that does not imply the outliers do not "sit at the top" and heavily impact whatever group in which they are the outliers.

The median inheritance is $50k. Is it possible that very large inheritances are more likely to keep accumulating?

There are many exceptions http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2016/05/19/the-wealthy-in-flo...

The Chinese proverb for this is 富不過三代 which literally means "wealth does not pass three generations". It's allegedly ancient.

well... He/she clearly said that:

p(success|rich) > p(success|poor)

and never implied that:

p(success|rich) = 1

I didn't read that as "if you have $1M you'll almost certainly go to $2M", so much as "if your business has already earned $1M in profit then it's almost certain to continue to earn another $1M in profit". And likewise, it's not talking about having $1M in savings from a lifetime of hard work.

Think of a business as being like an engine. Until you get the engine started and running under its own power, it's just costing you time and effort and money. Once it's running, it generates money at an accelerating rate. The $1M cutoff here is a proxy for "the engine is running."

Some people are born on third base and go through life thinking they hit a triple.

Some people are born on third base and go through life thinking they hit a triple.[1]

[1] https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Barry_Switzer

>He'd talk your ear off about how people like him were the ones adding value to society

To take this sentence slightly out of context: There's nothing wrong with providing a service people find useful and are willing to pay you for, however this moral high ground is extremely abrasive to the soul. If someone really cared about "adding value to society," or the future of human welfare -- human rights are on the decline in our own country. Journalists are being openly, publicly and illegally prosecuted (Pete Santilli), peaceful protesters are being removed with military-style raids (Dakota pipeline protests), and whistle-blowers are being hunted by our government for revealing unconstitutional, illegal government surveillance (Snowden), while our government funds illegal wars (Syria), through arming of totalitarian and human-rights-oppressing regimes (SA), while also funding other human-rights-oppressing foreign states with funds equal to that of the Manhattan Project, adjusted for inflation (criticizing which country this is feels like a thought crime though). This all strikes me as more fitting of a nation state we associate with corruption than the USA, but we're all too busy with our day jobs to consider how hard people fought for what we take for granted, and how easily it can and is being taken away. There's a lot that is great about the USA, but as the 2016 elections draw closer and nothing seems to surprise me anymore, every time I hear this argument it just really bothers me because it feels like nobody seems to give a shit about actually "adding value to society."

Wealthy people tend to have different attitudes about money than others, which has a strong influence on their ability to accumulate wealth. This is expounded upon in the book "Rich Dad Poor Dad". It's worth a read, especially for people who are not wealthy but aspire to it.

If you're not wealthy and aspire to it, I'd suggest not starting with a book from somebody who uses a made-up story to explain luck, giving fundamentally flawed advice.

Instead, realize that the odds are against you: http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/rich-kids-stay-rich-poor...

And then work to acquire basic financial literacy. Which requires reading quite a few books. Here's a good starter list: http://www.getrichslowly.org/blog/2007/03/07/building-a-pers...

You might also be interested in Byron Tully's _The Old Money Book_. He's from an old-money background himself, and while his investment advice is unsophisticated, his advice on everything else is pretty much on the dot.

  >going from $1M to $2M is almost inevitable.

If that were true, I could easily borrow it now and make my way there.

Average market return is 7%[0], with a competent money manager and a few years it is virtually inevitable statistically. You can do exactly what you describe, but if you don't have the assets to back it up they won't loan it to you, nor would you be able to make the payments.

[0]http://www.thesimpledollar.com/where-does-7-come-from-when-i...

Ironically, very few money managers manage to even do as well as the S&P 500. Everyone thinks they can do better, and wind up falling short.

If you have the ability to borrow $1M, I'd argue you're already there. I know people who can't open a fucking checking account.

Yeah, but borrowing it would fall under the "going from $0 to $1MM" part.

In terms of net assets, no it's not. It's going from $0 to, say, -$50,000 as now you owe interest.

But in terms of having money, it is. You now have $1MM to do stuff with, whereas before, you didn't. That $1MM can be put to work, or used to buy better tools or hire better employees. That's something you couldn't do when you had no money.

If I were given a interest free million dollar loan it wouldn't be hard to invest it and have two million in a few decades. Compounding interest is the key.

It actually kinda disturbs me in a way how easy it is to make money when you have money.

Yes, and a bit of empirical data that one might think about in relation to this theory is the long term decline in small business starts.

>>What's the saying? Going from $0 to $1M is almost impossible--going from $1M to $2M is almost inevitable.

For the very same reasons going from $2M to $0 is easy.

It takes a lot of character to handle money and power, if you don't understand the work that goes behind it or it value. You will lose all of it soon.

Edit: Why the down votes?

I don't think it takes "character" to handle money. It's a skill like any other, and people who grow up with wealth have more opportunity to learn that skill.

What's meant by character is that your skills with money management won't tell you where to spend money when its discretionary, and what level to set your discretionary shares at.

Some people will fritter away their wealth on useless things, even if they know that they can make guaranteed returns by investing in X. Some people will continually reinvest in bad ventures, each time thinking the risk is worth it.

There's no skill to say what is too much risk. That's a judgement call that everyone has to make for themselves.

>your skills with money management won't tell you where to spend money when its discretionary, and what level to set your discretionary shares at.

Yes they will? That's an aspect of money management.

>There's no skill to say what is too much risk. That's a judgement call that everyone has to make for themselves.

By even framing the decision in these terms, you're already displaying far more experience in money management than many people have had opportunity to acquire.

It's not about opportunity, you could learn that much in an hour on /r/investing, or an afternoon of Googling "money management". It's about inclination to learn it, which requires a (very) little discipline.

I see what you're saying, but to be the devil's advocate - someone at some point in the family of "Cartoon Republican Villain" was also a poor sob with a single shot to make it. The tragedy is that he forgot, or never knew about it.

Not necessarily. There's been intergenerational wealth transfer going on in continuous unbroken lines for hundreds if not thousands of years.

You've comparing the success of one poor sob with the success of a lineage of rich/poor sobs. It's much easier to be rich than to get rich, because a lineage has several shots to make it big.

When society becomes too rigid for social mobility then of course it becomes a huge problem, but at the same time, if you do become wealthy - wouldn't you want your kids to have it easier and give them any advantage you possibly can?

Grants for entrepreneurs/basic income could be a good idea to boost the chances of those at the very bottom, but it probably won't come to pass. First, who would willingly part with their own money to funnel it to those programs, except perhaps for very wealthy philanthropists, and second big business will never support it as their costs will skyrocket and retention will drop like a stone as desperate employees will be able to get the .... out. In Switzerland with direct democracy, something might happen, anywhere else - doubtful.

>wouldn't you want your kids to have it easier and give them any advantage you possibly can?

You're missing the point. It isn't that the wealthy are being incriminating for "wanting their kids to have it easier".

They're pointing out that the success for kids born into wealth is typically attributable to family money.

>They're pointing out that the success for kids born into wealth is typically attributable to family money.

That's pretty obvious to me, it wasn't obvious to you?

I don't think any of the newly rich, such as say - Zuck were hiding these facts. Zuck went to Harvard, an elite school, and got 100k from the bank of mom and dad to work on his own thing.

The issue is that this data doesn't filter to the masses. Since it doesn't filter to the masses we now have a cult of "entrepreneur porn" where anybody can grab themselves by the bootsraps and become the new Zuck. I think with a little reflection most people know that this is false, however they've deluded themselves otherwise.

If it's obvious to you, then why did you go off topic about parents' intentions with their kids?

The article is about how having safety nets only for wealthy children leads to a net loss of talent in society. What does "entrepreneurship porn" now have to do with this?

Because in my mind "entrepreneurship porn" is still relevant to this article, by pushing people who should know better than to take a risk when they can't afford to, into risking their livelihoods for uncertain gains. In an ideal world every kid can be what they want to be, but in this one its good to know your limitations as well.

That seems to be an issue you've come up with on your own, because nobody is being pushed into entrepreneurship here.

In fact, the article states that without a safety net, talented people aren't taking the risks that can generate a net benefit for society.

>> That's pretty obvious to me, it wasn't obvious to you?

There are literally dozens of "how to get rich" books, that are actually "why it's your fault that you aren't rich" books in disguise, which try to explicitly disprove that statement.

So yes, apparently, to a lot of people, it's not actually obviously true.

See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-world_hypothesis - one of the biggest sources of suffering in the world.

> There are literally dozens of "how to get rich" books, that are actually "why it's your fault that you aren't rich" books in disguise, which try to explicitly disprove that statement.

Do they succeed?

Succeed in disproving? That's debatable. I would say no, many others would disagree.

Succeed in selling the book and making some decent profit for the author? I think so, judging by the sales figures.

> someone at some point in the family of "Cartoon Republican Villain" was also a poor sob with a single shot to make it.

Sure, at a time of much greater economic opportunities, (i.e. after WWII), than people starting from $0 have today.

I did not agree at all. In my experience it's much easier to make 1 million then it is to invest 1 million and make another million.

Also there are many startups that require zero investment capital and if you do not have a family and you minimise your expenses you can leave on very very little. If you do have a family it's more difficult but still possible.

'Its easier to make a million starting from zero than make a million starting with a million' is the essence of what you just said.

This is easily the dumbest thing Ive ever heard on this site. Seriously.

Can we guild and save this somehow?

He may be talking about loaning the first million from bank.

Maybe, but I would argue it's probably a bit easier to get a $1m loan if you already have $1m in assets to use as leverage.

Are you talking from your own experience? I am. I made a million dollars and it wasn't easy but it was actually a lot more difficult to invest $1 million and make more money with it. I personally found it a lot more difficult.

I think most people greatly underestimate the difficulty in investing money successfully.

If you are talking about the amount of time invested ... yes of course there is a lot less time spent investing. However if you are talking about the probability of success I would argue It's not as high as you would think to take $1 million and turn it into $2 million.

So are you arguing that once you make a million, there are factors that will stop you from getting to 2 million? Kind of confused how it could get harder to make more money. Once you are at a million you can leverage that money as well as doing whatever it is you did to make the original money..

Yeah but the point of the post had nothing to do with the difficulty of investing....what are you even going on about?

>>I did not agree at all. In my experience it's much easier to make 1 million then it is to invest 1 million and make another million.

Really. Let's hear your formula.

Because the stock market returns 7% per year on average after inflation, which means it takes about 10.2 years for $1 million to become $2 million. What's even better is that this happens behind the scenes - you don't have to do any work for it.

So what's your formula for getting from zero to $1 million in 10 years without doing any work?

Lotto!!

There is no guarantee the stock market will return money in the future. The past does not equal the future and in fact some experts predict that the stock market will return around 3% on average going forward. Also even if the average return was 7% most people have achieved much less than that.

Obviously it's less effort to invest in the stock market so if you're talking about the amount of effort then yes investing is easier

>>There is no guarantee the stock market will return money in the future.

It will always return money as long as it exists. How much it will return is debatable.

>>Obviously it's less effort to invest in the stock market so if you're talking about the amount of effort then yes investing is easier

Uh, you said, "In my experience it's much easier to make 1 million then it is to invest 1 million and make another million."

What is this about, if not effort?

uhhh, then shouldn't you constantly be taking $0 and turning it into $1M?

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