What It Feels Like to Be Rich
jamesaltucher.com
jamesaltucher.com
He almost gets there, but he closes by saying he didn't appreciate money enough. That wasn't the problem. I wonder what stops him from connecting the dots.
The Survival level is met when one's basic needs are met. This doesn't mean the risk of insulting inconveniences (such as having to move under adverse conditions) go away, but one isn't at risk of starvation or homelessness once it is achieved. Leisure is the level of most middle-class people: buying TVs, going on longer and nicer vacations. Comfort is having cleaning services and getting to fly business or first class when traveling: essentially having a life with as few annoyances as possible.
Most normal, man-on-the-street types will admit they want to be rich enough to max out the Comfort level, while frowning upon those who care about Status and Power. The problem is that one doesn't max out the Comfort level until over $500,000 per year. Most people think they'd be happy to "get off" at that point, but it's really hard to keep that kind of income, steadily, unless either (1) you have $30 million net worth or so, and most people at that point feel like they're entitled to more than a lower-upper-income lifestyle, or (2) more commonly, you get some sort of job paying that much income. You simply don't get the latter unless you convince people that you're "special". This is what draws rich people into the idiotic status obsessions-- the need to socially climb in order to continually prove themselves to be worth those kinds of salaries and favors-- and that game is pretty much never-ending. It's gambling: spending money in ways that seem ludicrous on high-end art, real estate, club memberships, and alcoholic beverages simply because they are exclusive and expensive in the hope of improving one's social status and, therefore, future income. As with any gamble, some people lose everything. Rich people are no exception.
I got a good idea of what it feels like to be rich by going to a third world country. Even though I'm just barely scraping in at average in Australia, I was seriously freaking loaded by an order of magnitude compared to most people in Ghana and could afford to take the nicest cars (taxis) buy beer regularly and eat at "real" restaurants rather than roadside vendors. I was able to buy 5 or 10 dollar mobile recharge cards whilst most of the population purchased their recharges in 50 cent increments from street vendors.
I'm sad to say that my biggest reaction was frustration. Everyone I met was trying to get my money somehow. It seemed like every conversation would turn into some sort of scam opportunity or even just wanting to get my help somehow.
I thought "I can't help you people! I'm just normal, I don't have that much money!". It wasn't until I was actually on the plane home that I realised that I'd just experienced being rich. It seems as though it's all relative - that the "rich folks" don't see themselves as rich because when you're rich, you just get bigger expenses.
Of course your standard of living improves, but it must be hard to ever feel so rich that you're happy just giving money away to everyone who asks (and I'm sure that you get asked a LOT).
The saying "It is not sufficient that I succeed. Everyone else must fail" has been associated with Larry Ellison so often that most people think it originated with him.
Actually, it came centuries ago with Genghis Khan. Ellison has referred to the quote in conversations, then laughed rather unconvincingly and tried to distance himself from the sentiment. But it sticks nonetheless.
Money also buys happiness if you know the right things about hedonic psychology - that owning a possession isn't as exciting as the moment of first acquiring it which is what you anchor on when thinking of its value, and that the trick is to buy happy memories, and that you should ask "What experiences would excite me?" instead of "What static qualities would make me happy?", etcetera.
It's bleeping amazing what you can do with money and knowledge.
Six months of savings means you're okay as long as (1) the economy doesn't utterly tank, which it almost did in 2008 and probably will do before 2020 because of the assholes running it, and (2) you don't have any major health problems. It means that as long as the option for talented people people to reliably sell labor to the market at a fair price exists, and as long as you don't develop health problems that render you unable to make this exchange (i.e. hold down a job) then you don't need to worry about events like layoffs. Fair, I'll grant you that, but there's a great deal of difference between the single-9 security offered by being smart and prudent while having an emergency fund and the triple-9 security offered by millions of dollars and elite social connections.
By that definition, our current economy seems to be functioning quite well. There seem to be a lot of long term unemployed people, but total production/consumption/etc has pretty much recovered [1]. This strongly suggests that the people currently unemployed were not productive when they had work.
Of course, I'm assuming "competent" and "productive" are roughly the same thing. I can see reasonable distinctions to be made between them under some circumstances, e.g. a competent buggy whip maker.
By the way, if you develop health problems that render you unable to hold down any job, you are eligible for SS disability benefits. So your losses always have a lower bound.
[1] I link to data here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2240468
By the way, if you develop health problems that render you unable to hold down any job, you are eligible for SS disability benefits. So your losses always have a lower bound.
What if you develop health problems that render you unable to hold a decent job? (Then there is the problem of defining "decent", but I'm not even going there.) The worst jobs in the U.S. to not pay enough for a person to live on. Besides, for someone like an engineer to end up in retail would be such a waste of talent that he or she might as well not work.
This is simply false. Standard of living has increased dramatically since the 70's. Houses are a LOT bigger: http://www.realtor.org/RMODaily.nsf/pages/News2007032701?Ope...
Unlike 1970, the bottom 11% have flush toilets: http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/database/article_display.cf...
The benefits of increased productivity have helped everyone consume more. It's only increases to CPI-adjusted income (which wildly overstates inflation http://www.ssa.gov/history/reports/boskinrpt.html ) which is concentrated at the top.
I won't address your complaints about American vs European values, or what I think (but I'm not completely sure) is an attempt to invoke Godwin's law by comparing Republicans to Nazis (or Communists?). Not sure if "middle of last century" refers to the 40's, 50's or 60's.
However, I do find your suggestion interesting. Would a "functioning economy" (by your definition) also not discard obsolete machinery? Or does your definitiongive human labor a privileged position relative to other inputs? These are all perfectly fine things to do. Taking different definitions doesn't change the underlying reality, I'm just curious about the thought processes leading to yours.
Or perhaps the most striking example - gasoline was initially a "waste" product from the refinement of petroleum into kerosene. It was kerosene that people wanted, because that could function as a substitute for expensive whale oil in lamps. Well, kerosene and heavy fuel oils that could power steam turbines. It wasn't until the development of the internal combustion engine that gasoline became useful, and that engine was economically feasible largely because gasoline was a cheap waste product of a process that was already in use.
The goal of the economy at large is to take the resources we have available - land, labor, capital, natural resources, and ideas - and convert them into the things that we, as human beings, want most. In rare occasions, that means throwing it out entirely. But in most cases, there's some use for your garbage, and it's the job of the entrepreneur to figure out what that is. I can't really believe that the best use of unemployed people is to have them sitting around on the couch feeling sorry for themselves.
I've yet to meet an anti-materialist from a poor family or a third world country. Such worldviews are a luxury for the children of the rich.
In college I was floored by how jaded people's perspectives are - my dad raised a family of 5 on 40k a year. My mom worked occasionally. Somehow, in spite of some of the things I missed out on (camp, peewee football), I feel I came out ahead.
Hiring a personal assistant, maid service, hiring people to do work for you directly, having a lawyer on retainer, that sort of thing. (Now I know why rich people are always threatening to sue.) Chartering jets, too.
My favorite Rich Guy solution: Throw away all your mismatched socks, buy all identical tube socks from Walmart, and never spend time pairing your socks again. This actually only costs like $30.
I've met millionaires who were quiet about their money...actually, I think that probably describes most of the millionaires I've met...but people still knew they were millionaires. Mostly because there's some press release about them selling a company lying around the web, or people know they were Google employee #50, or something like that. I'm wondering if it's possible to make lots of money and not have that Google-trail around.
Then again, if I knew anyone like that, I wouldn't know they were a millionaire, after all...
I guess entrepreneurs ask for money (as funding) but at least they are offering you a piece of themselves in return, so it doesn't feel nearly as bad.
Reminds me of this article - http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/01/11/why-so-many-ric...
If you fail to resist, you end up on the hedonic treadmill pretty quickly.
(My vice: investing in startups. I guess that's better for the ecosystem, at least.)
The reason I asked though, is that I personally wouldn't want to work with someone who told me 'what I wanted to hear' just because they were dependent on me. You should be able to express your thoughts at any income level, but yeah, there's an art to how that message can be delivered.
"I think we need to rewrite module x. It's too slow."
"Fuck you boss man. Rewrite your own damn module. I'm going to rewrite module Y, which is REALLY the slow one." - makes you a dick.
"We'd probably get more bang for the buck by rewriting module Y first. I think that's where the performance issues really are. After that, why don't we see where we stand?" - is an honest answer, and scores you points.
"Yes sir master boss man sir. I will rewrite module X all day long." is 'what they want to hear', and also, a completely worthless answer.
The point being, having a valid opinion isn't a luxury of the rich. Being able to say 'fuck off' might be, but unless you're independently wealthy, you likely still have customers, or board executives, or SOMEbody that warrants being civil to. There's no value in being a dick for the sake of it.
If it seems like I'm coming down hard on you, don't. I'm just saying what I feel. Also, I'm not even remotely rich. I could have misinterpreted the situation entirely.
"The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good."
I found the article held some bittersweet sentiments on what it was like to have (a good deal of) money. To the point of the title he spoke of a false sense of security and casual arrogance. Both of which I find reasonable, but not universally applicable.
I don't see how the positions you list alter this interpretation, but I'd be very interested in hearing how they altered yours.
Not if you're actually qualified to question them; if on the other hand you're not a specialist in the field and you're claiming all those who are haven't a clue what they're talking about, then yes, there's something wrong with it and you're very likely both wrong and a quack.
So basically, the scientific process is limited to a group of select insiders and outside criticism is forbidden?
FYI, most serious skeptics don't claim the specialists "haven't a clue". They claim that the certainty in our current conclusions is overstated. It's also important to note that many AGW proponents make the exact same claim when geoengineering is discussed.
Let me rephrase that for you to more reflect reality...
The scientific process is limited to those educated on the subject and criticism from the uneducated isn't taken seriously nor should it be.
So, if you're not a climate scientist, and your position on climate science is in opposition to 99% of actual climate scientists, it's very likely that you don't know what the fuck you're talking about and should be summarily ignored by any rational person.
FYI, I'm a former scientist, so I have some idea of the scientific process. It's actually pretty rare for a field to declare outside opinions worthless. The only other fields I'm aware of which try to do this are math ed, labor economics, and psychometrics of race/gender.
I'm also not sure why you are attempting to conflate not being a climate scientist with being uneducated. That's simply ridiculous.
> It's actually pretty rare for a field to declare outside opinions worthless.
You're the one that keeps bringing up the word worthless. I said people who hold strong opinions on topics in which they aren't educated should be ignored because they have a high probably of not knowing what the fuck they're talking about. That's a fact!
Perhaps you're confused about the difference between outside opinion and uneducated opinion or perhaps you just want to setup a straw man to demolish.
> I'm also not sure why you are attempting to conflate not being a climate scientist with being uneducated.
I'm not, you're projecting; but it tells me plenty about you.
Let me know when it's actually most climate scientists making those bogus predictions and then maybe you'll have a point. Being an environmentalist doesn't make someone's opinion qualified.
> ClimateGate letters show strong evidence of politics and groupthink affecting the field
They showed no such thing. There was no wrong doing uncovered nor anything unethical, ClimateGate was a fake story put on and kept alive by the press.
Dishonest and illegal behavior on the part of politically motivated climate scientists does reduce my belief in their impartiality, yes.
My beef is not with it being PC or nPC.
It is about questioning the theorie(s) in a scientific manner with rigorously formulated and educated questions. Otherwise, it is merely politics/BS/political-BS.
A) did it have to do with the article in question?
B) Did you see the reference to climate change on wikipedia or you have actually read the chapter on it in my book where I feel I present a very balanced view.
My ire was directed towards the idea that any criticism of global climate change is bunk simply because it is not PC. I would posit that such criticism, in the context of general public and media, is mostly bunk for the reason I outlined in my first reply.
Suddenly capital costs are higher for everyone, and my dishonesty creates a drag on the creation of startups, and expansion of successful enterprises.
Other firms would take to releasing info themselves in order to set expectations and reduce risk - which already happens, but there'd be a huge driver for more so - lest others trade early on the info.
The effect on startups, even in your scenario, would be nil / positive. We already have a ton of risk priced in, and we're not required to file 10K's, etc. Also, most startup boards include the lead investor who has access to all "insider" info already - you don't think they share that with that in future follow on rounds?
Also, because cheaters can't be predicted in advance and your "cure" is only retroactive, the capital costs are born by everyone.
Startups get capital because the business they create will eventually be worth a multiple of their earnings. If that multiple is reduced because of an "insider cheating" penalty, the attractiveness of the investment is reduced, and therefore the amount of investment that will chase it. There is no floor on the risk discount that can be assigned to the price of an investment, except perhaps $0.00.
- more accurate and timely information (stock pricing) - firms increasing transparency (info) to remove financing volatility - Current SEC 10k's, etc. are of little value as we've seen. It must be forced to prevent loopholes - insider trading does this from the inside.
What I'm not saying: That market manipulation (ex. Pump and Dump) should be legal - thats another issue, and provides no value (information or otherwise). That's anti-competitive behavior with no societal benefit I can see - and hence should be regulated and leaked using insider trading ;-)
Other concerns: - Fraud in insider trading: Perhaps it should still be illegal to lie about your inside knowledge, and further firms that trade would have every incentive to confirm the data with other sources. - Risk pricing would be far better than luck if there were a lot of data points for each company due to multiple leaks over time and other business intel. The Street already know these CEOs, etc. - they don't exist in vacuums. - Your startup risk pricing ideas don't address the differences I cited - who is insider trading startups? That'd mean investing based on the inside numbers the company has - which is already normal for investors to have access to, and if a founder fudges those - it's fraud.
Your concerns about risk pricing are due to this "real" cheating, which insider trading helps discover, and hence eliminates risk.
Am I off base here?
But you have interesting ideas and presented them diplomatically, and I like heretical thinking, so have some upvotes.
Also - computer trading would be able to pick up to differences in trading strategy (by seeing big positions taken) and react quickly - minimizing total profits and bringing prices closer to reality.
Also - your company would have a higher incentive to treat you well if you could legally sell the info to Goldman Sachs to trade on and give you a commission. That's the populist side of insider trading.
Allowing insider trading will create asymmetric information in the stock market, and that risks creating a "market for lemons" type situation and reducing liquidity. Say that insiders are allowed to trade whenever they want, on whatever information they have. As an outside investor without that information, I should then assume that I will get a raw deal on any trade that I make. The rational action, then, is to avoid trading that stock at all. Even if there're initially lots of non-insiders to trade with, they are all making the same economic calculation, and will come to the same conclusion. Hence, anyone rational will leave the market, and the only people left will be those with inside information, creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. That defeats the whole point of a public stock market.
When you think about economics, you can't stop at first-order effects. The immediate effect of insider trading may be to increase the speed with which information gets to the market, but the long-term effect is to destroy the market itself, as every participant then has an incentive not to trade.
Anyway, the ironic part of my original comment is that I'm actually not an outsider by most people's POV. I can think of a number of people that would pay good money for upcoming Google product releases, were it not illegal (and grounds for firing). So in strictly personal terms, I'd stand to benefit quite a bit from legalized insider trading, but in academic terms, it'd destroy the system that generally works pretty well.
Think: Pfizer is considering pulling Viagra from the market in response to a possible side effect. then next week After, a full review we find no evidence that any such effect exists.
I know! All these pesky facts backed up with data get in the way.
What we should do is make society more like college, where people have a lot of choice in what they work on, and where successful people help the less successful people but one's level of success isn't seen as an important thing about oneself. I was "successful" in college (3.9 math major) and it wouldn't have been weird or awkward to sit at the same table as someone with a 2.7. I didn't even know what my friends' GPAs were, and I didn't care when I did know. Yet we live in a world where most people don't even have a single friend outside of their social class.
If you need to pay someone to explain this shit to you, well... words fail me. Jesus.
This is why it's important to leave the ivory tower occasionally guys. Or in some cases, at all.
EDIT: In retrospect this is unnecessarily vitriolic. I obviously wish you the best, and I recognise that unhappiness is relative. Those were just my honest first thoughts on reading the article.
Good to see at least a little justice in this world. I wouldn't wish bad things to happen to anybody, but if it has to happen to someone, well, the guy who is so foolish with his money would be tops on my list.
I just believe that those who are blessed in life shouldn't flush it down the toilet. A million dollars a week? Think of how many people could have been fed, or how many jobs could have been created!
People romanticize the "starving artist" whose work becomes famous after his death, but I'd wager that 4/5 of the people who really moved humanity forward were wealthy people, not because they're any better (they aren't) but because they had the time and autonomy to follow their interests. Sociologically, the most effective people tend to come from the fringes of the elite (cf. Jobs, Gates): people who don't have their life and work clogged up by common burdens (distractions, stress and fear, subordination) but who also aren't in the "golden prison"-- the elite's conservative, status-obsessed core-- which is just as disabling a place to be, for a person wanting to do something good with his life, as reeking poverty.
My guess at how I would react if I suddenly became rich is that I'd have an hour of euphoria, then 3 days of anxiety, then 6 months of a "this is nice" celebratory mood, and then spend the rest of my life marginally happier but a lot more productive than I'd otherwise be. What appeals to me most about making lots of money isn't some false promise about being super-happy (that'll wear off) but the thought of actually being able to contribute to this world, and maybe make it better so that when I pass on into whatever comes after this place, I do so with a sense of completion and good karma.
Say my boss really hated me and fired me. So what? I would be in exactly the same place as when I took the job, except with several thousand dollars more in the bank, a lot more useful skills, and a few tangible accomplishments that I could use to get my next clients. I've been meaning to found another startup for a while now; this would be just the kick in the pants needed to actually make it happen.
After all, I went without an income for a year the last time I founded a startup, and nothing bad happened. There were plenty of jobs waiting when I folded it up (even though it was the dark days of late 2008 when everybody thought the economy was ending), I didn't go bankrupt or have to pay back massive debts, and people didn't look at me like a failure.
Immigrants have this same advantage, as long as they have that green card. If someone fires them, then they end up without a job, possibly without money, without anything but the skills in their head - which is generally exactly how they came to this country. If they made it before, they can make it again. The only problem is that many immigrants don't have that green card, so getting fired means getting deported, which sets them back all the way past their start point.
WTF?