Hacker News Reader

Comment by treis | Hacker News Reader

IMHO, this misses the point. How the fuck can Elon/Tesla buy bitcoin, do a pump and dump, and walk away with enough money to cover 300 lifetimes of me working. Or some kid in a basement that bought GME options gets to retire and not work a day in their life. Also the guy that VC gifted 6 figures (multiple years of me working) of equity just because he wanted more money from the acquisition.

Watching people get a bunch of money over and over for no work starts to make you question things. All these people get a bunch of money by gaming the system so why not try that instead of working? It does make me a bit salty and that's someone who in the grand scheme of things gets a lot of money for not much work. I can only imagine how a wage-slave busting their hump feels.

View on HN

It's not gaming the system, it's having money. That's the system. People with money can get more of it. Start with it, and you can get more of it. Lots more of it if you know what you're doing. If you don't, you'll die with about the same millions you started with.

Elon can pump and dump because he has a massive following and can manipulate the market. Some kid in a basement can buy GME options, but for every one of those you see on Reddit, you'll not see 10 or 50 people who lost money on the bet, or it'll be a large corporation who lost out on the meme stocks, but they just use the tax system to write off the losses.

It seems that mass media and culture is revealing some truths, that there are extremely wealthy people at the top 0.01%, far above even surgeons or lawyers or engineers, who work very hard and are just as smart as the ultra-rich (if not more smart/hardworking). The difference is those professionals optimized for interesting, impactful work that also pays nicely, and the ultra-rich are optimizing for maximal wealth creation, or they're simply inheriting it or getting lucky on risky bets.

In any case, I think lower-wage workers will slowly get a better lot, since our employment rate is increasing and people after the pandemic are realizing how exploitative many jobs are.

> far above even surgeons or lawyers or engineers, who work very hard and are just as smart as the ultra-rich

I've been seeing this assumption float around quite a bit around HN. Where is this coming from? Where is this belief that "ultra-rich" or "having interest in money" implies intelligence?

Not saying one way or the other. Just genuinely curious.

Oh I was going to question the other two assumptions, that surgeons, lawyers, and engineers work very hard, and that they (as an averaged group) are just as smart as the ultra-rich (as an averaged group)

People who are highly skilled in one area run the same range as anyone else in other areas. Sometimes it even seems like people who focus hard in one area are the least balanced in depth and accuracy of general knowledge. I want to see the experiments testing the wisdom of the crowd done on experts in one field.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisdom_of_the_crowd

> Watching people get a bunch of money over and over for no work starts to make you question things.

You're ignoring risk. Do you feel the same way when people win lotteries? Because everybody has access to Robinhood, so nothing is stopping you from gambling on penny stocks or random crypto and you just might get retirement money or lose it all.

>Do you feel the same way when people win lotteries?

I mean that's the point. Lotteries are supposed to be lotteries. The economy is supposed to be an economy where people earn what they receive.

I see where you're coming from, but people earn without risk, when I go to work from 9 to 5, I'm getting my paycheck, I know exactly how much it's going to be, I know exactly what time it's going to be deposited into my account, etc.

When I put my capital to work, I might earn, but I might also lose a lot (ask anyone who bought Bitcoin at 63k$ for example). Obviously, in a capitalist society, capital is the most important thing (I'm not saying that's right or wrong).

Also, if you have millions of people "investing" in the stock market, even in penny stocks, a few of them are bound to get right, you just don't hear too much about people that lost it all.

Crypto, the stock market and startup equity are not the economy. They are far closer to lotteries.

There is something very wrong with a society where a major driver of success and wealth is risk taking and gambling, in its various forms.

What is very wrong? High risk, high reward.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com