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Comment by IsaacSchlueter | Hacker News Reader

You may think I'm rich, but I don't.

How very very true that is. I have friends that make less than half what I do. Once upon a time, I would have thought that my current income would mean I'd "made it". But somehow, here I am, still occasionally concerned about being overdrawn, still trying to be frugal, still feeling like I don't make enough to do all the things I want to do. By world standards, I was fantastically wealthy when I was peddling vacuums.

Some things are more a function of the human condition than anything else. People in San Diego complain about the weather.

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I thought that was a fairly inane point. While I have no doubt that Joe Millionaire feels like he's not rich if he can't buy a new Lotus without blinking, that's pretty much irrelevant to any practical discussion of wealth.

When your income places you well into the top 1% of earners and you're still hurting for cash, that's your problem. Learn to live within your means.

Well that goes to the definition of rich. I'd say it is (or should be) at least partially to do with the psychology.

Some people hurt for cash and are frugal no matter how rich they are. This helps them get rich.

I don't think its a matter of "hurting for cash." Its the thought that you could lose it all just as easily as gaining it all (or actually much, much easier). And as you get older and accumulate responsibilities, the overhead of families, good schools, retirement, all weigh on you making that thought all the more horrific.

Entrepreneurs are probably much more vulnerable to these kinds of worries, because that's what they worried about (losing it all) on the way up.

I think the clearest line between rich and not is whether you have to work to earn a living. In my book, if you're an "earner" at all, you're not rich yet.

I think it's both not working to earn a living and what a person can easily afford to do.

I say this because I don't think one needs a lot of money to not need to earn a living.

Sure, whether you need to work to earn a living depends on the standard of living and risk level you're comfortable with. But I think it's possible to set a reasonable upper bound. Say, around the point where your interest income at a typical risk-free rate, after reinvestment to keep pace with inflation, would put you among the highest earners in the world if it were ordinary income. Defining "highest earners" as those in the top two US tax brackets, that amount is currently around $8-10M, or on the order of 2^23 present-day dollars.

Personally I think on the order of 2^22 dollars reasonably qualifies as well. Maybe that's because of the standard of living I'm used to. Certainly if you have 2^24 dollars and you don't think you're rich, you have a definition of wealth that ignores a major qualitative difference in what a person can afford to do. Above 2^23 dollars, I think additional wealth begins to put you more in the realm of the low-level aristocracy and rulers than the merely rich.

That's just begging the question -- if your income is in the top 1% of all earners, and you still "have to work for a living", then you're pretty clearly not living within your means.

It's quite obvious that the definition of the word "rich" is relative, and subjectively defined. Yet everyone seems to focus on that relativity as if it's some huge, meaningful insight. It isn't. At the end of the day, if you're earning more than 99% of everyone around you, and you still can't pay your bills? That means that you're doing it wrong.

  Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen six, 
  result happiness. 
  Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pound ought and six, 
  result misery.

-- Charles dickens, david copperfield

all things are relative. You can be the smartest person in your state, but not the country. You can be the smartest person in the country, but not the world. Same thing with wealth, you may be a millionaire but there are MILLIONS other people who are richer than you.

So if you're the smartest person in the world, does everything stop being relative? Or do you start worrying about alternative Everett branches?

Well at that point I guess you can strive to be the smartest person ever. But its a finite measure, at some point there is always that 1 person who is the richest/smartest.

Well, smartness is a bit more complex. I may be better at skill A, but my friend is way good at B. Thus, he is "smarter".

And thus the problem with IQ tests...

Wealth isn't like that though. If I have X Peso's (Or Dollars, etc) and you have X + Y then you are richer (for any positive value of Y).

The only 2 limits to comparison that I can see is: * Liquidity - (ie - Bill Gates can't sell all his MSFT stock without the price crashing significantly) * Historical Data - How do BillyG/Buffet/Slim compare to Rockefellar and King Soloman?

Actually it is the same. As you point out, the formula for converting all of the forms of wealth into the same units is subjective. In order to determine the richest person in the world this is just as important as defining the right way to measure the smartest person.

And both equally pointless.

This reminds me of what someone taught me about being the relative best. Sometimes it is good enough to be the best in your environment. For example, it is easier to be the most popular guy in a room (e.g. throw a party/be a host/invite lots of people) than the most popular guy in a club. Big fish in a small pond. Local maximums (City Council member) are more realistic and achievable than global maximums (global maximum = U.S. President).

Everything is relative. No matter what you have, there is always someone with more. If you have $1 million, there's someone with $10. If you have $10 million, there's someone with $100. If you have $100 million, there are billionaires. And if you're the richest of the billionaires, there will still be people who are better looking, healthier, younger, and happier whom you can feel inferior to.

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