Face It, You’ll Never Be Rich | Hacker News Reader

Face It, You’ll Never Be Rich

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24 pointsbribri40 comments

Worth noting is that some HN users ARE rich, or will be rich some day. Still most of us aren't / won't ever be, but even then a majority are (hopefully) at least being well paid.

While his tone is a bit dreary, I don't think he's wrong. Being rich is part of the American dream for many, which you can see from how popular lotteries are. But for the most part, people aren't going to make the leap to riches in their lifetime, and those that do often fall right back.

There are definitely forces at play to help keep it that way, some of which he outlined. (I find the life insurance thing to be hard to believe because, of how creepy it is). But its no coincidence the middle class has eroded while the divide has widened.

Still, I've got a computer that works, a room, some heat, cats and a piano; and I don't have to pinch pennies to feed myself. It's not wrong for me to want better for myself, but it's not wrong for me to be happy for what I have either.

But equally true, as he identified, is that I can't do a lot to help my mom out and am just getting by in a lot of ways myself. So for me, getting rich would mean being able to take care of her and give her some independence and take away a lot of the stress.

> I've got a computer that works, a room, some heat, cats and a piano

Sounds like you've got everything you need.

> The fear drug works like this: you are repeatedly told that bad, scary people are going to kill you, so place all your trust in us, your corporate leaders, and we will protect you.

I've literally never been told anything like that ever.

I've been told similar things by the gov't as reasons we need TSA and civilian spying programs...but never from a corporate entity.

News media companies are corporate entities, they have plenty of scary news every day.

You've never heard "trust the free market," "just deregulate <problematic sector>," or "the government is just a bunch of thugs with guns looking for an excuse to take your money"? How long have you been on HN :P ?

"During the past 20 years, companies [...] have been secretly taking out life insurance policies on their low- and mid-level employees and then naming themselves – the corporation – as the beneficiary!"

Wow, that's an interesting thing. Never heard of that.

Though, what exactly is wrong with this? Or why would people (and Moore) be upset about it? He makes it seem like they're taking something from the individuals, something that their family should get after their death. To me, it sounds like the company is not taking out "life insurance" but rather, some sort of "loss-of-employee" insurance in the case that they lose a valued, productive member of their workforce.

There is nothing wrong with it, and yes it is common. And no, it doesn't change anything about the employee's personal life insurance.

The insurance is to cover their cost of replacing you. Finding and training a new employee costs money, sometimes a lot of money. From a developer's standpoint, it often take 3-6 months for a developer to be productive in a new environment...sometimes longer (and from what I've seen, knowing the language ahead of time doesn't really change anything, it is time spent learning the business problem).

It's unsettling that in some cases it may be in the best interest of the company for you to die

This guy made his $50M net worth by making films about the evils of capitalism. It's amazing.

"When I was poor and complained about inequality, they said I was bitter. Now I'm rich and complain about inequality and they say I'm a hypocrite. I'm starting to think they just don't want to talk about inequality." - Russell Brand

Yet it's still valid to say that almost everyone reading the article, or 95% of people, will never be rich (having the wealth of the top 5%). You can be a rich elite and still realize that your position is not an "everyman" position that can be attained by merit alone.

Bill Gates or Warren Buffet hypothetically telling me that I can be in their shoes is a blatant lie

Yeah, if you any problems with the governance of our economy, intellectual honesty requires that you go forage in the wilderness. /s

Are you trying to discredit the author because he's wealthy? or are you saying he would have good insight into the problem because of his knowledge?

Could you elaborate on why you find that amazing?

It's amazing that you can complain about something... and then get that rich off of it. Definition of hypocritical.

he didn't complain about something and get rich off of it. He actually did a lot of research, interviewing and general filmmaking about the topic and others, and thats what he made his money from. Because we, the consumers, paid to see it.

That's not hypocritical.

Please send me your bitcoin wallet address so I can pay you for complaining about his complaining.

He says that there is a 1-in-a-million chance you'll get rich. There's 314 million people in the US. Is it statistically true that only 314 Americans will ever get rich?

If you define rich as billionaire, that's about right. There are 492 billionaires in the US, according to Wikipedia.

I guess there is that distinct difference between rich and wealthy, where wealthy means you have just reached the point where you can live off of your investments.

I guess rich is just lots of money, regardless of what you do with it?

Exactly. And those 314 people probably control the country anyway.

Lots of people are calling him anti capitalism, communist etc. IIRC he's not against capitalism, or free markets. He's against uneven playing fields. Ones where robbing a 7-11 gets you shot and killed vs committing a multimillion dollar crime gets you a relatively small fine (one by which it's still profitable). He's against markets where CEOs are worshipped despite there being zero correlation btwn CEO pay and company performance [1]

Michael Moore is against people being treated as means, and not ends of their own accord.

[1]:http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-07-22/for-ceos-cor...

> robbing a 7-11 gets you shot and killed

I have absolutely no problem with people getting killed when they put lives in immediate danger (armed robbery) and not getting killed when they don't (most white collar crime.)

You point a gun at someone, you might get shot. And you should.

The leap from robbery to armed robbery is quite a large one, and really deflects from point at hand, which is that the justice system (in the US and certainly elsewhere) favors the rich.

I have had the same takeaway about him, and feel the same as him, or at least similarly. I suspect there will always be unfairness one way or another, but things have been reaching a whole other level lately. I expect it will get better, but not before it gets worse.

I wasn't of investing age during the 80s or 90s but from what I can see it seems to have been a time of massive investment in single stock or what are today called "actively managed funds."

Here in 2014 my feeling is that the average investor is much more savvy, with the majority of their holdings in diversified, low MER, index tracking ETFs.

So the question is, are these ETFs simply the rich's way of duping the masses this time around? Or has competition and the Internet helped lift the fog, disseminate information and arm the average investor so that he won't succumb to the tricks of Moore's evil faceless rich?

This article is from 2003. Did it take hacker news 11 years to find out the shark has been jumped?

Article reminded me of the John Steinbeck quote... "Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires."

this is like that time my middle school science teacher told me, "face it, you'll never be smart."

That probably came from his experience, talking for himself.

For a number of readers of HN, Moore's prediction will be false, but for the typical conservative, this hits the nail on the head. It's not going to win any hearts and minds. No one is going to welcome his realistic pessimism, but it's true and is a useful insight on the reality of conservative talk radio audiences, libertarians, and Tea Partiers. They are their own enemy.

I got a 404... I assume that means I will be rich?

What I find so funny is I met Mike Moore in person and he told me that the secret of success is to be entrepreneurial!

Well, success may not necessarily mean "rich". I think he means idle rich, who can live a lavish lifestyle without working, not millionare-next-door types.

The article is pretty ironic

That guy is wrong.

Was the article deleted? It is 404ing now. Odd.

edit Nevermind, it's fine now.

I had the same thing, then refreshed and it was fine. I think the 404 is not consistent, so technically not an actual "404".

isnt michael moore rich?

he is, by most measure. But really, so what?

If I was rich, and I saw all this unfair bullshit going on, I'd still be pissed off about it. Just because it's not a problem for him doesn't mean its not a real problem. If anything, he's exercising his position to give light to the issue.

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