The referenced reply is dull. It's very pretentious but just reiterates common knowledge, it doesn't convey any useful information.
For example I wish someone told me about the existence of Miele kitchen equipment before I accidentally rented an apartment of a well-to-do woman. She renovated it for herself but then rented out when circumstances changed.
Similarly it took me a long time to realize just how much better the veneer wood furniture and doors are compared to laminated chipwood. Price is 3-4 times higher but it lasts 5-10 times longer and is much more pleasant to use. Unfortunately you need years to notice such long-term differences, unless someone tells you.
And I'm basically learning to be lower-middle class here. I'm sure there are similar things to know in higher stratas and I'm unlikely to live long enough to find out naturally even if I happen to get the money somehow.
My mom worked at a law firm where one of the partners retired, moved to England, and bought a castle. As one does. He told this story while back in the States for a party:
Castles are old. And drafty. And need a LOT of renovations to bring them up to a modern standard. So he had immediately set upon this work, hiring contractors, picking out high-end appliances, arranging for the import of Italian marble countertops...
And once the place was looking nice, he threw a housewarming (castlewarming?) party, and invited all the folks from the neighboring castles. And at this party, he was regaling one of the old-money guests with how nice the downdraft range was, and how it really felt special with the new counters.
"Fascinating.", replied Old-money. "I have never been in my kitchen."
Damn bro, shut your damn mouth using that offensive word for people like me. It's fucking 2025. Hurr durr 4chan kid, that site is dead now time to grow up.
On a personal level I know several guys who are worth $10-30M, one who's worth probably $40M, and one who's worth around $700M, this is LNW.
Not much in the Reddit reply checks out for me. It's true that the $700M guy socializes with "Senators/Congressmen/community leaders." He travels a lot, and comfortably, but has no ownership in a jet. He retired young-ish and no longer works so maybe that's why. He doesn't flash his wealth around except to women he likes, and it's an absolute magnet for them, he gets pretty much any woman he wants to sleep with him simply by being a decent guy who's also worth $750M. I mean, they know that as long as he's dating them they will have a life of permanent luxury travel and not have to work, so not a surprise.
But beyond that he's pretty unassuming, doesn't flash his wealth, and mainly just likes to talk about finance and give people business advice.
The $10-30M people don't seem much different from me. Their contingencies for dealing with potential financial catastrophes run a lot deeper than mine. Their property is worth more and they do travel a bit more frequently and lavishly than I do. Idk nobody I know is doing this stuff where they're really fixated on getting into the best restaurant in town, or they're totally inaccessible except through their "people" and personal assistants.
I don't know a lot of it sounds like a type of person I don't associate with I guess, maybe I am not flamboyant and rich enough. I know there are rich people out there who spend like this guy describes; I interact with them very occasionally and briefly; I'm sure I am super boring to them; I question whether they remain that rich for very long :)
I don't know anyone who hobnobs with celebrities nor wants to. The comment is 10 years old, maybe Hollywood has lost its cultural cachet. Eureka, that's it: this is probably a post about Hollywood people.
>I don't know anyone who hobnobs with celebrities nor wants to.
My wife has an uncle that uses his access to wealth and some connections to meet and develop friendships with sports players. It's not even that expensive but you do have to have the personality to be somewhat charming and have the ability to exploit connections. Once you have an in, you can extend that to others. If I had his money, I'd move out to the middle of the woods and never talk to anyone. I just depends on what you like to do.
The way I think about it you can become a millionaire by yourself through decent strategy, a bit of luck, and a lot of (the right) knowledge. Over $10M you start to need other people who are probably giving you some of their labor at a discount or for free.
He seemed a pretty regular guy, very friendly: kids playing in the pool. Nothing out of the ordinary except as many house employees as adult guests (and house employees where calling guests by their name).
I happened to know the artist Jeff Koons: not a big fan of the "inflated balloon dogs" but I do like his ballerinas. Well... Turns out the dude had one house destroyed then rebuilt to accommodate a 3 meters high Jeff Koons sculpture of two ballerinas.
I don't know exactly but I take it that's a $15m sculpture. I'd say most people don't know who Jeff Koons is and most people have no idea that some people shall just level an entire house just to have an architect redesign a new house, at the same place, so that a sculpture can now be admired from the living room, kitchen and garden.
He's got several paintings from Basquiat too. He's actually in the top 200 of the world's top art collectors (I found that out by googling his name after having been to his place).
And he's got his art pieces sprinkled around the world, in his many properties.
> The $10-30M people don't seem much different from me.
Definitely not very different. One little fantasy I saw not one but two people in that range do is buy several times the exact same car. Identical. Same config. Then they use one as a daily, and put the the others at different vacation places they have: so they land, take a cab, then get to enjoy the same car. Weird but I've seen two people do it, so I take it's a thing? One had identical Range Rover, the other identical Lexus.
Not real petrolheads: rich car petrolheads are actually going to own fancy stuff like old Ferrari 250 (even if "just" a GTE), old GT40, old Porsche, etc. which every body expects rich people to have if they're into cars at all.
But yup: buying x times the exact same car when times comes to change cars is kinda just weird.
> But yup: buying x times the exact same car when times comes to change cars is kinda just weird.
Is it?
I'm on my second iPhone 13 mini, this one being the replacement after the first died of a drop. There are two more stored in the attic, each preconfigured with the accessories I like and with a SIM from my provider in the box. So if anything happens to this phone, as soon as I get home I just break out #3, restore the latest backup, activate the SIM and assign it the number, and I'm back in business at the same old stand.
An iPhone 13 mini with the accessories I like (case and charging adapter) is about $300. That's amply worth it to me, a couple times over, to never have to think about how to replace a cooked phone and get back into communication with my family and the world. Nothing special about the phone, it's if anything unusually unassuming. It's just the phone I happen to like (since 2021 when I concluded it no longer made sense to keep keeping 1st gen SEs alive) and thinking about phones is something I only like doing when I want to. That's the problem this money solves, and I have the money available to use this way, so why not?
Scale the dollar amount up a few orders of magnitude and the necessity down by the same amount, and sure, I see how it makes sense to "just" drop an identical set of wheels at every one of your pieds-à-terre. What did the funny sweary smoking man in the movie say? "You learn to spend what's in your pocket."
I used to do exactly the same before. However, at this time I’m just having a backup (old SE) phone till I’ll get the replacement. Because, economically it’s much cheaper, plus I don’t need to bother with the new phone. If I’m being too worried over the time and energy investment of having to buy a new phone, I’d have one preconfigured. But why would you have two? Just to super-sure at least one would work? Or are you afraid they won’t be as easily accessible some years into the future?
I’m still having the 12 mini, so that’s why I’m not investing into having exactly the same. More likely I’d go with 13 mini, if this one would die suddenly. Or whatever else be on the market by that point. Theoretically, that can happen in 5 years. I’m holding the phone till it’s physically killed, or is unbearably slow.
I maintained five iPhones SE 1st gen from 2016 through most of 2021. Toward the end of that time it grew noticeably more difficult and slow to source model-specific parts and tooling. This time around, I know how to plan ahead more effectively. I had a 12 mini, but knowing Apple only drops a good small phone every half decade to keep us weird nerds interested, when the successor model came out I immediately upgraded.
I don't expect a real problem even in the worst case. The US is a huge internal market and has enough local internet to function. But for $300 flat I would otherwise just save anyway, why not hedge twice while I know I can?
> Scale the dollar amount up a few orders of magnitude
But that's what makes it "weird". Most people can't afford to do that. As you point out, it mashed a certain amount of sense, but we're in the midst of an housing crisis. People who have enough money to own, not just multiple houses, but so many cars that they got tired of different cars so they just bought more of the same? Weird because I've never done that.
How many iphone 13 minis have you used concurrently, and in how many different locations did you own them? Byb your own admission, you only use one at a time.
> How many iphone 13 minis have you used concurrently, and in how many different locations did you own them? Byb your own admission, you only use one at a time.
It's not about concurrent use at all. It's all about availability. I had my simple, trusty Logitech keyboard and mouse. And 2x more of each, in a box, in a cupboard. I'm not using them. But I have the comfort of knowing that if either fails, I'm back up again in two minutes. That, for me, is comfort.
Now, if I had two workplaces (for example home and the office) would I carry my hardware between places? If I can't afford to buy two of them, yes. But if I can afford to pay 20€ twice, I'll have one keyboard at home, the same keyboard at the office, and so. That, for me, is comfort.
Now, scale the keyboard for 20€ to a Lexus for 40k€. Same thing.
I don't know if its weird. This seems to me using money to reduce hassle. At my even lower level of existence I do similar thing in sense I keep one pair toothbrush and paste in upstairs bathroom and another pair at main level just to avoid whatever inconvenience I've thought of in my mind. Same with multiple pair of glasses at different location I work from.
I have not done these things when I had less money and now I think removing minor hassles with extra money is worth it. At another order of magnitude of money I'd definitely acquire multiple copy of things I need.
Just wanna say I do a few things like this, too. Examples being duplicate toiletries and clothing I keep permanently packed so I don't need to actually pack when traveling. I have duplicates of the same vacuum cleaner and broom/dustpan combos on every floor of my house so I don't need to go down or up stairs to get one. If I was wealthy enough to have a vacation home, I could see owning a duplicate car to keep there, assuming I was a more typical person who drove more.
Exactly right. Indulgences become necessity when one moves up the affluence ladder.
I love your go-to bag example which I wished to have but never did. In a weird way because I have more time to pack but not much resources or time to travel anyway.
We'd somehow have to poll a large randomized demographic as to whether having two bathrooms in which you brush your teeth is weird to begin with though.
We could talk about the lingering effects of redlining and the post-WWII housing crisis and how those manifest differently in different parts of the country. Or we could keep up with the weird conspiracy theory stuff. Your call, and I don't mind either way; this look inside your head that you don't realize you are giving has not yet ceased to fascinate.
I didn't say that it wasn't grotesquely flagrant consumption, only that I can follow the reasoning behind it. And I have made no admission of which I am aware.
Hmm, could this whole side-thread be summarized as: a meta thing rich people can do is wield larger sums of money without hitting the same "qualitative boundary exceeded" circuit trips that regular people might hit?
It feels like a bit of a tautology, but I think has some reality to it as well. When you're steeped in a more frugal mindset, it can be hard to remain rational or detached when analyzing consumption patterns "just a few orders of magnitude" larger...
No, I don't believe so. That just reduces to "you learn to spend what's in your pocket" again. That sentence turns on the verb "learn" for a reason.
If I had to guess, I would say I've been braced by someone whose morning was complicated by treating "take with food" as a little too much more of a suggestion than an instruction. No judgment. Nothing I haven't run into before.
Now you've called me a liar. Would you like to try to substantiate that presumptive libel? Or do you simply mistake for virtue the inability you have cultivated to entertain a thought with which you don't agree?
I'd ask if you were new to the Internet, but no one would believe the answer of a liar.
Of the 261 words in your comment (archived at https://archive.is/Vfx9Z#selection-161.6-184.0), none of them mention that you see it as "grotesquely flagrant consumption", so reads like the meme about the temporarily embarrassed millionaire.
Why bother archiving a comment whose edit window has closed? What on Earth do you imagine to be going on here? Your account is twice the age of mine. Do you not know how this website works?
I will say, this no longer appears to me to qualify for the name I suggested a few minutes ago. Oh, the statement remains false, only I now no longer believe you competent to defame. Have you had a meal today?
> buying x times the exact same car when times comes to change cars is kinda just weird.
I would totally do that if I could. I have done it with shoes when I've had the good insight of thinking about it. I do it often with clothes when I find a good product that suits my needs. And I wish I could do it with my very-average-but-reliable car.
I'm dreading the moment I have to buy the next one and take the risky decision.
I am very fortunate to have an above average salary for where I am from, but what surprised me from going to pretty much broke to quite well off, is that my life didn't become flashy, it just became VERY comfortable with normal, everyday things.
I would absolutely do that. Having to relearn instrumentation and optionals, how the car handles, dealing with its size, etc etc, is an absolute ballache. If you're not into cars, there is no novelty in having to drive two or three different cars just because you want to be near the sea this week and near the city next week.
If you were that rich wouldn't you just hire someone to drive well for you? But if you liked driving for the sake of it would it not be part of the enjoyment to learn to handle different vehicles well?
I'm sure it varies, but personally I have a very prosaic reason that I would still drive myself in most scenarios: If someone else is driving I tend to get motion sickness.
Expense? Just hiring a car would not be much more expense but would require more logistics, as you would have to manage scheduling and calling cars. To get a dedicated driver, or team of drivers (to cover 24 hours) and vehicle would be significantly more expensive than a couple extra vehicles. Plus handling the logistics of setting them up to be ready and waiting for you each time you travel would be something else to manage, or would be something to pay a personal assistant to manage. Plus you could still use car services as needed whenever you didn’t want to drive.
Unless you had reached a level where you were having almost everything in your life managed by assistants, and you were the type of person that wanted to give up all that control, then have “your car” ready to go whichever house you were at would be the lower mental overhead solution.
As people are discussing there are different level of rich. At some level one want to reasonably good car that they drive themselves. At another level maybe people send advance team to setup before owner reach their vacation mansion and drive them around, cook their meals, etc once they are there.
> maybe people send advance team to setup before owner reach their vacation mansion and drive them around, cook their meals, etc once they are there.
I can readily believe this does happen at the right level of wealth, but there's something deeply absurd and humorous about someone sending a vanguard to their second or third home before they arrive.
I mean the level of conveniences in developed world are already much much higher even for middle class that we don't even think of them as luxury it would be for > 90% of world population.
My very typical American suburban home on a 0.2 acre lot is better built, has better views, parking, heating, cooling and so on than a 3 generation rich (from my standards) cousins' home in India. However they do have half a dozen servants at home and I have obviously none here.
So it does sound weird that people seek even further from developed world middle class point of view.
Most people don't really like it, but find it to be the best option to go from A to B quickly. If you involve other people, be a driver or a renting business, you add complication and cost.
Steve Jobs did this, he got a new car every 6 months yet for years only drove a 911, then an MB SL55. Why have to learn a new car when you like what you drive?
he got the new cars every 6 months because he could avoid then putting car plates on it (california weird law on new cars) and then not be able to be given tickets when he would park on his disabled spot at cupertino
No, they always had legit California "temporary plates" for the allowable (at the time) 6 months. They were very ticketable; his motivation was to keep his car relatively anonymous when driving around. Source: Me, living near his house and walking by regularly.
This article has a picture of one of Steve Jobs' actual cars with no plates at all (temporary or otherwise). It explicitly talks about a "new" requirement for new cars to be issued temp plates. Before that, brand new cars from the dealer had a 6-month grace period.
> "From 2019, California joins most of the other states in the nation by requiring newly bought cars to be issued temporary license plates."
Right, not a plate: the 6 month temporary operating permit was taped inside the windshield, not on the back of the car, but was still ticketable. On the other hand, the car pictured is from after his death; all of his were black.
> note that they owned the parking, so its moot if they parked on a reserved spot on private property of theirs
Eh, pedantry, but you'll find that building and occupation codes dictate a certain number of disabled parking spots. You could argue that a spot that is ostensibly this, but "everyone knows" is Steve Jobs' spot, is not a disabled parking spot.
(But yes, odds of the City of Cupertino taking any issue with this whatsoever are entirely zero.)
I had a friend of a friend who made millions off FBA/dropshipping in the early days. He has the exact set of about 4 cars at multiple of his properties, all wrapped in a location specific color. Miami they were gold, LA they were purple, NYC they were black, etc.
Yeah, surprise the linked reply doesn't mention art. There's no ceiling there. I suppose you can add actual Jurassic era bones to the weird stuff the wealthy seek out.
> But yup: buying x times the exact same car when times comes to change cars is kinda just weird.
Not really, decision fatigue is a thing.
My colleague actually took me out car shopping a couple of weeks back, to the Ferrari showroom because apparently to get some models, you need to be one of their favorite customers or a referral from one. We also visited a Lamborghini showroom next (which apparently didn't have such restrictions). But deciding between their cars was so tough, and I really wanted to get an EV instead for my daily driver, that I just ended up renewing on my rental Honda Civic for a few more months lol. I could buy these cars, but I tend to be vested in things I buy, and suffer from FOMO for not buying the rest, so might as well postpone the decision to when I can afford to hold them all together and give them time to maintain them.
There's also the real problem with rose tinted glasses. For example, I was a huge fan of the Testarossa ever since I was a kid, but just one drive inside one showed me how badly designed it actually is in the interior.
Please remember that this is from 10 years ago. For wealth comparison, you need to take into account the valuation of assets in this period. What the author says about 700M, is probably roughly equivalent to today's 5 billions.
Without taking a stand on which metric is better for social and lifestyle comparisons, the grandparent poster said 'valuation of assets' rather than inflation. Per Yahoo Finance (https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/%5ESP500TR/), the S&P500 is about 340% of its mid-2015 level on a total return basis (reinvesting dividends).
Today's $700-millionaire would have been a 'mere' $200-millionaire in mid-2015 if invested fully in equities. That allocation is probably ballpark reasonable, since with that kind of net worth investment horizons are very long (multiple generations of inheritors) and the investors themselves can be nearly risk-neutral rather than risk-averse.
> For example I wish someone told me about the existence of Miele kitchen equipment before I accidentally rented an apartment of a well-to-do woman.
Don't believe the hype. I got an apartment full with Miele kitchen equipment (from the previous owner, but less than 10 years old). They're nothing special, and I got a lot more random errors on the oven ("please contact service", tried that once, they were as clueless as you'd expect) than in my previous Siemens kitchen.
We are all Miele at home and for the next renewal, I will go to Bosch/Siemens. Too many small failures here and there (less than 8 year old). I was sincerely surprised because 20 years ago, Miele was the gold standard (at least in Germany). So, I agree with you.
I know that German brands get a lot of cred, but I have never really experienced it much. And thinking about it, it kind of makes sense:
Who in first world developed countries, that is smart, competent, and capable, wants to take a ho-hum salary to develop home appliances? From an economic and financial perspective, it doesn't make sense for Germany to pump out high quality innovative home wares. The brightest German minds aren't working on stove tops, nor should they be.
It makes way more sense for emerging economies to dominate in the space, and unsurprisingly China now seems to be the global hub of mid-tech manufacturing, with lots of innovation in this space.
I compared Miele, Thermador, gaggenau, and regular Bosch 800 fridge side-by-side in a appliance store.
There is nothing on those higher end versions which make them worth anything close to the markup on the Bosch 800 fridge.
If I'm going to spend almost 2X, you better give me at a minimum fully metal and glass construction (almost no plastic). I get slightly more metal and slightly (very slightly) stronger plastics. That's about it.
What a scam. Don't buy Miele or gaggenau. If you want a truly high end fridge, you'll need a built in made by someone like subzero or its competitors.
I really feel that Bosch/Siemens are the best deals right now and there are only minor differences between them (a Simenes freezer might have an extra light fixture whereas the Bosch one does not).
>The referenced reply is dull. It's very pretentious but just reiterates common knowledge, it doesn't convey any useful information.
This is a textbook example of why you can't get a serious answer to anything nuanced on a vote based platform. The low common denominator stuff that is easy to agree with gets everybody clicking the right-think button and to the top it goes. Anything with nuance or controversy gets buried.
Even this comment I am replying to probably wouldn't have wound up where it is did it not pay homage to the god of groupthink by cheerleading for Meile, though any other brand the upper middle class likes would have fulfilled the same rhetorical purpose.
> Price is 3-4 times higher but it lasts 5-10 times longer and is much more pleasant to use.
"The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money. Take boots, for example. ... A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. ... But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry in ten years' time, while a poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.
This was the Captain Samuel Vimes 'Boots' theory of socio-economic unfairness."
I'm curious about this though, does a rich man actually wear the same pair of boots for 10 years?
That being said, I've noticed that a lot of clothes that I bought 10 years ago or so are of pretty high quality compared to today, (and no, they are not rich man's clothes). Some of them I actually have been wearing for more than 10 years now.
Oh hey I'm uniquely positioned to answer this; though I'm in tech (and at this point frankly speaking well-compensated) my family have been bootmakers for decades.
I'm sitting at a tech office right now wearing a pair of boots that my father made for me in 2015 - regardless, they're absolutely spotless and I'd wear them to a formal event without hesitation. Every 6 months or so when I'm by his store I shine them up and put in a fresh pair of leather laces. Every 3 or so years, he re-soles them when the soles eventually wear out and lose traction. Eventually they'll require a rebuild, but they've got probably another 5-10 years of daily wear in them before that. I've got a few more pairs I swap between every so often, like a pair with OD green canvas that looks nice with khakis, but these solid black ones are my daily wear.
While 10 years sounds like a good run for boots, my father has a pair at ~35 years old now that he still wears frequently. IIRC they've been through one or two rebuilds and few re-soles in that time.
Were these commodity sneakers, I'd be purchasing a new pair every few months. Even nice running or trail shoes only tend to last a few hundred miles in my experience, but I've put tens of thousands on these and will get ten thousand more easily. Re-soles and rebuilds aren't free, but they're less than a replacement and put years of lifetime back on the boot. They're also comfortable as hell and fit me like a glove.
So in short: yeah, rich men do wear the same pair of boots for 10 years, or even far longer.
Not all boots are made the same though. I had some bad luck with a pair of veldtschoen welted boots from the English firm Crockett and Jones in a custom leather. The commando sole split twice at the toe, which they repaired, but after less than five years of wear the lining at the heel had worn through.
I took them in to be rebuilt, but after inspection they said the stiffener had come loose, and nothing could be done. Here have your expensive and now broken boots back.
I'd assumed when I got them I'd be wearing them for decades, and at least a few rebuilds. Maybe there was something wrong with that specific pair, but I did have a goodyear welted sole randomly detach from a pair of six month old city shoes from the same firm. And yes I had been looking after my shoes (frequent cleaning and polishing, always using shoe trees, skipping days between wears, etc).
When I had a pair of Church's fall apart I put that down to them no-longer being a quality brand, but now I don't think you can guarantee a long life just as the shoe was expensive and from a reputable brand. I have many shoes that have lasted better (and now since covid I don't wear polished shoes daily), but that does sometimes feel like luck of the draw.
Yes, that's my family's business, I'm glad to hear you've had such great experiences. Similar to you, I've never looked back; every time I put on trail shoes I yearn for my boots again.
I bought Levi's 501s at a farm supply store in the 80s, $12 on sale. About 10 years ago I gave away my two remaining pairs. They were a little thinner but still intact, no holes anywhere. Modern 501s are made of much thinner fabric; I'd be surprised if they would last 5 years. Looks like the sale price is $45 now, which seems comparable.
I bought a pair of 501s recently and they barely lasted 6 months. I do a fair bit of cycling which seemed to very quickly wear through them. I'm really not sure what to buy if I want things that last a long time now.
Of course. And also it may be less expensive to buy 5 pairs of shoes that last 3 years each than 1 pair that last 15 years. Anyway the rich don't get rich because they can buy better clothes or appliances, they can buy them because they are rich.
This is one economic function of loans: borrow money to buy the more expensive boots, pay extra in interest, but save money in the long run. Assuming it is in fact cheaper to buy the more expensive item.
But on the other hand, consider running shoes - most modern ones, even the expensive ones, will wear out in a few hundred kms and are usually non-repairable.
Back in 2016 when I didn't have much money I reluctantly bought a pair of Salomon hiking boots for what I thought was a crazy ~140€ price tag.
After punishing them heavily with hiking, working (concrete, dust, mud, stones, rocks, metal, paint...), running, sports, climbing... they are quite weathered but as good and comfortable as new. I just wish I could buy the same exact ones again.
$200 is enough to get you a pair of Keen boots, which will last a year or two. Truly "good" in the boot world is hand welted hand made leather boots, which are a rarity these days. There are functionally only a few bootmakers that still manufacture this way these days, and about half of them are all in the same Washington State region :)
Expect ~$400, and it's easy to spend $600 without much effort.
That said, look at my comment above in this thread; they do really last 10 years or more, so the investment is well worth it.
You can get goodyear welted boots which are decent and will likely last on the order of 10 years for 200$ if you're willing to let the person hand stitching it for you be brown and overseas (i.e. buy from Thursday who will make them in Mexico or Portugal)
Hell, Schott will sell you a pair of made in the USA goodyear welted boots for 300$.
Yes, I have an 8 year old pair of boots that have been through all sorts of conditions, all over the world. And I don't even do anything to maintain them. You can get very good boots for $200.
> Price is 3-4 times higher but it lasts 5-10 times longer
The problem is that if an Ikea furniture lasts 15 years then that's enough. People no longer need 50-100 years furniture, because nobody wants to inherit old stuff anymore.
Life's circumstances change faster and buying quality often isn't worth it. Maybe a Miele dishwasher last twice as long at double the price. But it will become old after 10 years even so.
> People no longer need 50-100 years furniture, because nobody wants to inherit old stuff anymore.
I'm going to challenge this assertion: did anyone, ever? Looking around in my parents' house (retirement age), there's no furniture from their parents (post-WW2). I don't remember whether my grandparents had any furniture of their parents in use either.
I do recall going to the charity shops and finding older wooden furniture; while I recognize it as better quality as what you can get today, at the same time it's no longer useful today. TV cabinets (with doors) for CRT TVs and video tapes, writing tables, those kinds of things are obsolete. Tables are timeless though.
But also, over time a lot of that old furniture was either destroyed or bought up and exported. What you find in the charity stores near me today is mostly 90's and onwards.
Yes. Pre-railroad people mostly didn't move and inheriting furniture was extremely helpful. Go back earlier and the cost of buying your own furniture would have been prohibitive.
My grandpa had in his attic letters from his great grandpa (great great?? not sure how many generations)'s brother back in Germany, written around 1860. The letters were in the old script not used anymore, and language (Not German, but I'm not sure what it was). Grandpa got them translated and then following the addresses discovered some [great...] granddaughter was living in the house so he sent he a copy of the letters. She then found some cabinet described in the letter and was able to find it in the barn. Until she got the letter that cabinet was meaningless to her, but now that she knows the history it is an important part of her house.
This somehow a point in your question, but I leave it to others to figure out what.
Grandpa donated the letters to the local historical society so they are accessible, though I'm not sure how.
My entire house is filled with mostly inherited stuff. I'm frugal and grew up between both lower and old money upper class but i have to say if you can make it look coherent it's fine and has saved me tons.
Where it isn't it's a mix and match of thrifted high quality and low quality stuff.
My electric standing desk and chair being one of those modern things that costed a couple of thousands but i got secondhand for a combined 200. The desk is built like a tank. For the chair i replaced the cracking armrest covers with leather.
I also have some hardwood old tables and cabinets that are a couple generations old and as functional now as they were back then.
My stepmother (in her 60s) inherited or rather lot of furniture from her parents, enough to furnish most of a house. It’s spectacular and at this point it has to be well over 100 years old. She both wanted it and has lived with it daily for coming on 40 years.
And my wife inherited three pieces from her parents and they make up much of our dining room, and her uncle gave her two pieces that he made by hand, and that did not fit into his new house. I was dubious about the stuff from her parents, but it’s beautiful if dated and we’ve gone with a very “eclectic” decorating style, no room has to look like any other room. And now I’m very grateful for all of it.
I am responding to this from my living room in Berlin, sitting on a sofa that belonged to my father, after having dined on a table he inherited from my grandfather. Both were brought with us when we moved from Brazil.
So yes, people do want to inherit the old stuff. I have some IKEA stuff (the beds were just too big, and mattress sizes are different), it just can't compare.
> Looking around in my parents' house (retirement age), there's no furniture from their parents (post-WW2). I don't remember whether my grandparents had any furniture of their parents in use either.
My parents are both 70+, they have 3 big cabinets from their parents, made from solid wood. I’d not mind having them in the right place. They look and handle great, only the drawers could use some finetuning ;)
Why the down-vote? I do have a >40 years old spring bed, and these "modern" beds I can get from Jysk or Ikea (or wherever it was gotten from) are awful in comparison, in fact, one of them broke after a month of use (with my ex) (it cost ~222 USD) and most modern beds I have laid on, they were all too hard for me, unlike the spring bed. The mattresses might be good, however. I have not tried the memory foam ones, for one.
actually most of my furniture is either inheritend (mostly from my grandpa and an aunt) or just "was there" in the old house (1835) I bought...
Couldn't imagine living with modern Ikea junk.
When we redid our kitchen our fitter had to argue with our whitegoods supplier for us.
The guy in the shop couldn't understand why I wanted a built in Miele fridge-freezer over what ever generic he wanted to off load. His argument was that nobody would be able to see the logo so it didn't matter and we should just take the cheaper item.
My argument was that the Miele was much more energy efficient and would be running 24/7.
Given that enegry costs have risen substantially since then I think I made the correct choice and that the difference in purchase price has more than been offset.
> Maybe a Miele dishwasher last twice as long at double the price. But it will become old after 10 years even so.
It... won't support the new dishes that come out in the 2030s?
Like, other than energy efficiency (and this is basically already into diminishing returns for appliances like dishwashers), what must-have progress are you expecting?
> It says options with an asterisk—including Rinse, Machine Care (self-cleaning), HalfLoad, Eco, and Delay start, are "available through Home Connect app only and depending on your model."
Funny enough, that’s on the low end Bosch dishwasher. Their 800 series (which is essentially 2x the price) has no such restrictions because I guess they can “afford” to put the extra buttons on it.
IoT, and in the near future, arms for self loading and unloading. Who knows what advancement in UI will happen? If we knew what they were beforehand, we'd be doing then already.
For example, the microwave. Older microwaves have a cumbersome enter time, hit start procedure. Newer microwaves also have a "quick start" button for 30 seconds which you can just press four times to get it to go for two minutes, or enter the time if you need it to go for a while. Hardly the stuff most people will replace a microwave for, but definitely a feature expected of newer microwaves.
As far as dishwashers, there are also styling changes to consider - the white plastic of the 80's looks dated now and a chrome front looks modern. who knows what 10 more years will bring, stylistically? You may not be stylish, but for some, that's their bread and butter.
> For example, the microwave. Older microwaves have a cumbersome enter time, hit start procedure. Newer microwaves also have a "quick start" button for 30 seconds which you can just press four times to get it to go for two minutes, or enter the time if you need it to go for a while. Hardly the stuff most people will replace a microwave for, but definitely a feature expected of newer microwaves.
How old are we talking about? My microwave is exactly like that, and it is about 15 years old if not more.
We have a pretty modern one that is a hybrid of these things. It has a knob that is a rotary encoder to quickly spin up a digital time, so it's become "flick of the wrist, START" to hit times I use frequently like 25s, 2m, and 2m50s at full power.
It also has the instant 30s button which my wife seems to prefer to the rotating input.
>Older microwaves have a cumbersome enter time, hit start procedure. Newer microwaves also have a "quick start" button for 30 seconds which you can just press four times to get it to go for two minutes
Mine is "time cook"-2-0-0-start. Pressing "2" to start is some dumb preset program.
But that's not the point, it's usually not pleasant to find and press the buttons on the microwaves machine. Mashing the corner button a bunch of times is a nicer experience.
If it weren't the start button doing double duty as "+30 seconds", I would put my microwave in a more accessible location - space I rather put other stuff in.
Lazy, or more efficient? If you type a time and hit start, you're not microwaving until you're done with all the buttons. If you hit "QS" a bunch to reach the duration instead, the microwave starts cooking immediately on the first press. Your nuggets get done a whole second earlier!
> and in the near future, arms for self loading and unloading
Pure fantasy for now; if it's ever not pure fantasy, go ahead and replace the dishwasher, I suppose?
> Older microwaves have a cumbersome enter time, hit start procedure. Newer microwaves also have a "quick start" button for 30 seconds which you can just press four times to get it to go for two minutes, or enter the time if you need it to go for a while.
... I'm 40, and every digital-control microwave I have ever used has that 30 second quick start button. So, okay, maybe that was an advance in microwave UX in, like, the 80s, but it was apparently the last advance.
Sidenote, I wish my washing machine had wifi, it'd allow us to see what settings our housekeeper is using and why our clothes age so much quicker than when we were doing the laundry ourselves.
Of course nobody wants your garbage furniture that only lasts 15 years. And since I plan to live 50-100 years, I'd like furniture that can last as long.
High end furniture from brands that last 50-100 years (i.e. Hancock and Moore, Century, a lot of other brands made in the Hickory NC area) hold their value. Go to the estate sales near you and watch as the prices for pieces from those companies (also real mid century modern furniture) holds at least 1/2 it's value 10+ years later.
High end furniture is the kind, like goodyear welted boots, where you keep it forever and reupholster it every 10 years.
Miele is considered special elsewhere?
In germany it's one of the most common brands of kitchen equipment and probably the most common brand for washing machines. I personally consider them overpriced for the quality. My family rents out a vacation home with three units, all equipped with washing machines and dries from miele and we had a couple of them fail over the years.
>Unfortunately you need years to notice such long-term differences, unless someone tells you.
Hardly rich, but that "veneer wood furniture and doors" are much better than "laminated chipwood" is common knowledge. But back in the day, poor and rich alike wouldn't look twice at either, but opt for solid wood furniture.
Well that falls under the "unless someone tells you" part.
It depends on your background. I grew up in Russia in the 90s, back then it was considered cool to put plastic panels on the walls of your apartment. Fresh and modern look, easy to wash, clearly superior to wallpaper. It was called "euro-renovation" as opposed to soviet-style or "grandma" apartments.
Exactly this. Fashion often conflicts with sense. That is a universal truth. Even though the fashion might be rooted in some form of sense.
Mahogany and teak was in fashion around here for a while and oak went out the door.
Oak was considered cheap so we painted it. The fashion then change to lye treated. Then we went with soap treated oak.
And then one day Ikea came into fashion.
Price is an important function of choice. But we should not discard the fashion trends.
Rich people might have good sense. Or they may have a sense for fashion. But they are still just people like the rest of us.
So the "unless someone tells you" really rings true to me. Rather than equating rich with good and hence equating good sense with common sense - I think it is a really interesting question.
What opportunities and choices are not obvious to us have-nots?
I never believed that that getting rich would make me happy and solve all my problems. But I am quite sure that I would get a nicer set of worries and problems than I have now.
Would I like to experience that for just a day? No, thank you. Ignorance can be a bliss.
It is one of those Schroedingers cat like questions.
Not really, many things you can observe and learn yourself fairly quickly.
Some others are very hard to observe yourself (e.g. the poisonous effect of lead) but by now they are embedded into the collective consciousness.
My worry is with things that are neither. In this particular context these are things that you know if you grow up in a rich/middle-class family, but hard to come by if you become rich/middle-class later in life.
More generally, it can be hard to distinguish between "luxury" products that are primarily more exclusive with very little functional benefit (or in some cases more fragile!), versus products that are Actually Good.
The display luxury category: anything by LVMH, Birkin bags, limited edition sneakers, Ferrari, etc
The "better product for more money" category: Miele, wood furniture, Lexus etc
> The display luxury category: anything by LVMH, Birkin bags
Birkin bags are also actually better products for more money, they can last quite a while with minimum care. They are display goods for sure but there is a qualitative difference between a good quality handbag from certain brands and a much cheaper one.
Just as an example, my wife's only handbag is a balenciaga bag that she's had for 12+ years, she's been using it to carry back food from restaurants, put anything she needs in it, etc... and it's still in good shape. In the end, her bag has cost her so far 60 usd/year.
So yes, it's not obvious to people not in the know but even products that seem to be display luxury category can actually be worth it from a quality perspective.
> Just as an example, my wife's only handbag is a balenciaga bag that she's had for 12+ years, she's been using it to carry back food from restaurants, put anything she needs in it, etc... and it's still in good shape. In the end, her bag has cost her so far 60 usd/year.
Some time in 2017/2018, I was in Decathlon and needed a bag for the other stuff I bought. Picked up a cheap rucksack for a single digit number of Euros, possibly €2 but it was ages ago now and I can't remember exactly.
It's still going fine, around 1/200th the price per year of your example.
Here's where the literal gatekeepers separate rich people from the riff-raff/"new money".
You've been jonesing for a fancy luxury item since you first laid eyes on it (Birkin bag, some European watch, a supercar).
Now that you're rich and have enough to pay for the item in cash, you decide to head to their fancy store and treat yourself.
Once you get in the door, you're faced with the cold splash of reality - luxury goods are not available off the rack/off the shelf, even if you can pay for cash on the spot.
You have to prove to the company that you're a loyal customer before you can purchase the object of desire.
In Europe, Miele is definitely understated wealth, so are hardwood floors in good condition (20+ year neglected floors don't count). Geothermal heating systems.
All professional dishwashers I have encountered (there may be others, obviously) require thorough rinsing (either high-pressure handheld wand or a wipe with a brush/cloth) so they are essentially "clean" before going in the dishwasher.
The dishwasher sanitizes the dishes via very hot water and thorough coverage, but does not really clean anything. It has high temperatures and high throughput - 5 minute cycles. Basically a completely different use case and probably unsuitable for a home.
One, there are things you can do with veneer that you cannot be done in solid wood. You can resaw a board to get a book matched panel in solid wood, but you generally cannot get a four-way match because of either pattern shift, not enough thickness to start with, or basically creating veneer the hard way. This generalizes to radial matches with more pieces. That's the most basic example. There are many other things you can do with veneer that are impossible to execute in solid wood. See here[0] for more examples.
Two: professional equipment is not usually built to the customary dimensions of a private residence. A commercial range is a hell of a lot deeper than standard counter depth (about 24" in the US, probably 60cm or thereabouts in Europe because it's based off of how far you can comfortably reach). I looked into this after getting spoiled cooking on a commercial range once. It's not the cost of the range that kills you; it's the cost of the kitchen renovation to accommodate it.
There are vendors that build closer to professional quality appliances sized to residential standards. We lucked into a used Capital range a year ago for a number of dollars we could afford. It's built a lot better than a strictly residential unit and has a weight to match.
[0] https://ctfinefurniture.com/ I am unaffiliated other than owning his excellent book, which I regularly consult when I'm doing veneer work.
That and the professional gear is optimized for operational speed (e.g. a glassware dishwasher that has a 10min cycle for a bar. Guess how much water/electricity it needs).
On a thread about what the rich people do, not being able to afford a service contract isn't something the rich do. Ever have a IT person on call for your own house because you're to busy being rich? At some level of rich you want the service contract.
There are a lot of middle class people who buy at restaurant supply stores. You can get some high quality stuff for similar prices to the "wal-mart quality".
Eh, that level of rich doesn't care about a service contract. If their hyper-fancy, whatever gadget filled dishwasher/oven dies randomly because it's made like cheap shit and all the features are just checking boxes, they don't care, they can have it replaced within an hour, so the cook will just have to deal with only a single oven until then.
Which is why the rich are terribly undiscerning purchasers: the downside for them is some wasted pocket change. The time it took to consider the purchase already earned them more money than they will spend.
The appliances themselves however absolutely are built and designed to be serviced regularly to meet their expected lifespans.
> If their hyper-fancy, whatever gadget filled dishwasher/oven dies randomly because it's made like cheap shit and all the features are just checking boxes, they don't care, they can have it replaced within an hour.
Not their problem. The staff might have that, or might not. The right person just knows the gadget is broke and an hour later the staff has figured it out.
I guess if an appliance is used each day for several hours, that will last a lifetime in my home for use once or twice a week.
Downside: Professional kitchen equipment is also optimized for being easy to clean. Could be a problem if you don't like pure stainless steel very much... ;-D
Industrial dishwashers use different detergents and operate at a much higher temperatures. Most dishes don't like either. Not to mention if you're in the US you probably want three phase power.
Should be called dish sterilizers. They won't get dirt off - in industrial kitchens everything is rinsed first and then put in.
Home dishwashers get just as hot as the industrial versions (if you turn on those cycles - might not be allowed by modern code, but older ones do), and use harsher chemicals because they are expected to get clean after food that has dried on for a few days.
In covid had a whirlpool dishwasher that lasted less than 3 years (4 subsystems failing all at the same time)...it was either wait 2-X months for the Miele we wanted, or pay twice as much to have it today. ($2k vs $1k)
I'm uncomfortably enamored with this dishwasher. (Bought it over a Bosch as the percentage needing repair in the first year was 8% instead of 12% and I was flat done with it.)
The dishwasher is fully enclosed...the typical DW is open at the back with all the guts just barely contained in an open structure.
To balance the dishwasher, you slide it into the nook and turn two bolt heads that have a mechanism that raise the back of the dishwasher after it's set in place.
There are instructions on how to install matching cabinet faces...the buttons are on the top of the door...if you want zero indication you have a dishwasher, they'll accomodate.
While the drawers(?) are well thought out and can take a lot of dishes, it shines when you're entertaining, it flat SOAKS UP dishes and flatware and has cycles to safely wash crystal. We never seem to use this.
It has pucks full of detergent, a load now a days costs about $1.80...more than I'd like, but the simple avoidance of pouring soap and having a sixpack delivered when you need it is a crazy luxury.
>The dishwasher is fully enclosed...the typical DW is open at the back with all the guts just barely contained in an open structure.
That seems.. fine? Why spend a bunch of money/effort on dressing up something that'd get seen for a few hours max?
>It has pucks full of detergent, a load now a days costs about $1.80...more than I'd like, but the simple avoidance of pouring soap and having a sixpack delivered when you need it is a crazy luxury.
Is pouring out detergent powder really that much of an advantage? At best you're saving a few seconds because you don't have to portion out the soap. Using loose detergent also means you can sprinkle a bit outside of the dispenser, which improves the per-rinse cycle. That means you're getting a worse wash by using tablets, because there's only detergent for the main cycle.
You'd be surprised. I don't like the lock in, but it sure makes running a partial load easy (which, yeah, blows the dollar cost ratio even more.)
Enclosing the dishwasher keeps the internals dust free...
It was awhile before I noticed, unlike every other dishwasher I'd ever owned, it didn't have a big heating coil sitting in the bottom of the dishwasher, the water heater is elsewhere.
Listen, the goal is not to convince you. I would never have purchased it had COVID not done what COVID did to the supply chain. But there are subtly significant differences between this and a $500 plastic Memorial Day special.
You don't have to use it, as the machines still have the option to use normal dish washer tablets. But if you want to use their auto dosing feature (in theory it works out how dirty your dishes are and does only as much detergent as you need), then yes you're locked into their proprietary system, and paying 2-4 times as much per wash.
You cannot necessarily compare a 1990s Miele product and 2020s Miele product. I've hardly ever heard of people having problems with their old Miele stuff, know several people who have had problems with their new Miele stuff.
Further anecdotally (from a guy who works at an appliance store) there is a difference in quality between Miele stuff made in their German factories and stuff made in their newer Eastern European factories (often their 'budget' line).
Miele oven, hob (cook top?) and extractor fan all still work fine since they were installed around 2004 in my flat. The flat was even rented before i bought it.
When we built a house 15 years ago, we declined all the "premium brand" kitchen items in the builder's spec, went to Choice (consumer advocacy and testing in Australia) and picked from the best-rated dishwasher, oven, stove top, rangehood, etc. All worked well and we were happy with all of them. On another occasion, the recommendation was Miele (vacuum) but not for any of those kitchen items in our case.
> Similarly it took me a long time to realize just how much better the veneer wood furniture and doors are compared to laminated chipwood. Price is 3-4 times higher but it lasts 5-10 times longer and is much more pleasant to use. Unfortunately you need years to notice such long-term differences, unless someone tells you.
Isn't this also down to age? That is, stuff like that built 100 years ago is - in my head - better quality.
However, this may very well be survivorship bias - of course anything built 100 years ago still around today is good, because anything that wasn't as good is long gone. Like my ikea furniture will be as soon as I try to move it.
I'm not looking into 100 years old stuff, that's mostly solid wood anyway.
I'm referring to my consistent experience of buying both laminated chipwood and veneer wood things, then seeing the former disintegrate within 5 years and the latter last 10 years with no visible damage.
It's all good now, I just wish it didn't take me 10 years to gain this knowledge. On another hand if I got it much earlier it wouldn't benefit me either because I could only afford cheap stuff anyway.
We still know how to make the things that last. Modern engineering can do better than the 100 year old things. However we also know how to make things much worse. They couldn't make chipwood 100 years ago.
>However, this may very well be survivorship bias - of course anything built 100 years ago still around today is good, because anything that wasn't as good is long gone. Like my ikea furniture will be as soon as I try to move it.
It's a 100% surviorship bias. The knockoff "ikea" style flatpack dresser that I assembled (incorrectly) when I was 12 lasted 20 years, and only finally went away because I was moving in with my girlfriend and we could afford slightly more "real" and coordinated furniture. It would have continued to work for longer.
The stuff that lasts 100 years is primarily just whatever is bought by people who treat their stuff well. That has vastly more impact than any product design excluding the modern planned obsolescence and negligence with electronics.
Basically any Toyota can make it to 250k miles, but the Million Mile Lexus is still impressive to people because it tells you about the history of the car more than the manufacturer. If you want to know what cars will make it to 1 million miles, you don't look at reliability stats, you look at what was bought by middle aged wealthy men who were good friends with very careful mechanics.
It's hilarious of you claim survivorship bias and then go on to cheerlead for Toyota. Take a step back and apply the same logic.
Of course a brand that sells appliance commuter and family hauling cars to people who are generally rich enough to buy enough extra capacity they're not flogging it and just pay to have it well maintained is gonna have them go to high miles. The first owner or two are basically "free" from a wear and tear perspective.
Meanwhile the average Nissan is getting driven hard right off the lot, missing fluid changes and the owner's kids are doing WWE in the back seat all right off the lot.
Unless you really wad it up any car will keep going until you stop maintaining it and get in a maintenance hole. If you never neglect to maintain it you'll never be in a hole where the sum total of needed maintenance is more than it's worth barring exceptional circumstances relevant to specific models with exceptionally high costs or low values.
> The stuff that lasts 100 years is primarily just whatever is bought by people who treat their stuff well.
This. It's equally funny and sad when I see new luxury cars with heavily scuffed rims. I don't care how well engineered the car is, it's not going to last.
What happened to that then? ;) We bought a Miele dishwasher to replace a Neff which broke down after 10 yrs (probably 16 yrs worth of "official" usage) due to a silly design fault that caused it to leak. Thought a fairly basic model Miele worth a shot, as because it a stupid built-in, there's extra costs getting it installed, so longer it lasts the better. So far, it seems to clean to fairly similar standard to the Neff. Key thing is how long it'll last. Not made in Germany anymore , says made in Czech. Might be fine. But think they've cut some costs. We also own, assumingly, a "Tesco Value" microwave which cost £22 in 2006. Fairly ugly. Has just 2 controls - power level and time. Absolutely hammered, used every day for 19 years, still works fine. I kind of worry whether after this time it will emit more microwaves out into the open so I stand back even more when using it ;)
Put some cups of water surrounding the oven in multiple directions from its front (assume that leakage from the back is less likely and that unless you have metal walls, it won't reflect in your direction).
Measure their temperature and take note in your notebook.
Put another cup away from the microwaves but in the same environment to serve as control. Measure its temp and put in a notebook
.
Turn off any air-conditioning or fans in the kitchen, any sources of heat, you know the drill.
Turn on your microwave oven for a long cycle (10, 15 minutes) measure temperatures in 1 or 2 minutes interval.
A 2.4GHz wave has a wavelength of ~12mm. The concept of blocking the emissions of a microwave oven is to only have small gaps, much smaller than the wavelength, in the metal casing. That's why you can have those 1-2mm holes in the door window without having much leakage; the holes are much smaller than the waves.
So as long as the gaps on the doors and panels of the microwave are still aligned right and the door closes somewhat tight (only a couple of mm gap) you're still trapping the extreme majority of the energy in the box.
Yeah dude. Its crazy to think about how electromagnetic waves can actually be large, as they're invisible to us. But yeah, EM waves can have wavelengths measured in meters, and can often be as long as 100M or more!
My microwave had an inverter rather than a transformer, which is a change I guess. Don't know if it's an improvement. I do know it was a disappointment to me when the microwave failed after 4 years and I went to salvage the transformer and there wasn't one.
I'd say that is not completely true. Variable power levels (on-off-on-off which certain cheaper microwave ovens do) are definitely not a gimmick, unless you like some parts of your meals cold and other piping hot.
The only thing people look up on Miele stuff is to last 20 years minimum. That and maybe the cutlery tray on dishwashers, but the patent expired some time ago. Everything else barely matters if the thing is workable one way or another.
I think you have a couple of good examples in your comment and I understand you would have liked more along those lines, but:
The referenced reply is dull. It's very pretentious but just reiterates common knowledge, it doesn't convey any useful information.
I disagree strongly - its not a multiple-gold answer that is now being linked to years later for no reason. I read it years ago and have always remembered it - one of those rare internet comments that I think is a classic informational moment, well-written and illuminating.
This is fascinating to me and I'm sure many people who read your comment. What did you learn from the reddit comment that you didn't know before reading it ten years ago? Why has it stuck with you?
Not sure if Miele is still what it used to be. To my knowledge Miele products tend to live a tad longer for almost twice the price.
I do wonder what household appliances these homes have that Enes Yilmazer shows on his YouTube channel. It seems it's always the same huge black/silver color washer and dryer.
The referenced reply covers several tiers of wealth and, to be sure, can be simplified to: as you move up in wealth so to does your access to real estate, luxury and political power.
But your comment on Meile, nice kitchen cabinets, sounds like you're looking only for what the next tier above you is enjoying. (And go Bosch for the dishwasher, BTW.)
> But your comment on Meile, nice kitchen cabinets, sounds like you're looking only for what the next tier above you is enjoying.
No, not really. These are examples of things I know from N+1 level. I'm curious to hear about N+2, N+3 and so on. Some of the points shared in this thread fit nicely, like "buying identical cars in locations you visit often". Or something like "don't by 488, find a used 458 instead -- it's more fun for lower price" would be appreciated.
The original post instead just rambles like this: "I know rich people, let me tell you how rich they are. You wouldn't believe it. Like, really really rich. Like they have their own island, you know".
A lot of things aimed at the middle class are better than what is aimed at the rich. There are not enough rich people pay engineers and so you end up with a $30,000 appliance that has the same features as the $1000 version and is lower quality because the few people who can afford to spend that much isn't enough to work out all the over time, while the lower priced models they release a limited run and then watch to see what breaks and fixes that....
Sure. I'm not interested in high-quality appliances per se, it's just an example of something middle class people buy that poor people aren't really aware of.
The original question still stands: What do insanely wealthy people buy, that ordinary people know nothing about?
By the definition of the question I can't know the answer myself: I am "ordinary people" so I must know nothing about it. So what's left to me is to suggest parallels at the level I do know something about.
Another example of a "middle class thing", not related to things or appliances: services, in particular moving. I changed flats many times in my life, more than 10. I used to pack, load, unload and unpack everything by myself and at some point it started to take 2-3 days of my time full time. Then one time I contracted an end2end moving service (you just give them the keys) and I would never ever go back.
Recently a friend of mine was moving and asked to help to load the truck. After an hour of sweating I asked why he didn't contract someone -- this idea just never crossed his mind. A year later he was moving again and was grateful for the advice.
Surely, rich people enjoy services that would never cross my middle class mind? A governour for the child maybe? Well I would never know.
That's very much country dependent. I live in a country where anyone middle class has a house keeper either from Phillipine or Indonesia (cost about 10-15k usd a year if you're not an asshole and don't pay the lowest possible salary). That housekeeper's work is to take care of the children and do the housework. Upper middle class people have two. Then the next level up is to also have a private driver.
Governor/Governess is after that, I know two people who do it, they hired someone directly from UK for about 45k usd a year. That person takes care of their child and helps with education/homework etc.. Main advantage compared to the housekeeper is that the governor is more educated and so will be able to actually teach things to the child. But it's not necessarily super common and I know plenty of rich parents who decided not to do that and instead invest more heavily on tuition/activities and later (starting from 9-10 years old) summer camps at Oxford, Cambridge, John Hopkins, etc...
Sometimes they're overpriced (Miele is), sometimes they're expensive to maintain (try get a stain out of marble), sometimes they're not durable (think of cashmere sweaters). There is no secret sauce that tells you whether the price of something you buy is a proxy for its qualities. And when you buy something expensive, you're kind of pissed when it breaks.
That's why many wealthy people go for the expensive luxury shit at first, like buying a Porsche, or a 30k kitchen remodel, only to go back to good old Toyota and ikea kitchen, cause they're just as fine and a fifth of the price / maintenance.
As a person who's installed quartz countertops for a living, I'd shy away from IKEA kitchens. I agree with your point, but I'd take exception to the general quality of their cabinets in Canada at least.
Idk, I've seen 40-year-old Ikea cabinets being totally fine (in France).
Nowadays, the trend is that people buy the cabinet frames from Ikea, and then buy the doors, handles, and bottom support from someone else who makes more durable ones.
The thing is that with Ikea, I kind of know what I get. From a custom kitchen cabinet maker, I could get something that lasts a lifetime, or something that wears quickly.
Disagree it lasts 5-10 times longer. IKEA kitchens will last anywhere from 10-30 years. 5-10 times longer is 50-300 years, which is well outside the range veneered hardwood kitchen cabinets will last.
Miele is a pretty well known standard german brand no? I'm sure they have higher-end stuff but i dunno, maybe you could have researched it, or just didnt find the need before?
There's a pretty good saying about 10$ boots that last a year or 100$ ones that last 10 years
If you're well enough, you can probably afford more things that you can use anyways, so it makes sense to optimize for those that give you the most kicks for your bucks, even if they're technically more expensive.
I've had the same Miele HEPA vacuum cleaner for 35 years. I've replaced various pieces on it over the years. The bags are still available. It refuses to become obsolete.
I got one because it was the only reasonable model I could find with a water softener built in. It lasted a good while (~8 years) and performed well i.e. no hard water stains on dishes. After 8 years it developed a grinding noise in the recirculation pump which pointed to broken gears and a replacement which would cost in the ballpark of a new machine so I replaced it.
The design itself has some "German overfeatured" idiosyncrasies to me. Like, when the wash is done, a little stick extends out of the top of the machine pushing the door open to vent. But then, when you tug on the door to open it, you can hear a little geared motor spin and retract that stick. Just more stuff to design, add to BOM, and to break.
I’ve had to repair my Miele dishwasher several times. (Faulty heater relay, common problem with the model.) also coincidentally the spring in the door broke yesterday. Otherwise it does clean the dishes very well and it’s quiet and attractive looking.
I bought it because they have a good rep. But I’ve owned this dishwasher for 15 years and it’s still going.
My Fisher and Paykel fridge I’ve had for 20+ years and it’s never needed any maintenance whatsoever. To me that’s pretty amazing.
Generally at least some models at least used to be very reliable. Like I just discussed with my parents that their clothes washer is over 20 years old. And been in regular use without any issues or significant maintenance. That sort of lifespan isn't really expected from even premium models from most brands.
So they do have perceived quality of being more expensive but more long lasting goods.
Honestly, Miele is the brand of choice for anyone middleclass over 40, at least in Europe, so I'm sure most (grand)patents would have told you. Not exactly a 'secret'.
> Price is 3-4 times higher but it lasts 5-10 times longer and is much more pleasant to use.
If you are rich then you can buy something that is 20 times more expensive and lasts twice as long. The efficiency doesn't matter as much when it's chump change either way.
I find it such a weird argument. Ok, your furniture from 1900 is still doing great, fantastic. The problems are:
1. Your great-grandfather had a different sense of esthetics, so shit just didn't fit your modern apartment.
2. You moved to a different country, and shipping fees of the furniture were ten times the cost of brand-new chipwood furniture (literally).
3. The furniture was designed with usage in mind that simply doesn't exist in modern world.
4. It was made specifically to fill a certain room. Your new place has a different layout. Deal with it.
These arguments are even more true in the context of technology. "Look, my grandma's black-and-white TV is still working!"... great? I'd rather have a modern 4k OLED, but I guess that's just personal preference. Not to mention how having expensive things makes you a prisoner of these things. If your cat ruins Ikea cabinet, you'll be angry for a day. If your cat ruins your family heirloom, you'll be pissed.
We're not talking of centuries here. Laminated chipwood looks like shit in a matter of years. I can replace my phone every year but for a kitchen table or a bathroom door it's ridiculous, way too much hassle.
The best interiors feel lived in but not stuffy. A few old pieces of furniture can help achieve that. Part of the skill of interior design is making these pieces work together in new ways.
You don’t want your home to feel like an ikea catalog surely!?
If it were up to me I'd be stuck at the local optimum of standing desks with workstations randomly distributed through the apartment and a mattress in some corner.
Not sure why the fixation with Ikea, they provide decent value at given price point (as in better than competition, but still within their cost band).
Anyway one prime example I can see - we have rather bigger kitchen, and storage is its prime function. Anything below waist needs to have pullout drawers, its supremely more practical and simply more efficient for storage. You don't need to go on your knees every time you need something deeper in bottom one. For older folks this is an absolute must. Good luck finding any older kitchen that has that. Same for any drawers ie for clothing.
And there are much better modern tricks than just this very basic one.
That is the reason for the fixation on IKEA: the "decent" part. If their peers are Target, Walmart, then to be sure IKEA are decent.
Even during assembly though I've had joints fail such that the finished piece of furniture is, say, 90% structurally sound. But then trying to disassemble the piece so I can move ... I'm lucky if I am able to disassemble it without additional component failure. And then the re-assembly after the move also takes its toll.
Sadly I've come to see IKEA furniture as disposable (I sure don't see it in the local Goodwill). And that is the problem with IKEA (and Target, and Walmart) furniture: it goes direct-to-landfill with a move.
Disassembly is the mistake. If you need to move Ikea furniture, you do it as constructed. If it breaks, c’est la vie. I have successfully moved several Ikea pieces without issue.
one thing to realize with Ikea is that they have different tiers of items. their hardboard furniture is somewhat disposable (and not disassemblable). their metal and plastic items, otoh are pretty indistructable.
Not a universal view. I don't have a modern apartment (I've lived in them and don't enjoy the æsthetic of a straight, unornamented beige and glass box full of postmodern slab furniture). I have a stone cottage from the 1600s. If anything, my 19th-century solid wood furniture is too modern!
In the UK. I know a couple who bought a really old house then spend 3 million on renovating it "period correct", even down to the paint to use plant-based materials only as that was how it was done in the 17th century.
Hum, that's fair points but don't contradicts OP's arguments:
1. OP finds it "much more pleasant to use" which I believe includes the aesthetic side. "your modern appartement" is your take, but is it? and how old modern? There's an universe of different styles that have been implemented in the past, in a multi dimensional sense: it may be influenced by the state of the art of that time (available tools, wood...), the vogue (not necessarily correlated with state of the art) and the context (unique fancy piece for someone wealthy that paid for, unique simple piece for your family, small series by a semi industrial workshop).
2. True, however your old chipwood furniture may not be newish enough for the next householder so A. he/you needs to ditch it B. buy a new one. With a quality furniture you often can re-sell it at almost the same price you bought it, there's no devaluation but only a seller commission if you don't want to bother.
3. I have in front of me a drawer that was build by the gran-gran-gran-pa (yes!) of my wife and... drawers are drawers. Same for stools, bed or tables. I understand your point as there's usages that are lost like furniture-like-clock but some others weird stuff still come back every time because they actually are clever [0]
4. I'm not sure what you're talking about: integrated kitchen (and so) are made to fill a certain room, not the wooden furniture I'm familiar with that you can literally place where you want. New place and not enough space ? Sell it (the the new owner or someone else) and buy another one that fits better. You hardly sell a cheapwood furniture. Moreover, moving to new places have other drawbacks to deal with that you take into account when making the decision. I'm not arguing you sloudn't move, but it's a process that isn't always trivial. For exemple many US residents won't be able to bring their tank-car aboard for legal and/or practical reasons. Or their digged swimming pool. Or whatever if they move to inner Tokyo.
TV => The image quality is wined by the news devices image, however ss you mention "expensive things" I'd like to point out a B&W tv is probably way cheaper and robust that and the 4K OLED one. But there's room for choices in-between, and I a agree the argumentation works better with furniture than electronics.
CAT scratch => That's the beauty of the made-to-last furniture: Wood ? sand it, a bit of varnish and you're done. Fabric ? tear off the piece and nail a new one. They're not museum pieces but day-to-day home helpers.
> I'd like to point out a B&W tv is probably way cheaper and robust that and the 4K OLED one
Where would you even find such a thing other than as a curated, carefully expensively maintained antique? Sure you can buy them second hand on Ebay, but the shipping costs of CRT TVs are pretty big. Everyone has a "flatscreen" TV because that's the default cheapest solution.
Shipping and handling costs are a big factor in the death of large, heavy traditional items.
I agree, the rarity makes it more expensive today. The only cheap option would to "keep" one of yours/you family but that's not an option for the most, not speaking of the connectors nightmare. The electronics sector evolved way faster than furnitures, making a giant leap in a few decades.
It’s funny how emotional responses questions like this become on part of the people answering everything but the question. If some one asks in a sports forum what the best exercises are that pro tennis players do that novices don’t know about you wouldn’t expect the majority of answers being in the line of “Tennis players never experience true love! If all you have is tennis you’ll be depressed!”
Sometimes the question is really asking something else.
In this case, it might seem to be "what trick can I use that ultra-wealthy use?" or "how can I be prosperous on a budnget" but it really is "what is it like to be rich?"
Yeah but I really wanted to know what rich people buy that I don't know about. The top answer - while vaguely interesting - didn't actually tell me anything I didn't already know.
I think the conclusion is probably that they don't buy anything we don't know about.
One thing I didn't quite realize is that they accidentally spend significant amounts of money. At a party I talked to someone who was like a financial coach for super wealthy people and he helps them clean up their shit. The way we might accidentally have a running $50/mo subscription for something we don't use any longer, they might have a $500/mo club membership they never go to. Or prebooked vacation rentals they don't visit, or maintenance on cars they don't use, etc.
If you're over 100m net worth and get 5% returns, you get over 400k/month income on capital. At that point it might not be worth your time and attention to save $50 or even $500/mo if it takes any effort.
Exactly, to use the same math from the linked comment, it's less like comparing $500/mo and $50/mo and more like comparing $500/mo for the high net worth folks to $0.05/mo for someone making a more average salary.
You could have a single part-time minimum wage job and you're not going to waste your time worrying about $0.05/mo. 60¢ a year? Please.
That's easy - experiences. This is what many rich pay their last dime for. You can get much better experiences than they pay for, for much much much less.
Going for an exotic tropical beach location? Well they normally stay in sterile 5* bubble which is boring beyond belief and very unauthentic. You can go ie to Seychelles or Bali, live with locals in cheapish airbnbs, swim on same beaches or go to same restaurants they do, if you want, or even better eat with locals too. You can dive on same spots, kite surf on same spots etc. You will remember such vacation much more than they will do.
Or another typical one - skiing holidays. You can go ie to Verbier or Chamonix and ski next to kings, princes or industry moguls on same slopes they do, use same lifts, but you can ie go of piste for some extra fun. Sure afterwards you can only go to public spa but that may be better equipped than their private one. Or you can paraglide over them (on your own, not with paid instructor). And so on and on...
I know you can outmatch them only on specific aspects of those experiences, but that part is rather easy. Rich play their game of life in general very safely, so you can have way cooler things if you take some risks, and invest time into learning how to get best out of travels and adventures. Rich generally pay others to figure these out for them, and then of course such service is not well tailored to specific personality and expectations as much.
I lived in Southeast Asia for years and explored countless beaches at price points all across the spectrum, and while I understand what you're saying and agree to some extent, there are still experiences only money can buy.
Example 1: the overwater bungalow in the Maldives where I could watch fish swim under a glass table and step right off the balcony into the reef to join them.
Example 2: the stupidly expensive hotel in Laos where my wife and I were the only guests one night, so we got to enjoy a tropical sunset at our private pool bar with our private orchestra playing just for us. (The GM, who dropped by for a chat, told us a honeymooning couple last year had dropped six figures to buy out the place to do the same.)
Not really, ie that Maldives bungalow - I had exactly same experience in Mabul island for example, with 0 snobbishness that luxury inevitably brings (and is disgusting for me personally). Literally watching manta rays under my feet while eating breakfast. Kids would come on their dhingy and sell fresh coconuts right from water. All for peanuts.
Very similar experiences can be had in ie Togian islands in Sulawesi. And I could go on. Not everything is yet spoiled for rich.
As said its not full end-to-end experience, ie getting there in economy flight class instead of direct private jet is... well different, but the gist of adventure and reason why actually travel there can be easily matched, or surpassed. While leaving much more intense trail of memories and experiences with locals, which is what you are left with at the end. Instead of having everything served on plate like a clueless baby, you discover and 'fight' for your own adventures. And while paying 1-10% of price rich living next door paid.
Coming back from such vacation makes it feel like it lasted massively longer. 2 weeks feel like a month at least, 3 like few months. 3 months in India & Nepal spent in such way felt, and I am not joking, like decades spent traveling. A very surreal and profoundly enjoyable feeling, when memories of life back home feels like memories from previous life before one reincarnated.
With all due respect, you're showcasing some serious reverse snobbery yourself here, since you're basically claiming at your "authentic" travel experiences make you superior to those "disgusting" luxury tourists paying for their experiences.
But I'll throw you a bone: it goes both ways. I've had equally memorable experiences doing things like sitting with a couple of farmers on the floor of a jam-packed 3rd class train carriage in Thailand, sharing a bottle of Maekhong and watching the rice paddies go by. And commuting to work with canal boats in Bangkok barrelling down the klongs at ridiculous km/h was much more fun than taking a taxi, as long as you didn't bonk your head on a bridge or slip and fall into what's basically ripened sewage.
Chamonix and ski next to kings, princes or industry moguls on same slopes they do, use same lifts, but you can ie go of piste for some extra fun.
This makes no sense to me. First of all Chamonix is hardly what I'd consider a 'rich' people ski resort. You're far more likely to be skiing next to a broke ski bum than "kings, princes or industry mogul". But beyond that, why can't the rich people ski off piste? In fact the rich people have the option to decide on a whim to take a helicopter to the really nice off piste runs and do 7 runs in a day if they feel like it, while you and I can only do one since we have to walk up. They can also travel to some of the finest skiing in the world, do two quick runs, decide the snow wasn't great and then just chill at the hotel bar and fly home early, knowing that it doesn't matter because if they want they can just come back in a few weeks.
Rich people can (and do) do all things you do, but they can also do a bunch of additional things that you and I cannot hope to do.
In theory, these rich people can do all of those "genuine" experiences too - and the lesser famous ones probably do? - but especially kings and the like are so valuable that they can't go to "normal" places anymore, for security and safety reasons. Rich people and their families are prime targets for kidnapping and extortion.
That's European rich though. If you're American rich, you're Reed Hastings who co-founded Netflix, so you can buy up a ski resort in Utah for you and your pals so you don't have to ski with the poors.
Powder Mountain (Reed Hastings' ski resort) has lift tickets available for about $100-150, in-line with most common ski resorts in America (about the same price as Hunter Mountain in New York, for example, the place everyone in the area takes their family).
If he wanted to not ski with the poors he would do as rich people already do and go to Deer Valley.
Although last I heard Powder Mountain was pivoting a bit to an premium resort kind of deal, same kind of thing Windham Mountain in NY is doing. Still, neither are pricing out normal skiiers yet, they're just edging in to "do you have more money than sense? dump some of it in this overpriced 'mountain club'" territory. If I had Reed Hastings money I wouldn't bother buying one of them up, I would just fly in to any of the existing nice ones with better terrain and facilities than Powder Mountain (or Windham) have.
> Title: What do insanely wealthy people buy, that ordinary people know nothing about?
> Text: I was just spending a second thinking of what insanely wealthy people buy, that the not insanely wealthy people aren't familiar with (as in they don't even know it's for sale)?
The comment just plain and straight doesn't answer the question being asked.
It's kinda amazing how much more it is upvoted than comments with relevant answers. Maybe because emotions from dreaming of what it's like being rich (that's what it actually goes about) are so strong, the interpretation of the question is getting bent towards experiencing them.
It always depends on the circumstances and the person but generally I would say that money can definitely buy happiness.
I think that sentiment is mostly cope by those less wealthy.
Nah, money can buy pleasure, security, confidence, comfort... but happiness is not necessarily a consequence of that. Some rich people live a very unhappy life. I wouldn't trade places with them for their money.
CAN you be happy because you have money? Yeah, why not. WILL you be happy if you have money? No guarantees at all.
I think this could be super unpopular around here, but here goes:
This is a symptom of societal unfairness. In this case there are different ways to react, but this is one of them. Tennis isn’t oppressing anyone, so no one is getting emotional about the pro tennis players knowing all the tips.
But the story since the 70s has been that you can have anything you want if you just work hard enough and are skilled enough (particularly in North America and the UK). Which means that if you don’t have something you want, then it is no one’s fault but your own.
Except in realty there are a whole host of external factors that influence once’s ability are accrue nice things.
It’s hard to reconcile these two things in our minds. We don’t have any narrative except the current one. So either we accept that we’re simply not good enough, or we accept things are broken with no solution. The former is often the most emotionally tolerable.
So when people see people with more than them, they don’t think, “good for them, we all choose how much we want to work for and I’m happy at my level”. Instead there is a collision of irreconcilable thoughts, and what comes out is, “they’ll never know what true love is”.
You were a fast collegiate-level runner, became a wealthy financial adviser, who now has three sons who are doing well in high school long distance running.
What do you do? You convince one of your old running buddies, who now coaches elite runners, to coach your son. The son sets the national high school indoor record for the 800m.
Son decides to go pro after graduating high school.
Then Covid19 hits. Access to outdoor 400 tracks is limited. What do you do?
You build an 8 lane 400m track with running surface to match the quality at the site of the Word/US track and field championships. Cost: ~$4M
You hire the best coaches for your kids. Coach needs a place to stay nearby - no problem, buy a townhouse for him to stay at. etc.
But that's the thing, if you'd no longer need to think in money-constrained terms, then instead you'd just want to make something happen in the world. It doesn't need to have a financial return, because your finances would be solved already.
Suppose you have more than enough money for you and your family to live out their lives without needing to worry about that. Now that's solved, you can move on to what you actually want to happen in your life, such as helping your kids become pro athletes.
Sure, through sponsorships and adverts. But like all such things, it's an extremely limited number of people who have the right combination of talent, training, perseverance, looks/charisma and probably luck to get that amount.
I'm sure taking the bronze or silver in the Olympics is a great talking point for a future as a lawyer or financial analyst, so the backup plan is in place.
Roger Bannister, the first person to run a sub-4 minute mile, did minimal training compared to modern day athletes.
from his wikipedia entry:
When asked whether the 4-minute mile was his proudest achievement, he said he felt prouder of his contribution to academic medicine through research into the responses of the nervous system.
absolutely, but let's just say the distribution is a bit skewed to making nothing from pro running ventures. It has an extremely bad effort to potential reward ratio.
By putting in the same level of extreme effort into any classicaly well paying profession you would highly likely become very rich and successful.
I really like this post since it shows how very little there is for the wealthy to buy other than status goods.
The life of the rich, other than status, is very much like the life of upper middle class. The same phones, the same digital entertainment, the same appliances in their homes.
We have very few items for the rich to buy. Honestly, it is a problem it breaks incentives and it drives the rich more towards status goods which help no one since they are zero sum.
We should have expensive products which actually improve lives.
Buying "things" really is the level 0 of wealth. What matters is that you don't have to sell your time for money, that alone changes your entire existence. Then you have access to better healthcare, education, seeing your kids grow, &c.
That's why a lot of poor people who unlock large amount of money go broke quite fast, they still think like poor people
Time is indeed a very major thing, but it’s more accessible than most realise - I am only marginally wealthy, high 7/low 8 figures, and that’s ample for me to not need to work for a living and live very comfortably. Frankly, once you have even $1M in free liquid capital, you are in the endgame, as money makes money far more efficiently than labour. I spend perhaps 20 hours a year farting around with our finances, place some bets, and that’s it. I decided to go full on idle-rich when I was still practically a pauper, and have grown my worth significantly since.
Perhaps my sample pool is skewed, but the billionaires and centimillionaires I know live pretty modest lives in general - yes, they fly first class, stay in the best hotels, and all that jazz, but they’re unpretentious, and you wouldn’t know them from the upper middle class family sat at the next table. In fact, one I know regularly gets weird looks because he’ll be in some elite country club in his coffee-stained slacks and threadbare jumper - but there’s the rub - he doesn’t care. The guy who looks rich is probably up to his eyeballs in debt. The guy who looks like the janitor probably owns the place.
I think the single biggest thing wealth buys is not giving a shit what other people think. You don’t have to play status games when you know you’re the big dog in the room, even if nobody else knows it. I mean, I take perverse joy in showing up at places looking like I just crawled out of a gutter, because I know it doesn’t matter - my money is good.
I'm not your level wealthy, but I don't work, live comfortably, and I'm happy.
I prefer not to eat at expensive restaurants, but I enjoy restaurants that serve good food. I don't really want to fly to an expensive city and spend lots of money. I'd rather spend time in nature, hike, try to ID plants, and spend time with my wife and our animals.
Yeah, that’s pretty much our schtick too - we live off grid in the boondocks of Portugal, and our idea of a holiday is to go spend a month hiking somewhere or other. Spend my days hauling gravel and digging pits. It’s good.
Anyone on a programmer's salary should be able to get to low 7 figures in a decade, and better in 2 decades. In fact I'd go further and say that if you're on a six-figure salary you really must do it. We can't be sure our privileged position will continue for too much longer.
lol, lmao even... Most devs aren't even making 100k a year, even in the US the median is at like 120k.
Let's say you make 100k a year in Berlin, you're already in the top 1% so "accessibility" is out of the equation at that point, that's 4.8k net. Let's say you manage to invest ~60% of your salary, that's about 3k a month, 36k a year. Now let's say you get 8% return per year (which you won't), you're barely above 500k after 10 years.
So yeah sure, if you're in the top 1% to begin with, and live on what basically amounts to your local minimum wage while investing everything else, you can get to 1 million after 15 years or so...
Ah, and don't forget the tax man, he'll take his 20-30% cut on your million.
Sorry but you're completely delusional if you think literally "anyone on a programmer's salary" can make 1 million in 10 years. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, I'm not saying you didn't do it, I'm just saying it's not "accessible", nor the norm, nor representative of the vast majority of devs.
The median software engineer salary in Europe is under 60k euros, which is £50k. Show me how you make 1m on a 60k euros salary in 10 years, even if you paid 0 income tax and invested every single cent with an average 8% annual return you'd still be under 1m.
> Anyway, stay poor, I literally don't care.
Looks like you can't buy your way out of arrogance
Salaries in Europe are much worse than in the US. (I'm told for the best India pays better than Europe - though India is skewed by a lot of bad coders not making much). In US just maxing out your 401k for 15-20 years will do it (depending on your company match), and you still have far more than the average income left over. So if you live like the average person and save that difference as well 10 years seems doable.
That said I'm not sure I'd recommend it. It can pay off for some, but the future is unknown. I've been to funerals for several people who didn't live to 65. Your body starts declining as you get older so a lot of active things really need to be done young if you do them at all. Maxing a 401k seems like a good plan and then spend the rest today - you should still have a nice retirement if you live that long, but you can enjoy life now.
If you don't like the above, religion offers an afterlife if you choose the right one. However they agree choosing the wrong one won't... Good luck choosing.
8% is an awful return in today’s markets. 30% is eminently achievable with foresight and an appetite for risk. I started investing a decade ago with about £100k, as that was all I could afford to risk, and have a return of between 20% and 200% year to year. Shit, you’ll get 15-20% cash-on-cash just running an Airbnb, which is what provides our day-to-day living income.
Cool, do you know about statistics and survivor bias ? If it was that easy why isn't everyone a millionaire ? Why doesn't everyone make 20-200% per year ?
If you can guarantee 20-200% of return per year consistently over 10-20 years go to wall street they'll pay you millionS per year to work for them
There is a big gap between "I'm in the top 1% earners and lucked out in the market" and "Literally every software engineer can make 1m in 10 years".
People on huge salaries live paycheck to paycheck, spend money on ridiculous cars, and live in huge houses full of junk that they bought stuff on credit. What we're saying is, instead of that, save a large proportion of your salary so you can retire early, and even if you don't choose to do that, be in control of your future.
Yes, I understand statistics and survivorship bias - I’m a mathematical physicist by training. I’m also a pretty average schlub.
Most people aren’t wealthy because they don’t even try, and instead run on a treadmill until they drop dead.
I have no interest in going to work on Wall Street or anything similar.
My entire investing philosophy is basically based on this site. There is constant signal here on what will be big in 5-10 years, and all that’s required is that you get in before the press start talking about it, too.
A $10k investment in NVDA 10 years ago is worth $2.6M now - and if you were paying attention 10 years ago, when CUDA was fairly new and shiny and rapidly gaining mindshare, you would have noticed that they were inevitably going to own the ML/AI space, and that this shit was going to be huge.
This is also why I said $1M, not $100k - because I have managed exceptional returns - but with 10x the starting capital even moderately good returns can grow rapidly. I’ve also bet on some absolute lemons where I’ve lost every last red cent.
Either way, it seems that many would sooner be bitter than do something to improve their situation, which is sadly very common, and again, why not everybody is a millionaire.
> In fact, one I know regularly gets weird looks because he’ll be in some elite country club in his coffee-stained slacks and threadbare jumper - but there’s the rub - he doesn’t care. The guy who looks rich is probably up to his eyeballs in debt.
This is so strangely true.
I arranged a dad's dinner once, and we had a drug dealer there. Stereotypical hard man, wife dressed in branded clothes, fancy car, very obviously not in the line of business that he pretended. Trying extremely hard to flash how he used the private airport.
Seated with him was an actual billionaire, one whose family made their money a while back so you wouldn't know if you hadn't come across it before, like me. This guy just behaved like a normal middle class dad. Dressed like everyone else, ordinary SUV. No flashy moves.
Other two I know in that class are also just ordinary. No supercar, just a Merc or upper end car. They send their kids to private schools that ordinary top 5% people can afford, but no big arm movements.
This could be true but it depends on the person. Marc Andreesen is a billionaire and he wears Rolexes quite prominently. In fact a lot of rich people wear Rolexes lately.
I'd say it really depends on the mentality of the very rich person
The very wealthy are going to fly private. Upper middle class could swing this on a case-to-case basis, but not regularly and especially if not if they frequently travel
Other than that, the main difference is the very wealthy having a mentality of getting people to "take care of problems" to a much larger extent. For example, routine tasks like cleaning. An upper MC person might have a weekly cleaner at best. But they still have to load/unload dishwasher, do their own laundry, etc. A very rich person has a full-time housekeeper.
The very rich have circles of people they rely on to take care of problems. Like having "a lawyer" who they go to for and have known for years. There seems to be much more of a sense of personal relationships / loyalty. Almost like the old feudal oaths.
> The very rich have circles of people they rely on to take care of problems.
At the higher levels, there's a "family office" which takes care of such things.
All bills go there, and anything that needs to be done, they take care of.
The first big one was the Rockefellers', which was in Rockefeller Center in New York. (That turned into a business. Now it offers Being Rich as a Service.)
Traditionally, yes. That's for the people who inherited a mansion, retainers, and trusts.
Now there are family office concierge services. "Luxury lifestyle as a service" is available.[1] That's for people who made a lot of money all at once and need guidance in spending it.
(The people I've known with serious money made most of it themselves, and didn't need a family office.
Except for one married couple who blew through 8 figures and went broke.)
These are between multi-family offices and scams targeting new money. (The intersection between the best hospitality folks you can privately hire and the best money managers is roughly zero. Consolidating those functions makes no sense unless someone cannot afford them.)
What comes to mind here is Up In The Air starring George Clooney.
Now Ryan Bingham doesn't command any particular status or wealth, but he makes a living firing people on behalf of other companies ("Concierge firing-as-a-service"?) and he leads a nomadic lifestyle that many of us would find completely intolerable.
His one lifelong dream is to earn 10,000,000 Frequent Flyer miles and hold the special Unobtanium card from American Airlines. [SPOILER WARNING] He achieves this during the final flight of the film, and when he dials the number on the back, he comes to realize that this is his unique number and there is a specially-assigned staffer waiting by the phone to personally take his call.
I can envision this sort of revelation as the experience of someone who comes into money and suddenly finds their needs being personally met by a concierge or family office.
Maybe I'm not rich enough to get it, but in the footer this site identifies itself as a member of a travel agency which is itself a member of a third travel agency. I'm getting the same vibe you see from the "wealth advisors" who run around trying to feed people structured notes.
One of my coworkers - a senior engineer - came to the US from India and found it a big change - sure he knew how to cook, but he didn't realize he would have to cook every meal. He has two house keepers before who would come in the morning make breakfast, and clean the house. They would then leave for the afternoon and return to make supper and minor tidying up. He really only had enough work for 1 house keeper but having 2 meant if one was sick or quit he had time to find a second. Since he was paying them less than $1/day each the total cost was very reasonable.
Who know if or how long the above will continue, but it is still possible in many countries if you can get a job there.
Yup, no big deal. One of my cousin has like 2 housekeepers full time and 2 comes are different time of day like help with cooking and cleaning during lunch and dinner. Their luxury car is however lowest end Audi and another is Corolla.
On flip side he had to change 2 jobs because travel distance as ~20 miles but in term of duration it was 4+ hrs daily. And no such thing as peak hours there, day-in/day out, morning, afternoon, late night, week day, weekend, same worst possible traffic.
Any interaction with real world outside of home can wear people down specially the kind who keep multiple household helps. From traffic, to pollution, medical care, school admissions, doing groceries, shopping, parking and on and on.
One way to think is at absolute top level like senior most politicians, industrialist, CEOs, other types of super influential people, developed vs developing countries' lifestyle can match, but as one start moving down the ladder, the quality falls very rapidly in developing world and serious compromises can start just 2 step down from top.
Yeah I think this is something that people in countries like the US don't instinctively understand, or at least I didn't.
My Filipino friend explained to me that back home, if you have more than a certain amount of money, it's seen as incredibly selfish not to employ people as housekeepers, etc.
I'd imagine that's true in a lot of places with income disparity and/or high unemployment numbers. It made a lot of sense to me.
I understand where this is coming from but that argument simply doesn’t make sense. There are many ways to give back to society; providing low-status jobs is only one of them. And a poor one, because it locks people in that status and heteronomy. Within 10 minutes, anyone can come up with some ideas that would contribute to other people’s development and growth in a more sustainable fashion.
It serves other purposes. That narrative is a convenient collective lie, full stop.
> And a poor one, because it locks people in that status and heteronomy
What is the current alternative? Are they any better?
When I was kid growing up (in Brazil), we had a live-in housekeeper. She moved to São Paulo from some poor rural area in the South of Brazil. As many people from poor rural areas, she was forced to drop out of school on 3rd grade to help her family.
If I remember it correctly, she was 21, 22 years old when she first moved in. The agreement was she would get minimum wage + regular benefits + free housing. She would work from ~7:30am until 3pm, get a break in the afternoon and then go to night school from 7 to 10pm. On weekends she was free, so she could either be out with her friends or coming along our weekend camping trips.
She worked with us for 5-6 years, finished school, moved out of our home when she got married. Had two daughters, the oldest one just finished college. I know all that because 30+ years later my mom and her still keep in touch.
Possibly stories like these are not the majority, but they were pretty common. Today, this would be unthinkable not because economic inequality has diminished, but because whatever we had that passed for "middle class" in Brazil got completely squeezed out by governments over the last 25 years.
> Yeah I think this is something that people in countries like the US don't instinctively understand, or at least I didn't.
Guilty as charged. I have the American mentality due to being raised here, and I would be horrified to hire a housekeeper or servant. The "well, it's better than nothing" argument, while true, feels icky and exploitative. "Better than nothing" is a terrible bar and a sign of a broken society, and I personally just don't want to be part of continuing that brokenness. Totally understand if someone grew up in a different culture, they likely have a totally different view on it.
Kind of. I don't do food delivery at all, and only hire uber/lyft when all other options are exhausted, and when I do, I at least I feel sufficiently bad about it. I would definitely feel "icky" hiring a personal shopper or hiring a chauffer to drive me everywhere.
And yea, I know there are other less visible areas in every product and service value chain where people are exploited and yet I am part of society. I don't have an answer or solution to this that is politically feasible.
> I would definitely feel "icky" hiring a personal shopper or hiring a chauffer to drive me everywhere.
Do you feel "icky" by going to a supermarket and having a cashier scanning your products? Do you feel "icky" by taking a taxi? How about by taking a public bus, train or plane?
Do you go to restaurants or bars? Do you feel "icky" about someone taking your order, cleaning up your table, pouring out drinks for you?
Do you have kids? Have you ever hired a babysitter? Do you feel "icky" about someone else being temporarily responsible for the well-being of your child?
> I know there are other less visible areas (...) where people are exploited and yet I am part of society. I don't have an answer or solution to this that is politically feasible.
I'm honestly more concerned about people who think that they should have "an answer to this" than all the exploitation that exists.
I can tell you what it's *not* the solution. Eliminating all sort of manual labor is *not* a solution. Eliminating manual labor will lead to even more isolation and atomized individuals. It will put us all in different bubbles and make us completely unable to relate to other people and it will make us even more susceptible to be defined by what we consume.
If you are part of a society, it will be better for everyone if you start participating in it. Instead of looking down on people whose work is not as valuable as yours (because that's what honestly your "feeling icky about it" seems to boil down to), look at these interactions as opportunities for mutual, voluntary help. If you think their work is worth more than what they are getting, tell them so and back it up with your generosity. There is no point in "feeling bad" about it.
My mom visited a professor in an African country a few years back, as part of a project.
She told me the professor had a guy employed to open and close the gates for when he drove to work and came home in the evening. That's all the guy did. Full time job.
Sounded so preposterous at first, but after thinking a wee bit I came to a similar conclusion that the alternatives might be a lot worse. It was steady income, albeit not a lot.
Perhaps not exactly comparable, but I went to a talk at wlog REI from some relatively ordinary person who climbed some famous, but accessible peak (Kilimanjaro?). I asked about the practice of hiring local porters, and got basically this answer.
The local economy pretty much depends on the influx of foreign money from the people climbing. A fit person would be physically capable of carrying their full load, but it simply isn't done because of the economic disparity between the foreign climbers and the local porters. I don't know if that was enforced by law or custom, but the presenter was quite clear that it's not really possible to climb without local porters.
On Kilimanjaro you must employ a guide, a cook for the guide, and a porter to carry the gear of the cook and the guide. You are welcome to carry your own gear but at this point you've already got a support team of 3 people and are paying $1500+. An extra porter is probably around $100.
You can, instead of paying for a housekeeper pay for machines etc. made in the country in question, thus creating technical jobs there that might develop people more than housekeeping does.
I don't know why you are getting downvoted. Over the years I have heard several anecdotes from "expat" wives in various places (Kenya, Philippines, New Guinea) of being taken aside by a local headman soon after arrival and being told that they will hire a cook and a housekeeper and a laundrymaid.
On the mediocrity principle, I think this is how things worked in general. Necessary to the local economy.
>The very rich have circles of people they rely on to take care of problems. Like having "a lawyer" who they go to for and have known for years. There seems to be much more of a sense of personal relationships / loyalty. Almost like the old feudal oaths.
That has more to do with owning business interests than wealth. The guy who owns a small chain of a mundane business, has stake in another business via investment, etc, etc, his social circle looks roughly the same.
> Other than that, the main difference is the very wealthy having a mentality of getting people to "take care of problems" to a much larger extent. For example, routine tasks like cleaning. An upper MC person might have a weekly cleaner at best.
Pfft... amateurs. I've solved the same problem by just living in filth.
Well your link is to have Amtrak tow your private rail car. You have to provide it yourself. There is a different company that offers luxury private cars that I can’t remember the name of now.
The answer is out-of-topic because the question ask what is something that ordinary people do not know.They go on a tangent about perspective and power over society, but nothing listed was a thing that I do not know.
like
>Access. You now can just ask your staff to contact anyone and you will get a call back.
Funnily, my parents always call back within 60 seconds even midnight, while a certain someone get disowned by their kids.
>For a donation of $100k+ to his charity, you could probably play a match with him.
For a donation of 16k you can have a 1 on 1 zoom call with Keanu Reeves. He advertised this pretty well, so "ordinary people" should know this.
At this point, all the riches and riches are on SNS flexing their wealth, I don't think there is anything left that ordinary people just couldn't browse SNS and see what can you buy with those money.
Signalling Status plays a big role in group formation/group maintenance/social cohesion etc.
The larger groups grow, the more complex the group dynamics get, keeping groups of people together and preventing them from disintegrating is one of the most complex problem we face, given all the differences in culture, religion, language, class, personalities, ambitions, values, needs, intelligence, skill, education level, interests etc etc
A short cut frequently used (cause its easy) is using Leisure and Luxury (see Theory of the Leisure Class).
"So you like what I wear, where I stay, what I eat, who my friends are, what toys I have and want to be like me or hang out with me then do what I say". This works pretty well. In fact Veblen's prediction in Theory of the Leisure Class was that since Tech has a tendency to eliminate waste, tech would eventually eliminate the need for a Leisure/Status signalling Class that keeps large groups from unraveling.
But social cohesion of large groups is such a complex problem, society even today requires all kinds of Status Signalling to keep the groups together.
If you find ways to keep groups together without status signalling you are onto something special.
In my experience roaming many different groups, the ones who do not signal status typically are the most powerful/influental. Their membership is safe; they don’t need to signal status, or rather, signaling it draws too much attention (annoyances by those seeking to gain status by affiliation). I remember reading a study about this some years back to find my own findings confirmed.
The people I know with a net worth over 10m do not display it. Why would they want to. It only has downsides and no upside. Same applies to other forms of status/rank/belonging.
(Not contradicting your points, merely adding to them.)
If you want to experiment with that, try to NOT match other people’s style AND radiate a deep sense of security/belonging/entitlement. Do not hide your (other) insecurities; those with status don’t have to hide their authenticity. This may sound like a contradiction at first, but you can develop an universal sense of belonging that remains authentic. You will be surprised which people will suddenly find you to talk with you, once you stop seeking their attention.
Veblen goods are the most simplistic and superficial form of intentional status signaling and yes, the world would be much better off without them.
Other kinds of status signaling are more interesting and more subtle. If I talk about my weekend softball team, I'm not doing it to impress anybody, but it unavoidably does convey some things about my status.
It tells you I almost certainly have a car, I have leisure time, people like me enough to at least tolerate me on their team, that I have a few hundred dollars to spend on gear/fees, and that I have some basic level of physical coordination/strength/ability. It also strongly hints that I grew up middle class or higher because middle class+ kids are the most likely to have learned the game as kids and continued with it as adults.
There are only 24 hours in a day. Signaling (or looking for others' signaling) is inevitable if one wants to curate their interactions. There are uncountable types of signaling, other than the LVMH style.
Not sure how any individual or society could function otherwise, due to the limits physics places upon us.
In fact they depend on the upper middle class in order to have those things. I'm thinking about cell phones. Nobody can have a cell phone unless enough people can afford them to create an incentive to build and improve the infrastructure.
Same thing with 401k enrollments at businesses. Management gets way more of a benefit from them than the wage slaves, but needs to maintain a minimum amount of people enrolled.
The very wealthy had mobile phones years before they were commonly available/affordable. The only things they can't have are things that are technically/physically impossible. A Gilded Age railroad titan could not have had a mobile phone. But the wealthy had them in the 1940s.
Sure, but they were giant beasts with limited functionality. My first boss's wife had one for her real estate business. It came in a shoulder bag. The investment that produced today's smart phones and infrastructure required broader access.
That cell phone cost as much as modern smart phones despite not adjusting for inflation as well. That was just to pay, they were so expensive per minute to use that most who had one avoided using it if they had other options. Which is to say real estate agents had them and they tried to keep all calls to under the first incoming minute free.
The average rural farmer in India has instant access to a world of information and entertainment at his fingertips 24/7 via his phone
Even just 30 years ago the most a billionaire would have were staff who would find information (at a far slower speed) from large libraries and copies of broadcast TV and most films available relatively quickly (perhaps even same day)
A mobile phone today is a world away from Dick Tracy's radio watch, or even a nokia 3210 on a digital network in a western city
The mobile phones they had were absolute garbage, service was abysmal, and the security was non existent.
There was no way to get to a smartphone without cumulatively trillions of dollars of investment in silicon, software, network rollouts, and so on. A person with 100 billion in 1998 could not have bought one despite it being a decade away for the entire population.
The very wealthy cannot get things that are that special and it’s actually pretty amazing. Warren Buffet has called out several times that he lives like a regular middle class American and the main exception is flying private, but if were forced to choose he would dump the jet over the iPhone.
The other piece is that there's no incentive to keep prices out of reach.
There might be reasons for high prices, like costly manufacture, but no one is going to refuse to expand their market by 10000x if they are able to bring costs down.
Sometimes it's fun to realize that if we all just decided dollars were worthless, they would be. There'd be nothing the government could do about it.
Crypto ain't it, though. Even the better-scaling blockchains still don't scale very well. I've heard of a few different mesh-network currency projects, and I wonder if any of them could scale by essentially giving each user their own blockchain. However, in a mesh-network currency, you still have to find a conversion path with enough capacity, and pay a fee at each step, so maybe that's not it either.
To the point about dollars, there very much is something the government can do about it: taxes.
If the government requires taxes to be paid in dollars, that sets a "floor" on the value of a dollar as a medium of exchange - for most people in the US living a "normal" life, you have to acquire some amount of dollars throughout the year, under penalty of jail/loss of property (property tax). Then, since you already have 300m+ consumers in a massive market using the currency, odds are you'll use it too.
The only way you'd truly render dollars worthless is through government action or malfeasance; the fictional scenario where every person on earth not only agrees dollars are worthless, but also agrees to forfeit all property in the US, all employment in the US, and interests in any US financial holdings is quite a few steps beyond the point where "the people just decide to rebuke the dollar's lack of backing".
Any idea of an instantaneous, sweeping change, is utopian. But more gradual actions are possible. For instance the government could decide to let the dollar serve as a medium of exchange while discouraging its use as a long term store of value. They could do this by triggering a mild inflation, such as 2% per year, that would encourage people to move their wealth out of dollars and into things like land, goods, factories, etc.
The dollar wouldn't become worthless, but it would become worth 2% less per year.
Doing this in an environment where nobody is using dollars will lead to guillotines. The dollar has to be useful for exchange first, and then they can demand tax to be paid in it.
So this thought experiment isn't just that "everyone decides dollars are worthless" but also that the state is dissolved, along with all the property rights and the govt's monopoly on violence?
That's more like saying "Dollars are worthless in a scenario like Fallout or The Road", rather than making any relevant point about government efforts to maintain fiat currency.
In the original scenario of "people decide dollars are worthless... nothing the government can do", my point was that the government has a lot of levers to pull to backstop value, albeit at a far lower level than today's dollar.
Uhm no? This is illogical. You just declared money worthless. Nobody is gonna bring out the guillotines if the government demands worthless paper. They'll happily give the worthless paper to the government.
I’ve tried saying this the other way around to people and I’ve only received blank stares. Maybe I should describe it like that.
Money is only valuable because we decided it has value. It can’t really do anything for you except be spent. It isn’t like a log, which could be burned, or ground into paper, turned into a weapon, etc
My viewpoint is that money is a technology, and people will choose whatever technology works for their use. A technology can be designed so that some favored uses are much more likely than others. For our government money, those uses are as a medium of exchange, temporary store of value, and tool of government economic policy. Also, some money transactions are delimited by regulations.
People already choose that their government money is worthless, e.g., the people of Venezuela and Russia. They will risk prosecution to move their wealth into assets valued in dollars or euro's. Even in the dollar and euro zones, people use other technologies for storing and exchanging wealth. Most wealthy people don't store their wealth directly in dollars already.
The value of government money is based on expectations about the future behavior of the government. This is at least a little better than being arbitrary or a collective delusion, in the short term. There are already ways to bet against it if you want.
"if we all decided dollars were worthless" does a lot of heavy lifting
Consider the following scenario:
If everyone except one person decided that dollars were worthless then on day one everyone would think that the one person accepting money must be insanely stupid. That person now has all the worthless money.
Turns out, money is created through contractual obligations that mandate the acceptance of money in equal amount to the created quantity. Everyone is now indebted to that person.
People who can't fulfill their contractual obligations must go and declare insolvency. The person with all the money offers a single dollar for all the assets that this person owns, since that person owns all the money, there isn't a second dollar to go around to compete with him.
After spending his first dollar, the economy now has one dollar representing the entire worth of the economy. The next insolvency will be auctioned off for two dollars, four dollars and so on.
What I'm getting at here is that "if we all decided that dollars were worthless" implies the abandonment of the rule of law, which makes the statement significantly less interesting. You can do a lot of things in a failed state. Abandoning the currency is one of the least interesting ones.
I knew a son of two entrepreneurs with a ~30m yacht, they own a (ex) monastery they use, either for parties, events, or as a residence
They have Miele appliances, but having "same appliances" doesn't make justice to the fact that there are deeper differences. Yes, they're status goods, but I think one's life might greatly improve by being very wealthy - even if your life can still be shitty as a wealthy person
Miele makes really good stuff. I have their stackable W1/T1 washer/dryer. It's unbelievably good at washing or drying pretty much anything. They also supposedly last forever, even today. I'll let y'all know how true that is in 20 years LOL
Oh no... Ok, Miele rant - I got a whole set in the new house. Their firmware SUCKS. Turning on the oven/dishwasher takes 5-10s. The dishwasher takes 3 power button presses with no feedback. The oven has no indication when it starts turning on and it's a touchpanel, so you stand there like an idiot deciding is the next press will work or be perfectly timed to turn it off again. Then once you start the drying after steaming, you can't cancel (~20min). The washer needs a strong long press on "start" because it's somehow read twice in software and you can get into an in-between state where the controls go away but the washing doesn't start. ("Known issue, press harder") Their kitchen extractor fan has "loud" and "jet engine" settings. (At least that one's hardware)
Would not recommend this to anyone who can't easily test them in a showroom and even then not really... They do the actual job well, but their UX makes me angry every day.
The biggest difference more money would make is that I could have someone else deal with those issues.
The microwave in my apartment also has bad firmware. It beeps four times when the timer runs down and it turns off. Unfortunately, the beeping continues unnecessarily after opening the door. I believe Frigidaire (the brand) contracted a manufacturer to build the model, but they have their own people install the official firmware. Then the manufacturer produces extras, installs their own firmware, and sells them, cutting out the brand. And that's how I end up with a "Frigidaire" microwave that beeps when it shouldn't and says "GOOD" instead of "DONE". At least that's my theory.
Firmware is an important part of the appliance. An appliance with Frigidaire hardware and third-party firmware is counterfeit.
Maybe the same thing happened with your Miele appliances?
I don't believe Miele would go for selling the rebranded production extras as their own. But that beeping-after-open is common in many models and super annoying.
My apartment has Miele appliances. It came with the apartment and I'm honestly not impressed at all besides the fact that they still work after 18 years (when they were installed).
The oven is mediocre at best, my Annova Precision Oven is much much better, much better control of temperature, heats up much faster, has more features, infinitely cheaper.
The range hood needs to be repaired because it makes a lot of noise. Repair of Miele appliances are super expensive.
The only appliance I'm impressed with is the wine cave but that's a white labeled Liebherr
when the 3D printing stack gets a little further, we'll all get "a utopian, post-scarcity space society of humanoid aliens and advanced superintelligent artificial intelligences living in artificial habitats spread across the Milky Way galaxy."
I've heard that it's even worse (better?) the more you go to the past. Bret Deveraux [argues] (https://acoup.blog/2020/07/24/collections-bread-how-did-they...) that this is one reason why lots of farmers choose to stay in subsistence level, because there's not really better things they can buy anyway. So they just conserve energy and time (which some outsider may see as lazy) and focus on long term resiliency (through building horizontal and vertical social relationships) to ensure that no disaster may pull them down all the way to starvation.
Goods, yes. Services, fuck no. Look at the Four Seasons and Amangani yacht and jet programmes for a <$10mm example of the sorts of experiences wealth opens up.
The four seasons isn't materially better than the hilton next door. The rooms are basically the same, the fixtures at the four seasons are fancier, the bedding is prettier, some random furniture may be sourced from a different supplier. The four seasons will be in a location which has somewhat better views.
The four seasons has prettier and more attentive staff, and there are less "less well off" at the four seasons. And you get to brag that you went to the "four seasons" but it really isn't that much better.
I stayed at the 4 seasons a few years ago just to give it a try. Not even remotely worth it. The only real difference I noticed was the obsequiousness of the staff.
If you want hotel employees to kiss your ass and pretend to respect you, then this is the place for you. But the quality of the room wasn’t noticeably better than other places I’ve stayed.
I will give you a good example of something that most upper middle class people can’t afford or at least can’t afford frequently.
Disney World VIP tours. My wife has family who are club 33 members and they gifted us a VIP tour as a wedding present. The tour guide drives you around to the different parks and walks you backstage through tunnels and hidden areas to get you the very front of any ride you want to go on.
> the quality of the room wasn’t noticeably better than other places I’ve stayed
I broadly agree with you on their hotels. But I’d note that Four Seasons doesn’t compete on room quality, but service. If you planned your stay perfectly they shouldn’t outperform. But if you forgot something, or need help with something weird, they have a habit of being halfway legendary. (Colleague left his suit at home. They had one made overnight. Concierge apparently knew a suit maker’s cell.)
Memorable experience at a four seasons in Shenzhen (memorable for how well they fixed my screwups that is), I had forgotten my laptop charger (apple laptop). They didn't have any I could borrow, went to the apple store to buy one and lent it to me. I forgot my phone in the taxi arriving at the airport. Noticed immediately, I tried calling my phone, the taxi driver hung up immediately on me (so he knew I left my phone there and was probably planning on selling it). I called Four Seasons, they had kept a record of the taxi number, got the phone fedexed it to my destination.
This is exactly it. The middle class (even upper) aren’t really used to the “mention something, get it fixed” type of lifestyle. But that’s what you’re paying for.
Depends on which one you go to. Supposedly the experience is insanely better internationally.
Regardless, at luxury hotels, the rooms are nice, sure [^0], but you're mostly paying for top-tier service.
If you want to travel somewhere within the US where you _know_ your room will be tip-top and don't want to lift a finger, the Four Seasons/Ritz/St. Regis is it.
[^0] They do have some huge, amazing suites that you won't find at a Westin, though.
> The four seasons isn't materially better than the hilton next door
I think it would be more fair to say that the Four Seasons isn't materially better than the _Conrad_ next door. I've stayed in some amazing Hilton-branded properties, but also some terrible ones. I guess I am expecting the hotel brand to denote the _minimum_ level of comfort, and there are some Hiltons that truly drag along the bottom, where I'd be very surprised to find myself at a shitty Four Seasons (or Conrad, which is the HHG's next step up from a Hilton).
Can't say I've stayed at the Four Seasons, but we stayed in the St Regis in SF last year. We got upgraded to the Metropolitan Suite and that was quite the experience. Note that I paid exactly zero as I'm a long time Bonvoy Gold Member and was burning points on one of their regular rooms for a vacation, then they elected to upgrade us. I think it was due calling ahead asking for an accommodation for my autistic son (which they were amazing regarding).
I have nothing bad to say and everything good about how they handled our stay. Whether it was worth the price is (as this whole topic is about) relative to your means. I would say that it was more than we would have paid, but now that we've experienced it it's on my radar as a reasonable value. Their signature "Butler" service was beyond amazing; traveling with my son is difficult at the best of times and they handled everything.
They essentially allowed me to have an actual vacation vice allowing me to handle a series of challenges and let the rest of my family have a vacation (which is the normal way things go).
Now take that experience, put it on a private jet and yacht, with staff who know you personally and can be prepositioned to ancitipate your needs and you're around where the hundred millionaires live. (Billionaires operate like mini heads of state.)
In my experience, if you value your privacy, freedom etc... I'd say living like a millionaire with close to 100 (but not above) is much nicer than living above that. Below 100 million, you don't need bodyguards and private security, you can be as low key as you want.
Oh yeah of course, depends entirely of the country and the income disparity. I live in HK and regularly I see some members of the Li Ka-shing family go to one of my favourite restaurant (Chiu Tang, a nice but not too expensive fine dining place). They're always accompanied by 4-6 bodyguards and have to dine in a private room.
I clicked through hoping for something interesting and different, and got the same impression.
So... More plus influence.
I think the only thing listed that people with less money don't really "know about" is how much perspective changes with staff. You know people have people, but not necessarily how it changes things.
I'm on the very low end of that - I run a small DevOps consultancy and can, now employ a few people in low cost countries, and though I've managed large teams before, having unilateral ability to set people to work on things because I want them is a game changer, and it's hard to get used to asking for things instead of doing them.
The rest feels like things everyone knows, if not directly then from TV and movies.
Yet people still hate the thought of a "maximum wage" or limit to wealth. Everyone should have a life of comfort, not just those who won the lottery or were born into it.
The problem with a maximum wage is deciding what that maximum is. Outsides returns are what incentivize people to start companies. A earning cap will cap that incentive accordingly.
People hate the thought because it's repeatedly failed to work historically, with even explicitly Marxist states deciding that it's best to allow some billionaires.
When I started earning much more money than I have had before (not “rich” money by any means - that’s not the point; but much much more than I grew up in or started my career with) I realised it’s not about buying things, it’s more about being able to pay for things without giving a thought if needed/wanted. That’s really a very relaxing or freeing feeling. (And they say money doesn’t bring peace :P)
Bill Gates has saved millions of lives through his philanthropy, and the internet is full of malicious rumors about him. Other billionaires who do far less good, but keep a lower profile, get much less hate.
A common meme on the internet is "if your intent was truly charitable, you wouldn't care whether anyone said thank you".
But this is a false dichotomy. Many people find the idea of charity appealing to some degree, but most of us aren't die-hard saints either. When we see the good deeds of others get devalued or even punished, that makes us less enthusiastic about doing good ourselves.
"Show me the incentive and I'll show you the outcome." Punishing do-gooders is one of the most anti-social things you can do. On the other hand, praising do-gooders is a very cheap way to incentivize people to do more good in the world.
I believe that once you get to a certain level of wealth, you start caring more about your personal reputation than your material goods. Sadly, there is so much reflexive skepticism towards billionaire philanthropy at this point that it's not even clear to me whether doing philanthropy is reputationally net-positive.
In Bill Gates's post about changing his charitable giving goal to give most of it away in the next 20 years, he references Chuck Feeney as someone he admired.
Until he was 75, he traveled only in coach, and carried reading materials in a plastic bag." He did not own a car or a house and wore a $10 Casio F-91W watch
He gave away most of his fortune and required recipients not to reveal the source of the donation.
Wiki: "Beyond Mr. Feeney's reticence about blowing his own horn, 'it was also a way to leverage more donations—some other individual might contribute to get the naming rights.'"
NYT article(1):
..when asked what had driven him into such deep secrecy:
“I feel it’s my life,” Mr. Feeney said. “I’d be the last guy to tell a wealthy person what to do with their money. They’re entitled to do whatever they want.”
quote from his kid: "...he sheltered us from people using the money to treat us differently,” Leslie Feeney Baily said. “It made us normal people.”
when asked why he had chosen to reveal himself:
“A lot of wealthy people, they don’t realize they have the alternatives of spending the money for good,” he said. “If they knew it gives so much satisfaction, I wouldn’t have to persuade them."
People make this claim about a lot of software (Netscape being the poster child) but typically whenever I look into it, the nuanced answer turns out to be "Microsoft may have thrown it's weight around, but the product largely failed on it's own merits."
Sure, and there was a huge antitrust trial about it too, and we all knew how it turned out. The trial surfaced a whole bunch of shady stuff, but that was more related to them abusing their monopoly position (i.e. "throwing their weight around"). Netscape died because:
1) Browsers were destined to be a commodity, given the first browsers (like Mosaic) were effectively free, and even then it was clear that a browser would be as critical a component of a consumer OS as, say, a file explorer or a calculator.
2) Netscape simply was an inferior product compared to IE and other browsers like Opera (which survived despite IE being free and Microsoft's shenanigans, and is a thing to this day.)
> Netscape simply was an inferior product compared to IE
The book of the battle - Competing for the Future - makes it clear how much of a mess Netscape was in internally
Essentially they had alternate code bases for every other version of the browser and we forever porting feature and bugs between the two (and often forgetting and so getting regressions)
You're right. On one hand he has saved millions of lives and nearly eradicated some diseases in developing countries. On the other hand we could have had another computer operating system. Really tough to balance.
For the sake of preventing perverse incentives, I would encourage you to just make this claim in discussions of BeOS or perhaps early Windows, and not when Bill's philanthropy comes up.
Otherwise other billionaires will think: "If I get into philanthropy, people will take it as an opportunity to publicize un-flattering facts about me."
> Bill Gates has saved millions of lives through his philanthropy, and the internet is full of malicious rumors about him.
But that's not related to his philanthropy mostly. There's evil business stuff he actually did and there are some conspiracy freaks. Those would exist anyway. But I've never seen a significant number of people with criticisms because of the programs he enables.
The conspiracy freaks around vaccines wouldn't exist if it weren't for his philanthropy. I just don't like to see someone punished for good-faith efforts to do good.
Nothing nihilistic or conspiratorial about it. Money gives you power over other people. You having more power over others means by definition that they have less power -> Zero sum.
Philanthropy is often used a strategy to lobby politicians and drive policy that benefits other investments while avoiding most taxes.
Nobody voted people like Bill Gates to have such a massive influence over media and institutions via "donations".
If you knew anything about NGOs and politics you wouldn't simply go for "They're asking for or donating money so they're obviously awesome, their intentions are great and it's a net positive".
Calling skepticism reflective is like saying that if you think your company doesn't have your best interest at heart like it says you're being paranoid.
>Philanthropy is often used a strategy to lobby politicians and drive policy that benefits other investments while avoiding most taxes.
Forbes estimates that Gates would be a trillionaire if it weren't for his philanthropy. Perhaps some philanthropists pursue the strategy you describe, but it's unreasonable to assume this is their strategy by default.
>Nobody voted people like Bill Gates to have such a massive influence over media and institutions via "donations".
In a free society, not everything people do needs to be authorized by the government. I believe that Gates has sincere concern about the well-being of people in the developing world, so it doesn't particularly bother me when he lobbies on their behalf.
Insofar as cynicism is justified, it should be easy to provide concrete and compelling evidence that Gates has bad intentions in his philanthropy. So why isn't there any such evidence in your comment?
Well - there is an alternative take. Whisper it... but we don't actually need to have ultra rich people in our society. They serve no purpose that normal rich people don't, and arguably introduce distortions that are profoundly corrosive.
They are decidedly a result of the taxation system of a country. The country decided they wanted to have this class of people to exist. (The degree of) Wealth inequality is always a product of society.
taxation or it's condoned avoidance/evasion does not create wealth or at least not to the same level as actual in-demand products and services, unless you believe that it is supposed to act as a filter between transactions by default rather than the standard accounting practice to tax after-the-fact.
I suppose this naiveté is a by product of swallowing the media's constant garbage about the reason Jeff Bezos (et al...) has a yacht is purely down to avoiding tax.
a) by disproportionally tax the poor vs. the rich. In the United States, "42 states tax the top 1 percent at a lower rate than the bottom 20 percent, while 46 states tax the top 1 percent less than the middle 60 percent of earners." https://media.itep.org/ITEP-Who-Pays-7th-edition.pdf
b) by using the taxes to disproportionately benefit the upper income brackets, e.g. by investing more in universities than schools, or infrastructure in wealthy neighborhoods than poor neighborhoods (both true for the US).
I guess I was just thinking about federal taxes. As long as I can remember, even when I wasn’t making much, I remembered state being less and I didn’t may much attention to it.
Looking into it more, I was ignoring sales tax and some of those other, as they are more indirect, but consumption taxes will hit harder for those with less… it’s just not as easy to quantify.
Looking at big more it seems like the split between federal/state taxes for the bottom 20% may be 20/80, while for the rich it’s flipped at 90/10.
While all this is interesting, and has opened my eyes a little in this area… I would still stand by the latter half my original statement. The wealth is created elsewhere before taxes even come into the picture. The local taxes can hit a point of being very low impact long before someone hits the 1% or is considered wealthy, and that isn’t turning anyone into a billionaire.
In the spirit of engaging in open conversation to try and broaden my mind and understanding, may I say that I feel your statement "The tax systems doesn’t create wealthy people, it just doesn’t cut their legs out from under them" begs a question: What is it that creates wealthy people?
I think that there are a few things that are needed for lots people to become wealthy (of course, the ability to exact physical violence on others can enable a few to become very very wealthy as well).
1) Property rights that are equally enforced. That you have important friends shouldn't give you the ability to take my business.
2) Liquidity. There needs to be mechanisms that enable investment.
3) Civil infrastructure & some sort of safety net. People who are frightened of what awaits their children, or them in their old age, or of sickness, are reluctant to invest. They will be happy to work themselves half to death, but even if they have enough money, they will be very very risk averse.
Is this what you think, or are there other mechanisms that you have in your mind?
Those things can create an environment to help create, grow, and maintain wealth. I'd say actually creating it requires producing something of value to society with enough scale and margin to make a profit. Typically it requires doing this consistently for decades. There are a few exceptions to this, but by and large, it seems to be how things work, at least under capitalism.
Public wealth vs private wealth. Trump has correctly identified that rising public debt is a problem, but not that the missing liquidity is trapped in his own class's pockets.
You can't talk about top rates without also talking about where they kick in. Italy's top rate of 43% kicks in for everything over 50k euros. The 50k feels a bit low to me, and maybe 100k euros would be better. 90% of everything over 5M may work, but then you run into another problem where people that rich are not bringing home a salary. So you lower where it kicks in and then just impact the working professionals, which also isn't who you really want to target. And if you do want to target those working $500k+/year, removing the cap (176,100 this year) on SS payments is probably a better path.
So now we're back to the ultra-rich where you need to first think about taxing dividends as income without hurting retirees, and second think about some wealth tax. It could be small like .2% on everything over 5M or something, but it would actually put some tax burden on the people you're trying to put it on.
Create expensive products which materially improve the lives of those with wealth? Align the incentives of the rich so that they don't spend on these zero sum status goods. Also incentivize the rich to get richer so that they can buy these products that make their lives better in a non-shallow way.
Work with incentives instead of against incentives.
There's yachts and fancy houses and supercars to buy for the rich. They make their lives better, in some way. A lot of people are employed to make those things.
I don't see how this helps anyone. If wealth were distributed more equally, those people would work on making the lives of everyone better, not just the lives of a small elite.
It's really curious that something as personal to people as smartphones don't have a rich-person equivalent the same way cars do. What is the McLaren of iPhones?
The problem was that technological advances made this a very tough market. Nokia used to have a separate marque called Vertu (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vertu) to serve this market. But rapid technological progress meant that next year's $300 phone is batter in most functional aspects as last year's $5000 luxury model, so even the very wealthy would probably prefer this year's iPhone 17 Air to last year's diamond-encrusted iPhone 16.
The market might get revived when the tech improvement flattens flattens. like they did for cars.
There's gold plated / jewel encrusted versions of phones or graphics cards [0] but that's just making things look garish for the people that want to look rich. But as far as I know there's no 'bespoke' phone manufacturer on the same level as Swiss watches or hand-built cars. No real reason either; with a watch, any performance has peaked years ago so the only thing that remains is design. Phones are mostly functional, although I suppose you could do something cool with the back side.
It’s remarkable how every market where Apple makes itself at home basically has no real luxury bracket anymore.
Almost every visible accessory or piece of functional equipment has luxury models that may be only slightly functionally better (sometimes not even better, sometimes actually worse) but also charge massive margins.
Not so much with phones, tablets, or laptops. It’s as if the world has collectively decided that you simply can’t beat Apple, which astoundingly in the meantime completely ignores the luxury market. Even if you charged $50K+ per unit—I’m sure Samsung and every other maker would love to charge exorbitant prices for end-game devices—you’ll make a fool of yourself: iPhone will objectively be more premium, work smoother, have all the high-end apps, etc. There’s no choice but to tighten your belt and thin your margins to stay competitive.
I’m not sure how this (undoubtedly impressive) achievement makes me feel. Maybe it’s the feeling of finally being able to afford one, or the ability to say “it’s a cute expensive toy, but it’s objectively worse for X and Y reasons”, but there is something about the Leicas and Ducatis of the world.
I'm not sure what you argument is here. But I world rather have inexpensive things that improve lives. There isn't a huge market for expensive things that improve lives. It are you trying to say you want rich people to spend their money trying to build things to improve lives? Some do. Why do you think we have star link, for example
Maybe in part, but you build an ISP (and then strong arm people into using it) because you want to control the data and the access. Especially when you clearly prioritize those things in your side jobs.
Commissioned art and other things of little intrinsic utility plus occasional trappings of status are the discriminants for some. If you don't need these things, life is simpler and cheaper. It is nice to do things that aren't solely about advancing utility sometimes. Art is another good way to hide, transport, and increase wealth.
what the super-rich can buy that the middle class can't isn't really things (except for luxury goods, which are meh), it's people (through services). you can buy someone to do anything that you want to be done (that can be done!) so you don't have to do it. nannies, companions, builders, killers, bodyguards, drivers, pilots, cleaners, house managers, lawyers, secretaries, etc. That's what you do with the money. You buy farmers to grow macadamia nuts on your hawaii estate to feed cows raised by more farmers so you can call your property a farm, get a tax break, and brag about the quality and freshness of the steak when people come over for dinner. and so on.
you can even buy people to make more money for you, so you don't have to do it yourself, either through your "family office" investment firm, or through venture capital. You don't have to do anything but ask for what you want and there it is.
Little, but largely impactful in certain circumstances
* money for health care
* education
* money to walk away from a bad job
+ money to hold you over for extended periods during hard times
After health and edu, your points do not apply. Filthy rich do not have jobs, hard times etc
And at least in Europe we have (mostly) low cost health and edu and we do not (mostly) get jealous about the rich
I'm French and, out of all the countries I've lived in (US, developing countries in South East Asia, China, ...) I have a hard time thinking of a country where there's more hatred for the rich than in France. So I'm not sure that the statement of Europeans not getting jealous about the rich tracks. If anything Americans seem to dislike their rich less.
> We should have expensive products which actually improve lives.
We do. It's just that "wealthy" is far past the point of diminishing returns when it comes to buying high-quality expensive items.
No, we don't need to come up with things for the rich to buy just to fix their incentives. We should be asking ourselves how to decrease wealth inequality, not how to make it more fair to those on top.
Since you bring him up specifically I'm guessing you already know he's a capitalist but is perfectly fine with hereditary wealth extracted from other people's labour, so maybe look into his predatory practices towards the poor, e.g. in lending, or other corporations.
Perhaps you also recognise this quote:
"There's class warfare, all right, but it's my class, the rich class, that's making war, and we're winning."
Look at the context of that quote and you’ll understand he is not arguing either in support of your stance against the rich nor is he supportive of how the rich as a class are minimizing taxes through equity loans/etc.
I thought this article would tell me about things that wealthy people buy that those of us who aren’t as rich would never even think about. But in the end, it mostly talked about things that are somewhat obvious like how wealth brings access, influence, and luxury. It was interesting, but not as surprising or revealing as I expected. I guess it’s something we can all imagine to some extent, even if we haven’t experienced it firsthand.
Grew up poor, made it a little in life - could maybe retire now. The things I and the people I grew up with don't know how to do at all can be shocking. People who grew up similarly and ended up in middle class seem to be similar unless they put real time into it:
- how to buy stocks, what ETFs are, what a 401(k) is, etc.
- hiring people to clean your house, do yard work, etc.
- traveling out of the country, or in many cases, how to take a plane to a part of the country that's too far to drive
- how financing works, ranges from personal credit cards to mortgages, and thus what TCO means. The number of people I grew up with who were fine with 12% on a car loan and what that meant to the final cost of the car is flabbergasting
- how to buy high-quality (expensive) stuff vs brand recognition (expensive) stuff
some anecdotes:
- a friend of mine recently did retire after 30 years in the government, wanted to buy stocks, had no idea what a brokerage was
- another guy I know, an airline pilot who grew up in a broken home and ended up with a business degree, figured out how to buy stocks, but didn't know what index funds were or that they exist outside of his 401(k)
- perfectly middle class people who will spend all weekend cleaning their house and doing yard work, and hate it, who thought hiring a cleaning person and lawn mowing guy would be too expensive ($35k-50k/yr)
- a lot of people I know are afraid to travel to non-English speaking countries even if they've been outside of the U.S., they can't fathom that you can get by in most places with English, a translate app, and pointing and smiling. Even tourist friendly places with plenty of English signage and English speaking help like France or Japan are unfathomably exotic
I find this super interesting and something I've thought about a bit in the past. All of these things combined are relatively simple. You could give a decent breakdown of each bullet point within an hour each, with room to dive in deeper if needed. Now with the internet and all the great resources out there, the access is there for most people (in a place like the US) to learn about these.
I think the main problem now is that these are "unknown unknowns". People don't even know to know what a 401k or similar is and thus don't know that there's something to dive deeper into there. That missing piece is very hard to solve.
I've had it myself where I run into something in my career, for example, where I'm introduced to a concept I wasn't aware of that I now use to underpin serious decision making about something like application architecture. Had I never had the opportunity to initially find out about a problem/solution, it would've made it notably harder to get better.
All the things you lists are things I personally associate with familial education. Most of those things were taught to my by my family, having grown up in a middle class home. If my parents hadn't had the opportunity to learn about those, neither would I. It's a familial/potentially class (depending on the situation) based learning opportunity, purely based on the education your family was able to receive (whether formal or not).
School is also a place to inject these concepts (personal finance specifically), and I did have a great experience with the personal finance elective at my high school when I was in 9th grade.
Tangentially, I don't think that's a perfect solution (but still important) because teenagers will absolutely ignore/tune in the info out. When people say they wish that had learned how to do their taxes in high school, I agree in principle and I do think it should be taught, but I also believe most teenagers (at least around me growing up) wouldn't have payed any attention. It doesn't mean we shouldn't teach it, but educating a teen is hard.
yup, it's very hard to bootstrap without knowing where the next step even is in a dark room.
> All the things you lists are things I personally associate with familial education.
I absolutely agree. Or some good mentor. If your entire family runs paycheck to mouth, the likelihood of somebody able to guide you towards a low fee brokerage that provides you with the financial advice to differentiate between different investment instruments is vanishingly small. Even people who make it into white-collar jobs with 401ks are likely to only vaguely understand that it's something more than a weird savings account they can't touch.
Investment takes a certain kind of stomach and can be a very expensive training exercise. Lots of people don't do it well, even highly sophisticated and educated investors.
I remember we spent a couple weeks on stocks and bonds in a class in middle school, but basically zero time on personal finance, how loans work, how to read legal paperwork, run a ledger, etc. Those have almost always been a "learn on the job" thing since I've been alive.
> how to buy stocks, what ETFs are, what a 401(k) is, etc.
I've seen this before, and I remain incredulous.
We learned about stocks in 4th grade and did a mock exercise picking stocks and tracking their performance over a few weeks. We did calculations on mortgage interest and investment returns in middle school math class. Every news source has a finance section and talks about stocks regularly. There are advertisements for brokerages on every TV commercial break and everywhere else ads are found. Every company I've ever worked for had a mandatory training about the 401k as part of employee onboarding and usually ongoing mentions at least once a year. There are a zillion personal finance websites, podcasts, blogs and youtube channels.
It seems like if an alien landed in the US or a time traveler arrived here, they'd learn about ETFs and 401ks within the first 24 hours whether they wanted to or not.
People have to be actively, intentionally avoiding learning these things or actively tuning it out or forgetting, because they're dead simple and information about them is incredibly easy to find.
When I did the equivalent "lets learn about stocks" at school, we opened the newspaper, found a stock, "invested" fake money in a ledger the teacher kept, and then cashed out at the end of three weeks after doing some rough calculations.
The equivalent for a real world person would have been to
1) know what a brokerage was
2) find one
3) drive there and fill out some paperwork to make the account
4) deposit a paper check or cash at the location
5) get a phone # with a specific broker at the brokerage
6) subscribe to a local paper with the stock section
7) watch one of several thousand stocks, and write down by hand the movement of the stocks to see if you could set a strategy
8) maybe buy subscriptions for some investment magazines, a few hundred dollars per year
9) decide the time is right, call your broker, leave a message with his secretary to get back to you
10) wait for that to happen, then place your order. your broker would then charge you a percentage (up to 3% of your trade!) as their fee
11) Angry men in a pit in NYC would yell at each other for hours to make the trade. The trade would be communicated on scraps of paper with hastily written numbers, then shouted over a phone on the trading floor
12) wait for your broker to send you physical mail with your certificates or a record of ownership showing that the trade closed several days after you placed it with him
13) go through a similar process to sell your stock certificates, but then have to self track capital gains for your taxes
Can you name a single reason why you think a poor person living paycheck-to-meal would even know about or wish to participate in this?
Things got better with the internet, which didn't exist for most people until I was an adult (I know because I helped start an ISP), it still cost $30 trade electronically and settlement still didn't happen for days. So somebody making hundreds of dollars a month would have to lose $30, just to make a bet of whatever they were able to scrimp together over months, in the hope it would turn into more than $30 so they could sell it and make money above the trading fee.
Again, why would a poor person, who may not even have a bank account, be a participant in this?
So, to help with your incredulity, why would somebody, who is from a poor family, with not a single person around them trading stocks, most without full-time employment, take a brief class when they were 10, retain those precious handful of classroom hours, until they get lucky enough to have disposable income decades later and suddenly decide "I'm going to trade ETFs" <insert rich yacht buying cat meme picture>
Most people don't work in companies with a 401k, or even with any benefits at all. Why would they be familiar with managing one? Next time you eat out, trade some tips with your waiter on how they diversify their retirement investments. Ask them which ETFs they like, and if any have especially low fees, or do they pursue a market segment strategy. What's their opinion on I-bonds? Maybe they have a prediction if Cathie Wood is a cook or not?
The real cost of hiring people to do stuff for your house is it's actually hella expensive to get licensed and bonded legal employees with references that attest they aren't thieves, and if you don't eventually they steal your shit or they get hurt and sue you for a billion dollars.
I could easily hire people to do it, but I sweat bullets everytime I am guilt tripped into letting a neighbor kid mow the lawn because I know if he gets hurt I'll lose everything (renter's/ homeowners insurance usually doesn't cover unlicensed contractors).
Don't worry, we made qualified immunity so the government employees, also of whom are the people that enforce the lawsuits they are immune from, don't have to eat their own dogfood.
There is some seriously crazy stuff in America. Like guys who go around asking mom & pop shops to use a normally private bathroom "for an emergency", then sue the shit out of them because it's not considered handicap accessible and now that they let the public use it it is now a public bathroom. The effect is a lot of places would rather you shit yourself than open themselves up to lawsuit.
2 people x the entire weekend = 32 hours labor, which was the quoted time for how much upkeep the household required.
Including business overhead, licensing, insurance, etc you're at 35-50k for a year of 32 hours of labor a week with the upper end a w2 employee and the lower end an illegal.
32 hours per week is about 10-20x what the average American household uses for cleaning/lawncare.
Most people have a cleaner or lawncare crew come like once every couple weeks for a couple hours, they're not hiring a full-time employee for their 3 bedroom house on 0.1 acre lot.
Through some odd circumstances I found myself receiving a lot of catalogs and sales solicitations for a reasonably wealthy person. Most of the stuff was what you'd exoect-- expensive furnishings, clothing, home goods.
The two that were most interesting were the travel-related (guided trips in exotic locales w/ profiles and resumes of the local guides), and oddly specific and highly-focused catalogs (gardening, specific types of home goods). The one that really stands out was a catalog with hundreds of different brushes-- each with a very specific purpose (and many with carrying cases and other accessories). I had no idea there were so many different brushes.
Huh, for me the nice part of being rich would be to not have to choose between so much goods.
Like, when buying a new bicycle I have to spent lots of time figuring out the tradeoffs between what I want, what I can get a different price points etc, as buying something wrong will set me back and be a while until I can try again. But for a reach person, they can just buy the top spec of everything, and if they don't like it just buy from a different brand.
Of course, since I'm interested in cycling, this nerding is a bit fun. But for loads of stuff it's just a hassle. Like our oven recently broke down. Then I had to spend a few evenings researching what to buy, how to get it delivered, what to do with installation etc. If I had more money, I could just tell someone to fix it, and "get me the best one".
>Huh, for me the nice part of being rich would be to not have to choose between so much goods.
A friend of mine has a friend that's a fancy lawyer and I went camping with them once and the lawyer had the best of the best of camping stuff. Like he just went to REI and was like "give me the best of whatever I need to camp this weekend." It's possible that he weighed the pros and cons of some of it, but I sorta doubt it. The tent fabric felt like silk and was the lightest weight of anything I've ever seen and I camp a lot of with a wide range of people that can afford nicer stuff. The tent didn't even have any branding on it. My friend was telling me about this bike the guy had, and it's basically carbon fiber everything probably $10k at least. He had wrecked his old bike and gave it to my buddy that would have just needed to get a few parts and have it assembled at a bike shop and it was basically too expensive for my buddy to justify it.
The specific catalogs seemed to cater to the specific interests these people would have enjoyed nerding-out to. For stuff they weren't interested in it looks like they paid people to just buy the highest-end if everything else (appliances, electronics, HVAC, etc).
Yeah, post the company name — because I'm picturing instead a company posing was a company for the rich and famous. Do we remember The Sharper Image catalog?
The J Peterman catalog is still around around (at least, online) and approaches satire in its selection of goods (mostly clothing) that assiduously conveys "casual, interesting, old-money wealth". The Elaine Benes character on "Seinfeld" worked there, and had to deal with the kooky habits of the Mr Peterman character.
There was one that totally had that look. Ugh. I should have made notes of the names. It was a very Sharper Image-looking catalog, filled with wildly eclectic products. It was replete with statements about everything being top-of-the-line, satisfaction guaranteed, and lifetime warranties.
This one comes to mind. It was quite expensive and Uma Thurman's father was involved when I used to get the catalogs 20 years ago. They have private and custom tours available.
www.nomadicexpeditions.com
Some others.
www.nomadicexpeditions.com
www.geoex.com - Digging the 22 day train trip through the Silk Road for $50k
Ugh. We threw away a ton of stuff. I'll see what I can find. (A change-of-address had lapsed. We let the recipient's family know and they're keeping it updated now, so the torrent has, sadly, stopped.)
Wealthy people usually get concierge services. You go to a museum as a regular folk, it’s overcrowded and there’s like 20 other people looking at the same art piece you’re looking, trying to get a better shot from it. You visit as a wealthy individual, you get a private tour after hours with a dozen others when the museum is empty with a trained guide who can answer any questions you may have. You can view any art piece at your own pace from every angle you like. This goes on for pretty much every public service out there.
I have some married friends who worked at Disneyland for years, and they have stories about wealthy park visitors and the escorted, line-skipping, side-loaded experience they have at each attraction. They are often shuttled around through dedicated parts of the underground tunnel system, and enter rides through alternate entrances, often experiencing the attractions entirely out of view of the gross public.
You know how a person on 'average' income might sometimes browse retail sites as displacement activity, while waiting for something/someone or a side-quest etc?
They don't have time to read - say - a lengthy biography about a Civil War general but they can purchase their diary or letters - people who are interested in wealth preservation, especially across generations, are trained to disdain the ephemeral. They like primary documents and depending on their age/interests, cool stuff like first edition comic books or vintage niche Chanel clutch bags.
As impulsive or indulgent as it may seem - eg: I just saw a counterfeit version of Dante's Le Terze De Rime on there for $159,000 USD - the purchase are all investments and as such treated as a tax deductible by your team of accountants. If you purchase a bottle of Romanee St Vivant as an investment but (whoops) drink it - that $16,000 is a business loss. Or maybe a trust fund loss.
And once you start spending at a certain level on sites like those and others, there are extremely nice people who would like nothing more than to invite you to private showings, arrange a private briefing to bring you up to speed with whatever topic you'd like to learn more about or help you select the right gift with which to blow the mind of a business rival or someone you're courting.
I thought that reddit piece was weird. Why would the ultra-wealthy mess around with 'masstige' kitchenware appliances? They wouldn't even have a brand on their dishwasher - it would be commissioned by an architect or interior designer quietly maintained at regular intervals by an appliance engineer who has been either supplied-by your core op-secs team or thoroughly checked out by them etc etc.
> They wouldn't even have a brand on their dishwasher - it would be commissioned by an architect or interior designer quietly maintained at regular intervals by an appliance engineer
I'm not sure that I buy this. It's not simple to make a bespoke appliance like a dishwasher that's better than a very high end mass produced one. Where did you get the idea that this happens from?
Sorry, I guess what I meant is that this hypothetical ultra-wealthy person wouldn't think "I am going to get a <premium brand> dishwasher, as such. They'd assume it would be the absolute best. If this rich person fancied themselves as a chef, they'd absolutely obsess over the oven etc and have a very clear concept in mind - eg: a high end Aga. But the real estate brochure boast of all Miele (or Bosch, whatever) kitchens would not move them, as such.
Their custom appliances often are objectively worse than the high end mass produced ones. However they have a maintenance person on staff to deal with that so it isn't a problem.
As other pointed out, they often just have the mass produced appliance if they are not trying to show off.
I dont know if this is just baader-meinhof at work or the fact that AI is so prominent in cultural discourse at the moment, but I feel like I am seeing Diamond Age references everywhere I look
It's just a normal retail dishwasher, but it's been through some third party company who "customizes" it by removing any branding and maybe adding their own, and then sell it to the rich person through about 3 steps in a chain of middleman where it eventually gets to someone who just "solves" the "I need a house" problem of the rich person.
The rich do not give a single fuck how it functions. They have never even thought about that or considered it. If they bought a dishwasher that sucks at washing dishes, their staff will deal with that. If they bought one that breaks after a few months, it will be replaced and they probably will never know. They haven't even stepped foot in this house in months anyway.
The rich are not discerning purchasers because they do not have to be, and they think their time is way too valuable to care about simple things like "Am I spending too much on this" or "Will this widget actually work as advertised"
> They wouldn't even have a brand on their dishwasher - it would be commissioned by an architect or interior designer quietly maintained at regular intervals by an appliance engineer who has been either supplied-by your core op-secs team or thoroughly checked out by them etc etc.
I _absolutely_ do not buy that very rich people have custom dishwashers. Like, _why_? There's no way it could be as good as a mass-produced unit; you benefit from massive economies of scale on the design, there, along with lessons learned from previous models.
For me it's the opposite: I cannot believe a rich person deals with "you need a Samsung account on the Samsung CleanDishes to unlock the QuickClean functionality".
> They don't have time to read - say - a lengthy biography
If theres one thing all the wealthy people in my life have it is in fact _time_, which in turn means that they take their leisure activities really, really seriously.
I disagree, although mine are clients not friends as such so you may have more insight. Running an empire or even managing a fortune you inherited is a tonne of work - there are so many people from the government, potentially bad hires, distant family members, not to mention actual criminals who think that the person's money would suit them a lot better. They have auditors to audit the auditors, barristers on call and philanthropy managers to gently explain to your 3rd cousin that your charity fund does not extend to funding their permaculture concept.
I also mean 'don't have time to read' to be a bit sarcastic - as in it's not a flex to read the best-selling biography of whoever that was reviewed favorably or might win the Pulitzer - but having acquired the guy's letters - that even the biography author could not get - that's your one-up.
There's also the evidently more ascetic end of the billionaire spectrum - eg: Peter Thiel, Michael Burry - who don't seem to be interested in luxury, as such.
"Contemplate the objects of this people's praise, survey their standards, ponder their ideas and judgments, and then tell me whether it is not most evident, from their very notion of the desirable and the excellent, that greatness, and goodness, and sanctity, and sublimity, and truth are unknown to them; and that they not only do not pursue, but do not even admire, those high attributes of the Divine Nature. This is what I am insisting on, not what they actually do or what they are, but what they revere, what they adore, what their gods are. Their god is mammon; I do not mean to say that all seek to be wealthy, but that all bow down before wealth. Wealth is that to which the multitude of men pay an instinctive homage. They measure happiness by wealth; and by wealth they measure respectability. Numbers, I say, there are who never dream that they shall ever be rich themselves, but who still at the sight of wealth feel an involuntary reverence and awe, just as if a rich man must be a good man. They like to be noticed by some particular rich man; they like on some occasion to have spoken with him; they like to know those who know him, to be intimate with his dependants, to have entered his house, nay, to know him by sight. Not, I repeat, that it ever comes into their mind that the like wealth will one day be theirs; not that they see the wealth, for the man who has it may dress, and live, and look like other men; not that they expect to gain some benefit from it: no, theirs is a disinterested homage, it is a homage resulting from an honest, genuine, hearty admiration of wealth for its own sake, such as that pure love which holy men feel for the Maker of all; it is a homage resulting from a profound faith in wealth, from the intimate sentiment of their hearts, that, however a man may look,—poor, mean, starved, decrepit, vulgar; or again, though he may be ignorant, or diseased, or feeble-minded, though he have the character of being a tyrant or a profligate, yet, if he be rich, he differs from all others; if he be rich, he has a gift, a spell, an omnipotence;—that with wealth he may do all things."[0]
There is a reason that money specifically, and not sex or knowledge or socializing or other good things that can get out of hand, is worshiped as a god by so many.
If that is really all you want, either get a job where you get to go climbing and mountaineering as part of your job. Or reorganise your life you that you can live off of whatever you can earn in 4-8 month of working and then spend the other 4-8 month climbing.
I like to pretend that all I really want is to go skiing, but it turns out I also want to live in a nice house and be with my family. And for some reason I actually want that more.
The mind is an open wound susceptible to unhygienic memes like advertising and social media
Even now you and I are exposing our minds to all the thoughts in this thread. It's impossible for us not to, it's the reason we're here in the first place
So if advertising doesn't change your wants and desires then the problem is you aren't noticing how unhygienic your mind is getting
Not always. I have a mouse problem, none of the existing mousetraps are a good solution. If an ad can tell me about a better mouse trap I'll want it and that is a good thing. Mouse is of course a generic thing above where as technology marches on once in a while it would make my life better if only I know about it.
Now when ads make me want a "pet rock" that is a bad thing.
The other responses are correct, but they left out one important thing. People like to feel important. People like to go places other people can't. People get off on exclusivity. If you have an empty field no one will care. You put a big wall up and signs saying keep out all of a sudden people will risk their life climbing the wall just to get to that empty field. It's human nature.
Most likely for lobbying purposes. You might want to support or block a bill, resolve an issue that affects you, or push for legal changes or permits that benefit your business. It's about influencing decisions that have a direct impact on your interests. And it doesn't even need to be business related; sometimes it's just like calling the building manager when something is annoying you and you're bored.
The other answers are practical (e.g. lobbying) but I’ll give a less practical angle: proximity to uniqueness and power.
There are only 100 U.S. senators at a time. In contrast, Forbes estimates there are about 900 billionaires in the U.S. alone this year.
And it is extremely difficult to become a Senator. Many very rich people have tried and failed to win election to the U.S. Senate. It’s not as straight forward as success in business. Politics is somewhat like magic. It’s extremely difficult to predict what is going to attract votes when. A lot of very confident rich people have been humbled this way.
Politicians are also demonstrably popular in ways the very rich are not. You only become a Senator if hundreds of thousands, to millions, of individual citizens vote for you (depending on the state). Congress overall is unpopular, but individual politicians are fairly popular to their own constituencies. Again, this is not something you can just buy, and many very rich people are thirsty for this kind of public validation.
Finally, Senators have real power, at least collectively. If enough Senators agree on something, the police will make you do it. Rich people want to shape those decisions if they can, yes, but many also like the feeling of being “close” to that kind of power. Since most will never have it themselves.
The above goes for the president even more. And for many state governors too.
Generally for the influence it can give them. If you don’t like how something is happening if your city/state/country, talking to those people can give you the power to get it changed.
Having friends in high places can also help if you happen to run into legal issues. Though there is growing scrutiny around this.
Brings to mind the famous Joseph Heller quote: "At a party given by a billionaire on Shelter Island, Kurt Vonnegut informs his pal, Joseph Heller, that their host, a hedge fund manager, had made more money in a single day than Heller had earned from his wildly popular novel Catch-22 over its whole history. Heller responds, 'Yes, but I have something he will never have … enough.'"
This is arguably not very scientific but if we didn't have the media fascination around the power and influence that billionaires carry, we would like come to accept that rationally it is a mental disease no different from Plyushkin's syndrome.
You won, you can provide for you and for your whole bloodline if you so choose. You can choose your adventure, go fully epicurean or fund Humanity impacting projects. Yet they keep going and going unable to exit the carrousel.
Fair my issue is not that there are no Joseph Heller's in the world, my issue is that due to the inherent power and influence, we as a society, have a huge reluctance in considering people like Bezos, Musk, Buffet, Slim, Arnault, as just suffering from some variant of a mental health hoarding disorder.
Having worked at a few 100~1000 person companies run by billionaires, this tracks.
Most of the difference in lifestyle is the quantity and quality of housing they can afford, and having people to take care of problems for them. But they ALL universally have messed up personal lives with multiple messy divorces, embarrassing affairs, NYPost Page Six appearances, etc.
The one thing you'd think it gives them is freedom, but they all pretty much end up working til they die so I don't know. I'm not sure if the money breaks something in their brain, or their broken brain is what leads them to chase the money. Likely some of both!
There's some level where you can afford 2-3 nice residences, flying private, and not lose your damn mind. I've seen some of the billionaire's lieutenants achieve this balance. Basically being able to be fabulously rich but anonymous. Like the Bill Murray quote about people who want to be rich & famous should try just being rich first.
I think these guys I've seen are probably in the bucket the reddit OP marks "Net worth of $30mm-$100mm". Adjust that upwards for inflation and also to account for many of these people being in VHCOL areas so maybe it's like $50-200mm.
The way I’ve heard it, billionaires are generally not chasing money. They have some other mission/purpose that is driving them. If it was just about the money they would give quit.
>"What? You are old D. D.? But, hell's bells, you own a big slice of the company yourself; you ought to be able to do anything you like, rules or no rules."
>"That is not an unusual opinion, son, but it is incorrect. Rich men aren't more free than other men; they are less free—a good deal less free. I tried to do what you suggest, but the other directors would not permit me. They are afraid of losing their franchise. It costs them a good deal in—uh—political contact expenses to retain it, as it is."
>"Well, I'll be a— Can you tie that, Mac? A guy with lots of dough, and he can't spend it the way he wants to."
>>The one thing you'd think it gives them is freedom, but they all pretty much end up working til they die so I don't know.
I was having this conversation about this colleague a few weeks back about another colleague we knew who made it big working at a start up. You would expect he has lots of free time and mental space at hand to do whatever he wants, instead it turns out he has to now worry about managing that money.
And its not exactly a easy job. Managing big money can be hard as any loss even a small percentage is a lot of money. And that begins to weigh heavily on you in form of stress as there is a lots at stake.
>>Like the Bill Murray quote about people who want to be rich & famous should try just being rich first.
Absolutely there is big difference between 'comfortably rich' and 'having to worry day and night for your money'. You would expect more of a thing make things awesome as you go, but as it turns out there is a counterintuitive aspect to this.
Plus announcing your success to friends and family can bring unexpected complications. People begin to think you owe them things, and they are entitled to it. And saying no can be quite tricky, and make you look evil.
> You would expect he has lots of free time and mental space at hand to do whatever he wants, instead it turns out he has to now worry about managing that money.
> And its not exactly a easy job. Managing big money can be hard as any loss even a small percentage is a lot of money. And that begins to weigh heavily on you in form of stress as there is a lots at stake.
A three-fund portfolio pretty much scales from $100 to $100M, probably more. Once you have enough money do whatever you want, you can do stocks:bonds anywhere between 20:80 and 80:20 and you'll be alright, and if not, there probably wasn't a reasonable choice you could have made with the information available.
If he's got enough to be set for life, and he's worried about market fluctuations, that's a choice.
> And its not exactly a easy job. Managing big money can be hard as any loss even a small percentage is a lot of money. And that begins to weigh heavily on you in form of stress as there is a lots at stake.
Only because the person "needs" to "have more". They could put it in TBills and never think about it again. And they'd be totally fine, still live a life of luxury.
It's only because the growth in money becomes a goal in itself, which is a trap.
But I'm curious what the answer would look like if every strata in it was not "things you can buy" but "things you can do with the money" ... if the "IMPACT" section was delineated at each level.
One of the things I envy the most about my rich friends is their capacity to be generous. They can materialize their compassion on a regular basis without having to balance their budget.
I'd like to see what that looks like at each of these wealth levels.
(One funny thing I noticed is that I have multiple friends with virtual personal assistants now, at middle class levels of weath/entrepreneurship... definitely not a rich man's thing anymore.)
Even wealthy in the US tend to have much less servants than they would have in the past. Labor is too expensive, and the large middle class has made automation just as good and sometimes better. Sure I could hire someone to turn on my lights - but the switch on the wall works well and isn't much effort (compare to the lamp lighter of the past which did work that would be annoying).
Note, I and, I assume, the parent commenter weren't talking about home automation.
"Virtual personal assistant" to me meant a computer program that could understand speech and carry out a limited set of actions based on that speech - the computer equivalent of a human personal assistant/secretary.
That has been getting much less common. My dad used to have "his secretary" do tasks like schedule is meetings and book travel - the secretary was a department secretary for a couple dozen engineers and was kept busy just serving those needs. Today I don't have a secretary for several hundred engineers. My computer is better at scheduling meetings than the secretary ever was. Go back 100 years and the rich would have hard far more servants than they would today because various levels of automation have replaced many jobs.
The right still have servants of various types of course. Right now "Virtual personal assistant" are too limited to replace humans. Since I cannot afford a human servant I'm hoping that changes. Time will tell.
I would love a virtual assistant that could handle the tasks a human personal assistant does. VA would be available 24x7, would perform consistently regardless of time of day/how long they've been running/awake, would know/ understand my particular habits/preferences.
Maybe there's some bespoke software firm that does provide such a service for rich-enough people. Of course it'd have to run mostly locally/on-premises - none of this cloud stuff/monetizing my behaviours to bump their revenues.
The rich can afford humans to do this job. While a lot of the jobs the assistant does would be easy to automate, the hard part is from the vague description of what they want to getting something acceptable. If I ask for "famous singer" do I need that singer, a cover band, or any band in that style, any live music, or a good DJ - depending on the situation any might be acceptable (and sometimes several of the above are not available at any price). Scheduling just the famous singer is easy - just send a calendar request and see if they accept (it is more complex than that, and odds are the singer isn't signed up for this service, but that is all details), but trying to figure out which substitute is available and acceptable is hard.
There are only 902 American billionaires*, but this 'Redditor' claims to know nine of them. The wording implies these were chance friendships. It is a big answer, but not a great answer.
People tend to stick together. Once you know one odds become higher that you get introduced to a few more. Billionaires like parties as much as anyone else, so if you are not an insane stalker and get to know one well they will invite you to parties just to have a group of friends and now you are vetted so the others will not stay away as much. Different people have different sizes of friend circles so breaking in is hard.
I think much of human history (not just recent US history, but that's a prominent example on folks' minds these days) proves that the biggest differentiator that the wealthy can buy is complete immunity from any sort of legal consequences.
Even if you don't already live in a high-corruption society, you can either spend some of your wealth introducing that corruption (which pays dividends), or you can just go somewhere else that's already high-corruption and bribe your way into immediate permanent residence.
Live in a democracy? Just buy public opinion by leveraging your wealth into a highly-profitable propaganda network, which will also give you an appealing platform for opportunist would-be government officials, who will then owe you, making your bribes cheaper. Maybe you can even just directly blackmail or entrap them along the way, so you don't even have to pay.
Live in an autocracy? Buy enough weaponry and PMCs to insulate yourself or even rival the government itself, or just buy the autocrat's favor directly.
Live in an oligarchy? Psh, your work is already done. Just use the system as it's designed: to be exploited by your vast wealth.
Sam Bankman-Fried believed this, and it turned out not to be that simple. But it's very noticeable how the US is trying to set up a system of protected Party insiders.
That particular Reddit comment [2015-01-13] overlaps with a recent Graham Stephan video that explains what life is like at each order of magnitude of net worth: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZAPhN6o3e3o (19m57s) [2025-04-28]
For me, it is paying extra for the wall-time and experiences, and less about the material things.
Not saying I am "super wealthy" but we've paid a lot (but no obscene amounts) for a few things that felt kinda like "rock-star" treatment. Anyone can pay for these.
One example is my wife and I flew to Venice for a long weekend and hired a speed-boat to transfer us from the airport to our hotel. We literally walked up to the pier, threw our carry-on bags in the back, jumped in and roared off. I have this enduring memory of seeing some of the people who were on the same flight as us lining up and waiting for the water-bus thing as they watched us just speed off into the literal sunset. It wasn't crazy-expensive but totally worth it.
Another was we paid for an "escort" at an airport in Peru - they met us at our hotel, took us to the airport in a taxi, basically pushed us past the huge lines of people waiting for check-in, argued in Spanish with someone behind a desk, and then pushed us past more lines of people until we got to the front of the line for security where we said goodbye and waited for our cattle-class flight. Again, this was not a huge amount of money but saved a bunch of time and stress.
Generally speaking, tl;dr, I find paying a little extra for not having to wait for things at airports and hotels and theme parks and that sort of thing is what makes the every-day difference for me.
Getting wafted past the lines of people waiting for things or someone just sorting shit out for you so you don't have to are the day-to-day things that being in the top 95-98%ile of the population wealthwise makes all the difference. You save the time, and get that little zing of excitement/awkwardness as you are taken past the lines of others waiting.
>One example is my wife and I flew to Venice for a long weekend and hired a speed-boat to transfer us from the airport to our hotel. We literally walked up to the pier, threw our carry-on bags in the back, jumped in and roared off.
Not as fancy, but my wife and kid met some friends in chicago, and the friends sprung for a water taxi to get them all from one side of town to the other. It's not even that expensive, but not something we'd just spend money on vs walking a bit and taking a train or bus.
I saw that Reddit post a while back. It’s interesting, but I wonder how much it really applies to all of the super wealthy. There are certainly billionaires and centimillionaires who reject that lifestyle out of hand (I know I certainly would). The average person doesn’t know their name and they prefer it that way. Even the local billionaire near where I lived for a while was pretty modest, all considered (his kids not so much). I was surprised to see him and his family sit down next to mine at a restaurant one day. Could overhear him talking about the local farmers market and commenting about the tomatoes of the season haha
There is certainly a wide spectrum in how people behave, and an important factor is also how they would like to be perceived by others. Rundowns on how wealthy people live will tend to overindex on the behavior of people who want others to know they’re wealthy.
As an example, there’s a culture among what people refer to as "old money" families in the US northeast (with generational wealth from long ago), wherein they tend to avoid seeming outwardly wealthy or really talking about money at all…generally aiming to project an unpretentious vibe, eschewing designer clothes and driving 20 year old Volvos, but still spending vacations at long-owned family getaways worth tens of millions, flying first or charter, and send their kids to specific, expensive schools to socialize with others of similar backgrounds.
What wealth buys you is the freedom and opportunity to make that choice. It’s not that you have to use your influence; it’s that if your local billionaire whose name nobody knew decided to make a phone call or two, people would still pick up his call.
There's definitely a whole spectrum, and not every ultra-wealthy person is out there collecting yachts and private islands. Some just want comfort, privacy, and to be left alone to enjoy the little things
The local billionaires here own a large family business. The founders (parents) were great people. They lived life poor for the first 50 years of their lives. They were super down to earth.
The next generation are mostly good people. They're involved in politics at the state level and have some philanthropic organizations that really do good work with zero strings attached.
The grandkids, who all have known nothing but having immense wealth are garbage humans. They're entitled, awful, mean spirited assholes. Every. Last. One. They frequent local businesses, and the number of times I've heard, "don't you know who I am" is astounding.
The business mostly runs itself at this point, but I genuinely fear for the future in this area. There's already undercurrents of the family using its connections to bail out one of the grandkids when he was drunk driving. I believe the first murder will happen within the next decade.
The grandparents would be absolutely horrified if they saw what their family was turning into.
> The grandparents would be absolutely horrified if they saw what their family was turning into.
I wonder if they somewhat expected it. The 'third generation curse' is a widely known effect. Question is whether there is anything that could have been done to avoid it.
Donate their wealth before they die and leave only a token amount for the kids. Enough to give them a headstart, but not enough that they never have to try.
At high temperatures and pressures, some substances are neither liquid nor gas, but a fluid with properties of both.
Whereas most people work to live, and prefer boundaries between the two, worklife is an intertwined way of being.
Brunch with your business partners, afternoon shaking hands on a golf course, dinner with a senator, placing bets on Wall Street, a penthouse suite at the resort hotel where you’re keynoting, hosting a fundraiser at your home…
Basically it's their personality, but they don't do like 8-12 hours/6 days a week of drudgery work like building web apps on a deadline for someone else - that shit's draining. But if I'm putting money to work knowing my (rich) life is secure and more in control of my destiny, it's empowering for a lot of people to stay connected to it 24/7 even though it's "work".
One of the things that isn't really mentioned here is that extreme wealth and power lets you bring your special interests to life even when they wouldn't be particularly practical or economically viable. For example: did you know there was a large community of animators in North Korea because it was a special interest of Kim Jong-Il [0]?
Another example is how inheritors of the Walton fortune helped build tons of biking infrastructure in an Arkansas City [1].
I wish more ultrarich people would compete on building thriving communities, instead of maximizing their own personal luxuries and walling themselves off from the world. Silicon Valley is a bit of a deranged version of this, where different companies create their own little kingdoms of community for employees, while the broader community ends up being rather dull and uninviting.
I would love to say that I would not do any of these superficial things but I have clearly raised my standards of living after earning good wages. Thankfully its not "linear", I think.
But I think I am self conscious enough that I am always asking if I should really be doing or buying stuff that I can perfectly afford. Do I really need that new phone? I have a perfectly serviceable phone, what do I really get from these stuff that is totally within my mean.
However, it is more nuanced than that. For example, I think VVIP SHOULD be taking private flights instead of commercial ones. Should CEOs of big companies really be sharing flights with literal whos across the Atlantic? Probably not. But should these private jets have indoor tennis court or whatever it is they have? Also probably not.
>Do I really need that new phone? I have a perfectly serviceable phone, what do I really get from these stuff that is totally within my mean.
I always wonder how rich I'd need to be to just buy a new phone. I always get the step down models and use them for years, only upgrading when they stop working well or I get forced to upgrade when they change network technologies. I could afford to buy any phone I wanted right now, but it seems like such a financially dumb decision.
I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say "being rich" is not a personality or set of preferences. Lavish spending is still seen as pointlessly insecure by anyone on any budget. Many things are good enough for anyone.
Relevant Andy Warhol quote: "Sometimes you fantasize that people who are really up there and rich and living it up have something you don’t have, that their things must be better than your things because they have more money than you."
Also worth pointing out that we are commenting on reddit posts. Reddit is the last place anyone should seek advice beyond how to do something or find info about hobbies.
Warhol must really be lacking in imagination. I live in a college town and none of my friends here can afford to buy a comfortable couch or chair. The difference between the trash on Wayfair and something of higher quality that might cost a few thousand dollars is night and day.
>Lavish spending is still seen as pointlessly insecure by anyone on any budget.
I seen and lived this until I got my wake up call.
I was regular upper middle class, I would laugh at people who thought I was poor for having an Android because I could easily afford a $1000 iphone, I just didnt want it.
Then I got into philosophy and inevitably Stoicism, where I found happiness within.
Then I read too much philosophy and realized the promises of such ethical philosophy were harmful to my own well-being. I went full Nietzsche and realized that spending money was a demonstration of power. As Thomas Hobbes says: 'Fame makes more fame, power makes more power.'
Thus, pointless lavish spending does have a point, its to demonstrate power, which grows power.
I genuinely feel like 30+ years of my life I was tricked into a religion of modesty against my own interests. Meanwhile, the people I mocked, rappers/rich people/etc... had the right idea. Or at least right in my current set of Values.
(And if you disagree with my values, prove I'm wrong, best of luck, there is nothing backing pure reason, and if you want to be an empiricist, we have peacocking)
I do agree that demonstrating power, at least to yourself, is important for your self esteem. Pretty damn sure money is just tangential to that.
Consider that there are very powerful people out there who might not even carry a phone with them at all and see that as beneath them. It's a matter of values, not money.
> I could easily afford a $1000 iphone, I just didnt want it.
Rich people are also capable of thinking this? They're just people, man. They're also totally free to not care about anything they don't want to.
By showing you can afford lavish things, you are demonstrating success power and riches. This makes people do whatever you want, or at least tilt the scale closer into your favor.
I think Nietzsche's Genealogy of Morals, then reading Will To Power would very much get you up to speed. Other authors, Hobbes, Machiavelli, maybe Stirner, maybe skip to Callicles in Plato's Gorgias. Even ChatGPT can probably get you started on Nietzsche.
What would be great if these ultra rich people started to associate success not just with money but also with being a decent human being and giving back. Because just having shit lots of money is not my definition of being successful.
Ultra rich should make giving back a structural part of their lives and businesses.
What you're talking about sounds a lot like the post-scarcity world that Gene Roddenberry envisioned in the Star Trek universe, where everyone has enough to live on, so social status is attained by prestige and doing admirable things (i.e. working for Starfleet). However, there's a lot of work to be done getting from here to there.
They generally do. However decent human being and giving back are not well defined terms and so they will often strongly disagree with whatever definition you happen to use.
I’ve noticed this as well. It’s surprising how often the true value of certain high-quality items isn’t obvious until you’ve experienced them firsthand. It’s not just about status, but often about longevity, comfort, or simply a better user experience.
For example, things like handmade leather shoes, solid wood furniture, or even high-end kitchen tools like Miele or Sub-Zero appliances can feel like overkill until you’ve actually used them. Then you start to appreciate the craftsmanship, the reduced hassle, and the longevity they offer.
Curious if others have had similar experiences – what’s one “expensive” item that genuinely changed your perception once you owned it?
I live in a developing Asian country so the numbers and brands in the equation are a bit different.
Anyway:
1. Good midrange Japanese cooking knives. I got one on a steep discount, and now I understand why people pay a premium for them. I even bought a second one.
2. Good brands of Chinese engineering equipment. I bought a Siglent oscilloscope instead of a Hantek / Uni-T one. Before that, I had only bought the cheapest tool sufficient for the job.
I found as I've reached middle-age, I just have a bit less energy to spend struggling with things I use daily. So in these roles I appreciate something that's better quality than I strictly need. I don't come from wealth, and am a notorious cheapskate even by local standards -- but those two things were able to change my mind!
My theory is that the appliance market has developed a low cost tier of products that are poorly developed and produced. This tier of products have minimal quality standards and the thinking is the the consumer will replace it or move.
I had to purchase appliances for apartments and the first wave of products were breaking within a couple of years. I ended up purchasing appliances from high-end European companies in the second wave of appliances and haven't had issues for 3 years. The original ovens had 3 out of 5 failures before people moved in. 2 of them broke because the flimsiest plastic door latch protruding about 1" from the door broke. The doors of the oven could be removed with no tools. The company said they could send me new doors for a cost and that I could schedule a video call with the factory to learn how to re-install an oven door.
Appliances have several different class and price is not a good indication of what class things are in. Cheap apartments want the cheapest appliances that will last and those people have the accountants to figure out what those are. However right next to the cheap appliances that last are cheap appliances that won't and often there is nobody that will tell you which is which. The you get into the mid range, where again there is junk and good stuff right next to each other. At the highest prices quality goes down just because there are not enough sales to figure out what is going to break and update the design in the early part of the sales cycle to fix issues.
I agree there are tiers. I don’t believe the tier indicates quality. GE makes great appliances but I think the parts are engineered to last for x number of years rather than the life of the product.
I also doubt my accountant could answer appliance quality questions. The could probably give a depreciation table.
The thing is if you are wealthy you do not notice these things. They are just there. The luxury / highend items become a commodity. That's the minimum standard that you expect wherever you go.
Also these things are not really that expensive compared to 5-10M person.
It's probably obvious but the more they have then the more they spend (as a share of total spend) on appreciating rather than depreciating assets. The appreciating assets often aren't visible - stakes in companies for example. (But sometimes they are, such as real estate.)
The one thing I have learned here is that Americans seem very obsessed with Miele-branded appliances for no apparent reason. Did they somehow strike marketing gold an entire ocean away? Why not Bosch, Siemens or Elektra Bregenz?
Another related interesting one is that rich people don't wear brands anymore - brands are for normal people, they're advertised to look like they are for the rich but their prices are still in range for a lot of people if they put some money aside. This starts with iphones and airpods and goes to Louis Vuitton and the like.
The tech billionaires don't wear anything branded or flashy besides their $1M watches, just good and well fitting clothes.
The definition of rich is not a tech billionaire though. It is literally anyone that can afford the LVMH and co.
It is definitely aimed at rich people just not billionaires. But yes these brands become commodity from a certain point...although one has to be rich to be fully dressed in those clothes and change / rotate every day.
Yes, exactly, a person with $5 million liquid can afford to buy maybe 1 luxury home. Sure they probably already own a home, but 2nd homes are not uncommon luxuries.
As a reminder you said “almost anything highend / luxury becomes a commodity.”
Or look at this way: $5 million throws off $200k/year (pre-tax) with a “safe” pull rate of 4%. Ok so now you want to buy a luxury car, that’s over $100k. You’ve spent most of your annual income on one car. Hardly a commodity!
$5 million is enough to sustain an upper class income in most metro regions. But a long way from commodifying luxury.
> RESPECT. The respect you get at this level is just over-the-top. You are THE MAN in almost every circle. Governors look up to you. Fortune 500 CEOs look up to you. Presidents and Kings look at you as a peer.
This was the one that made me question the whole post. I don't for a second believe this respect is genuine. This isn't about the person you are, but the money you could spend on whoever's kissing your ass.
I mean if you can delude yourself into thinking it's genuine I'm sure it can be enjoyable, but I for one am confident anyone "up there" is scheming something. Political and economic chess. I'd rather just be wealthy enough but unknown.
Five or ten years ago I listened to a podcast that featured an ex-butler of a billionaire family and he talked about ‘his family’ and their friends who were also very rich. The ex-butler said that the quality of the food they ate was perfect, extremely flavorful 100% nutritious meals. I can kind-of get this: the town my wife and I used to live in had two very expensive restaurants that served simple, totally delicious healthy food and I can imagine how wonderful it would be to a skilled chef serve you three meals a day like this.
There are middle class versions of that where you pool with a handful of friends and family and have the chefs meal prep for you. Or you can provide room and board to a culinary student and have them cook meals for you.
This is from 10 years ago. Multiply all values by some factor that I am too lazy to estimate, but a good bet would be to try to follow asset inflation rather than consumer prices inflation.
What so many people fail to realize is the true purpose of money is to avoid having to spend time with people you don’t like, or do things you don’t value. So if you have a $400/million per month job, but you have to have meetings all day long, you’re not really rich. Similarly, no offense to billionaires, but the ones I’ve met have been someone manic and misanthropic. If you are using your access to spend your time with them, you are not really rich in my book.
True wealth is being able to spend all your time doing things with and for people you love. It sounds trite, but the truth is many people miss the opportunity to jump off the train and enjoy their life while they can.
A few years back I took some mandatory training. As part of this we were told to write down our personal goals which we all did. Then the trainer said something profound "I can tell you are engineers - mostly I give this class to executives who get mad when they do the above exercise. They realize their goals are things like spending time with family and yet instead of going home after this class they will be getting on an airplane to get to their next meeting".
I would love to have a private yacht, or whatever other symbol of wealth you can dream of. I have plans for what I would do with a house more than double my current house in size. However it isn't worth going into upper management to get those things.
A very good explanation of why millionaires should be taxed out of existence. What an utter waste. I can't believe people still parrot the line about markets being "efficienct".
Does anyone seriously argue that mere millionaires shouldn’t exist? That’s a level of wealth that permits only around $50K/yr in retirement, assuming it's 100% liquid/investable. If a retiree had a paid-off house at the median price level, they'd have less than $30K/yr in retirement if they had to remain "not a millionaire".
Nearly 10% of Americans are millionaires (at least at the household level, not necessarily per-person). It's around 6% for UK and France.
But those numbers aren't meaningful in a scenario in which that revenue were redistributed in social housing, public healthcare, and national insurance. I don't think the world needs, or can carry, any millionaires. Public affluence--public luxuries--like housing, libraries, schools, universities, trains, parks, museums etc, do far more for human welfare, and far less ecological damage.
> There is literally nothing you can't buy except. Love. Sorry to sound so trite, but it is nearly impossible to have a normal emotional relationship at this level. It is hard to sacrifice for another person when you are never asked to sacrifice ANYTHING. Money can solve all problems for someone, so you offer it, because there is so much else to do. Your time is SOOOO valuable that you ration it. And that makes you lose connections with people.
That, and being surrounded by fawning yes-people, and the drugs?
In the worst cases (and there are a few, currently), you decide that you should be in charge of everything, democracy is a mistake, and that you are the person to destroy it.
Who has time for love, when there's so much ego to give.
tbf, I thought it was a brilliant demonstration of something missing from the list of things that wealthy people can buy: the adulation of the easily impressed...
No, because Batman isn't a real person with real constraints.
Sure, I mean, if you have a $1B, then you get to have a lab with gadget people making cool shit and you can buy a fighter jet and a personal submarine and you have the detective agency too.
But you don't get the rogues gallery of super villains. You don't get new knees every week. You don't get to save your local city, because the problems are mostly the problems that the people cause themselves. And solving all those problems makes you a tyrant, not a hero. And even then, the problems are the same we've had since before history.
This is why in the real world, we have philanthropy mostly aimed at education and the alleviation of extreme poverty and diseases as the main outlets for the billionaires. Because it's the only thing we think that works at all.
I guess, if you really wanted to be Batman, you could fund yet another study that would state how best to give away dollars. But, without even having to look, I know that there are a few dozen of them out there already and they all pretty much say the same thing: that it's muddy and hard to discern, but maybe if you squint, education and making sure people have food and shelter.
To be Batman, you already can do it. It's mosquito nets for the poor, it's giving that bum a $100 and an hour, it's volunteering with prisoners to get them to read, it's making sure your kids' classmates have a snack before the test, etc.
So yeah, the real world Batman is a boring stressed-out Mom that's active in the PTA, her church/community-center, and local politics. Real World Bruce Wayne is Steve Rogers before the serum.
I find GiveWells approach the most satisfying when I ask myself “how can I make my charity go the furthest”. https://www.givewell.org/ I also highly recommend Famine, Affluence, and Morality by Peter Singer, it’s a perspective changing book. Also, great comment!
Sure it does. Your friends are only available at their house on the day before Thanksgiving? Fly there and then leave to your private jet to fly to your parents for Thanksgiving.
Self improvement is one thing, "go on coaching sessions to increase your confidence and how you socialize" & "buy dating coaches who understand the psychology behind dating and successful relationships" are a completely different beast.
This is just streamlining process of how to become desirable. Nerds with money can afford to even the odds VS their more successful peers who manage to do it naturally. Nothing cringe about that.
Yeah honestly I think this attitude is shit. Maybe you were born with beauty and charisma but not everyone was. You're really going to say "you're not allowed to learn what I got for free"?
Government labs, not so much. But universities and independent research institutions, sure. For example, the Perimeter Institute is considered to be one of the top theoretical physics institutions in the world, and it exists because Mike Lazaridis made a ton of money from Research in Motion (aka BlackBerry) and decided that Canada needed a top tier theoretical physics institute.
Generally its universities that are getting the money directly. Its mostly for big ticket items, especially buildings, and especially where they can attach their name to it. Like at Stanford its the "Gates Computer Science" building.
Other than that there are foundations that issue grants to individual researchers, e.g. Gates also has a foundation. There are others such as Burroughs-Wellcome, Clayton Foundation, etc.
The private foundations are generally very stingy with "Facilities and Administration" fees, which was in the news recently as the fight over NIH/NSF funding which can go in the 50-60% range. Private generally doesn't go over 15%, frequently its much less.
I was part of the ATLAS collaboration at CERN. We had an annual collaboration meeting in Copenhagen, perhaps in 2012 or so. Poul Allen’s yacht was moored in the harbor, across from the venue. It as the high point of CERN hype, and we knew that he was a patron of the sciences. So a delegation (our spokesperson etc.) was sent with some ATLAS merchandise to greet him, and perhaps suggest a sponsorship of some student activities.
Allen was a uniquely generous person when it came to science, but historically, science is a gentleman activity for men og free time, so it surely happens.
Personally, the freedom to pursue my scientific curiosity is the only motivation to seek wealth.
If I by virtue of satisfying wealthy people’s interests in fundamental physics could sustain my life and research, I wouldn’t care about accumulating wealth for myself.
Jim Simons did in fact fund Brookhaven national lab directly at one point. His foundations and friends continue to fund a variety of scientific endeavors. But we don't have too many scholar-turned-philanthropists around, unfortunately.
The whole response reads like a cheesed up, swaggered out, smug essay. It's so clearly trying to illicit strong emotional response. I read this years ago as a teen and ate it up. Wiser more adult me knows how garbage and fake the entire response is. Reddit is known for this.
Does that make a difference to people outside his personal circle, though? An extreme example of this is Bill Gates, spending billions to cure diseases. Maybe he’s only trying to buy his way into heaven, but I bet the people cured by his medicine couldn’t care less about his motivations.
I agree in the case of Bill Gates. Shatner, however, is just some Hollywood (reported) asshole. I do lose respect for a celebrity like that even if I'm not personally interacting with them.
I get it, I do. My opinion on Shatner was that he was a jerk to his coworkers a long time ago. I don’t follow him super closely, but most people chill over the course of 50 years or so. I do hope he has.
PERSPECTIVE. The wealthiest person I have spent time with makes about $400mm/year. i couldn't get my mind around that until I did this: OK--let's compare it with someone who makes $40,000/year. It is 10,000x more. Now let's look at prices the way he might. A new Lambo--$235,000 becaome $23.50. First class ticket internationally? $10,000 becomes $1. A full time executive level helper? $8,000/month becomes $0.80/month. A $10mm piece of art you love? $1000. Expensive, so you have to plan a bit. A suite at the best hotel in NYC $10,000/night is $1/night. A $50million home in the Hamptons? $5,000.
My issue with this level of 'earning' is, it feels entirely like stealing from them would be justified since they're most obviously stealing a whole lot from the rest of the world.
What products can I buy that don't filter up some percentage into these billionaires bank accounts?
Products that are produced by employee-owned, co-ops, or non profit businesses. Even then, however, those organizations will have operating expenses - for instance renting a building. The only meaningful way to get the money circulating back through the economy is taxation. Or, if that doesn't happen enough and the disparity becomes too great, war and/or collapse of society will chaotically and capriciously redistribute wealth, restarting the cycle. The French Revolution comes to mind.
> The only meaningful way to get the money circulating back through the economy is taxation.
Scrooge McDuck is a fictional character. Rich people don't have all their money hoarded in a pool of gold coins - excess money is invested back into the economy.
> since they're most obviously stealing a whole lot from the rest of the world.
What definition of “stealing” are you using here?
It seems like it somehow includes owning a large equity stake in a profitable or rapidly growing company since that’s how most people that “make $400mm/year” are actually gaining wealth.
Claiming that is stealing is pretty dumb considering it’s how everyone that holds equity gains wealth. So when does it become stealing?
"Stealing" is the most polite, least offensive way I could put it.
"Crime against humanity" is closer to the description I would otherwise use. Am I being more clear? The effects of that level of accumulation of wealth and power on the individual, the community, country, and the world are grossly negative.
No one who has ever lived deserves that amount / percentage of wealth.
Where it gets blurry is "so, what is enough then?" and "what is to be done with anything over the "enough" amount?". I don't know the answer, I don't know when it turns from earnt to evil. I doubt there's a specific number, although specific numbers are required for laws and legislation and regulation, but it would defnitely be a variable amount depending on the individual at which they become irreparably morally bankrupt.
The correct answer, however, cannot possibly be: Just let them accumulate more forever. That's inarguably stupid, but that's where we're at.
The wealth should be going to the people who create it, which is the people who do the work and the customers that use the product. The only reason owners get to take a part of it is the power that ownership of capital gives them. Using power to take what others create is quite close to stealing. It's no different from some feudal lord taking what his peasants create. Legal within our system, but that doesn't mean they deserve it.
I wake up every day with my best friend. We have been together for so long, we have regularly similiar thoughts on things.
If i even want to know this, i want to hear the real people using their money in a way that i'm envy.
There was a documentary on netflix about a guy who was diving in the ocean in front of his house and befriended an octopus.
Besides this story (its well made), i had the feeling this person made it. Beautiful house, self care routine and the opportunity (which he actually uses) to use the ocean every day.
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For example I wish someone told me about the existence of Miele kitchen equipment before I accidentally rented an apartment of a well-to-do woman. She renovated it for herself but then rented out when circumstances changed.
Similarly it took me a long time to realize just how much better the veneer wood furniture and doors are compared to laminated chipwood. Price is 3-4 times higher but it lasts 5-10 times longer and is much more pleasant to use. Unfortunately you need years to notice such long-term differences, unless someone tells you.
And I'm basically learning to be lower-middle class here. I'm sure there are similar things to know in higher stratas and I'm unlikely to live long enough to find out naturally even if I happen to get the money somehow.
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