4941

Asking people if they’re self-made or not doesn’t sound like good methodology. Nobody wants to think they didn’t succeed on their own merits. Heck, even Ivanka Trump thinks she’s “self-made” apparently.

I’m also wondering how many of those self-made millionaires were children of upper middle class profesionnals and the like. Maybe that’s not “wealthy”, but it’s still a long, long way from the slums. Heck, even Mark Zuckerbeg had a financially comfortable family, a Harvard education and easy access to very rich people, which comes with the latter, I guess.

4942

I know the Piketty Sarz research found most in the one percent were earners instead of rentiers. Ie they inherited capital and property and were rich from inheritance. Their research found that getting to tiptop in US has become more based in merits than parents throughout last one hundred years when their dataset starts

4943

Careful on that last part. I joined Qt3 in 2001ish. So you never know.

4944

Brad ain’t rich tho. Brad has self determination and “fuck it” money, but that’s not rich.

It’s all I really want myself. Just the freedom to seek good situations and depart bad ones without a second thought.

But there’s a level of rich where money isn’t something you think about, unless it’s being used to make something happen, not happen, or never have happened. It becomes a force you exert on the world, and not something you work to obtain. But we don’t see those people because they exist in a different place so they’re largely invisible.

4945

By any reasonable definition you were rich in 2001.

I consider rich being the point where if you want to stop working and retire before you actually should be retiring.

4946

Did it take into account how many of them had millionaire parents?

4947

It’s complicated, but from my perspective extreme inequality, the ultra rich vs the working poor, is a terrible problem in the US.

But the inequality between upper-middle class retirement and lower-middle class retirement? The 65-year old working at Walmart “not because I have to, just for spending money” vs the 65-year old doing yoga classes and planning their yearly holiday, this time Thailand? Well the vast majority of those people (us) aren’t rich because we make stupid monetary decisions repeatedly in life. It’s not the government’s fault, not even so much the education system. Kid’s are taught about compound interest and the importance of early savings and investments in grade 8 for god’s sake.

Here we are in 2015 and a recent college grad with $30K in debt buys a $14K diamond engagement ring, half on credit card. Young couple in Toronto pays $800K for a small house with 3% down. A 45-year old finally finishes paying his mortgage and rewards himself with a new Lexus SUV. 55 year old feels he’s doing ok with $250K saved plus his house, so he takes his family on a $5K/person cruise through the Mediterranean. Close to retirement couple with 30-year old daughter living at home. The daughter of course has three Kate-spade bags and is looking for work really hard. Here’s the thing… all of these people look rich.

The government on the other hand practically begs us to save. In Canada we have tax-free savings accounts, registered retirement savings plans, registered education savings plan (just got $500 free from the gov’t, thanks :)), lower tax on capital gains, tax deduction for capital losses, no tax on house appreciation, the list goes on.

Yet people, say 32 year-olds, just choose a new truck and retirement at 56 instead of a used Corolla and retirement at 55. And they/we make that same decision over and over. It’s humanity, we just listen to our short-term wants. Others invest in themselves (higher education) or buy stock in financial assets when they go on sale… Chevron, is on sale now.

Anyway that’s a rant and it’s far more complicated than that. I’m only doing OK on my part, wish I started investing earlier, and I just blew a lot of money on something I don’t need even though I know Chevron stock is on sale, and my wife wants to move up to a bigger house, our friend’s house is far nicer, my Corolla is getting tiresome etc. etc. etc.

4948

Exactly what it did. You were more likely to be rich because of rich parents a hundred years ago than you are today.

4949

You’re begging the question. Do supermanagers ‘merit’ a 28x or whatever it is wage premium?

4950

What about 50 years ago? I’d love to see a comparison between now and the 1950’s and 1960’s. Striving to be better than life was like 100 years ago doesn’t seem like much of a mile stone.

4951

Also, please pull up the data for 25, 10 and 5 years ago. This needs to be granulated to shit to be of any value.

4952

Believe piketty Sarz dataset may be online. People can do their own resarch

In 1999 data the top one percentile has income primarily composed of wages and entrepreneurial income. According to them, the rich today are there due to earnings as compared to pre WW2 where the rich got bulk of income from dividends from capital holdings.

In this research, Usa has become more of a meritocracy than existed previously.

Find saez’s notes on it on his Stanford website where I think he still works. Can also rear their prescriptions on inequality in same report.

4953

Is that data from just 1999? I wonder if 1999 looks extra mobile as that was the height of the dot com bubble.

4954

1913 to 2011.

4955

Absolutely true, and it’s an improvement. In the same sense that apartheid was a step up from outright slavery in terms of race-based mistreatment of people. The status quo is still hard to morally defend but it is better.

4956

This is the study being referred to presumably?

4957

I agree that today’s millionaires don’t consider themselves wealthy even now. A million in assets doesn’t go as far as some think, especially most places where it is possible to acquire a million in assets.

Hell, that just means you haven’t even paid off a cheap house in many areas of my county.

4958

That’s a serious allegation sharaleo. I am in no way “shilling” have no connection to that site and am certainly not the lawyer (in question) but I do follow the legality of GG in general mostly because I find it to be an interesting case study as a rare anomaly. The link was posted as a point of reference out of courtesy. The idea was to promote discussion, speculative in nature but still the productive kind.

Now since this has gotten a little emotional, let’s point out there are some publicly available tools on the internet. I can post links to those without being accused of shilling for them too can’t I?

http://www.donotlink.com/

4959

That’s one of th updates. Original.

4960

Is this sarcasm? I honestly can’t tell.