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Just enough to escape capitalism. 5 million invested in stocks means you would never have to work again. Any more than that and you are part of the problem that everyone is trying to escape.
Honestly though, really we should all be working for an escape for our entire species, not individual escape pods.
Maybe instead of solely focusing on capping the top, we focus on raising the bottom.
Drop the envy. Pick up the compassion.
Yeah, how much is enough? The answer does vary a lot by where you live too. But it is interesting hearing people with 5x my income in the same country complain having no money left each month. Meanwhile I have always been doing fine even on minimum wage.
No one needs more than $5 million. That's enough for a conservative investment portfolio to give you a mid six figure income without doing any labor. Watch TV all day and eat chips, still net six figures.
Maybe then no one can afford mega mansions and mega yachts, but I'm okay with that. We don't need that much concentration of wealth.
I mean, maybe I want to go after a passion project and not waste away on someone else's dream of what having money looks like?
$5mill ain't gonna start & fund a lot of impactful projects
I've read your post a dozen times and I'm confused.
Are you at the $5 million cap in this scenario? You're certainly not going to waste away with $500k/year coming in, labor free.
Or are you closer to median income of like $80k, and thus have no funds for a big passion project?
Either way, you can always pool resources and form an organization of some sort. We don't really want a ton of power collected in individuals. Especially not if the only reason they have that power is because they had money.
Let me put it this way.
It's possible to become a millionaire through a combination of hardwork, brains, luck and timing.
It's impossible to become a billionaire after that without exploiting others, whether that is workers, employees, investors...whoever.
In other words, it's possible to be an honest millionaire, but not an honest billionaire.
So the amount of wealth a person is entitled to is the amount that they can earn with their own labour without exploiting others in order to do so.
So if you own a furniture store, and you pay your employees a living wage, give benefits, etc... and after that you're successful enough to be a millionaire...great. You deserve it. If you're an employer and you own a furniture store, and in order to become a millionaire you have to pay your workers minimum wage and rely on unfair labour practices to inflate your profits...you don't deserve it.
I use the furniture store example because I worked for just such a guy. Family run business. Paid us all well enough. Gave us benefits. Made sure we were taken care of. Treated us like family. And he was financially very successful while managing to do so. Could he have made even MORE if he had taken it from wages and benefits...sure. But that wasn't the type of person he was.
To me, THAT example is capitalism working as it should in it's purest form. Corporatization is just a bastardization of the concept created by venture capitalists and shareholders.
How about them trillionaires?
They'd make for some mighty fine eatin'.
I hear they make fine wines, but, I'm not so sure about eating:
PS, I'm T-Total, so, I want nothing from them,
...other than that they'd cease keeping everybody down and cease manufacturing wars, etc etc etc.
It's impossible to become a billionaire after that without exploiting others, whether that is workers, employees, investors...whoever.
People say this, but I don't think it's true.
If I simply ask for people to give me money if they like me, and I get 1 million people to give me a dollar each, then I become a millionaire. Nobody's being taken advantage of, everyone is voluntarily doing this.
Getting to a billion is a lot harder but not impossible. If I ask and 10 million people give me $100 each over the course of 10 years, I might make a billion dollars that way.
So who can do this kind of "ask people for money" at these scales? Anyone who provides a service where the marginal cost of each additional recipient of that service doesn't cost anything. A musician playing music in a subway station performs basically the same amount of work whether 10 people walk by or 1000 people walk by in the time that he performs. And if you're a recording artist, you might release a song that literally over a billion people enjoy.
Yes, sports leagues and movie studios and record labels and Ticketmaster and book publishers and live venues and broadcasters and tech platforms are often exploitative in many ways, but authors, musicians, artists, filmmakers, comedians, and other creators can and do sometimes do things that make the world better by billions of dollars worth of happiness, while taking a cut worth hundreds of millions, or even billions.
Ultimately, we do things that produce value in some way or another. Sometimes we get to keep the fruits of our labor, and sometimes we get to profit from that value created. Often, as in the world of intellectual property, the value is very far removed from the actual cost to produce, including the cost in terms of human labor. When that happens, sometimes the excess value is worth billions. Even without a big team creating that value.
I see what you're saying. But to me it's very much a "You can't swim in the sewer without getting covered in shit" morality-play.
The very act of providing a service that earns more than a billion dollars by necessity requires the cooperation of a number of different entities. As you described, Ticket Master, Publishers, Distributors, etc... So while they themselves might not be directly exploiting people, they have to interact and make use of partners that do if they want to play in that billionaire paddling pool.
To me, exploitation by association is still exploitation.
But that's me. Everyone is welcome to their own opinion.
To me, exploitation by association is still exploitation.
But by this telling, the billionaire isn't any less moral than the person who buys the tickets. If simply transacting with this system is unethical, then the billionaires aren't any worse than the millionaires, or even the people barely subsisting on what they have.
In my eyes, there's a huge difference between the person who actively exploits others, and one who incidentally interacts with a person who exploits others. Especially if choosing to opt out wouldn't actually reduce the exploitation happening. There are still degrees to things, so it's entirely possible for the billionaire artist to be ethically superior to the millionaire venue operator, even when they both rely on the other.
Not to mention, there's a difference in kind when talking about exploitation in terms of a team effort where not enough of the fruits of the labor get shared fairly with all team members (positive sum interactions) versus when one actively takes from another, and that victim is worse off from the transaction.
I totally agree. And id like to ask, what sort of system benefits this?
Regulation is what government does and kills small business while large corps either pay em off to get by or they submit to regulation and lose a few billion but doesn't affect em.
Socialism is viewed here as government ownership of everything, no more individualism, and Americans fear government above all else (ironically blindly trusting corporations with all their money and data).
Cant we outlaw corporations and continue as we are? Sure would be nice.
Cant we outlaw corporations and continue as we are? Sure would be nice.
I think the world would do better if all of us shrank a bit to be more mindful of a community economy.
If my neighbour down the street woodworks in his spare time and makes bespoke tables and chairs, I'll do everything I can to go buy from him rather than a corporation (for example)
Growing up on an Acreage, it was more common for us to buy a half a side of beef or pork from the farmer next door than to go to the grocery store. Same for vegetables from farmer's markets or similar community markets.
It's less about criminalizing corporations and more about refusing to reward them for making their profits off the backs of poverty wages and government subsidies..
I agree.
People are SO against doing that though, almost vehemently so. 1000 people will go to scamazon to buy some junk before 1 person goes 2 blocks to get it from a local store. People are so lazy they dont want to get up to put in a dvd (yes im old, but this is something I heard a friend actually say not long ago)
Not to mention everything made local costs 4x more by default.
There's really not much sense of community anymore in America.
Agree. Billionaires shouldn't exist.
Personally, every penny you have in money/assets/stocks over £1b is taxed at 100% in exchange you get a medal that says "I beat capitalism" and a statue.
Its a compromise. You can have 999 mil as long as you invest back 100% into society thereafter...though, no one ever needs 999 mil either.
Getting to direct where every dollar goes above a billion is a huge amount of power. A single person deciding how to spend millions or billions of dollars to do what they deem to be improving society? They may do some good things, but a democratic process would probably do better overall.
When you say "make", do you mean extract?
I've heard Wall St destroy over 7 times as much wealth as they "make" from us.
I've also heard salaries over $£€70,000 no longer increase happiness. (Though, that was a few years ago... so, adjust for devaluation.).
More than what should a UBI be set to, if all the emancipatory technologies ceased being suppressed, and instead were proliferated to the benefit of each and all... would we even need money any more?
I've also heard salaries over $£€70,000 no longer increase happiness.
No, that study was debunked. Turns out that some subset of unhappy people will remain unhappy even if you give them all the money in the world, so looking purely at the least happy people in America, you'll notice that their happiness stops going up at $75,000 in 2010 dollars. But if you focus on people who are already on the happier side of the spectrum, more money keeps buying them more happiness, even if the slope of that relationship tapers a bit.
Side note, the way the two sides reconciled their methodologies, that produced different results, was a really interesting way to perform science, and should be followed in the future whenever there are well respected studies that contradict each other.
Given "Listen to those who seek the truth. Run from those who claim to have found it."
*runs*
CENTER FOR BEHAVIOURAL SCIENCE & PUBLIC POLICY
*runs harder*
This is a difficult question because we don't have an agreed upon baseline of what "living" looks like worldwide.
Some countries may say, "living a long life." Other countries may say, "And a roof over your head." And Other countries may say, "That and a yearly vacation."
Also, it's sad to say that million dollars isn't even "dick around" money anymore. My wife's retired grandparents retired on a million at age 70. They're living okay, very modestly at age 90. Medicine is fucking expensive, hip surgeries, paying for physical therapy, etc. No brand new cars or fancy trips. Just coupon clipping and finding lunch deals.
A simple estimation based on investing that amount of money into a total world stock market index fund (e.g. VTWAX) would be your yearly expenses divided by 3.25% (pretty conservative rate). The idea is that you withdraw 3.25% of your wealth from the stock market every year, and you'll be able to withdraw that much purchasing power every year forever due to compound interest pushing the number up as you withdraw. Realistically if you're not withdrawing the full amount blindly during market downturns you can kick that number up to 4% or even more, but 3.25-3.5% is basically impossible to go broke with, and most likely will quickly increase your nest egg to double/triple/etc in most universes.
So, if my expenses were 50k/year in post-tax money, I would need to invest ~1.5 million in order to withdraw 50k of "free" money per year forever, inflation-adjusted. You can do the rest of the math on how many post-tax expenses a normal person/family has and will quickly reach the conclusion that hey, a billion dollars is kinda fucking crazy.
but 3.25-3.5% is basically impossible to go broke with,
Historically it has not been enough to draw down funds that are invested in a broad American stock market index like the S&P500. But that doesn't make it impossible. A 20-30 year run that looks like the Nikkei 225 between 1990 and 2020 could wipe out portfolios on a 3% withdrawal rate. Even a 2% withdrawal rate would've run out of money in 32 years.
I'm kinda bearish about the continued dominance of the "invest in publicly traded large cap American equities" strategy over the coming decades, so I'm a bit more conservative in my savings rate, and what securities/assets I'm actually invested in, including soft assets like my own earning ability if I were to bail on this country and move somewhere else (fluency in another language, job skill sets that translate outside of the US borders, relationships/network with people who don't rely on the US).
And I know that's not the central point you're making. But there are plenty of people who might not feel secure with $1.5 million or even $3 million or $6 million in investible wealth, especially if it's tied up in one particular asset or asset class, or otherwise less liquid than publicly traded securities.
I did say VTWAX (i.e total "world"), which diversifies out of a lot of problems like the Nikkei 225 and the potential collapse of America, but yes the math is not 100% gospel because at the end of the day anything can happen. Oftentimes, when calculating for a decades-long downfall of the entire world economy, the real answer is that if that happens everything is super fucked no matter what you planned for. All we can do is run simulations on historical data and get statistical significance for numbers we're pretty comfortable with. If someone is actually pulling the trigger (i.e. retiring) for real on these numbers, I'd strongly suggest they get more familiar with why these numbers are what they are and are prepared to spend less when needed in a rare edge case scenario.
And as you said, for this thread in particular it's just an estimation to ballpark how much capital realistically translates into what sort of wealth for someone's life. IMO it's very useful to be able to estimate how a layman's capital generation/retirement works because most people just give up on finances immediately and have no concept of what wealth even means. Does someone ever really need 20 million dollars? I'd wager most people just aren't sure. Now we know which people we can eat.
VTWAX is still like 65% US equities. It hasn't diversified out of U.S. exposure (and frankly, international stocks aren't protected from U.S. economic crises). A lot of people think about full blown collapse and crisis, but wouldn't know what to do about lethargy and stagnation for decades, but still roughly the same economic and financial paradigm.
I think U.S. equities are overpriced right now, especially when looking at market cap weighted indexes (because the U.S. tech bubble seems to represent a much higher percentage of any given index). And I'm concerned that the correction will just be decades of tepid growth or even stagnation where decades of investment won't actually earn a good return. Not that I'm investing in something else, other than maybe the soft skills I've described in my earlier comment.
Enough to cover their needs: from shelter and food, to enriching experiences and opportunities. We could all have this if we taxed the rich and corporations adequately as we once did.
Billionaires don't have billions in their bank accounts. That's not how wealth works. It's not like they're sitting on a pile of cash and just want more. The vast majority of it is tied to property and businesses edit: and stocks. Thinking that just because one could comfortably retire that they should is kind of like telling a runner to stop running after having completed their first marathon. They're a runner - runners run. A person who became a billionaire views making money the same way. It's what they do. It's what they're good at and derive meaning from.
Billionaires don't have billions in their bank accounts. That's not how wealth works.
This is a strawman argument used by dishonest business types who think everybody else is dumb about how wealth works. Nobody is saying billionaires have billions in their bank accounts.
The vast majority of it is tied to property and businesses
Right you are on the same page as the rest of the people arguing against the existence of billionaires.
The number of properties held by a person should be limited to one. Ideally having a clause saying that it has to be on rent for a regulated price. And individuals cannot own a majority of business unless it's a one man job. I would like the world to head towards worker owned cooperatives instead of 0.01% hoarding 90% of the wealth.
Thinking that just because one could comfortably retire that they should is kind of like telling a runner to stop running after having completed their first marathon. They're a runner - runners run.
So the entire neo-liberal thesis is that we should reward psychopaths. That's kind of a non-starter for sustainable living.
A person who became a billionaire views making money the same way. It's what they do. It's what they're good at and derive meaning from.
I can't begin to tell you the enormous amount of problems with this statement with regards to somebody's mental health. You can't be a billionaire without causing suffering to other people. Without leaving somebody else with the short end of the stick. Kindness is alien to people who think this is okay and should be encouraged. This level of worship of money is quite deviant because civilization evolved and thrives on cooperation, not on some misconstrued notion that a single person can derive so much "value" such that they can demand 99% or more of wealth.>
Means the only solution is the guillotine sadly.
I'm cautious about using the word "need". No one needs almost anything. That is not the standard we should be judging things. Anyone can point to anything you love and say you don't need it. It can get miserable quickly.
Excessive wealth does corrupt, in many ways so a limit on personal wealth is easily justifiable.
Without writing an essay, a somewhat arbitrary 100 milion seems like a reasonable upper limit if there are some appropriate checks in place. For example, fines need to be proportionate to wealth. A speeding ticket serves a social purpose, but extreme wealth defeats the purpose. Proportionality, so it hurts the rich the same way it hurts the working man making a $200 speeding ticket becomes a $10,000 speeding ticket for the hundred-millionaire. Similarly taxes need to be progressive and at the limit, become 100%.
The key is to never allow personal wealth grow to where it can corrupt the state. Buying up media companies, funding political orgs, buying politicians etc, is a key goal of the wealth limit.
In America midwest, 100k is plenty to own a couple acres and a few cars and buy most things you want and travel.
On the coasts, about $250k yr to live like this, maybe 350k.
own a couple acres and a few cars
On the flip side, plenty of us don't want to own acres or cars. None of that sounds appealing to me.
We should all figure out what is actually important to us, and where that stuff tends to be cheaper, relative to what we can earn in that place.
I like a variety of nice restaurants, a good butcher shop, good bakeries, a good coffee shop/roaster, farmers markets, and other specialty food sellers within walking (or at least biking) distance of my home. I like the option of seeing live music and standup comedians, preferably also within walking distance of my home. I like having multiple playgrounds and parks and libraries and even museums within walking distance of my home. I like that my kids can walk to and from most of these places, too.
So I pay a shitload to live in a place like that. It comes with tradeoffs: it costs more, we have less space, we can only have one car in our household. But that stuff isn't important to me (we have money to spare, we don't like too much space, we hate driving).
Most importantly, though, the thing I like about living in a high salary, high cost of living city is that when set aside 10% of your income for savings and 10% of your income for travel, those are types of things where a dollar is a dollar, so that 10% of a larger number goes further. Someone who lives in a big house on a big plot of land in the Midwest still has to pay the exact same amount that I would when they're getting a hotel room in London or an Airbnb at a ski town in Colorado.
Thats good! I wish I could be more minimalist but im not. Im a maximalist for sure lol.
Most things about living in town just require spending money all the time (not that im not spending it other places but still)
Like fancy eateries or bars etc, just drains money away so fast and you dont actually "get" anything out of it. (Except experience, which my memory is so bad ill forget it anyway)
Good point on the high salary area however one could argue there's actually more opportunity here where I could buy land to rent out, or buy a house to flip etc. Big money makers. But I am too lazy to want to do that right now haha. And while trips are fun and i like to do them sometimes, having my own big garage is more fun and more useful to me. Plus I love driving (more sport type driving events, but I go for cruises on open roads a lot too). I feel like a trapped animal in cities, not for me.
Thats good! I wish I could be more minimalist but im not. Im a maximalist for sure lol.
I think you're misunderstanding my point. Mine isn't minimalism. I'm not denying myself anything that I want. Or even owning less stuff or spending less money. Mine is just steering things into what I like rather than what I don't care all that much about.
And for my preferences, that maximum for my own happiness is going to come from living in a dense city with a lot going on.
I'd rather we were each and all free to have spaceships.
Much more ecologically savvy than petroleum powered cars and all the road infrastructure they require.
Spaceships for everybody.
Spaceships that are zero-point energy powered, capable of zero-inertia propulsion, sustaining human life indefinitely, printing another of itself instantly, and safe enough for a 2 year old to fly home. I hear these exist, and have for decades before we saw the TR-3B (in 2014 or earlier), and at least as early as a decade after the foo-fighters and the bell ("die glocke") during WW2.
Or even just the aeros of the mid 1800s, like Charles Dellschau drew from what he saw at the Sonora Aero Club in 1850... that'd be better, for a start, even if they've not been made spaceworthy yet, at least they'd be clean powered, energy efficient, and spare our landscape being cut up by roads (freeing up even more acres for each our farm holdings individual and communal), freeing us to travel where there's far more room (in the sky), no traffic, and cant crash by driver error or strike wildlife, the em-inertial field just slipstreaming us past anything, and able to stop instantly, with the internal inertial reference frame separated.
Lets wind back this over 175 year lost progress for the common people.
It'd even be a nice start if more people merely started looking into this, beyond their circular-reasoned unwittingly conditioned-presumption that it's not possible or true.