Wealth 💰

you first

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I’m sorry - you just said:

“I mean this” to me then told me that you don’t mean that - that you’re just quoting it and saying you mean it - but you don’t mean it.

I’m not sure what you’re trying to get at here.

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If it were up to me, I’d define wealth in terms of the Buddhist idea of “suchness”, or enlightenment. Where removing obstacles to the self actualization of others is essentual to one’s own enlightenment.

Basically the personal ideal of love, made public.

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Sure thing.

To me someone is wealthy when they have enough revenue and savings to be able to pay for all necesities like Food, Shelter, transportation, healthcare without having to wonder if it will be OK next month. This is my definitions because I was asking about financial wealth as opposed to more meta definitions.

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A person who has more resources than the amount required to live a life of comfort and security by the standards of their contemporaries.

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That’s a solid one. I discussed some formal and semi-formal definitions in another topic, and could get into more detailed discussions about the value of time versus money or Maslow’s pyramid, but yours is what it’s about at the base of things.

That’s where Maslow’s pyramid comes in on a societal level. We all benefit when everyone’s basic needs are taken care of.

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In art class the teacher made a big deal about the negative space, the background in balance with the forground. Contrasts between light and dark. It made a lot of sense to me at the time that a full aesthetic appreciation of a thing, look past the thing itself, and consider other stuff that’s not the thing being labeled.

Seems like economists I’ve heard most from, have paid very little attention to the “bads” that accompany “goods”. The abuse that contrasts with services. The way addiction is managed and titrated and carefully dosed in every package.

It’s weird how all the commercials I see on TV seem to be accomodating covid 19 by insinuating, “we know how hard things are, but arent you glad you can still buy our product in a cardboard box?”.

Anyway, the title of this thread is a misnomer, I think. It’s not wealth that people are all that confused about, it’s want/demand that is what’s being manipulated in some very opaque ways.

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They do pay attention, but mask it in the term “externalities” – especially when they’re talking about the negative outcomes.

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The other group that comes to mind, is insurance companies. Actuarials have a pretty robust language for talking about their bads. Not sure what it would look like, though, for the externalities to be included on the balance sheet in a robust accountable way.

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Something that puzzles me lot still, is how and why the infrastructure even exists for individuals to own as much wealth as a country. The guardian economy is not nearly as obvious as, say silicon valley or the oil industry.

Something I’d like to see discussed, is limiting how much money can be amassed by one person, in a similar way to arms control treaties. But with offshore banking and shell companies, there would be a lot of loopholes to sew shut.

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You’ve just described even the ‘blue collar working class’ of the 1950s-1970s.

What you haven’t described is the vast majority of people in the U.S. AT THIS MOMENT who consider themselves ‘middle class’ but even before covid couldn’t afford a $500 emergency. Now? Maybe the 0.1%.

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Correct, if you live in the US, in the present, and don’t have enough savings or credit to cover a $500 financial emergency then you are certainly not wealthy. You should probably also not consider yourself middle class, although that term is almost completely meaningless. If I did not have $500 to cover an emergency as a result of not earning enough to soundly get to that point I would consider myself poor.

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That defines the modern middle class. That’s the middle two quartiles of the country that cannot cover a $500 emergency expense. It’s not difficult to define the middle class, unless it is rhetorically inconvenient…

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Small quibble: that defines the middle class, but it’s the bottom THREE quartiles that can’t afford a $500 emergency expense.

Or at least, that’s how it was before the pandemic. Now?

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> “ Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat, but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.”

John Steinbeck

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What I cant figure out is how “3/4” of the US population of 300 million don’t have $500 saved for an emergency and yet apple alone sells 100 million iphones per year in the US.

Credit cards

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Don’t forget: lots of poor people have refrigerators, too!

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True. Did not consider that.

A fridge and a $800 phone are two entirely different animals.