financial freedom is a myth peddled by billionaires
I mean, it’s not a myth, billionaires literally have enough financial freedom to live large for 100 lifetimes.
The myth is that they’re willing to share their
rigged casino gambling“speculative investment” derived wealth/winnings, because reminder: nobody can come remotely close to earning a billion dollars through honest labor.You need state support to get that rich.
"It’s a big club, and you ain’t in it!" -George Carlin
You don’t need billions for most definitions of financial freedom. Unless your definition is spend whatever you want, never worry about running out of money, and not have a job, you really don’t need billions.
Capitalism requires most people to be dependent on selling their labor to capitalists at a rate less than it’s worth. No meaningful definition of financial freedom can exist for a majority of the population in a system that creates and supports billionaires.
We could, it’s kind of the the Gene Roddenberry vision, use our burgeoning automation/robotics/AI to do the labor so that Humankind could pursue our passions for everyone’s benefit, but of course those technologies will be patented and used for the exclusive further profit of the non-laboring owner’s club at everyone else’s further expense, exploding our population of homeless peasants with nothing, and “our” government will continue to defend their ability to get away with it at gun point.
It’s like so many things. Human kind should have been united in celebration when we split the atom and harnessed it’s awesome energy generation, a warm light for all mankind, instead our first monkey ass impulse was to use it to incinerate a rival monkey tribe.
Humanity: Juuuust smart enough to be a belligerent threat to ourselves and others, yet too impulsive, short sighted, selfish, and stupid as a species to be anything more.
In the mid to late 1960s economists were predicting 20 hour work weeks and month-long vacations. So it was perfectly reasonable for Gene to imagine a future where nobody had to work.
It wasn’t a falsehood. It was stolen by Reagan and the owner class. Reagan gave away the store and shifted all societal power to the oligarchs, while corporate America, led by GE, shifted from the correct “customers first, employees (who were valued!) second, investors third” model to the “investors first, second, and only” rigged market profiteering dystopia we all suffer today.
The citizen’s of happiest developed nations of the world, not our gold plated cesspool to be clear, as a rule get months off a year, in addition to innumerable social supports. It’s a proven lie that this is how it has to be. This is just how the greediest/most sociopathic people want it to be, and since those traits are what our society rewards, and punishes their opposites, they have all the power.
I think it happened well before Reagan. The gap between productivity and earnings starts around 1971.
Month long vacations? That’ll never work. Can you imagine if a developed country took several weeks off in the summer? No one could do that!
It’s amazing how popular Star Trek was since it’s basically a communist utopia
Having magic machines that can make anything is the only way a communist utopia ever happens, so it’s not that amazing.
Starting early, investing consistently, and living modestly can land a good number of people with normal incomes there. They won’t be retiring at 30 while driving exotic cars, but they can retire comfortably without having to worry about going back to work as a Walmart greeter when their 85.
It’s no secret that a very large percent of people live well beyond their means when a modest lifestyle with retirement funds is obtainable for the vast majority of the population. One doesn’t need a new car every few years, the newest gadget, eating out constantly, and an apartment in a high cost of living area. It’s certainly not morally wrong to buy what you want, but just know that not investing in your own future is making life harder for you in the medium and long term.
That’s why I said 100 lifetimes charitably. That’s 10 million from 1 billion, and even less than half of that is enough for a lifetime of responsible financial freedom.
Most wealth doesn’t survive 3 generations, so it’s way less than 100 lifetimes.
Billionaires have poured billions into life extension ventures, many of them believe they’ll be around to spend it themselves forever.
If you drop the spending whatever you want, a few million should be sufficient. If you get a 5% annual return that’s $50,000 a year per million invested. $150-200k a year if you own your house is more than enough to not worry about having enough money. Plus there’s millions in the bank for any truly major expense.
150-200k/year
So the top 10% of income earners?
The threshold is significantly lower since the vast majority of Americans do, in fact, retire.
If you mean that they eventually got placed on Social Security disability then yes the majority do retire. You should see what the nursing homes for people in the government system are like.
Not true, it seems that way but it is a thing that non-billionaires have. It’s just that those who have such freedom choose to live and often work out of view of everyone else, so you never see them. It plays heavily into confirmation bias. That isn’t to say that the wealth distribution is off, everyone should be in their class including billionaires. They do exist.
This guy gets it.
I finally got a job that broke six figures.
Housing boom made houses twice as expensive in five years. Monthly grocery bill doubled. Renting doubled. Cost of cars doubled. Every day expenses doubled.
Now consider the majority of people who do not have 6 figure incomes.
It’s basically a similar experience except you live in harsher conditions.
I don’t see a considerable difference between poverty line me and six figures me. I have a slightly nicer place (but in debt to the bank instead of renting) and I can buy games on Steam rather than waiting for a sale.
As someone who had a lot of money, spent time homeless, got fucked by COVID, and am now back in a comfortable place making 6 figures - your comment is way out of touch man.
Honestly, you need to make 6 figures to just not be “poor” these days. Very annoying, considering how quickly things changed over the last decade.
Same here. Feels like I’m making the same, but my mortgage is huge now. Sucks.
Its nice to see someone else mention the doubling. There are news things about gas being expensive but its cheap relative to everything else. People better be ready for eight bucks a gallone once it rights itself. Inflation would suggest 30% odd increase but for what you have to buy its 100% over 2020 prices.
Don’t worry urban planners are making driving more difficult instead of mass transit easier. That way when gas prices double the entire lowest tier of the workforce won’t be able to afford to work. “No one wants to work anymore”
My partner and I make over $300k, and we’re struggling to buy a 4-bedroom house on the outskirts of Orlando, FL.
As someone who lives in Florida I’ve got to ask, how? When thinking about finances and investments I often feel like I’m in my own bubble and I don’t understand other peoples’ situations, motivations, etc. So I’m genuinely curious. 4-bedroom houses near Orlando can be found in the mid 300s. With your income you should be able to pay in cash after saving for just one or two years (depending on how much savings you’re starting out with). Even if you wanted something more expensive, are mortgages that difficult to get approved even for someone with such a high income?
holy crap. 300k for 4 bedrooms. no wonder people risk the storms.
What does your budget look like, where is the money going? The Orlando market doesn’t look too crazy.
Sell your house and move slightly further out of Orlando.
Or don’t have a family size of 7+ and try to live in a city while expecting every kid to have their own room.
Financial slavery. Slavery is a spectrum, not a binary condition. We’re slaves and everything we think we own is owned by banks and billionaires. We’re still pawns in a game of Kings.
I also doubt that half of the 50% that say they’re on a path to financial independence are actually on that path. There’s no way that many people have enough cash or assets to retire with the current wealth inequality.
And even the insured are one inevitable illness away from being copayed into poverty.
slavery is a spectrum
And other white-people takes.
Black people were not the first or the last slaves on Earth.
There are more slaves on the planet right now than ever existed in America.
p.s. I’m not American
Removed by mod
"MrGeekman
Black people also are not totally blameless when it comes to slavery. Liberals don’t like to talk about it, but Africans sold their enemies to white slave traders. Also, literal slavery still exists in Africa. In fact, most of the metal in our phones was mined by slaves. Most of the chocolate we eat was grown and harvested by slaves. Much of the coffee we drink is grown and harvested by slaves. Sugar too."
Censorship is for Reddit.
Frederick Douglass, arguing for unity among black and white laborers in 1883, said that “experience teaches us that there may be a slavery of wages only a little less galling and crushing in its effects than chattel slavery, and that this slavery of wages must go down with the other.”
Oh shit well I sure hope people organize in the 19th century and stop the things that were actual oppression.
Douglass was still supporting what I’m saying tho, which is that calling yourself a slave because you have a job is incorrect. Also Douglass would shit his pants if a wealthy white landowner complained about being “in slavery.”
If you don’t think that economic slavery is real and exists in modern society, there’s no point in further conversation.
Totally agreed.
If you’re not a sharecropper than STFU
It must be awful to base your personality on outrage.
I hope it gets better for you.
Edit: , then*
No, awful is when clowns horribly misquote history and fail to realize how stupid they are . . .
It’s…a direct quote. I’m not sure how shittalking me is providing any worth to the conversation. Please make one statement supporting your position with information rather than criticism.
No he has a point. You can argue about word choice and semantics but slavery and freedom are not all or nothing things.
His point is based on a discussion in which a wealthy American calls himself a wage slave.
Glad this shit reaction is getting the appropriate downvotes, another whites bad strawman on display
Lmao imagine thinking that’s what that comment means.
There are many different kinds of slavery, chattel slavery is one of many. Indentured servitude was a much less extreme and dehumanizing form of slavery, serfdom was something in between. Slavery is an incredibly broad term that basically means someone is unable to choose their labor, as it belongs to someone else. That doesn’t necessarily mean the person does, like in chattel slavery, just that their work does.
Well it’s a good thing everyone in the US can choose their labor, and that no one making 6 figures is a slave.
What is actually the definition of “financial freedom”? Having (earned / gained) enough money, so that a person has no need to go to work anymore? If that’s the case, I would expect that number to be much, much lower than 50%.
EDIT: sorry, I just read it in the article. If “financial freedom” just means to work and live more or less without having to worry about financial obligations and what will happen tomorrow, then less than 50% is a rather shocking figure.
In other news, water is wet
49.3% say it refers to meeting financial obligations and having some money left over each month. About 54.2% define it as living debt-free, and 46.2% believe it means never having to worry about money.
I’m going to ignore that pesky 100% thing for the moment. Apparently we can’t even agree on what “Financial Freedom” means. Defining the metric you’re polling seems pretty critical if you want a consistent or useful answer. “Over half” is still burying the lede, though - less than one in ten fall into their personal version of that 150% noted above. Aside from the “American families are financially fucked” though, I’m not sure there’s any hard data to extract from this.
--
“Peter don’t ya call me cause I just can’t go; I owe my soul to the company store.”
Don’t also forget that we’re talking about what people say about their own financial position - which may be different from what their financial position actually is. Self-reporting is never accurate, because people report what they feel or are aware of, which is different from objective facts, to a greater or lesser degree.
Between letting individuals define the terms of the question they’re going to answer, and then self-reporting, this “study” goes beyond useless and into detrimental.
I agree, the definition is a real problem. While still interesting the survey is pretty screwed.
I thought financial freedom was being independently wealthy. Idle rich. Apparently I was wrong, it means working class but with some “bonus” money. Maybe still struggling but struggling less than most working stiffs.
How free can you be if you still have to work full time?
There is a point in income where you have the choice, the choice to move, the choice to switch jobs, the choice to leave your partner, etc.
That is freedom. A lot of Americans are just stuck exactly where they are.
It’s 50+49.3+54.2+46.2 = 199.7 if you include the half of Americans that describe financial freedom as “being comfortable, but not necessarily rich”.
Half of Americans describe “financial freedom” as being comfortable, but not necessarily rich, and 49.3% say it refers to meeting financial obligations and having some money left over each month. About 54.2% define it as living debt-free, and 46.2% believe it means never having to worry about money.
I’m always suspicious of journalists publishing numbers removed from context.
“There are lies, damn lies, and statistics.”
“This is ten percent luck, twenty percent skill, fifteen percent concentrated power of will, five percent pleasure, fifty percent pain, and a hundred percent reason to remember the name.”
I would also venture to say that applies to 90% of us. “Over half” is a fucking laughable fake figure.
Sheeit I’m one step above homelessness living off plasma donations.
I do ok, but all my debt and bills are telling me I need to get on this gravy train
I’m now in a 2 income household with fewer kids as they grow up, and to us it feels more like we are close always, just no hope of ever actually getting there, if that makes sense. Always almost enough.
Which is better than my previous experience but since it’s happening later in life, still wouldn’t expect to ever stop having to earn money by working. I have never expected to retire though, it would take - as someone else noted - a windfall, luck, not effort. Effort has taken us as far as it can.
That’s how society is, brother, literally 1% controls the world in their favor and keeps the wealth, impoverishing the 99%.
Probably the half that make $31k or less.
I’d have thought more. With a big gaping chasm in between.
Clearly the answer is work harder and get a 3rd job. Eventually you’ll be a millionaire!
There is $222 in the wallet in the link preview. Just found that interesting.
🎶 Day’s never finished, masta got me workin, someday massa set me free! 🎶
Labour will set you free, indeed
That’s a good slogan, we should put it up over the front gate
Nobody wants to work anymore so a little encouragement is much needed.
