Over half of Americans claim they're nowhere near achieving their definition of financial freedom, with 36% saying they have less than $1,000 in their savings accounts.
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 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.
The play by the owners started well before Reagan. Reagan codified it into law in perpetuity, institutionalized funneling all the money to the owners under the lie of “efficient distribution,” got his “opposition” to take the bribe money en masse, our modern neoliberals, and basically got America to cheer for their own destruction in the decades to follow with his intentionally divisive and manipulative narrative.
Until Trump, Reagan was still the Republican mascot long after his death, that even Democrats claimed reverence for.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The play by the owners started well before Reagan. Reagan codified it into law in perpetuity, institutionalized funneling all the money to the owners under the lie of “efficient distribution,” got his “opposition” to take the bribe money en masse, our modern neoliberals, and basically got America to cheer for their own destruction in the decades to follow with his intentionally divisive and manipulative narrative.
Until Trump, Reagan was still the Republican mascot long after his death, that even Democrats claimed reverence for.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.