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rogerdpack
rogerdpack
00:00
Numerically could "everyone" be rich? It appears that there is about $13T in M2, divided by 300M people...about $50k/person...
 
11 hours later…
JoeTaxpayer
JoeTaxpayer
10:58
Roger, there's far more than just M2, but still as I answered, only about $160K/person.
 
4 hours later…
Ellie Kesselman
Ellie Kesselman
14:36
@Frax This isn't a great question, in my opinion. It generated a lot of not great answers. It generated lots of chat which is also a problem that others have noticed. This is just my opinion, but these kind of questions just are not well suited to SE. Maybe it should have been migrated to SE Economics? I don't know...
Frax
Frax
15:14
@EllieKesselman Perhaps it's not a great question. Though, actually, I think it could have been simply handled by closing as duplicate of this question about creating a self-fullfilling prophecy - making everybody rich by stock market investments is essentially the same idea. The other question has some good answers. Perhaps moving to Economics SE would also work.
Ellie Kesselman
Ellie Kesselman
@Frax I would endorse your suggestion of closing as a duplicate of the one you mentioned. I can't up vote here, so I starred.
Frax
Frax
@NPSF3000 Maybe the emphasis was in a wrong place. I meant: what most answers miss is realization that "everybody being financially independent" means essentialy "nobody is working and global economy is dead".
NPSF3000
NPSF3000
15:29
@Frax But you confuse 'rich' with 'financially independent' and the 'financially independent' with 'nobody working'. Neither of these things are logically guaranteed.
Frax
Frax
15:56
@NPSF3000 I guess I took rich -> financially independent from this comment by OP (but indeed it's not universally identical). As for financially independent -> not working, given the definition I'd assume it's plausible that close to no one would care to keep working given a chance to stop.
 
2 hours later…
NPSF3000
NPSF3000
18:15
@Frax it's plausible but completely unsupported. Take a note from the relevant Reddit community:

"It is typically defined as having enough income (from investments, passive businesses, real estate, etc) to pay for your reasonable living expenses for the rest of your life. You have the freedom to do what you want with your time (within reason). Working (full or part time), hobbies which generate income, or other activities are optional at this point."

https://www.reddit.com/r/financialindependence/wiki/faq
Frax
Frax
18:43
"how many truly successful people can you think of decide to become idle?"

I don't think that is a relevant question. IMO the relevant question is "how many cleaners, sewage workers, bus drivers and clerks would like to keep doing their stuff if they don't need money". I thought about it for a second, and the answer seems to be "not enough".
 
1 hour later…
JoeTaxpayer
JoeTaxpayer
20:12
Ellie - As a mod, I struggled with this question. We (the mods) often walk a fine line with questions that don't feel right, but quickly make their way to active question sidebar. The question itself has many faults, one of which is that as a group, we can't even define "rich". Rich as "we no longer need to work" is where I was as a retiree, 5 years ago. But it doesn't mean "we can buy anything" only that we can live at whatever level we did, pre-retirement.
And rich doesn't mean you don't work, only that you don't need to.
Ryan Rife
Ryan Rife
20:53
"rich" is relative. If you go to school for 8 years, end up working 10 hour days for 20 years and die in your 40s with a billion dollars to your name, are you really "rich"? If you live in a third world country, have enough food and shelter to survive and get to enjoy the fruits of your labor without any stress are you really "poor"?
NPSF3000
NPSF3000
21:18
@Frax why the obsession with " cleaners, sewage workers, bus drivers and clerks"?

Is this what you assume poor people look like? Why the prejudice?
For example, Julio Cu Camara used the be an accountant... but for 30 years he's been diving in Mexico's sewers: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2297921/The-diver-spent-30-years-keeping-Mexico-Citys-sewers-working--hes-dead-bodies.html
Frax
Frax
21:52
@NPSF3000 What? Obsession? Prejudice? You misread me completely. No, I just think these people do work that is crucial for society to exist in current shape, and I can hardly imagine the value of anyone being "rich" without that work. In the same time, these are not the most comfortable positions to work, so I would be surprised if most of these people didn't decide to work (much) less, given opportunity.
Frax
Frax
22:10
@NPSF3000 Maybe I exaggerated a bit when writing "close to no one would care to keep working", but the point is, people whose work keeps the world running are doing that work for money, not because they love to sew clothes or assemble phones or do accounting or whatever other useful thing they do. Yup, doctors, software engineers and lawyers as well. Perhaps not executive managers, these tend to be financially independent already.
NPSF3000
NPSF3000
"people whose work keeps the world running are doing that work for money"

So to pull that apart we have to ask:

1) Does the way the world currently work the only way it can work? If everyone was wealthy, how *would it work*?
2) Just because there is a lot of wealth, does that preclude people working for money?
3) Why do people work, is it really just for money? For example, does Julio work diving sewers for money alone... or for other reasons?

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