- The ability to secure the best medical care for yourself and your family in a country where this takes money to do.
- The ability to walk away from abusive employment relationships without a second thought or any stress.
- The ability to engage in high-level economic actions, the kind that aren't designed for your failure. (Buying a few franchises vs. buying a payday loan)
- The ability to, fundamentally, own yourself instead of being forced to act according to the interests of people with the money to pay you. Maybe you'll use that time to act in the interests of people who can't pay you.
> The ability to secure the best medical care for yourself and your family in a country where this takes money to do.
I can only speak to the US but this is much more an insurance issue than a wealth issue. When I made $30k a year I had a ~$75k surgery and it cost me about $1200 all in, including follow-up copays with the surgeon, because I had good insurance through my employer. I probably had $15k in credit card debt at the time and rented a $400/mo room in someone else's house - certainly not rich by any stretch.
> The ability to walk away from abusive employment relationships without a second thought or any stress.
This is all about skills, not wealth. Most folks on HN could leave their job today and walk into something making 95-120% of their current salary without much issue.
> The ability to engage in high-level economic actions, the kind that aren't designed for your failure. (Buying a few franchises vs. buying a payday loan)
You don't need to be rich to get a franchise loan.
> The ability to, fundamentally, own yourself instead of being forced to act according to the interests of people with the money to pay you.
This is so esoteric it's hard to even know what you're trying to say here. I'm sure you could find plenty of people with $10+ million net worths who feel beholden to act a certain way in the interests of certain people.
Insurance is just to cover not dying. Being rich makes it a comfortable experience.
Yup, I believe that's their point. If you realize the reason you want to be rich can be had for less cost than actually becoming rich, you can save yourself a lot of time and stress.
Anecdotally, I cut my salary by 60% this year to directly pursue what I wanted, instead of saving to do it years later. I suppose I may regret it some day, but at this point I'm confident it was the right choice.
I think with OP is trying to say is that more money means more leverage – not in the credit sense – to only feel beholden to people that have interests that align with yours (family, peers, mentors) and less with those that don’t (boss, managers or people who know how to manipulate your behaviour by using lack of money as a tool).
However, you only get this peace of mind without being rich thanks to Obamacare (whose days may be numbered...). Before, you had to be rich to self-insure against the following events:
- What if you lose your job? It could take you longer to find one again than whatever Cobra covers, or a pre-existing condition could make individual insurance unaffordable.
- What if your insurance is not as good as you thought, and you hit a lifetime cap?
- What if the insurance company managed to conjure up a pre-existing condition to escape their obligations?
Well that's really weird since this was in 2009.
This isn't rich. Rich is the ability to direct people to research life extension and disease prevention. It's to be able to have access to the newest techniques and best doctor, regardless of world location.
It's the ability to have a sick child with 24/7 doctors and only worry about the child.
Rich is the ability to buy an island and create a clone army of yourself, using that army to construct the largest ai supercomputer the world has ever seen, then solving aging and disease ultimately merging with the machine, redefining and extending what it means to be human.
Err sorry wrong thread.
"I'll provide X" needs to be immediately though about on the terms that it will cost the planet (and everyone living in it) Y.
This is not exactly what you posted, but related: I'm not an environmental nut, I just think that this 'we create wealth' discourse more often than not ignores the fact that we're actually just borrowing quality of life from people in the future. They get to deal with bad water, worse weather, natural disasters, droughts, terrible air quality, etc. while we 'provide valuable insights to customer relations', 'maintain a pseudonymous decentralized currency' or some other obviously-not-worth-it bullshit
I pointed out that one that was overlooked (but that IHMO is the most important), is to re-invest it in making the world better.
Making the world better for the future is implied in that, and I think that's what you see in, for example, Elon Musk's efforts to make electric transportation viable and ubiquitous, along with the some of the philanthropic efforts of Gates, Buffet, etc.
Sure there are some bad actors who believe it's fine to plunder and trash the earth for short-term benefit, but the trend is in the opposite direction, and it's becoming far more commonplace, even among traditionally very destructive companies like petrochemical companies, to invest substantially in innovations and projects that reverse the damage and create benefits for the future. That's happening because more and more people are demanding it.
Don't forget also, that just as people who were inventing technologies and making medical discoveries 100 years ago were making improvements that benefit most of us living today, inventions of today will benefit future generations.
None of this is black and white; there are benefits and costs in everything, and it's important to be mindful of both as we progress and ensure things stack up positive in the end.
And even then, that just lets you live there. You don't become a citizen will full benefits for five years.
But once you meet those requirements... you're probably well-off enough that it doesn't matter anymore.
When asked why, they need only the things they would get from living 5 years of an imperfectly richer life first?
(Is there a probable way to get from an education and/or 25k in the bank to the rest of rich in less than 5 years and/or with better partial benefits during the interval?)
But as yayana points out, none of those factors depend on being rich in well run countries. (There are alternatives to the scandinavian models with a bit less nanny state that also achieve all of those factors, but the Scandinavian countries are the most famous for letting you not care about medical care and bad employers.)
I don't think it's only Western culture that is to blame. Middle Eastern, Indian and Chinese cultures seem to have even more ingrained versions of this core assumption.
Is this sarcasm? What are you basing this on? I don't think I've ever heard anyone opine this before.
Religious orders seem to be the easy-to-identify exception and those exist in all the large cultures.
Definitely a sobering thought. How rich I really am...
Though to me living here it seems that people are still all the time complaining and demanding more and more, though we have more safety nets than about any other place on earth.
Also living in Scandinavia and I would disagree with this advice. To be dependent on the welfare system is not exactly being free and have security.
Like the Swedish Prime Minister Göran Persson said: "One who is in debt is not free".
And living off of the welfare system is in my view to be indebted to society. I would not be able to shake that feeling if I was, at least not if it was voluntarily. Add to that the social stigma, even from close friends and family. This would limit your freedom of having an agency in social interactions.
Also I would not consider it secure, since the rules of the welfare system changes quite a lot over time. Which you have no way of impacting, meaning you are dependent and not free.
EDIT: Just realized the question was about "security+free time". I guess you would have free time, which is not exactly the same as being free in any meaningful sense.
EDIT: Not sure why I'm being downvoted. But for clarification I can add that I think this applies if you voluntarily would live off of the welfare system, thus leeching from the ones who really needs it. It's of course a totally different story if you are involuntarily need to get welfare to survive and live a decent life.
It might not be the popular opinion on HN, but I would hate that. Make sure to structure things properly from the beginning so that you can leave when appropriate.
The parent post was saying how living in a country with a generous welfare system can make a lot easier to have more free time and easier to take risks, and you're worried that if you take advantage of that, you might need to help pay that off if you're successful?
Most decent entrepreneurs manage to sustain themselves and find a way to build out something regardless of whether the state is handing out money. If I manage to get a win, I want to keep most of my winnings.
I'm European but wouldn't want to live in a country with high income taxes, high capital gains taxes, various hidden levies (luxury cars costing hundreds of thousands, gas being super expensive), high corporate and dividend taxes, and to top it off a nice annual wealth tax. Why even bother trying to achieve more than your fellow citizen in that kind of setting?
The state gives a lot to you, when you're poor, and it takes a lot from you, later on after you're not poor anymore. Why do you think you should get to live in a nice place full of nice things paid for by other people, and not pay your own share? How is that morally different from spending the night in a hotel and then skipping out on the bill?
> Why do you think you should get to live in a nice place full of nice things paid for by other people, and not pay your own share?
By definition, if you pay everything you owe, aren't you paying your share?
edit:
> By definition, if you pay everything you owe, aren't you paying your share?
The line between tax avoidance and freeloading is debatable. Maybe you use less tax-funded things than most people. Maybe you refuse to drive on streets, cross rivers in a rowboat instead of walking on bridges, and resolutely close your eyes when walking by a beautiful piece of taxpayer-funded art. But morally, if you're enjoying nice things that other people paid for, you're freeloading (which is emphatically not a political stance, or an "unpopular opinion").
Ok, but if I'm already living the life I want to live... who cares?
Some people care about this, others don't.
If you make sure, for example, your intellectual rights (if we're talking a software company) aren't held in a country with a super high corporate tax rate, that would be a good start.
It's one thing to pay on gains you make after you've gotten rich, i.e. if you're making 5% a year on €10m, than on the initial capital you're building up.
I think this is an issue that just isn't that black and white as you want to portray it.
2. Avoid industries with boom and bust cycles. Additionally, avoid career paths that may become irrelevant in 20-30 years.
3. Instead, learn skills that will always be useful, regardless of the state of the economy. Typically this means the trades, but be careful there - certain trades are too dependent on a good housing market. Most medical fields (like nursing) are also pretty secure. Also consider boring fields like accounting or certain governmental positions. Many government jobs are a bit more stable than the open market - you are sacrificing income for reliability.
4. For bonus points, pick a field that allows you to easily freelance. In the future, when you have enough money and want more time, you can scale your work hours down.
Then the problem is to find a way to be happy enough, you can have enough money but be unhappy.
Many people in developing countries have less than $1,000 in monetary/material assets, but have plenty of free time and a decent level of security.
They may not have the nicest house in the nicest location (a tin or concrete square box on a dirt road in a rural location with no jobs), but they are not in any immediate danger in terms of crime or disease.
Another way to create this by proxy in the US is by living in a camper van or large car or perhaps a cheap used RV and parking in one of the millions of free locations we have in the USA (BLM land, national forests, street parking, private land negotiated with a friendly owner).
But if you were wondering like, you know, where can I get a free house with no property taxes in a nice city neighborhood with free health insurance, I'm afraid it doesn't exist unless you are the child of a rich and loving parent.
As someone with fairly deep knowledge about such a country, many poorer people tend to have no security when they get older or if they get a severe accident. On average, they have little or no savings and often significant debt. Having kids is their insurance against the future, but it is like playing roulette since many/most young people do not earn enough to support their parents (or even live comfortably themselves).
If they wish to raise their kids well, while not having much education themselves, they need to work really hard, not unlike two- or three-jobbers in the States. Otherwise, their kids will have bad education and often need to work minimum wage or only a bit better as an adult.
Free time, yes but only for those who don't prepare much for the future. Security, not really.
(Check out statistics of working hours in developing vs developed countries. People in developing countries often work harder and earn less even in PPP terms.)
I spent many months in developing countries too, and I currently live in the USA in my car on like $7,000 a year all in.
Btw, US salaries are dropping/leveling off because of all the increasing work that is able to be performed abroad. I applaud this :)
And as for having kids as an insurance policy for an accident, my gf and I have already decided that we would never subject someone to such imprisonment. We escaped similar situations ourselves, where our parents feel like they own us because they birthed us.
Die when you die; when you die, you're gonna die
Even if you love your job and would do it if you were wealthy, it's still the same analogy... it's much better to go drive from A to B for fun every day you want, than to have to drive from A to B for work every day. In fact, thinking of my own situation, I like my job and I like to code in my free time... but both being burned out occasionally and just having less free time means I do much less of the latter than I want to. So instead of writing some code I find interesting I have to fix somebody's legacy systems at work... or even create something nice at work, but less interesting to me (although more commercially viable, obviously) than what I would do otherwise.
Don't believe me? See how most people treat or think about rich children, who have no accomplishments beyond being born wealthy.
Interestingly, in this same way, money can also buy happiness, through happiness coaching. :)
Kind of like this? http://mimiandeunice.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/ME_353_D...
But, if you decide to stop suffering and are able to achieve that, pleasure and “happiness” actually don’t serve much of a purpose anymore, but you still feel really good; it’s more of a “well-being” sensation.
> When you're finally wealthy, you'll realize that it wasn't what you were seeking in the first place. But that's for another day.
If you can ignore the constant “only rich people are meaningful human beings” message that is blared 24/7 from western culture, you might find that it’s easier to just go after what you want, directly.