At least where I'm originally from, emigration to the US is seen as an an incredibly desirable outcome even more so than to europe. Though personally I'm glad I've ended up in canada! Funnily enough, my parents first choice was still the US and they only tried for Canada when they didn't get picked in the Us Visa lottery.
This is why the US has given birth to the majority of big businesses in the world in the last 20 years. A lot of startups that started elsewhere, moved to the US to continue their growth.
Europe might have some quality of life elements such as health care, vacation time, and regulations to protect citizens and workers... but being able to start a business in the US is what Warren Buffett refers to as opportunity.
The entrepreneurship rate has been declining in the US for the past few decades. (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/on-small-business/wp/201..., https://www.inc.com/magazine/201505/leigh-buchanan/the-vanis...)
That Atlantic article is both antiquated, and cherry picks data just after the 2008 crisis.
If I was born into a Nordic nation I think I'd have been better off. I'd have had the same supportive parents but no burden from education and medical debts, or stress of finding a position with good benefits before turning 26. I might even be freelancing or building my own company right now without fear of paying for prescriptions out of pocket for me and my SO which would be significantly more costly than our rent.
The US is a great country for opportunity but it is not a place of equal opportunity.
If you're born in Scandinavia you'll have very good education and healthcare no matter what family you're born into. Maybe starting a business is harder, so what? You can move to the US later in life if that's your goal, you'll still be better off by having no student debt.
Nowadays, however, I'd say that it's possibly the better route to take from a debt standpoint, but there is still the reality that being able to move to the US (or most other countries) is not a guarantee normally.
*And canada could be doing way better. There are glaring social inequalities here too.
...apparently so do you since your next sentence is full of such incredible hyperbole...
> 7$ an hour working at Dennys somewhere in the bible belt because the public school system left you semi-illiterate, or living in any heavily criminalized urban area, or picking fruits in california because you had to escape cartels in mexico/central america.
From BLS data, about 12.7% of the population lives in poverty, workers/children/etc. This group is disproportionately minority (non white) and an example of the social failing of the richest nation in history.
Most rankings of social mobility put the US outside the top 20. The highs are higher here, but the path to get there, especially from the bottom 10%, is more difficult than almost any country we consider a peer.
After all, an income of 15k (ppp) puts someone in the top 10% globally and 30k is the top 1%
What is probably a more telling indicator is the degree to which poor IMMIGRANTS are able to move up - an indicator that the US dominates.
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/11/1/20942642/s...
My impression is that "It's better now than before" is used to protect the effort that got us here, not cancel it. It's used to protect us against the 99 bad ideas.
That sounds more like irrational fear on your part.
Why not pick a modern country with a better social safety net, lower inequality, and greater economic and class mobility?
If you have no talent or ambition, that definitely makes sense. You are better off in Sweden, Germany, or France.
I have often thought that boy, I would really have suffered had I been born in medieval or Roman times because I don't know what I would've done if I didn't work in IT.
I would describe the feeling as guilt, and it took me some time to just accept that things are the way they are.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_engineering
There is this notion I see going around that in the past people survived by being brutish animals and smart people would have died quick. In fact, it's the opposite. We outcompeted other animals because we are NOT like them. Because we engineer. In a hunter gatherer society someone who builds traps, designs better huts or tents, etc could be extremely valuable.
Buffet's self-deprecation is admirable but lacks imagination.
The thing is just that I've been obsessed with computers my whole life and can't imagine myself being, for example, an aqueduct engineer or a blacksmith.
Where Buffet's quote struck a chord is that I'm thankful that society allows me to do what I love, but I should stay mindful that not all people have those opportunities.
I suppose a different way to look at it is that had I lived in a time before computers I wouldn't have known what I was missing out on, so there's that.
Yes there were exceptions and various orders work differently, but talking about in general and during times when there were quite a few—though still not that many—full-on monastics sitting around writing commentaries on Augustine and such. Some orders took a work-and-prayer approach for everyone to keep their order afloat, but those generally seem not to have lasted long before morphing into collecting rents and relying on patrons. Turns out it's really hard to have a life of the mind & spirit without a bunch of other people working to support you—if you're doing the necessary work yourself, it's all you have time for, meanwhile a competing order nearby's adding a wing to their abbey with the money they're collecting from a share of a mill, rents on three commercial properties in town, and 30 acres of land worked by peasants, their wine cellar is full, and their abbot has significant influence in the court of the Duke. So. Maybe that seems like a better idea.
I think he's had about $10 million in frivolous spending in his life (a plane, and a home in California).
I agree most people in the financial sector seem to be parasites, but Warren doesn't seem that way.
> I'll tell you why I like the cigarette business. It costs a penny to make. Sell it for a dollar. It's addictive. And there's fantastic brand loyalty.
— Buffett, quoted in Barbarians at the Gate: The Fall of RJR Nabisco
I agree he's led a modest life. I am somewhat dubious about his claims to be a philanthropist. I don't see exploiting the world (Buffett & Gates) necessarily redeemed by later posing as a philanthropist.
None of this is meant as a critique of capitalism. Just a critique of the kind of sterile, exploitative capitalism that Buffett practises, that he then tries to dress up as philanthropy. "It's ok if I give away all my money at the end" - well he can't take it with him can he? And at 89, he still hasn't given most of it away anyway.
Finally, here's a link to a much more detailed criticism of Buffett, if you're interested:
https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/special-investigat...
"America isn’t supposed to allow moats, much less reward them. Our economic system, we claim, is founded on free and fair competition."
That's called a straw man. No one has ever said America "doesn't allow moats" and that there is "free and fair competition".
The whole point of business is, within the law, to build a moat that makes it impossible for a late-starting competitor to compete with you. Patents are moats. Immense capital is a moat. Brands are moats. Regulations are moats.
When Disney pulls its movies from Netflix to start its own streaming service, it's using its moat to block a competitor.
I bet almost every dollar you spend in your life goes to companies that legally try to stop you from spending money with their competitors. From your phone to your bank to your car to your airline.
The Fed is currently propping up the price of assets through $3 Trillion of asset buying. This isn't a free economy.
Any Apple customer will tell you they "benefit" from spending all their computer and phone money with Apple. Apple trying to build a moat around their ecosystem doesn't preclude mutual benefit.
Most 'moats' are not beneficial to the consumer. What's beneficial to the consumer is competition, and companies innovating, not building moats, to stay ahead of their competitors.
What about BNSF for instance?
> His investments have been made on an almost exclusive basis of growing wealth, which in the end is a very sterile end to aim for.
What is a more appropriate terminal goal for a hedge fund manager? Would you personally invest your parents' 401Ks, your alma mater's endowment, or your city/state's pensions in a fund whose goal is not "growing wealth"? Are you willing to contribute to each fund to make up the difference (or raise taxes)?
No one who went into that article without a pitchfork in hand is likely to emerge with one.
This is what investment is, no?
How do you separate this from a more general critique of capitalism? How should capital allocation work?
Obviously, buying and selling stuff in a secondary market is enormously beneficial to the people doing the buying and selling (or else they wouldn't be doing it)... For instance, if I start a business, I want to be able to sell it to Warren Buffet. When that doesn't happen, I want to be able to buy a slice of the businesses that he has invested in under the assumption that he does a pretty good job (as I don't have time/ability/money) to do that myself. Beyond personal utility, the value to society comes in the form of more businesses, more products, more services when its easier to buy and sell abstract ownership in businesses.
What counterfactual would get rid of Berkshire but keep YC?
Lol, I was really with you up until this point. There will always be people like buffet as long as there is capitalism.
His current net worth is $70b, for your statement to be true he would have to give away trillions.
One can be running a marathon and still have 40km left to run.
I realized this after reading the following Warren Buffet quote[1]:
"I happen to have a talent for allocating capital. But my ability to use that talent is completely dependent on the society I was born into. If I’d been born into a tribe of hunters, this talent of mine would be pretty worthless. I can’t run very fast. I’m not particularly strong. I’d probably end up as some wild animal’s dinner. But I was lucky enough to be born in a time and place where society values my talent, and gave me a good education to develop that talent, and set up the laws and the financial system to let me do what I love doing — and make a lot of money doing it. The least I can do is help pay for all that."
[1] https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Warren_Buffett