What’s truly fucked is that it costs more to be poor than rich and it takes substantial money to accumulate wealth.
When a rich person buys a product, like a pair of winter boots, they will purchase a pair of high quality that will last many seasons. A poor person buying cheap boots will have them wear out faster and they’ll need to be replaced much sooner, so they’ll have to keep buying boots periodically. By spending more at the outset, the rich person spends less in the long run. You can see this with William Sonoma cookware. Each item is the last “that thing” that you’ll ever need. Only things like plates that can be dropped and broken will even need to be repurchased.
As for building wealth, you have to have enough money to invest to build wealth. This can be by buying a house that appreciates in value or by investing in the market. You can’t throw a thousand dollars into the market and have it appreciate in a meaningful way. You have to have real money to make anything unless you’re risking it all looking for a unicorn. This is why hedge funds make so much. They can afford to throw money at everything that has an opportunity to be a unicorn. The handful of successful unicorns offset the rest that go bust. A regular person can’t do this; even most wealth people can’t do this. For the rest, investing in “safe” funds will generate a smaller return over a longer period of time. But how can you access this avenue if you’re living paycheck to paycheck or an emergency car repair could wipe out your savings?
It’s a perverse and lousy system. And the cracks have been showing for quite some time. I believe now we’re at the end of the ride. The illusion of capitalism as a good system is continually eroding and it’s all going to be downhill from here. We’re going to get squeezed, companies are going to screw us harder and jack up prices, and everything is going to get worse, worse, worse until the mask is fully off and the evil of the system is obvious to anyone clear-eyed enough to understand why living is hell. But some people will still think the reason for their misery is drag queens and immigrants, rather than the wealthy people they admire. And keeping that fight going is how they distract us from what would really solve our problems: a drastic reduction of wealth for the very top.
I hope more people become aware of the existing class-war, because it’s been active this whole time; it’s just that the ones currently winning didn’t declare war openly, but in whispers among themselves.
What’s truly fucked is that it costs more to be poor than rich and it takes substantial money to accumulate wealth.
When a rich person buys a product, like a pair of winter boots, they will purchase a pair of high quality that will last many seasons. A poor person buying cheap boots will have them wear out faster and they’ll need to be replaced much sooner, so they’ll have to keep buying boots periodically. By spending more at the outset, the rich person spends less in the long run. You can see this with William Sonoma cookware. Each item is the last “that thing” that you’ll ever need. Only things like plates that can be dropped and broken will even need to be repurchased.
As for building wealth, you have to have enough money to invest to build wealth. This can be by buying a house that appreciates in value or by investing in the market. You can’t throw a thousand dollars into the market and have it appreciate in a meaningful way. You have to have real money to make anything unless you’re risking it all looking for a unicorn. This is why hedge funds make so much. They can afford to throw money at everything that has an opportunity to be a unicorn. The handful of successful unicorns offset the rest that go bust. A regular person can’t do this; even most wealth people can’t do this. For the rest, investing in “safe” funds will generate a smaller return over a longer period of time. But how can you access this avenue if you’re living paycheck to paycheck or an emergency car repair could wipe out your savings?
It’s a perverse and lousy system. And the cracks have been showing for quite some time. I believe now we’re at the end of the ride. The illusion of capitalism as a good system is continually eroding and it’s all going to be downhill from here. We’re going to get squeezed, companies are going to screw us harder and jack up prices, and everything is going to get worse, worse, worse until the mask is fully off and the evil of the system is obvious to anyone clear-eyed enough to understand why living is hell. But some people will still think the reason for their misery is drag queens and immigrants, rather than the wealthy people they admire. And keeping that fight going is how they distract us from what would really solve our problems: a drastic reduction of wealth for the very top.
I hope more people become aware of the existing class-war, because it’s been active this whole time; it’s just that the ones currently winning didn’t declare war openly, but in whispers among themselves.