Wealth and Income

Same thing with Cletus who makes $25k at Walmart living paycheck to paycheck. He's in the same category as Pajeet who lives off of $150 a month.

>>1813821
Totally agreed. There is so little emphasis on financial freedom that it's almost like people are encouraged to work like crazy to buy tons of stuff that don't even own (leased cars, mortgaged properties, etc.)

>>1813821
>assets that generate USD40K annual income
>without working
like what? like those products those financial freedom scammers sell to the naive ones?

>>1813880
Real estate is a good example.

>>1813880
(OP) Trust fund beneficiaries.

Another thought I've been thinking... working for money automatically exposes you to tax (with exceptions for retirement accounts and such). Working for something other than money (like barter or doing your own chores or growing a vegetable garden) is like an automatic raise because you can avoid the tax.

>>1813830
It's completely comfortable to live on 25k a year in America, provided you don't have any children and don't live in high cost area like NYC, SF or Seattle.

>>1813880
Never heard of dividends you fucking retard?

>>1815013

That requires you to have hundreds of thousands invested.

>>1815139
Welcome to the whole discussion, m8. Wealth vs income.

Id rather have wealth sufficient to generate 40k income rather than 200k income (remember our friend TAX)

>>1813857
Mortgaged properties is a terrible example, as its one of the few ways open to people today to accumulate wealth. If you had sensible middle class parents you may even have wrangled a home already, meaning your first kortgage will be a buy to let.. Living the dream if so,,and should be a minimum life goal for everyone - have kid, give them an unencumbered proprerty. Life goals complete and successful in my book

>>1815199

It would be well to make a distinction between income and savings/investments/assets in that case. A person is wealthy if they have large amounts of liquid assets, not if they can use those assets to generate a positive cash flow. Your description simply causes confusion.

>>1815231
(OP) I'd also like to introduce another thought. Because thr US mainly taxes income and not wealth, it's very tough to be socially mobile across generations. So, let's say you work hard/are smart/are lucky and you end up earning a high salary. The higher income you earn, the more of it is taxed away, which means you end up having less to save and invest in income producing assets and have a smaller estate to pass to your decendants. So your kids have less to start with when compared to someone whose parents had income producing assets. Nevertheless, when we hear politicians talk about taxing the rich, they are talking about taxing people with high incomes, not high wealth. When taxes rise for high salaried people, thr people cheer and pat themselves on the back for being egalitarian. Meanwhile, not much has changed. The greasy pole just got more slippery for high earners. I think this is a problem. What do you think? If it is a problem, what's the solution?

>>1814988
I wouldn't call $25k comfortable anywhere in the USA except for in the most rural middle of nowhere towns that require you to constantly sink money into a car to be able to get anywhere.

>>1815340
>The higher income you earn, the more of it is taxed away, which means you end up having less to save and invest in income producing assets

Huh? The more you earn the more you have to invest.

>>1814979
>Working for something other than money (like barter or doing your own chores or growing a vegetable garden) is like an automatic raise because you can avoid the tax.

Barter is not tax exempt, it's just easier to get away with.

>>1815362
The worst is living in a rural part of the east coast. You have east coast inflated gas and insurance prices with no mass transit to help you get around

>>1813821
There is no fixed value of "assets" that produces $40k annually. There is no type of assets that reliably return a fixed value of profit. The true value of assets and money changes at all times. There might be some equilibrium point between any given income and wealth numbers, but they're definitely unknowable. And there is probably not even any such line.

OP is right that most people don't understand any of this. Just like OP doesn't. This whole thread reminds me of being in first grade and arguing about whether you would want "money" or "power". That's a stupid question. Just like "income" vs "wealth". These things aren't comparable on such vague terms.

>>1815498
(OP) Let us then define terms. "Income" lets say is "money that is earned in the current period", where "period" is an arbitrary length of time (let's just say a year since that's how people tend to think about this sort of thing). "Wealth" is "financial or real assets that yield current or future income".

I think that clarifies what we're talking about.

>>1815498
(OP) And you're right about money and assets having no fixed value. The numbers we are throwing around in this thread are illustrarive of the more general concepts of income and wealth (or assets). Money does not need to have an intrinsic value in order for wealth and income to exist, even when expressed in money terms.

>>1815367
(OP) Yes, but also no. In the US, generally the more money you earn (especially from salary), the greater percentage of tax is taken. It's like trying to climb a mountain (the mountain being wealth accumulation) and the higher you get up the mountain, the more weight (tax) the people who are already there put on your shoulders. Sure you can still take that neat step, but it's harder.