[ahupp]

Both of these things can be true: that the top 1% own a large fraction of wealth, and that an even larger fraction is owned by the pensions and retirement plans of the non-wealthy.

Wealth comparisons are tricky, e.g they'll show that Americans are some of the poorest people in the world because there's a large fraction with debt (e.g homes, credit cards, student loans). While technically true, that doesn't really match our intuitions for what wealth means.

[UweSchmidt]

Well then our intuition is wrong.

If your finances throughout your life are not in order, if you have high debt, regardless if it's because of medical bills, student loans or too big a car and house, you are in a weak position. What good does a nice car do if you worry about bills and if you try to avoid to look at the balance in your banking app?

You don't always know how rich some folks are, but for the most part it's easy to see if someone is living above their means, if you get a little anxienty on those people's behalf, then good!

[nickelcitymario]

Well, thought experiment:

John lives in extreme poverty. He's debt free, but is unable to adequately feed himself or his family. Several of his children have died from malnutrition.

Marc lives in a nice suburban home, has 3 square meals a day, so does everyone in his family. However, his debts (including his mortgage, car payments, student loans) exceed his savings.

If our intuition is wrong, then John is winning. He's ahead of Marc financially.

But I can tell you which one of them I'd rather be. It's not John.

[mwfunk]

They’re both screwed. I’d rather have crippling debt than children dying from malnutrition, but obviously both Marc and John are completely screwed in different ways. They’re both losers in this scenario, there are no winners.

[chipotle_coyote]

Both you and the poster you're replying to are comparing debt to savings rather than debt to income. Taking the numbers from a downstream reply, the guy with the $120K mortgage on the $150K house is ahead if he can comfortably afford the monthly payment on his mortgage with the $80K annual salary.

The entire point of taking out a loan is that you don't have the assets available to outright buy the thing you're taking out the loan for. Obviously, people can take on too much debt, be trapped by usurious interest rates, and so on; you need to be realistic about how much debt you can afford, and a lot of people aren't (often through no fault of their own). But "my total debt at this moment in time exceeds my savings" is not in and of itself a harbinger of financial doom.

[amanaplanacanal]

Yes, net worth and cash flow are two very importantly different things.

Negative net worth just means you can declare bankruptcy when necessary. Positive cash flow is what keeps you out. The risk is that an interruption to that cash flow can mean that you have to take the bankruptcy option.

[jeffdavis]

It might be more a matter of accounting.

If you imagine that we are all born in a kind of "debt" where we need a home to live in, then a mortgage is just putting that debt on paper.

[roenxi]

If you want to imagine we are all born with a 'debt' then you should also assume we are born with an 'asset'. They should be workign to put that on paper faster than the debt.

As a personal choice, I don't accept any excuse for taking on debt to fund a lifestyle. It is just not a good idea.

I've talked to people who come up with these crazy justifications in their 20s why spending money now is more important than spending money later; I don't know why it is so hard to accept that these decisions have a 20 year time horizons and that they are going to live to be 75. The averages are pretty clear, if you prioritise financial security above incidental expenses you can have both.

Expensive experiences are not worth more than financial security, they don't meaningfully contribute to people's lives or happiness. You can be just as happy playing sports with locals to meet new people as traveling to exotic locations to gawp at nice architecture and meet new people. In 10 years you won't notice if you cooked your own food or had someone else do it for you. An expensive car will not bring a normal person good luck. You can live in a couple of different houses over a lifetime and save much money with little downside.

The pleasure of a purchase is not an urgent need.

[perl4ever]

"If you want to imagine we are all born with a 'debt' then you should also assume we are born with an 'asset'. They should be workign to put that on paper faster than the debt."

If you take your salary and divide it by a reasonable interest rate, then you get the value of yourself as an asset, or the equivalent amount of capital you would need not to work. It is a large amount if you choose a realistic interest rate.

So, sure, a few hundred thousand in debt for school or a house is not such a big deal when you consider that an ordinary salary is equivalent to a million or two in capital.

The issue is cash flow, which seems to be what you are acknowledging, so how do you get to a fanatical anti-debt stance?

[laughinghan]

In what way is Marc screwed? In the scenario given, even though Marc's debts exceed his current savings, there's every reason to believe his future income will outpace his debts and that he'll be able to maintain his standard of living until he dies.

[klyrs]

> ...he'll be able to maintain his standard of living until he dies.

Under the assumption that his wages track with inflation, you might be right. He'll be able to scrape and hustle and pivot right until the day he dies. That's not a "win." When his health inevitably falters, he'll have increasing difficulty finding work, accumulating ever more medical debt. Chances are, his children will be dependent on him well into middle age, but "his" house and assets will vanish to cover debts.

A good outcome is one where we're making enough to save up for a comfortable retirement. That's not the reality for, perhaps, most people born after 1980

[dv_dt]

In that scenario, Marc has far more options and freedom to escape his instantaneous debt state than John does.

[ericd]

You have to keep in mind the the expected value of lifetime earnings of both. College students from top schools going into consulting/finance aren’t poor coming out of college, even though they may be deep in debt, because the expected value of their labor potential is in the multi-millions.

Not quite the same as having it in-hand, but it’s real unless conditions change drastically.

[pitaj]

That doesn't seem even remotely true. Taking on large amounts of debt can be risky in many cases. But consider the following case:

- newly purchased $150k home with down-payment of $30k

- $80k savings / investments

- $20k car

- $80k/yr income

This person is not at risk, but they have a net worth of $[30k + 80k +20k - 150k] = $-20k

[bdowling]

Your math is off. The home is an asset worth $150k plus a liability of $120k for the mortgage, for a net positive $30k. That puts your hypothetical person with a net worth of positive $130k, not negative $20k as you calculated.

[ericd]

When valuing a business, you typically look at the discounted future cash flows in addition to assets/debt. Basically, you factor in their profitability and calculate the current value of owning that stream of cash flow. People have cash flows as well. So even though people typically only count assets/debt, Marc effectively has a net worth substantially higher than -$20k if he’s saving more than he’s spending, which jives better with people’s intuition about Marc’s situation.

[perl4ever]

Debt is just other peoples' money. Being poor isn't just about what you own, it's about what you have access to that you don't own.

[UweSchmidt]

Well said.

[golergka]

Your said nothing about Marc's level of income and if he's able to service his debt easily, so we have no information to pass any judgement here.

[Spooky23]

John isn’t someone of sound mind living in the US.

Both cases are poor examples. Financial health has two components; assets and cash flow. John can be in a better situation if his cash flow is good and he is solvent, but will always be facing more risks if he lacks key assets like a home.

[geofft]

> What good does a nice car do if you worry about bills and if you try to avoid to look at the balance in your banking app?

You have a nice car you can drive around?

I mean, the purpose of money is to do things with it. The balance in your banking app is only relevant because you desire to put it to some purpose. If you stop desiring to put it to some purpose, you're equally equipped whether or not you have a positive balance, and if you already have put it to some purpose like a nice car, you've accomplished the actual goal you wanted and should stop getting distracted by the means. (You should, of course, continue to pay attention to the means if you have other, unfulfilled goals. And perhaps you should think about whether having a nice car is more of a priority than those goals. But the goals are not money in and of itself.)

If you've got debts from student loans or mortgages that are set up such that you can pay those debts slowly and in a way you can afford to pay, and in the meantime you've got money to spend, you are actually fine. A balance sheet that only looks at how much is in the bank and how much you're in debt and not at how much you can afford to hold that debt is not telling the full story.

(This is, incidentally, the same reason the national debt isn't a big concern: nobody is going to demand that we pay that debt right now. So going further into debt gives the ability to do more things with that money, i.e., it gives us the effect of having more money, even though on paper we now have less money.)

[dredmorbius]

Yonatan Zunger's notion of "financial shock wealth" is the most novel and satisfying framing of this question I've seen in years.

...If $5,000 is something you could afford, ask yourself the same question again with $100,000 (fire burn down your house?), with $250,000 (cancer treatment and your health insurance kicked you off?). For everyone, there’s some number which is the largest size of a financial shock they could weather.

This number is probably the truest measure of a person’s real wealth: What is the largest unexpected financial shock you could sustain without the cost of that to you suddenly becoming ten times the original cost or more? That number isn’t something easy to calculate; it depends on whether you have a family that can help you out, on your income, on whether that shock involves losing your job (and thus your health insurance, if you live in the US), on whether you have access to any other sources of security (including public assistance)....

https://shift.newco.co/2017/12/04/your-financial-shock-wealt...

[yeahitslikethat]

We see wealth as living in a big house. Not the net value of that house on a balance sheet.

Reality is unimportant. Is perception that matters to society.