[jyu]

The point is the fabric of society is unraveling quickly in 2021 than 2008. What does it matter if you win the career lottery if every neighborhood is covered in feces, sidewalks are full of tent cities, and your fellow man is 1 health crisis away from becoming an other.

[AnIdiotOnTheNet]

One is forced to wonder if making millions and being surrounded by tent cities is somehow correlated. Almost like wealth is being concentrated in the hands of a relative few or something.

[me_me_me]

I heard on fox news that the money trickles down to poor. Its clearly their fault. They forgot to build in wealth catchers into their tents. \s

This is obviously sarcastic but sadly not far from what some people actually think. And i guess tent cities is where that thinking gets you to.

[hnarn]

It matters because you're rich, which means you don't have to live in those neighborhoods.

[nostrademons]

To add to that - financial wealth is in many ways illusory. If you save up $10M (which in 2000 would've easily been enough to retire on) and it's all in Google stock, that's great while Google remains on top of the world. It can quickly be worth ~$0 if Google's no longer the primary way people find out about things to buy. Employees of Sun Microsystems found this out the hard way - many went from comfortable millionaires to Oracle employees in a decade, if they didn't quit and sell their stocks in time.

The usual answer to this is diversification, but the normal "safe" investments - Treasuries, S&P 500 index funds - are all heavily dependent upon political stability in the U.S. If the U.S. erupts in Civil War, basically all American companies will become worthless. Their employees will be dead and their physical capital will be in rubble, so there's nothing to own.

[Axsuul]

Did you feel the same way in 2019?

[crumbshot]

I don't think that was the main thrust of their comment, which comes across as mostly a selfish appraisal of a perceived risk to their riches ("only be worrying about who's about to take it from you or whether your assets are going to be worthless in the next financial crash"), rather than concern about others.