[frmersdog]

In this job market, in this political environment, with Luigi Mangione a Bonnie-and-Clyde-tier folk hero, the bit you quoted was perhaps a clue to the lack of wisdom in humblebragging that you spend a family's annual food budget on 5 pounds of spun sheep keratin.

I imagine that I will be the bad guy for pointing this out. (Perhaps even to myself, considering that there's certainly utility in rich people yapping incautiously about the reasons others might want to turn on an Enes Yilmazer video and figure out where the panic room is.)

[awakeasleep]

I don’t make nearly that kind of money, but I don’t think people who do should keep it a secret like you’re trying to enforce some norm of secrecy on him

[Teever]

I agree.

It's interesting how in Norway, Sweden, and Finland people's tax returns are public information and it seems to work out just fine.

[tavavex]

> you spend a family's annual food budget on 5 pounds of spun sheep keratin

Maybe they're obscenely rich, or perhaps they're just living up to their username?

[walletdrainer]

Thankfully this username was related to a post I created this account to comment on, not me personally :)

[jazzyjackson]

Luigi wouldn't have been famous if he offed a guy for wearing tailored pants and a rolex, he's famous because the CEO was a scapegoat of everything wrong with health insurance.

[basisword]

>> there's certainly utility in rich people yapping incautiously about the reasons others might want to turn on an Enes Yilmazer video and figure out where the panic room is.

Can you explain what you mean by this? I hope I'm misunderstanding it.

[walletdrainer]

This feels like Reddit leaking over a little bit.

Let me remind you that this is a forum operated by a VC fund looking for people to give lots of money to so they can build billion dollar businesses. Those who succeed are routinely celebrated here, but actually discussing that money being spent rapidly becomes judgmental.

Hard to reconcile it being super cool to build an unicorn (a cute term we’ve come up with to describe billion dollar startups which have made their founders tremendously wealthy), but somewhat disgusting to actually have or spend that money.

News.ycombinator.com seems like the wrong place to complain about capitalism.

FWIW I don’t even get a Silicon Valley salary, am not in any way extraordinary, but have spent 10+ years building 100+ small online businesses out of which none have been particularly successful (but in total the little streams add up)

[botanrice]

Sorry for jumping on this off-topic but I'm a junior engineer hoping to build out some of those small online businesses but I've been a bit unsure of how to go about it. When you say small online businesses do you mean like micro-SaaS kind of things? Or like tangible items? Sorry, just curious :)

[walletdrainer]

Micro-SaaS and digital products. Just figure out a good stack to work with for billing and try to crank out one little thing a week that will be useful to someone.

One of my best projects just sells some pdf files you can submit to the government to achieve a thing you would usually unnecessarily hire a lawyer for.

Another in a similar vein simply offers an easy-to-fill PDF version of a government form that does not exist online, and a nice HTML interface that will help you mostly automatically fill it.

Most of these took less than a day to build and take next to no maintenance. Both of the above earn more than $100k annually.

Just make sure your customers can get in touch with you very easily so you don’t end up with broken websites running on autopilot charging customers for broken stuff, I made that mistake once and ended up having to call a bunch of people to apologise when I discovered what had been happening.

[ok_dad]

It's not reddit leaking, it's normal people leaking into your weird millionaire world. I say weird because 99.9% of people in the world would consider it on a range of weird all the way to unethical that you spend tens of thousands on pants. I'm not going to sit here and preach and make you bored, but consider what good you could do with that money, if only your ass and thighs were slightly more uncomfortable than they are today. Especially now when people around the world are dealing with 2x the food costs of a year or a few ago.

Also, HN is a fine place to complain about capitalism, maybe a few of you capitalists will have it click in your brains that other people are struggling and you can do something about it other than sitting on a cloud.

[walletdrainer]

I donate approximately 47.5% of everything I earn to the French government, is that not enough? (And yes, taxes are a voluntary donation in my case. I could move less than a mile across the border to Monaco and incorporate elsewhere if I wanted to pay ~0%)

Of course, when I spend 10000 euros in the Loro Piana boutique or anywhere really, 20% of that goes to the government too.

Could I afford give more? Sure! To whom? How much? Figuring that out seems like another full time job, and the track record of the effective altruism folks doesn’t seem all that great.

[derektank]

>the track record of the effective altruism folks doesn’t seem all that great.

I've been donating 5-10% of my income to GiveWell[1] and their top charities like GiveDirectly[2] and the Against Malaria Foundation[3] for nearly a decade at this point and I think their track record has been fantastic. Effect altruism only gets shady when longtermists get involved and start speculating on the moral worth of lives in some distant future. If you focus on human beings alive today, effective altruists (and development economists) have done a great job identifying how to make your charitable donations go the farthest in reducing suffering.

[1] https://www.givewell.org/

[2] https://www.givedirectly.org/

[3] https://www.againstmalaria.com/

[astrange]

> I donate approximately 47.5% of everything I earn to the French government, is that not enough?

It's better to think of pretax money as just not existing. The effect of /everyone/ paying taxes is different from the effect of only you paying taxes, since your buying power is somewhat determined by how much you have relative to everyone else.

[walletdrainer]

Well not really, I do my grocery shopping a few minutes away in Monaco where nobody pays taxes. I could move less than a kilometre and save loads of money, despite the outrageous real estate costs.

I just kind of like where I am now so don’t care enough to do that, and at least try to assume that the government does a relatively good job of directing my donation to good causes.

[robocat]

Everybody seems to have an opinion on what someone more wealthy than they are should spend their money on.

Unfortunately we don't get to look at what the commenter earns or spend...

A normal car weekly payment in the US is ridiculously wasteful. If you live in the US its almost a given that you are ridiculously wealthy in comparison to many in the world.

A normal overseas trip is ridiculously wasteful.

It's hard to consider what an average person in the world would think is wasteful, because with our common developed country expenses we don't feel like millionaires.

We couldn't even ask a person with an average world income to comment, since do they even have the free time to waste? (edits)

[ok_dad]

Whataboutism isn’t going to solve the problem of inequality. Compare me to many others and you can say the same things as I said to GP, however there’s a clear difference that isn’t very subtle between me buying a compact car and GP buying a few pairs of those pants for the same cost.

There’s this argument that people make that goes something like, “the wealthy give their fair share why sour they pay more than a lot income person and get called out for not giving more?” I don’t believe that’s their fair share, is why I ask them to give way more. Do you think a person who starts 100 businesses is working harder than a single mom with a few kids? Why did they deserve the lions share of the profits over their employees? These are some of the questions I have they could be relevant.

Like I said, I don’t want to bore anyone, it’s not like the wealthy have ever been in touch with the common man, for millennia. I’m certainly not going to convince anyone, I’m no good at arguing and my arguments tend to be rough and full of holes, but at least I’m not a millionaire claiming I couldn’t or shouldn’t do more because I’m a special hard worker who deserves every penny.

[walletdrainer]

I’m definitely not working particularly hard, but for what it’s worth my work has saved and will continue to save vast amounts of time for ordinary people. I’m not sure that how hard a person works is the right metric to use.

> it’s not like the wealthy have ever been in touch with the common man, for millennia

A few years ago I used to live in hostels, sometimes hoping that my (then few) websites would get one or two payments to cover my expenses for the next day so I wouldn’t have to go without food. I’d like to think that I’m not suddenly particularly out of touch.

[robocat]

You've gone off on some other tangents.

Most people react poorly to the word hypocrite so ChatGPT found[1] some other choice phrases for people that are well off that complain about the better off.

> Why did they deserve the lions share of the profits over their employees?

You appear to live in the US. Ask yourself why those in the US deserve the lions share of world wealth? You seem to be complaining about others while not looking at yourself.

[1] https://chatgpt.com/s/t_69141a5497948191a2d349e803d343c8

Disclosure: I'm well off for a New Zealander but I'm earning less than the median wage my cohort receives in NYC. Taxes total around 45% of my income.

Edit: 1/3 of US households earn over $150k. https://economistwritingeveryday.com/2025/09/17/one-third-of... - It isn't that uncommon in the US but that amount is rather uncommon in most of the rest of the world. I've just been to New Orleans so I saw one poorer part of the US recently so I have some point of comparison.

[basisword]

Do something about it then. Start by learning to make arguments that aren't so poor you yourself think they're rough and full of holes. Get involved in politics, activism, or campaigning. Vote. Convince others to vote in the same manner you do.

[jazzyjackson]

Money is not distributed to whomsoever works the hardest, weird axiom.

[ok_dad]

A good start might be taking 9500 euros a next time you need pants and donate to a local food bank, then buy 500 euro pants instead!

Maybe you could even retire and open a food bank or a childcare facility locally, which might not be possible for you but who knows.

If I were wealthy i would open a childcare facility that was free for anyone who lives in my town for emergency care 24/7.

[mapontosevenths]

This is such a broken take. Jealousy is so ugly. It's like you expect those doing better than you to Harrison Bergeron themselves for your sake.

I'm sorry you're unhappy with your lot in life. Maybe work hard and do better, rather than expecting others to pretend like they're not doing well to appease your feelings.

[ok_dad]

I’m doing fine, others aren’t doing as well, I guess you see it as jealousy and in fact I’m just disgusted by my fellow man that they can hoard while others starve.

[mapontosevenths]

> I’m just disgusted by my fellow man that they can hoard while others starve.

Despite popular belief the economy is not a zero sum game where every dollar someone makes comes at anothers expense. In reality, every dollar a wealthy person spends becomes some other person's livelihood.

It is only unproductive idle capital that should be considered "hoarding", and that IS a bit of a sin in my book. As is wealth invested in rent seeking rather than productive activity.

[marknutter]

I'm sitting here trying to figure out why you haven't sent 90% of your income to the poor people in Sudan.

[ok_dad]

I will when I can afford pants that cost ten grand, for now I just try to do what I can in my local community.

[marknutter]

Sure you will, bud. I believe you.

[bchasknga]

> I say weird because 99.9% of people in the world would consider it on a range of weird all the way to unethical that you spend tens of thousands on pants.

TIL it's unethical to spend a lot of money on clothes. It's not like the sub-thread's OP was spending $10k on a pair of <Insert crazy designer brand name> pants that actually have more form than function. It's a $500 pair of pants. God forbid people spend money on their own preference for their own comfort.

Pragmatically, capitalism brought in more good than bad. Are we arguing that we would've been better off if the world had gone the way of the soviet/pre-80s China way of life?

[basisword]

He wasn't 'humblebragging'. He was answering a question on an anonymous forum honestly.

[burningChrome]

The irony is the majority of people on here are the ones screaming "tax the rich" at Mamdani's acceptance speech, but then are the same ones upvoting this guy, his 10M net worth and defending him being rich.

The world is a very confusing place these days.

[walletdrainer]

To make it even more confusing I’m a rich guy cheering for people like Mamdani.

I pay lots of taxes, probably in top 0.1% of the world on a % basis. I don’t have to, I’m not a US or French citizen so I could easily just choose to relocate a couple of minutes away and pay essentially no taxes.

If I did choose to stop paying taxes, I’d do so in order to donate a similar amount of my income to some charity. I’m just not sold on that being so much more efficient to be worth the hassle. OTOH, it’d definitely greatly improve my philanthropy credentials which would very much be worth it to some for purely selfish personal reasons.

[boston_clone]

> at my income level the price difference between that and Zara is pretty much immaterial

this is probably just regular bragging, right?

now, discussing how donating $100 versus $10k to a cause or community being negligible to their economic security would at least front-load some humility, but capitalists gon' capitalist. oops!

thank god this is Hacker News though, and not some safe-haven for boring rich people!

[RandomBacon]

I'm just a lowly peon and don't make anywhere near that kind of money, but I do NOT consider that bragging in this context.

[alistairSH]

"I buy more $10,000 cardigans than you buy Hanes undershirts" is kinda the definition of bragging. What a weird ass corner of the internet where it's just assumed everybody earns $millions. Like, lol, no outside SV, London, and NYC, that's truly exceptional. Like, the average CEO in the US doesn't even clear $1 million (according to Google's AI search results).

[RandomBacon]

> "I buy more $10,000 cardigans than you buy Hanes undershirts" is kinda the definition of bragging.

Except that's not what they wrote / how they framed it.

Perhaps that's just how you perceived it. I think that speaks more about you, than it does about them.

[tweetle_beetle]

You can construct a philosophical argument that value is all relative without having to casually drop anecdata demonstrating that you personally spend many hundreds of times more on an everyday object than is typical without consideration.

Simmel managed it ok. [1]

[1] https://brocku.ca/MeadProject/Simmel/Simmel_1900.html

[walletdrainer]

Can you describe a way of communicating that same point without it being bragging in your eyes? I guess I could’ve engaged in the gymnastics of saying SWIM like they used to do on some drug forums :)

[vouwfietsman]

"I have spent more than $500 dollars on pants before, because I'm lucky to be in a position where for me these things are a matter of taste and whim, rather than budget, and don't really affect my finances too much whether I do or don't buy them."

I don't think I have to explain to you how the gap between what you said, and what I wrote above, is what is causing offense here. You likely deserve 100% of your success, but its just common sense to obscure the specifics of it if you are way out of band in relative terms.

Its like saying: "You know, I never really get ill" at the cancer ward. Sure, its true, but read the room.

[walletdrainer]

Well, after all it’s HN and this is the kind of content that attracts much of the users. I’d certainly be more careful with that wording on a website that caters to a very different audience, but it’s not long ago when indiehackers posts of people “bragging” about their successes were consistently at the top of the front page.

Not convinced I misread the room, especially considering the upvotes.

[vouwfietsman]

"you can lead a horse to water"

[jazzyjackson]

> don't really affect my finances too much whether I do or don't buy them

Isn't this the same brag as before?

I can't tell how this is different than throwing some numbers in the mix, the person relating their personal experience expresses they have fuck-it-bucks either way

[vouwfietsman]

Not naming numbers is precisely the point, because you obfuscate the reality of the size of the gap, which in the end is what everything is about. The gap creates the offense. Everybody knows there's rich people, but being confronted by exactly how rich, to the detail of a number, is the offensive part (if done by that rich person without any clear reason).

I'm not sure why people keep piling up to pretend this is such a normal thing, this is literally why people don't discuss salaries despite it technically being in their own interest: specifics ground the fuzzy notion of inequality into reality like nothing else.

The offensive post inflates the perceived inequality from "500$ pants is too much for pants" to "10k means nothing to me" while my version leaves the specifics outside of the conversation. In my version, the person could put the level of "too expensive for pants" at 1k, still an order of magnitude lower than the offensive post.

Finally, I acknowledge that this is a privileged position to be in explicitly, because that signals that you are aware that this is an exceptional situation to be in (which I'm not sure the offensive post author is aware of, even now).

[alistairSH]

You could have omitted "but at my income level the price difference between that and Zara is pretty much immaterial." and come across more matter-of-fact than brag. IMO.

[boston_clone]

Sure, you could just omit that entire sentence, no? Retains readability but avoids unnecessary specifics.

[walletdrainer]

I think without that sentence it fails to communicate the absurdity of trying to figure out a generic answer to whether or not something is worth it.

With a total rewrite I could certainly have communicated that point in a much more clinical manner. I just don’t see the point.

[marknutter]

No it doesn't. He's establishing the fact that he can afford very expensive clothes and why, from personal experience, he believes them to be worth it if you can afford it. If you omit the entire sentence the whole meaning of the post changes. I think you may just be upset because he's wealthier than you.

[walletdrainer]

Also later tried to briefly establish the fact that had I been offered such products a couple of years ago, I too would’ve found the pricing completely ridiculous.

[boston_clone]

> I think you may just be upset because he's wealthier than you.

Aw, Mark; that's not it, pal. His last paragraph about tailored clothing captures the thought well without throwing around dollar amounts or brand names. But thanks for trying to defend your capitalist masters like a good little right-winger!

[basisword]

Nope, he's stating how he feels about something.