financial freedom is a myth peddled by billionaires
this post was submitted on 24 Aug 2023
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I mean, it's not a myth, billionaires literally have enough financial freedom to live large for 100 lifetimes.
The myth is that they're willing to share their ~~rigged casino gambling~~ "speculative investment" derived wealth/winnings, because reminder: nobody can come remotely close to earning a billion dollars through honest labor.
You need state support to get that rich.
"It's a big club, and you ain't in it!" -George Carlin
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You don't need billions for most definitions of financial freedom. Unless your definition is spend whatever you want, never worry about running out of money, and not have a job, you really don't need billions.
Capitalism requires most people to be dependent on selling their labor to capitalists at a rate less than it’s worth. No meaningful definition of financial freedom can exist for a majority of the population in a system that creates and supports billionaires.
We could, it's kind of the the Gene Roddenberry vision, use our burgeoning automation/robotics/AI to do the labor so that Humankind could pursue our passions for everyone's benefit, but of course those technologies will be patented and used for the exclusive further profit of the non-laboring owner's club at everyone else's further expense, exploding our population of homeless peasants with nothing, and "our" government will continue to defend their ability to get away with it at gun point.
It's like so many things. Human kind should have been united in celebration when we split the atom and harnessed it's awesome energy generation, a warm light for all mankind, instead our first monkey ass impulse was to use it to incinerate a rival monkey tribe.
Humanity: Juuuust smart enough to be a belligerent threat to ourselves and others, yet too impulsive, short sighted, selfish, and stupid as a species to be anything more.
In the mid to late 1960s economists were predicting 20 hour work weeks and month-long vacations. So it was perfectly reasonable for Gene to imagine a future where nobody had to work.
It wasn't a falsehood. It was stolen by Reagan and the owner class. Reagan gave away the store and shifted all societal power to the oligarchs, while corporate America, led by GE, shifted from the correct "customers first, employees (who were valued!) second, investors third" model to the "investors first, second, and only" rigged market profiteering dystopia we all suffer today.
The citizen's of happiest developed nations of the world, not our gold plated cesspool to be clear, as a rule get months off a year, in addition to innumerable social supports. It's a proven lie that this is how it has to be. This is just how the greediest/most sociopathic people want it to be, and since those traits are what our society rewards, and punishes their opposites, they have all the power.
stolen by Reagan and the owner class. Reagan gave away the store and shifted all societal power to the oligarc
I hate to shoot this down, as I live the feeling. If one USA President enough to steal it for 40+ years, then we never really had it.
Reagan changed the political dynamics in America. The Democrats were a pro-labor party prior to the 1980s. Afterwards they were pretty much lock step with Republicans, and by extension the oligarchs, into today, because the "Reagan revolution" opened their eyes to the fact that bribes by unions, lets be honest, could never come close to the bribes offered by the owners that hated the unions. And in proudly corrupt America, thats what you become a politician to do, get bought.
Since the 1980s, we've had no opposition party on economic policy. All we get to vote on is divisive social issues, largely exasurbated by our crony capitalist economic system, by design.
Do you want to be a wage slave subsisting in service to the owners until your death with or without gay marriage?
That is the extent of American freedom since the Reagan Revolution. With the side benefit of keeping the peasants at eachother's throats instead of looking up.
Our Democrat Senate and Democrat President literally passed a law to bust a prominent union strike last year. There is no vote an American peasant is offered that would be in their corner, only slightly varying degrees of against them.
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I finally got a job that broke six figures.
Housing boom made houses twice as expensive in five years. Monthly grocery bill doubled. Renting doubled. Cost of cars doubled. Every day expenses doubled.
Now consider the majority of people who do not have 6 figure incomes.
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I knew we were fucked when the same happened to me and I still can't afford a home.
I have a house that was bought back when I made around 35K in 2006 and they where giving out loans to everyone, so nothing great by any means. Had someone come by and ask to buy it earlier this year now that I've gotten to a decent career class job and I had to tell them no. Like, have you looked at the price of things lately? My payment is less than most single bedroom appartments these days, no way I'm giving that up to someone. It's an ugly mess, but at least it's my ugly mess.
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Honestly, you need to make 6 figures to just not be “poor” these days. Very annoying, considering how quickly things changed over the last decade.
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I’m 45 and I’ve more or less accepted that short of an unexpected and massive windfall, I will never be able to retire, much less experience “financial freedom.”
I'm 43 and literally had this exact conversation today. I work full time for a major financial institution. This shouldn't be how things work.
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Really? Do they? That's very interesting. Tell me, is the over half more like 99%?
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What is actually the definition of “financial freedom”? Having (earned / gained) enough money, so that a person has no need to go to work anymore? If that’s the case, I would expect that number to be much, much lower than 50%.
EDIT: sorry, I just read it in the article. If “financial freedom” just means to work and live more or less without having to worry about financial obligations and what will happen tomorrow, then less than 50% is a rather shocking figure.
Agree. And anyone could quickly go one from side to the other. In need of a expensive surgery? Might lose your financial freedom. Bought an expensive house and lost your job? Goodbye as well.
That’s what a health insurance would be good for. But for many Americans that would equal communism.
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In other news, water is wet
Today a young man on acid realized that all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration, that we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively, there is no such thing as death, life is only a dream, and we are the imagination of ourselves. Heres Tom with the Weather.
If, like me, you didn't have the reference: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2r85h2
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That's how society is, brother, literally 1% controls the world in their favor and keeps the wealth, impoverishing the 99%.
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49.3% say it refers to meeting financial obligations and having some money left over each month. About 54.2% define it as living debt-free, and 46.2% believe it means never having to worry about money.
I'm going to ignore that pesky 100% thing for the moment. Apparently we can't even agree on what "Financial Freedom" means. Defining the metric you're polling seems pretty critical if you want a consistent or useful answer. "Over half" is still burying the lede, though - less than one in ten fall into their personal version of that 150% noted above. Aside from the "American families are financially fucked" though, I'm not sure there's any hard data to extract from this.
--
"Peter don't ya call me cause I just can't go; I owe my soul to the company store."
Don't also forget that we're talking about what people say about their own financial position - which may be different from what their financial position actually is. Self-reporting is never accurate, because people report what they feel or are aware of, which is different from objective facts, to a greater or lesser degree.
Between letting individuals define the terms of the question they're going to answer, and then self-reporting, this "study" goes beyond useless and into detrimental.
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Probably the half that make $31k or less.
Looking for a job is insanely depressing when you get to see just how many jobs-white collar, blue collar, fast food, whatever- all pay absolutely disgusting wages one person can't live of off...
I would also venture to say that applies to 90% of us. "Over half" is a fucking laughable fake figure.
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I'm now in a 2 income household with fewer kids as they grow up, and to us it feels more like we are close always, just no hope of ever actually getting there, if that makes sense. Always almost enough.
Which is better than my previous experience but since it's happening later in life, still wouldn't expect to ever stop having to earn money by working. I have never expected to retire though, it would take - as someone else noted - a windfall, luck, not effort. Effort has taken us as far as it can.
I’d have thought more. With a big gaping chasm in between.
Clearly the answer is work harder and get a 3rd job. Eventually you'll be a millionaire!
🎶 Day's never finished, masta got me workin, someday massa set me free! 🎶
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Wtf? Of course not. The workforce would be devastated if half of Americans had achieved financial freedom.
Not if the goal was equilibrium/homeostasis rather than unsustainable growth/metastasis on a finite world of finite resources as it is today.
That will never be permitted though. Humanity will destroy itself not out of hatred as once believed, but in the name of cold, insatiable, sociopathic greed.
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There is $222 in the wallet in the link preview. Just found that interesting.
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