The Incredible Shrinking Incomes of Young Americans

[Martinus]

Wow what a sad perspective.

You can't take money with you to your grave. Consumption is the only sensible way to use money. The only question is whether to consume now or later.

Ah, truly spoken as someone only looking out for themselves.  For those of us who do think about other people, it is not all about simply spending it all on ourselves at some point.  Even people without children should think about the wider uses to which their accumulated capital can be used after their death.

Ah, but that's not what you said. Using your money to help others may be a more or less worthy goal (depending largely on how well they are able to fend off for themselves) but this still means the money is ultimately spent on consumption, which was my point.

I questioned your claim that the ultimate purpose of money is to create capital to make more money. This is patently untrue. The ultimate purpose of money is to make life easier for ourselves, our loved ones and people we care about (the "care" may be inspired by family ties, by our political views, by our artistic preferences or humanistic sensibilities - it does not matter).

Love, not greed, should inspire what we spend our money on.

[crazy canuck]

You can also leave it behind for your children and other people you care about to make their lives easier but you have shown you have no grasp of this concept

That's still deferred consumption. This is my point. And surely, unless your kids are disabled or minors when you die, they should be able to earn their living, rather than counting on daddy to support them from beyond the grave, no?

No its not.  The capital never has to be disturbed. 

[MadImmortalMan]

Use it for investments that make peoples' lives better. Like building roads, apartment buildings and satellite networks. Money continues in circulation and new value is created.

[DGuller]

You can also leave it behind for your children and other people you care about to make their lives easier but you have shown you have no grasp of this concept

So they would do what with that money?  Pass it on to their children?  And their children would pass it on to their children?

[Martinus]

You can also leave it behind for your children and other people you care about to make their lives easier but you have shown you have no grasp of this concept

That's still deferred consumption. This is my point. And surely, unless your kids are disabled or minors when you die, they should be able to earn their living, rather than counting on daddy to support them from beyond the grave, no?

No its not.  The capital never has to be disturbed.

Thinking like yours is what got us into the mess we are in today. Let's hope Picketty's ideas will get us out of it.

[Martinus]

You can also leave it behind for your children and other people you care about to make their lives easier but you have shown you have no grasp of this concept

So they would do what with that money?  Pass it on to their children?  And their children would pass it on to their children?

And their children's children!

[Valmy]

Thinking like yours is what got us into the mess we are in today. Let's hope Picketty's ideas will get us out of it.

Nobody is going to follow his solutions.

However his diagnosis is something everybody should bear in mind when making financial decisions

[Eddie Teach]

Capital should be kept in a vault where you can go swimming in it.

[Martinus]

Use it for investments that make peoples' lives better. Like building roads, apartment buildings and satellite networks. Money continues in circulation and new value is created.

The state is better at this sort of decisions - that's why we need to tax assets so that the likes of CC and Tamas do not have incentive to hoard their assets for some idiotic reason.

[DGuller]

You can also leave it behind for your children and other people you care about to make their lives easier but you have shown you have no grasp of this concept

That's still deferred consumption. This is my point. And surely, unless your kids are disabled or minors when you die, they should be able to earn their living, rather than counting on daddy to support them from beyond the grave, no?

No its not.  The capital never has to be disturbed.

It still either reaches equilibrium at which points income and consumption are directly related to each other, or it reaches a point where you grow capital perpetually just for the feeling of pleasure you get from growing capital perpetually.

[Valmy]

You can also leave it behind for your children and other people you care about to make their lives easier but you have shown you have no grasp of this concept

So they would do what with that money?  Pass it on to their children?  And their children would pass it on to their children?

And their children's children!

We are just on different wavelengths on this point. I think robots are going to replace most productive work for humans in the long term so I am not eager to embrace the notion that everything should be engineered around one's salary sustaining you. Also I tend to view life as a team game, I do want to look out for my people.

[Martinus]

You can also leave it behind for your children and other people you care about to make their lives easier but you have shown you have no grasp of this concept

That's still deferred consumption. This is my point. And surely, unless your kids are disabled or minors when you die, they should be able to earn their living, rather than counting on daddy to support them from beyond the grave, no?

No its not.  The capital never has to be disturbed.

It still either reaches equilibrium at which points income and consumption are directly related to each other, or it reaches a point where you grow capital perpetually just for the feeling of pleasure you get from growing capital perpetually.

Which is also a form of consumption, I guess - I mean, consumption does not need to be physical, it could be pleasure you derive from using it in some other way. Still, that being said, it's hardly the most efficient use of it, nor the most ethical.

[Martinus]

You can also leave it behind for your children and other people you care about to make their lives easier but you have shown you have no grasp of this concept

So they would do what with that money?  Pass it on to their children?  And their children would pass it on to their children?

And their children's children!

We are just on different wavelengths on this point. I think robots are going to replace most productive work for humans in the long term so I am not eager to embrace the notion that everything should be engineered around one's salary sustaining you. Also I tend to view life as a team game, I do want to look out for my people.

Did you just miss my other post?

[MadImmortalMan]

I can see why the banks who own the Congress would want to make sure dad's house gets sold and Jr needs to get a mortgage, but I see no reason society as a whole wouldn't want Jr to have it debt-free. We all benefit from the aggregate of having less debt and more disposable income then.

[Valmy]

Did you just miss my other post?

Possibly.