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birb_cromble  2d ago (text post)   590 thread views

Qeekly Finance Thread - 2026-10-24

A weekly thread to discuss financial matters - from personal all the way up to global.

Ground Rules

  • Remember that we're all just Internet randos. Don't bet your life savings on a hot tip from this thread.
  • Keep culture war in the culture war thread. Yes, global events may impact our personal finances, but that does not mean we have to incessantly harp on culture war aspects here. If you are going to discuss it, please stick to the practical impacts of it on an individual level.
  • Be kind. Remember that everyone here comes from different circumstances. We all have different resources available and different risk tolerances.
  • Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Better is better. Celebrate people when they take a step up and work to move their finances in the right direction. Don't flame out because they haven't followed what you consider the optimal path. Everybody has to start somewhere.
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Oh yeah, 5 million is a lot. It's rich. You're in the top 0.1% worldwide and 0.01% of people who have ever lived.

But...

We are in the richest country that has ever existed. If you start comparing yourself to the Jones's then $5 million feels very small of a sudden. In the U.S. alone, there are about 5 million households with a net worth above $5 million. And they are everywhere. Some guy in Kansas sells his insurance brokerage in 1996 for $3 million, puts it in stocks, and now he's worth $52 million. That sort of thing.

Rich people have weddings that cost 5 million dollars.

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A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

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