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Just got back from month long vacation # 3 this year, perspective fully changed: Working for money is fucking stupid. Wow, is it stupid.
I've met dozens of people who travel full time from property and investment income from their grandparents; and I am probably a couple years from fully supporting myself purely from passive income (though I'll probably keep working just to get the number higher; maybe pile up some burnable cash to buy more investment property during the next crash).
The switch was sudden and totally unrelated to anything specific I had done; it is just a result of two generations of skin flint behavior and interest rates. If your family line can get together mid six figures of money in investments and assets and sit on it for 1.5 generations without anyone buying penis compensation trucks or boats or developing a gambling addiction or fentanyl addition; you can just be fucking set. (Said in the tone of a joke, but actually a big ask according to the facts.)
The people talking about class war are 100% right; I can say that for a fact now that I've experienced it from both ends. It's really nice to be on the winning side for once. I just watch the money I float in my checking accounts go up 70k every couple months and most of it goes into investments that will only be dinged if the government of the USA collapses; recission proof and inflation proof and 98% risk free. It is so fucking easy to live solely off the sweat of other peoples brows; no wonder these dudes who were born into it start thinking they can't possibly fail.
All this to say: What the fuck do we do about the fact that owning shit and renting shit is just flat out better in every way than doing shit or making shit?
It's easier, it's safer, it's more sustainable over the course of your life, and you can pass it down to your kids locked away in trust so even the frailest son can't fuck it up.
I know that my solution (radical wealth redistribution, red-black shit at large, etc and so forth) isn't popular here; but even conservatives have got to recognize there is a problem.
How do you solve it without the revolution? Is that question even coherent?
I think it depends how ambitious you are. Some people work for fun, as strange as it may sound to you. Money does give them the luxury of picking a profession which align with their passions rather than their talents (not always aligned, sadly).
Also, people are social animals and there is often greater status in doing something than passively sitting around doing nothing. Perhaps this is less true in European countries like Italy which has relatively little entrepreneurial energy and a lot of inherited old money families, but my impression is that wealthy Americans work a lot. They certainly do in the area of Europe where I am based.
Most people chase the approval of others and if your social circle allows for doing nothing except living on passive income without judgement, then great. But I don't think this is true for many successful people.
These are also the same people pushing for return-to-office.
Not really. Lots of well-to-do people do projects-based work with fluid locations and enjoy it. You probably just have bad work experiences.
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