Hacker News Reader

Comment by ianai | Hacker News Reader

Agreed. Clearly what’s been done for the last 40-50 years hasn’t led to more companies spreading more wealth. It’s led to fewer companies spreading the wealth more narrowly.

The answer is not to do the same thing that’s been done for the last several decades. That’s insanity. The solution is to empower the individuals.

View on HN

That requires education. What's investing, how to invest, how to look for investment opportunities, fundamental analysis, risk management, counterparty risk ("invest in housing, because it'll always go up!"), etc.

People don't want that, they want to get rich quick. See the recent (bit)coin hype train(s).

And to top that off most of the people are absolutely without disposable money. They don't even have rainy day savings, and talking about investment portfolios is laughable. Again, millions are without basic health care and we want to make empower the individual.

Yeah, let's do that, but before turning everybody into an junior investment banker on coke let's educate folks. (That'd help with having a middle class again too.)

That’s the most shocking part of the other commenters for me. Just having the ability to own stock moves someone well beyond the median - When I say “empower individuals” I mean everyone from the homeless to the families with kids and a mortgage. We need an approach that can’t be robbed or is directly given to the few.

The median US household has $12k/year in disposable income. That is income after all other taxes and living expenses -- housing, transportation, healthcare, food, clothing, etc -- are paid for. In other words, beer (or investment) money. You can build a real investment portfolio from that basis.

The assertion that Americans do not, on average, have money to invest is a false one.

I'm aware of stats, but maybe 12K is barely enough to dispose of for goals - such as going out, or buying presents to others, etc. (Saving rate is around 5%, which is less than 1K/year, that's nowhere near enough for anything. Though allegedly it's not calculated "properly".)

At the median they’re probably not paying for healthcare. Also national well being distribution is a place statistics fail. The median is just slightly more useful than talking about actual income levels and worker benefits. Either society finds a way to house, bathe, feed, and tend the basic healthcare needs of everyone or we really are not better than we were in the 1860s.

I’m not sure empowering individuals is the solution when they’re operating inside a major attractor space.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com