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Comment by ROTMetro | Hacker News Reader

Because only one class will come out of this with MORE assets that at some point will return back to their higher valuable. It's a completely facetious argument. Sure you lost your house, but think of how much the poor billionaire's paper value dropped (while the billionaires asset acquisition continued apace taking advantage of the firesale forced upon the lower classes).

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It isn’t facetious. People with investments and assets have lost a stack as inflation has taken off and could be waiting for a long time to return to the peaks. On a long enough timeline I’m sure you are right, but this year and likely over the next few years nobody is winning.

If a billionaire loses 90% of their net worth, they are still rich.

If a beggar doubles his money, he's still broke.

This is not relevant to the comment you are replying to.

Of course it's relevant. It's absolutely fundamental.

The real metric isn't total cash, it's outgoings vs income.

Billionaires do not have significant non-discretionary outgoings. At the billionaire level food, housing, and transport are essentially free, and your time is your own. There may be mild chagrin if you can't afford a bigger yacht or another private jet, but mild chagrin is all.

That's not true for most people. The poorer you get, the more aggressively you have to sell your time, and the more likely it is that your outgoings are going to exceed your income.

Not because you can't organise your finances, but because inflation and wage stagnation have made any other outcome impossible.

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