Posts you had second thought about and decided not to post - put them here

I don't know a whole lot about the UK class system, but it's almost 'caste' related, yeah? Like, you might be a wealthy footballer or rock musician but we can still hear your accent and you're not fooling anyone

i must have missed where anybody told anybody else they were talking about anything tbh but in defence of whomever stands accused there you're kinda half posting what you mean tbf

now tbf tbf this is ofc the exact thread for that and no onus accrues etc

It’s the 21st century, when does class not mean wealth? I am obviously a few galaxies away from these circles, but I would imagine the multi-millionaire soccer player is not quite concerned about not having the invite to the Hampton, nor am I sure they’re not even getting invitations? If there’s no power in class divide aside from wealth, is there really class divide? Obviously royal families/major political figures are the exception.

I am speaking about something I know nothing about, but this something concerns 0.000000000000000001% of the population, whereas wealth differential defines the rest of the whole. From this, it makes sense to consider class difference and wealth difference as practical synonymous these days

xp at dmac: yeah, exactly! lol

Not sure that's true... I could win the lottery with $18 million dollars, squander it on fast cars and boats.. and not experience any class mobility whatsoever

Whereas some Yale alumni from Maryland may not have $18 million in cash, but he has family capital, perhaps land.. and he'll always be upper crust

Difference between wealth and money. You can have less money in the bank account than someone, but if you’ve got a mortgage on a nice piece of land with a bunch of equity in and they’re still renting, you’d be the wealthier one. Wealth is about more than the bank account, but the lottery winner’s got a better chance than anyone else of transferring that cash to some more lasting wealth if they’ve got some financial-smarts behind them

Sorry for thinking out loud things that are obvious to most, but yeah I probably had it wrong. The footballer, if all he does is buy a nice house, some boats, store enough money in the bank to have a few of his generations never have to work, is probably of a different class to a capitalist who with the same amount of money, buys a 1000 properties to rent/businesses to be run.

"i mean that exists now where i live in california. because of rising property values locals whose families own homes become old money, meanwhile ppl moving here from other places might be wealthy but their money doesn’t go as far because they’re not already settled and trying to buy into a crazy market. not to mention the craziness our prop 13 property tax system creates"

this is true, but it's also misleading since just because someone has a lot of equity in their house, it doesn't mean it necessarily does them any good. I have plenty of neighbors who probably own their homes outright with no or low mortgages in an area that is increasingly expensive; but they don't have any money. they are old and retired and their houses are falling apart. are they upper class? I don't think so. Are they 'wealthy"? on paper I guess.

correct

i grew up in one of those rarefied environments - which are themselves diverse in a way, he likely has a neighbor who is -1.8M in the hole and another with +1.8Bn - and it’s like a revolving door around here.

90% of my friends from school don’t live here anymore, but even allowing for the fact i was hanging w hipsters who all fled to oakland or chicago or paris or portland, it’s just well known that there’s a lot of turnover. i think native portlanders might be able to relate!

land isn’t capital unless you’re doing something with it, and investing is risky. a lot of people made and lost a lot of mortgage money here. so if we’re going to associate class with geography, then that makes it look fluid to me!

the other thing that occurs to me is how geography itself (even capital) is not fixed. the neighborhood where i grew was a long street of edward hopper beach cottages, some from the 1940s, with huge front yards. this is capped with brady bunch single level ranch homes at each end. they tore down all of the cottages and built huge disgusting mcmansions that fill up the entire lot to the very edge, so it’s all “private space”. they cut down a bunch of old trees lining the road too, so they can look out i guess, while still being private

that’s what happens when they build a biotech investment hub in the big empty space between you and the rest of town, i guess!

and yeah i have friends with old and sick parents and they’re trying to figure out do i sell in portland and buy back my family home, and can i afford to live there after i do? so they will be ok, not immiserated and impoverished, but they might have to take a big hit to maintain this “generational wealth” and that’s just not possible for everyone

just need to point out that the last twenty or so posts itt are complete horseshit and you're all rich, congratulations.

Land absolutely is capital, the most fundamental kind of capital. Whether you're doing something with that capital or not, it still exists - equity could still be used, it is still a home base, even if you don't want to move because you can't directly replace a piece of land, owning a million dollar house gives you options/potential mobility that don't otherwise exist.

Well yeah

To both milo and map

my least favorite thing abt ilx econ discussion is suddenly everyone is either a starving prole or a cackling oligarch. obviously both exist (and far too many of the former) but i think akm is right on in that a lot of people are “middle class”, at least in the sense that their fortunes could swing significantly better or worse

you're all rich, congratulations

I know I'm rich. I don't deny it. I made it to the top of Maslow's pyramid, but I spent enough time lower down on that scale to know that everyone who's at the top is rich by any reasonable definition.

It’s important for one’s humility to every now and then recognise their own middle class is most of the worlds upper-echelon-never-to-be-reached-position-of-privilege, and then hopefully to do something about it.

milo is a steak worth money if you don’t pay to refrigerate it?

(Most) land doesn’t have a use by date, nor does it go down in value

I dunno, does land spoil after three days on the counter?

Absolutely baffling point to raise.

hrep if you buy land and it doesn’t keep up with inflation?

You’re arguments about respecting the middle class would hold a lot more weight if you didn’t imply owning land was some kind of curse

Which it might be, but definitely not for the land owners

i know, that’s how i feel! but i forgot i’m rich. i don’t understand money, like a fish doesn’t understand water. or humility … that’s for some other reason though?

*your

…..what’s your point mate?

i dont recall that this even started with anyone accusing anyone of denying being rich so it is the easiest but least useful thing in the world to fling at the thread tbh

nb im not rich fwiw

i made a lot of them! but they never really got taken up

If your home (somehow, in the US) didn't keep up with inflation - it's still an asset. Those valuable old folks' homes going to seed are still valuable homes (and more importantly in cities and established suburbs - valuable plots of land) - "needs to be remodeled after meemaw and pop-pop die" doesn't render them somehow devoid of value.

I dunno, does land spoil after three days on the counter?

― papal hotwife (milo z)

in california sometimes it slides into the ocean, and you’re still on the hook for it! then what’s it worth? nothing, it’s a liability

is this common? idk probably more common as climate change heats up. but you guys want to be all or nothing, like the fine edge of the slicey boi. i’m just pushing back and saying that i’ve seen a lot of demographic change where i grew up and i’ve seen ppl lose their shirt inheriting an investment. sorry not sorry!!

we did all this in the homeowner vs rent thread last week iirc

and more importantly in cities and established suburbs - valuable plots of land

like beautiful downtown detroit, home of america’s bustling auto industry!

so the parallel is between unrefrigerated raw meat (which spoils everywhere) and a cliffside dwelling that fell into the ocean during an earthquake and was both uninsured and underwater?

xp yeah, Baltimore has something like 16,000 abandoned empty houses, not sure how those are an asset to anyone

nah it’s not a parallel … it’s a … nvm

If you inherit a house worth $500k and it has a $1mn mortgage attached then no, that is not capital. This is, of course, a routine problem.

(also... downtown Detroit is a land of $500k+ condos?)

I would simply not take possession of the piece of land that's $500k underwater but that's just me.

i’m talking abt landslides caused by wildfire erosion though, for the record

state farm and allstate no longer sell new policies coveting that in california, because of wildfires. i believe farmers is set to follow

yeah i know, you’re not getting it

maybe other ppl with better bona fides can explain

i mean explain to me what i have wrong, i’m not getting where you’re taking what i’m saying

I seem to have missed the California housing crash.

u missed the detroit one too?

well it does happen. It happened during the 2008 recession.

yeah it’s a cycle, ppl make money going up other ppl lose money coming down and the opposite can happen too. fine if you can ride it out, not all ppl can, and that doesn’t make them good or bad or lucky and unlucky or anything else in and of itself

jesus christ are we done here

as long as you understand that anyone who has ever owned anything is in the 1%

Well, this conversation got weird fast. A few thoughts:

Difference between wealth and money.

Chris Rock had a thing about this: "Shaq is rich. The white man who signs his check is wealthy."

Personally I own a house that is almost worthless (small, cramped, crumbling, 80+ years old) but it sits on an absurdly valuable rectangle of dirt. At present there is no way out of this situation.

Where I'm taking "land isn't capital unless you're doing something with it" is that it's just dead wrong. Rare cases of real estate declining in value don't change that - and I mean, you bring up climate change and California but houses are still selling there! There's a mild penalty for the most at-risk properties, but they still have a massive amount of value. The example of old people letting their homes go to seed that you pointed to and agreed with is also nothing like that - those homes just need fixing up, like every aging man-made structure.

If meemaw and pop-pop can sell their house for $400k (but if it would have been $550k if they'd kept up with maintenance), it's still $400k more of an asset than that held by the old couple relying on Social Security and Section 8 vouchers.