# Ask me what it's like to be rich **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [February 6, 2010, 4:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-me-what-its-like-to-be-rich/527908 "2010-02-06T04:52:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 10
**Author:** ![Gary\_Robson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gary_robson/32/3448_2.png) [@Gary\_Robson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_Robson)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2010, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-me-what-its-like-to-be-rich/527908/181 "2010-02-09T00:53:12Z")
> [@blinkie](#): > > Let me get this straight , you have 2 hours of free time a day, a young child, a 33 year old wife, lots of money and you waste time posting. Either you’re a liar or an idiot. > [@Rand\_Rover](#): > > You are wrong. You don’t have the intellectual ability to attack my ideas, so you impugn my motives. It’s really sad. [mod note] You really deserve a warning for this, but since **Twix** is being charitable to **blinkie** , I’ll be consistent and make this one just a mod note, too. Knock it off with the personal insults. The next one in this thread (from anyone) gets a formal warning. [/mod note] ---
**Author:** ![Rand\_Rover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/db5fbb/32.png) [@Rand\_Rover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rand_Rover)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2010, 4:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-me-what-its-like-to-be-rich/527908/182 "2010-02-09T04:26:41Z")
> [@Maeglin](#): > > Perhaps you will consider the [collective action problem](http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/free-rider/) this time. Please explain to me how you think the collective action problem applies to what I’m discussing. Let’s take Social Security as an example of something I don’t want the government to provide. Thanks. ---
**Author:** ![Maeglin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@Maeglin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maeglin)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2010, 4:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-me-what-its-like-to-be-rich/527908/183 "2010-02-09T04:32:30Z")
> [@Rand\_Rover](#): > > Please explain to me how you think the collective action problem applies to what I’m discussing. Let’s take Social Security as an example of something I don’t want the government to provide. Thanks. It is a direct response to your claim that public goods outside of a limited sphere of government can be provided privately. Individuals may all want them, but the goods will either be underprovided or not provided at all. The theory explains why. The results are casually observable. Unfortunately, extra-governmental institutions that can provide effectively for public goods tend to be very small, very exclusive, and very reliant on the government as a legal backstop. If you’ve read the linked Hardin paper, I can suggest a case study piece by Elinor Ostrom. ---
**Author:** ![Rand\_Rover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/db5fbb/32.png) [@Rand\_Rover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rand_Rover)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2010, 4:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-me-what-its-like-to-be-rich/527908/184 "2010-02-09T04:37:59Z")
> [@Maeglin](#): > > It is a direct response to your claim that public goods outside of a limited sphere of government can be provided privately. \*\*Individuals may all want them, but the goods will either be underprovided or not provided at all. \*\*The theory explains why. The results are casually observable. Unfortunately, extra-governmental institutions that can provide effectively for public goods tend to be very small, very exclusive, and very reliant on the government as a legal backstop. If you’ve read the linked Hardin paper, I can suggest a case study piece by Elinor Ostrom. What I don’t understand is why you think the bolded part above is a bad thing. If the government stops providing a service and then the service is not provided to as great a degree as it was before, why is that a bad thing? ---
**Author:** ![Maeglin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@Maeglin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maeglin)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2010, 4:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-me-what-its-like-to-be-rich/527908/185 "2010-02-09T04:43:06Z")
> [@Rand\_Rover](#): > > What I don’t understand is why you think the bolded part above is a bad thing. If the government stops providing a service and then the service is not provided to as great a degree as it was before, why is that a bad thing? It depends on the good and on the opportunity to achieve optimal social welfare outcomes. If the service doesn’t actually provide public goods, then its support would be better employed elsewhere. I simply point out the assertion that things individuals want can get done outside the government if people want them, and their lack can only be interpreted as a lack of want, is false. This is the fallacy of composition Mancur Olson explodes. ---
**Author:** ![Rand\_Rover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/db5fbb/32.png) [@Rand\_Rover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rand_Rover)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2010, 4:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-me-what-its-like-to-be-rich/527908/186 "2010-02-09T04:50:24Z")
> [@Maeglin](#): > > It depends on the good and on the opportunity to achieve optimal social welfare outcomes. If the service doesn’t actually provide public goods, then its support would be better employed elsewhere. I simply point out the assertion that things individuals want can get done outside the government if people want them, and their lack can only be interpreted as a lack of want, is false. This is the fallacy of composition Mancur Olson explodes. OK, the fallacy of composition says that it is a mistake to assume that private actors would replicate social security just because the government currently does that. I don’t think I’m making this fallacy. I’m not saying that private actors would replicate social security. I’m asking you why you think it’s a bad thing if private actors choose not to replicate social security? ---
**Author:** ![Maeglin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@Maeglin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maeglin)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2010, 5:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-me-what-its-like-to-be-rich/527908/187 "2010-02-09T05:08:21Z")
> [@Rand\_Rover](#): > > OK, the fallacy of composition says that it is a mistake to assume that private actors would replicate social security just because the government currently does that. > > I don’t think I’m making this fallacy. I’m not saying that private actors would replicate social security. I’m asking you why you think it’s a bad thing if private actors choose not to replicate social security? No. The fallacy of composition says that a group’s interest is de facto aligned with the interest of its members. But it is very difficult to get these groups motivated for a variety of reasons, some I mentioned earlier and others in more authoritative sources. I think it would be a bad thing to dismantle a rare occasion of successful collective action if the constraints that bounded the action in the first place still apply. I think they do in the case of social security. You have made it clear that you think things ought to be done, just not by the government. There are significant reasons why human organization is more complicated than that. So when you can also specify incentive-compatible mechanisms that enable collective action on the same scale as is done by the government that is capable of making Pareto improvements, then we will have a discussion. ---
**Author:** ![Rand\_Rover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/db5fbb/32.png) [@Rand\_Rover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rand_Rover)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2010, 5:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-me-what-its-like-to-be-rich/527908/188 "2010-02-09T05:15:47Z")
Maeglin, look dude, you win. You know a shit-ton-ass-load more about economics than me. I give up and concede. I bow to your superior economic knowledge. OK? OK. You keep talking to me, so I assume you want to type things I can understand. I don’t understand the above post. I do understand the difference between Pareto optimal solutioins and the other kind of optimal. I don’t understand what “constraints that bound action” mean. I don’t understand what “incentive-compatible mechanisms” are. And, althought I understand Pareto optimal, I’m not sure I fully understand what “Pareto improvements” are. You can give up on me if you want, I will understand. I just want you to know that posts like the above aren’t doing anything for me cuz I don’t understand them. Maybe go back to the beginning of this exchange and answer in terms I am more likely to understand. Thanks. ---
**Author:** ![Maeglin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@Maeglin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maeglin)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2010, 5:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-me-what-its-like-to-be-rich/527908/189 "2010-02-09T05:31:17Z")
> [@Rand\_Rover](#): > > Maeglin, look dude, you win. You know a shit-ton-ass-load more about economics than me. I give up and concede. I bow to your superior economic knowledge. OK? No worries. It’s the drugs. Might be better to wait until tomorrow. But there is an important point here that I think I can articulate. Maybe better under the influence, who knows. Groups of people have common interests. You might expect that they would all act together in pursuit of this interest because what is good for the common interest is good for all the people in the group. Very small groups often do. Marx expected this to happen for very large groups, and it’s how he got the name Wrongo. Groups of people with a common interest often are completely incapable of the self-governance required to make a decision together and take action together. This is for stuff that most people, left wing or right, agree that we need. Roads, courts, military, etc. We create coercive institutions to make sure these things happen because otherwise the goods would not be supplied. Why build your own road if you can just drive on your neighbor’s? Fuck defense, let your buddy’s tank take care of defense for your neighborhood. Rational people try to free ride on as much as they can, especially taking advantage of goods that they cannot be reasonably excluded from once they are provided. Suppose a public goods problem. My first order condition is: does it belong in government? If no, we’re done. The problem gets kicked over to individuals and groups to solve, many of whom would really benefit if the problem did get solved. Many would benefit, but without an external institution or extraordinary incentive compatibility (more on that some other time), the good just ain’t gonna be provided. The problem is when people get really choosy about what passes and what fails their first order condition. It often reveals a lot about the kind of people the chooser wants to help or hinder. So that’s it in a nutshell, really. You’ve got a public good that people cannot reasonably be excluded from. Without coercion to participate in large groups, they don’t. Lacking that, it isn’t economically rational to participate anymore once the punishment scheme is gone. So you have a collapse of the public goods provision, which makes things worse off for everybody. ---
**Author:** ![dre2xl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/34f0e0/32.png) [@dre2xl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dre2xl)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2010, 7:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-me-what-its-like-to-be-rich/527908/190 "2010-02-09T07:16:54Z")
> [@Hakuna\_Matata](#): > > How is being ‘rich’ being defined here? Making a large annual income doesn’t necessarily translate to being rich. If you make $250k a year and spend $240k a year, then saving the $10k you don’t spend isn’t exactly going to make one rich. Came in to say something to this effect, but you said it first. Nice post, regardless with whether or not RR is bored with this line of arguing. ---
**Author:** ![otternell](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ecc23a/32.png) [@otternell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/otternell)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2010, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-me-what-its-like-to-be-rich/527908/191 "2010-02-09T14:40:11Z")
> [@Ogre](#): > > My wife and I (and our soon-to-arrive baby) own a small, inexpensive house in a beautiful, forested historic district in a city we both love. We are both doing things which we find important and useful to both our own happiness and the well-being of the world at large (she works with libraries, I am an ecologist). I have a basement devoted to my one real hobby - music. We have pets, and the small (plastic, in-ground) pond in our wooded back yard attracts hordes of beautiful frogs in the Spring. My yard blooms with native flowers, the hummingbirds love our place, and I have a black king snake in the pile of rocks right out beside where I keep the canoe. > > I’m richer than the OP. Now that is the kind of wealth that I could get jealous over! ---
**Author:** ![Ann\_Hedonia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ann_hedonia/32/319_2.png) [@Ann\_Hedonia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ann_Hedonia)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2010, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-me-what-its-like-to-be-rich/527908/192 "2010-02-09T15:02:51Z")
I’m still convinced he is some low level paralegal living out a fantasy on-line and threads like this do nothing to change my opinion in fact it reinforces it. ---
**Author:** ![Crotalus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crotalus/32/41_2.png) [@Crotalus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crotalus)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2010, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-me-what-its-like-to-be-rich/527908/193 "2010-02-09T15:15:16Z")
> [@Ann\_Hedonia](#): > > I’m still convinced he is some low level paralegal living out a fantasy on-line and threads like this do nothing to change my opinion in fact it reinforces it. I’m pretty sure that you and I are not the only ones thinking along those lines. ---
**Author:** ![Rand\_Rover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/db5fbb/32.png) [@Rand\_Rover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rand_Rover)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2010, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-me-what-its-like-to-be-rich/527908/194 "2010-02-09T15:16:21Z")
Ann, I could be a brain in a jar for all you (and I) know. If I was going live out a fantasy online I think I’d pick something more exciting than just a dude with a job and a mortgage and a Toyota Highlander (note that it does have all-season floormats, so I’ve got that going for me, which is nice). ---
**Author:** ![Pray\_for\_peace](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Pray\_for\_peace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pray_for_peace)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2010, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-me-what-its-like-to-be-rich/527908/195 "2010-02-09T15:43:05Z")
> [@Rand\_Rover](#): > > OK, I’m not really rich. But I do make over $250,000 per year–substantially over, if you must know–so that certainly puts me in the “boogey man” category, at least as far as a certain Mr. Obama is concerned. I work for a living though, so I’m not “layabout living off the interest” rich. But I am in the top 5% of income earners in these United States. And, if things work out like I expect them too, I’ll be making substantially more in the future (if they don’t work out then I’ll only be making a little bit more). > [@Rand\_Rover](#): > > You are right that I don’t make business decisions or exercise business judgment. But I do make legal decisions and exercise legal judgment. I don’t merely make sure there aren’t any typos in the legal docs. People like you won’t do deals unless they get an opinion from people like me that the tax implications will be as expected. > > Also, I get paid whether or not you do–my fee is paid whether the investment makes money or not. > > So, from that standpoint, it is laughable for you to attempt to swing your business-guy dick around when you won’t do shit unless I say it’s OK and I make money even if you lose your ass. Why is it, do you think, that people here question your authenticity? ---
**Author:** ![Rand\_Rover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/db5fbb/32.png) [@Rand\_Rover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rand_Rover)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2010, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-me-what-its-like-to-be-rich/527908/196 "2010-02-09T15:47:02Z")
I don’t know. It’s not something I think is worth spending any time thinking about. ---
**Author:** ![Mean\_Mr.Mustard](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mean_mr.mustard/32/3865_2.png) [@Mean\_Mr.Mustard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mean_Mr.Mustard)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2010, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-me-what-its-like-to-be-rich/527908/197 "2010-02-09T15:50:34Z")
I’m going to go against the grain a bit here to say to you, Mr. Rover, that I believe your stuff. Because you admit what you don’t know, because you answer the legitimate questions honestly (I believe), I think you are/do what you say you are/do, and for me to assume otherwise would be unfair. There is, however, a sniff of arrogance in some of your posts, but that’s not a crime, nor is it unique to this board. I do think you’re getting off on this thread, more than you’re letting on. This makes you, at worst, a semi-jerk. Again, nothing criminal happening here. Let’s face it. This discussion is entertaining us all. ---
**Author:** ![Rand\_Rover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/db5fbb/32.png) [@Rand\_Rover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rand_Rover)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2010, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-me-what-its-like-to-be-rich/527908/198 "2010-02-09T16:30:22Z")
Re: the sniff of arrogane–fiscal liberals like their rich guys to hand their cash over willingly, just like guys that work at the slaughterhouse like the cows to walk in an orderly line to the slaughter. Any suggestion that fiscal liberals don’t have a valid claim to as much of my money as they want smacks of arrogance to them. ---
**Author:** ![dre2xl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/34f0e0/32.png) [@dre2xl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dre2xl)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2010, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-me-what-its-like-to-be-rich/527908/199 "2010-02-09T16:38:46Z")
> [@Rand\_Rover](#): > > Re: the sniff of arrogane–fiscal liberals like their rich guys to hand their cash over willingly, just like guys that work at the slaughterhouse like the cows to walk in an orderly line to the slaughter. Any suggestion that fiscal liberals don’t have a valid claim to as much of my money as they want smacks of arrogance to them. I’m a fiscal conservative and I suspect I’m in the same income class that you claim to be. The arrogance I perceive from you is stupefying to me, and it has little to do with the political positions you hold. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2010, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-me-what-its-like-to-be-rich/527908/200 "2010-02-09T16:43:05Z")
> [@Rand\_Rover](#): > > The Gap and J Crew account for a very large percentage of my wardrobe. We are corporate casual at work, and I don’t like wearing suit pants (i.e., wool pants) when not wearing a suit (i think it looks like the person is wearing a suit without the tie and jacket and therefore looks sloppy). So, I wear Gap original khakis with a button-down shirt and a sweater over that in the winter. I would have thought you’d have a penchant for Valentino suits and Oliver Peoples glasses. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-me-what-its-like-to-be-rich/527908.md?page=9) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-me-what-its-like-to-be-rich/527908.md?page=11)