Maybe if you saved it all in cash. But who does that?
If you invested the first $100k and earned a very modest 4%/year. After 2000 years you'd have $1,165,946,431,999,999,965,770,988,108,697,149,898,752
This is my go to evidence that the whole beliefs that real estate values always increase is absurd.
If real estate prices always increase, even modestly, then an apartment in Rome or Paris would cost hundreds of trillions of dollars. Obviously that's not the case, and since land speculation isn't exactly a new thing, there is a correction somewhere.
In fact, macroeconomic theory would say that appreciation in real estate should be tied to the rate of interest, which in turn should be tied the rise of the price level: inflation.
There are discrepancies, of course. Lately real estate has been growing faster than inflation. And importantly, during the Second Thirty Years War, 1914-1945, those European apartments suffered great depreciation and outright physical destruction.
The biggest thing that happened, though, is that inflation essentially did not exist until the second half of the nineteenth century. As far as we can tell, inflation was created by the industrial revolution. Before then, with wide error bars, you can tie prices from the 1760s to prices from the Roman Empire, in the same base metals.
For more evidence, read the works of Jane Austen and Victor Hugo. They are full of specific prices for things that make no sense to modern readers. But the authors expected that future readers would be able relate to the specific prices. Modern fiction authors avoid mentioning specific prices when they want their work to feel timeless.
Source, generally: Thomas Piketty. Capital in the Twenty First Century.
But with all that money, why would you care whose ahead and behind you... And do they care about that, or is that just a narrative we've bought into, something to make us feel a certain way about the wealthy being unpleasant?
It's not a question of who's in front of or behind you. It's realizing that even if you received a ludicrous amount of money, repeatedly, over a ludicrous amount of time, it still wouldn't even scratch the utter lunacy that is the wealth of the ultra-rich. There is no way to earn that amount of wealth, in the sense of how you and I earn money. They acquired it by taking unjustly; there is no just way to become that wealthy.
24 Comments
Steve@communick.news · 25 pts · 117d
Maybe if you saved it all in cash. But who does that?
If you invested the first $100k and earned a very modest 4%/year. After 2000 years you'd have $1,165,946,431,999,999,965,770,988,108,697,149,898,752
1dalm@lemmy.today · 24 pts · 117d
This is my go to evidence that the whole beliefs that real estate values always increase is absurd.
If real estate prices always increase, even modestly, then an apartment in Rome or Paris would cost hundreds of trillions of dollars. Obviously that's not the case, and since land speculation isn't exactly a new thing, there is a correction somewhere.
xkbx@startrek.website · 12 pts · 116d
it’s balanced out by the fake estate business
a true yin to its yang
pticrix@lemmy.ca · 7 pts · 116d
what's the euro to sesterce exchange rate these days?
Kirk@startrek.website · 7 pts · 116d
On the flip side if you invested in the equivalent of the Roman SNP500 you'd indeed have a gazillion denariuses.
mkwt@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 77d
This is an astute observation.
In fact, macroeconomic theory would say that appreciation in real estate should be tied to the rate of interest, which in turn should be tied the rise of the price level: inflation.
There are discrepancies, of course. Lately real estate has been growing faster than inflation. And importantly, during the Second Thirty Years War, 1914-1945, those European apartments suffered great depreciation and outright physical destruction.
The biggest thing that happened, though, is that inflation essentially did not exist until the second half of the nineteenth century. As far as we can tell, inflation was created by the industrial revolution. Before then, with wide error bars, you can tie prices from the 1760s to prices from the Roman Empire, in the same base metals.
For more evidence, read the works of Jane Austen and Victor Hugo. They are full of specific prices for things that make no sense to modern readers. But the authors expected that future readers would be able relate to the specific prices. Modern fiction authors avoid mentioning specific prices when they want their work to feel timeless.
Source, generally: Thomas Piketty. Capital in the Twenty First Century.
Kowowow@lemmy.ca · 1 pts · 117d
Huh when did a standard investment system like that start
Kirk@startrek.website · 17 pts · 117d
He was more than a Q. He was a union man.
Dadifer@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 116d
I thought his union didn't like him
Kirk@startrek.website · 5 pts · 116d
Lol. And yet it was still difficult for them to fire him!
Zorque@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 116d
It even started a Civil War!
SeductiveTortoise@piefed.social · 3 pts · 116d
And that was fixed by a good shagging. Well not that good. And not really a shagging.
Eh, you get what I mean.
ashenone@lemmy.ml · 11 pts · 116d
Jesus would open a whip braiding co-op if he heard that stat
scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech · 5 pts · 116d
That's not so long! Passover was just a week ago.... Oh... Oh jesus
dan69@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 116d
Yo I need money. But not money saved since Jesus..
texture@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 116d
we dont talk about jc here
cuchi@startrek.website · 2 pts · 116d
What you mean? Pike is christian.
texture@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 116d
shhh
DarkCloud@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 117d
But with all that money, why would you care whose ahead and behind you... And do they care about that, or is that just a narrative we've bought into, something to make us feel a certain way about the wealthy being unpleasant?
SparroHawc@piefed.world · 14 pts · 116d
It's not a question of who's in front of or behind you. It's realizing that even if you received a ludicrous amount of money, repeatedly, over a ludicrous amount of time, it still wouldn't even scratch the utter lunacy that is the wealth of the ultra-rich. There is no way to earn that amount of wealth, in the sense of how you and I earn money. They acquired it by taking unjustly; there is no just way to become that wealthy.
MalReynolds@slrpnk.net · 2 pts · 116d
Legal thieves, and their kin.
DarkCloud@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 116d
No shit, I was using the royal "you" to wonder about the already wealthy. What goes on in their heads.
piccolo@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 116d
Non-sense. Just be born rich, stupid.
DarkCloud@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 116d
This is how the vaat majority of wealthy people acquired the vast majority of their money. There was a study recently.
krisevol@lemmy.zip · -4 pts · 116d