https://fundrise.com/

Bring wall street back to main street - the middle-men money grabbers, manipulators, and regulators have gotten out of control.

reminder: fundrise is also profit-seeking

Money is not happiness.

But a small amount can relieve some suffering.

I'm a young man in a middle-aged body.

I wouldn't want to follow that career path, regardless of pay. That said - with that much money to start I could've paid off my student loans in 1/4 of the time (most likely even faster than that). Freed from debt, I would then be in a much better position to evaluate hours/week vs pay vs 'happiness'.

The problem isn't that they think their jobs suck - because it sounds like they do. But the flip side of that is a young architect could work 60 hours a week for 40k a year. Maybe the hours aren't as bad, but the pay is less than half - and isn't climbing to that 120k mark particularly fast (or at all, for many). The problem is that they are compensated for their jobs sucking and somehow don't understand that is why they're paid so much.

It's all relative. I think you read about this because the financial sector wants us to feel as though they're just regular working slobs like the rest of us, with the same problems. They're not, however, regardless of hours/week. It's hard to feel bad that they have to, you know, actually work really hard for all that money.

I actually have no problem with the financial sector.  I just think its wrong that the system is set up in a way (due mostly to regulations) that jobs which don't produce any good to the economy make more than the ones that do.

SeriousQuestion: generally it is my belief that you are guilty of profit seeking until proven innocent.  Very few organizations prove this wrong - because they probably wouldn't last if they did.

And are they somehow vindicated if you find them to be "unprofitable"?  Is there something wrong with profit seeking in your eyes?

http://thinkbynumbers.org/government-spending/corporate-welfare/financial-sector-takes-largest-share-of-gdp/

how does the financial sector "receive" profits? whence do these profits come in the first place?

SeriousQuestion:

1)  Connection to the federal reserve.  Banks have a monopoly on low interest rates on loans from the fed that they can then loan to everyone else and profit off of with a higher interest rate.  If the Federal reserve didn't do this in the first place, the economy would be better off.

2)  Barriers to entry.  Regulations set up barriers to entry to various industries (like utilites) and the financial industry has the initial capital in place to reap the benefits.  Look at what Enron did to the California energy market. (energy markets can only be competitive as the distribution system is allowed to be, not if the ownership of power plants is unregulated) Without barriers to entry - people would start businesses and compete in the sectors, which would make it very hard to make money off of the financed businesses.

3) Providing scarcity.  In most normal markets, scarcity is deflated when business is allowed to create more of a particular item.  However, property has become an exception to that rule.  Check out how Nelson Bunker Hunt tried to corner the silver market http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nelson_Bunker_Hunt  The same concept applied to the housing market is what caused the recession, and zoning allowed it to happen.

4) Taking advantage of "herd mentality" and buying low/selling high.

I'd like to think the financial industry made its money off of supporting starting businesses and whatnot, but I don't think the big bucks come from there...

do you self-identify as libertarian?

No, at least not traditionally.  I was always the one arguing against the libertarians - I self identify as liberal.  My parents were huge Clinton fans, and I voted for Obama, all while being raised in Oklahoma.

My dad always used to tell me that he believes one of the primary purposes of government is to redistribute wealth.  I agree.  I just think right now it is redistributing wealth from people who would like to produce good in the economy into the hands of the wealthy.  Neither the democrats nor the republicans touch the primary issues affecting this.  More and more I see gov. policies as "holding everything in place" instead of letting technology equalize everyone out.  Maybe the case is, people like to think they are better than each other, despite the fact that technology the great equalizer has made that irrelevant.

i don't understand why "the wealthy" and "people who would like to produce good" are diametrically opposed.

because the wealthy are limiting the means with which the people who want to produce good would be able to produce good.

lol how can you just make a blanket statement like that about all people who are wealthy?  how do we define what is "good"?

I suppose they aren't always.  I guess I should say there seems to be a lot of policies that keep money flowing to established businesses/financial structures in the established hierarchy, instead of letting people at large prove themselves in the economy.  I don't think anyone is so great that they could be worth 10x as much as the average employee, let alone 500x as much.  Concentration of money takes money away from everywhere else.  So, this concentration of money in established businesses makes life more of a struggle for everyone else.

in this thread: underpaid architects resentful toward bank employees whose salaries put them nowhere near the 1%.  

No, its the bankers/managers I'm resentful of. If the economy was freer, they would have to hire more people to make money and find opportunity (due to a more competitive economy), which would be good in a way (although maybe not for inflated incomes).

Somewhere in an inner city near you, unemployed young men are mocking architecture grads who complain about their 40k jobs out of college.

Fair point, citizen, fair point.  I suppose everything is relative.

how do we define what is "good"?

Beneficial to humanity as a group instead of just a few individuals.

that's still a vague standard, miles.

good is whatever i want it to be at any given point in time.

Somewhere in an inner city near you, unemployed young men are mocking architecture grads who complain about their 40k jobs out of college.

the inner city near me condos sell for around $1million.

Then the unemployed are busy, both mocking the architecture grads AND resenting the new gentrifiers.

Somewhere in an inner city near you, unemployed young men are mocking architecture grads who complain about their 40k jobs out of college.

'unemployed young men with no education and never put in as much effort as architecture grads towards a career' :D

new gentrifiers?  unemployed people who live in the "inner city" around here are either trust fund kids or saudi royals.

If we never build more housing, prices go up as more employees enter the city, pricing people out.  Only thing is: the best place to build more housing is downtown... its a tricky situation, and most displaced personnel just think of the development displacing them.  In all likelihood, there are places developers would rather build in other parts of the city that wouldn't gentrify, but they can't because the places are zoned as single family residential.