A lot of work goes into property ownership. There is an entire industry that exists to relieve property owners of that burden: property management companies.
The tradeoff is that if you use a property management company, most of the profit from your properties flows to them, because they don't work for free. There is also a non-negligible risk involved in moving your control of your assets over to a barely-interested third party.
Truly passive income is rare, and it always involves a dollar-and-cents tradeoff in how much profit and oversight you're willing to forfeit to others in exchange for open time.
Very few people are Scrooge McDucks with all the time in the world to swim around in a vault full of gold coins, and of those rare people who could, even fewer actually find that to be a worthwhile use of their time.
The key takeaway here is that everyone has got their problems and concerns, and in this competitive world, it is naive to assume that anyone can maintain their position without significant effort.
Sure, but the $/hour return is much higher that the average job. 'A lot' isn't a good quantifier. I bet the same people who live in the house he rents work a lot more for a lot less money.
>Very few people are Scrooge McDucks with all the time in the world to swim around in a vault full of gold coins
True, but there are a lot more people who comfortably live off money their investments and properties make. This isn't about the 1%.
>The key takeaway here is that everyone has got their problems and concerns, and in this competitive world, it is naive to assume that anyone can maintain their position without significant effort.
Key takeaway from where? The author point still stands. The takeway from the article is that people don't get paid according to their hardwork, rather it is a lot of luck.
It is naive to assume anyone can maintain their position without significant effort, sure. But it is also naive to declare that without knowing for certain. I personally know people who work less than hour a week and make as much as the average software engineer in the US.
Sidenote:
This whole thread is sad to read. Most comments take a single part of the article then start to bash the author or question the validity of his thesis. Many on here didn't even bother to read the article properly, which I assume the topmost parent of this comment chain is also a part of.
Life isn't fair, and many people have trouble with coping with that fact. I just didn't think HN would have trouble with that too.
Okay, so research the author to better understand the context. He rejects the Hobbesian ideal that a social contract, enforced by a central power, provides critical scaffolding upon which wealth and prosperity can exist in a society. On this point he confuses the existence of Hobbes Leviathan, with how and where that power is applied. Removing property rights isn't just unrealistic, it doesn't work where its been applied.
The author also advocates for the employee's "right to say no". On this point I agree, in that employees should be able to accumulate wealth and have options. There should not be a one-way street.
No one is advocating for removal of property rights, sheesh. The author is pointing out the realities of life today, and I'm just surprised how you tend to bring in these complexities to divert such a simple point.
The many ideas that people had a couple centuries ago don't hold up so well anymore. The population of the world when the book you refer to was published (17 century) was 8% of what it is currently. Resource utilization was a fraction of what it is today.
Today natural resources are dwindling and powerful people are quicker than ever at capturing anything of value. There is an imbalance in what one can do with their best efforts today, and that's not fair.
Acknowledging the faults in our current society is a better path to take rather than advocating for the arguments put forward by someone who probably couldn't fathom today's world.
Property management companies do not take the majority of the profit. They often work for marginal fees based on the unit itself - somewhere around 10% of yearly rent. On top of that are fees for the maintenance of the building. Depending on how you bought the place you may need to pay financing -- or not. The rest is pure gravy.
And that's just the rent. Next you also need to take into account the appreciation of the underlying asset - the land the property is built on. This is where the majority of the profits from home ownership come from.
A lot of work goes into property ownership. It's just not very expensive.
The tradeoff is that if you use a property management company, most of the profit from your properties flows to them, because they don't work for free. There is also a non-negligible risk involved in moving your control of your assets over to a barely-interested third party.
Truly passive income is rare, and it always involves a dollar-and-cents tradeoff in how much profit and oversight you're willing to forfeit to others in exchange for open time.
Very few people are Scrooge McDucks with all the time in the world to swim around in a vault full of gold coins, and of those rare people who could, even fewer actually find that to be a worthwhile use of their time.
The key takeaway here is that everyone has got their problems and concerns, and in this competitive world, it is naive to assume that anyone can maintain their position without significant effort.