This is gonna be all over the place and then I'll likely hit back before posting. Everyone needs a spam thread right?

Minimum wage in the states hasn't been raised in nearly twenty years. Feels like the outdated fight for 15 has been raging ever since. 20 ain't enough in Ohio, let alone California. What is the answer for wages though? We acknowledge the work has to be done, but we've been trained to look down on "unskilled" labor as beneath us. Why do we look at it that way? Even today people are shocked pikachu face when they learn you have a college degree and working a job that doesn't require it. People still hold onto the cope that it's a MITB contract. Boomer rage bait over Biden wiping them out, when most of it is worthless anyways. It really seems we haven't changed much from the days of the Pharaoh. Industries only exist based on exploitation and as inflation and demand requires them to give in an inch (from a mile or kilometer from our foreign invaders) it puts a real spotlight on it. The old guard says they'll die off if we refuse to take it raw and the future gen of the world says they deserve to go outta business and it's hard not to support that notion. There's no risk for those at the top. We do everything, but they have the power so there's nothing we can do about it.

The super rich billionaires and their boot lickers will of course tell you they all started as a cart pusher (again belittling a job if it's only for teens why is the store open during school hours?) and worked their way up, but we're seeing that to just be fan fiction. They were simply born better with rich families and connections. That seems to be the real draw of Georgetown and other ivy leagues. It's not the education because 1+1 is the same at the local community college/13th grade, but the elbows you rub. That's what they are fighting to access, not some superior lecture. And everything is put in place to extract more from the masses. It's damn expensive to be poor. All the write offs and real estate merely hide the fact that money is make believe. They are only rich because of the system in place. While dot gov may print trillions, it's not like there's an actual scrooge mcduck vault or anything for the 1%. We laugh @ NFTs and crypto, but how is that different than what most wealth is considered? It only has value because we believe in kayfabe. The Gamestop situation really highlighted how fake currency is.

Cops and the law are another one. We really don't have rights and you can tell how triggered coward cops get when they are on camera. Bodycams are worthless since they can be turned off LMAO. Despite innocent until proven guilty you still can't fight back if you're poor. And even if you do there's virtually no consequences thanks to immunity and any fines are paid out by us cuck taxpayers and they get shuffled like the catholic church. Cops wouldn't be triggered and mocking citizens for understanding the law if they weren't so corrupt. But muh 2nd amendment. You can't defend yourself against cops (officer safety trumps your right to peacefully exist in your home), let alone the damn army. Hyperbolic to say we don't have rights, but it be like that sometimes. You choose to exercise your rights and they get butthurt and arrest you. Who cares if it's dismissed and a false imprisonment, they still get to go home scotfree to beat their wives. It's a fucking joke.

Is there anything more to life than being rich? Feels like normies are the base settings and having money grants you a new ability and more of the map to explore. Without it, the game is just the sims. How do we rise up? Live long enough to become the villain. Don't even blame politicians anymore. That's the only winning move.

All the benefits of unions just seem to be a stalemate AT BEST. Because companies can just delay things through the court arbitration system. That very system, I have no idea why companies fear unions since their "success" depends on the rank and file. And even then you're not "gaining" anything, you're just stopping the bleeding. Repeat a lie enough and it becomes accepted by the masses. Old heads really be thinking as long as they follow the rules they won't be fired. Naiive af. It's not impossible but very difficult to become a closed shop thanks to generations of brainwashing not to mention like cops murdering fools there's NO CONSEQUENCES. A drop in the bucket fine for violating the NLRB. That's not a penalty that's the cost of doing business. Winning for normies in most cases is just not losing. Maybe that's just in our DNA. Anyone who comes into excessive money and power just leans into depravity. It's not that we're better than others, we simply can't do it. It all goes back to that famous philosopher. Faithful as their options. Yes Chris Rock is a prophet and will not hear otherwise.

Mental health is also a joke, nothing but a cash grab as I learned a few months ago. But at least my suspicions were confirmed so dat was nice. Economy crashes and we're fucked, who cares because it only affects us lowly peons. Can't even bank on a housing crash because it's such a proven money maker lower prices again helps the few. Those at the top will be bailed out like they always are. And there's nothing we can do about it but bite the pillow and hope they ignore our existence for another day.

Do you believe in 'God's Plan', basically your story was written before your first ass slap from the doctor? Things just seem so pointless and I really think I wasted this golden ticket called life. In the grand scheme of things NONE of us matter, but it's hard not to think some of us matter way less. And then I realized that's why we have a biological imperative of having kids. Because you NEED something else. Pass the buck to another source and that'll keep you going. Without that "push" what does your life really have? The same result as hitting send, NOTHING.

Not one new billionaire on the Forbes under list 30 this year was self-made.

nypost.com/2024/04/06/world-news/none-of-forbes-billionaires-under-30-are-self-made-for-first-time-in-15-years/

System works perfectly as intended. For the wealthy to live the lives they do, there needs to be an increasingly larger underclass to exploit. We have plenty of wealth for everyone to live well, but a few thousand would have to give up their lives of excess to do so and that is not a sacrifice people are willing to make because somehow everyone believes they too will be one of the super rich.

Things will only get worse moving forward, as all metrics show inequality is rapidly increasing.

But of course Ness, remember, people not living in our society think you are living in the easiest time it ever is to be alive.

I don't believe the system is entirely rigged.

But I believe the average person and the born rich are playing entirely different games and you need to separate the two.

It's not good v evil either. There's plently of good people with money. But wealth leads to opportunities. For education, for experience, etc. And there lies the advantage.

And there's a lot of people who cross over from working class beginnings through hard work and sacrifice, and on the flipside there's a lot of people who are unwilling to put in, to sacrifice and often participate at all. We often see professionals yappers on the socials, and as painful as they are, what we don't see is 15 years of 90hr weeks and sacrifice. Family, relationships, friends, hobbies, interests, etc all those demons you have to slay to be stupidly successful.

I came up in this world with a lot of guys of a similar age making similar money. One salary sacrificed and put more money into his retirement. Great. Another decided he wanted to pay of his home early and doubled his repayments. Both reduced their disposable incomes to the bare minimum - packed lunches, no smashed avo, etc. These guys were better for it. Someone like me wanted cash in the bank, so I put the majority of the savings away and came up with a convulted way to limit my spending. Great, it worked. A few of those other guys made and still make impulsive instant gratification decisions - they want a boat. Borrow money. They want a bike. Borrow money. They want a new car. Borrow money. They want to go overseas. Borrow money. They want new toys. It's on credit. Borrowing money. 10 years later it's not the guys at the beginning of the story complaining the system is rigged, it's the later.

The moral of the story. Some people just ain't as good at playing the game as others.

Expectations have changed over the last 20 odd years. Not what others expect of us, but what we expect for our selves.

We're living through what is dubbed the " cost of living crisis " one part driven by inflation, corporate greed and poor policy making and another part driven by keeping up with The Jones.

People want and then buy bigger and better houses that they can't afford on their modest salaries. New cars, new toys and wining and dining and travel is a must. #blessed, #livingmybestlife and what's happening as a result? People are going broke ( or remain broke ) trying to look rich.

It adds to mental health problems as debt hangs over people heads. Money issues create relationship issues, which adds to more mental health issues and so on.

But it's not your fault.

It's the government's fault. That's the only thing people can agree on.

If you're an empty headed leftie - the conservatives are evil Nazis and they're hoarding all the cash and feeding off the working class.

If you're a right winged yokel - it's those damn communist lefties, trying to tax the air we breath and trying to take away my sovereignty.

Either way, it's a justification.

It's a victimhood mentality to excuse the poor decisions we make.

Funnily, I never hear a wealthy individual regardless of politics talking like that.

Most of us aren't victims, at least at the hands of our governments. We're not oppressed or living under prosecution. But it doesn't stop people pretending they are. Because it passes on the blame to someone else.

Social media is a lie, we know this. But so many people subscribe to it. Young girls follow influencers and think that is the reality they should live up. Young boys follow the finance bros and professional yappers and get this idea in their head that they've failed if they don't have Lambo by 25. It sets so many people to fail, believing any of it is even close to a reality they can obtain. But they try, and maybe it's not a Lambo they can't afford, it's a truck or a Merc or house or whatever... it's delusion. It's fantasy.

Apr 15, 2024 0:37:19 GMT Ness said:

Mental health is also a joke, nothing but a cash grab as I learned a few months ago

I've found therapy to be helpful. Not every therapist is a good match for every patient. Why do you think it's a cash grab and joke?

He is not wrong. Training for therapists is more and more geared towards the social work side and less and less towards the psychology side. Get a lot of therapists who's training is limited to one or two classes on therapy itself and some observation these days.

A lot of therapists are not bad fits for a person, they are bad therapists for everyone due to a real lack of training.  Noticed it getting worse and worse over the last 25 years.  25 years ago everyone would have an orientation, these days not even knows what it is meant by a psychological orientation, which should be concerning since they are the experts you are paying.

A good therapist will help, but finding one is getting incredibly hard.

Ness, you raise some very fair points, I am not sure the world is getting less fair or just returning to how it was before.

This is my considered viewpoint:
The middle class does not naturally exist, it is a creation of government regulation.
Following the second world war the USA enjoyed unprecedented growth through the creation of a Middle class. As people went out to buy their first TV, refrigerator, washing machine it created a huge demand for products... American made products. So we had this great balance between supply and demand.
But... Once everyone has a TV and a Washing Machine, demand starts to slow.

What really put the nail in the coffin is globalisation. People realised they could earn Western salaries and pay Asian prices. It swept through Japan, Taiwan, Korea then China.

I am in China this week and already the economy is struggling as the mid class emergence has seen many manufacturers moving to Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia etc.
Each time this process starts in a counyry it happens faster
30 years USA
20 years Japan
15 years Taiwan
12 years China

We will eventually run out of low cost manufacturing countries.

To your point Ness we are returning to the state that was always true, that people will be worth what they are able to offer. If someone provides value they will be paid accordingly, but I think the days of being celebrated for being a good cog in the machine are over.

So, with most things in life whether it's work or relationships though it's easy to become jaded, all we can do is work on ourselves and the value we offer.

At the risk of being a dick, I sort of built myself and my company from pretty sketchy beginnings. It hasn't been easy and I know not everyone could do it, but that also doesn't mean it's impossible.

I wonder how much time people actually devote to bettering themselves on a weekly basis? I also wonder how that correlates with their outcomes.
Of course there is no demand on anyone to better themselves, many will choose the status quo.

There should be a natural middle class if incomes are on a distribution curve which they should be expected to be and have been since the dawn of capitalism. But now we are seeing the top incomes increase at accelerating rates, while more and more people are at the lower incomes levels slowing skewing everything hard to the left. This will tend until we get to a two class society, something we never really had prior, where inequality is so great there is a clear distinction into only two groups. Even in ages of kings and serfs, we had merchants and artisans arising as a third distinct group. Society cannot support inequality at the rate is going at, and that is killing the middle class more than this perceived myth of most of society just becoming lazy.

In a fair society the curve would be a normal curve for incomes.  Right now the US is a heavy tail distribution due to the insane amounts of left skew we see due to inequality that needs pareto style distributions to capture things, but even that is failing to really capture things.  Like shit so bad we need to invest new statistical distributions to even model it.

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7614289/

Apr 16, 2024 4:51:02 GMT c said:

There should be a natural middle class if incomes are on a distribution curve which they should be expected to be and have been since the dawn of capitalism. But now we are seeing the top incomes increase at accelerating rates, while more and more people are at the lower incomes levels slowing skewing everything hard to the left. This will tend until we get to a two class society, something we never really had prior, where inequality is so great there is a clear distinction into only two groups. Even in ages of kings and serfs, we had merchants and artisans arising as a third distinct group. Society cannot support inequality at the rate is going at, and that is killing the middle class more than this perceived myth of most of society just becoming lazy.

In a fair society the curve would be a normal curve for incomes.  Right now the US is a heavy tail distribution due to the insane amounts of left skew we see due to inequality that needs pareto style distributions to capture things, but even that is failing to really capture things.  Like shit so bad we need to invest new statistical distributions to even model it.

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7614289/

I agree with you in part, eventually we return to the kings and the serfs.
Where I would disagree is that the artificial policy settings that have created the middle class have suppressed the artisans. There is only so much to pay all the workers and what we have done is compress that pay scale (more in my country than yours) as a result we have commoditised labour, an hour is an hour and we have lost sight of how to price value, because this system doesn't work.

I was reading a book recently that you would probably like, Slow Productivity: The Lost Art of Accomplishment Without Burnout
Book by Cal Newport
Too much filler for my liking, but he hits a real truth when he speaks about managers in knowledge work focusing on hours worked rather than the output.

I have learnt to roll with my natural rhythm of work which tends to be 1000% or not at all.
I work for myself, when I had a job I was still an unmanageable asshole, but I made my boss so much money he had to live with it.
Most of the great art, music, architecture wouldn't be created in the current age due to the commodity mindset that has infected everything.

It won't change until we alter how we measure things and allow our best and brightest to be paid more.
It bothers me they don't teach entrepreneurship more in schools, I could help just about anyone of above average work ethic and intelligence to be a millionaire... Working for yourself is the only way to escape serfdom in the current system.

I hate to use the term 'rigged,' because it comes across to me like conspiracy theory thinking -- or at least starting down that path.

From there, it becomes easy to believe (if you already don't) that there is some nebulous, nameless Them who are secretly controlling the world.

Who is doing the rigging? How, and why? What's the end goal?

To be clear, I do believe rich people can/likely do act in self-interest, to remain rich and powerful. But they're all acting independently, sorta like herding cats, which is wholly a different thing than a secret cabal meeting to discuss their five-year plan and steps to oppress the commoners.

Like, Fortune 500 CEO's did not collectively decide to tank the economy and lose millions to cost the masses billions because they were getting too big for their britches. 'As long as I have mine, I don't really give a crap about who else gets theirs.'

The tragic truth of the world is that things just happen and no one is in charge, which is potentially way more terrifying than the idea that someone is running the whole thing.

Apr 18, 2024 1:21:09 GMT Michinokudriver said:

I hate to use the term 'rigged,' because it comes across to me like conspiracy theory thinking -- or at least starting down that path.

From there, it becomes easy to believe (if you already don't) that there is some nebulous, nameless Them who are secretly controlling the world.

Who is doing the rigging? How, and why? What's the end goal?

To be clear, I do believe rich people can/likely do act in self-interest, to remain rich and powerful. But they're all acting independently, sorta like herding cats, which is wholly a different thing than a secret cabal meeting to discuss their five-year plan and steps to oppress the commoners.

Like, Fortune 500 CEO's did not collectively decide to tank the economy and lose millions to cost the masses billions because they were getting too big for their britches. 'As long as I have mine, I don't really give a crap about who else gets theirs.'

The tragic truth of the world is that things just happen and no one is in charge, which is potentially way more terrifying than the idea that someone is running the whole thing.

Reminds me of a quote by an Australian politician many years ago:

"Always back the horse named self-interest, son. It'll be the only one trying"

More often than not, most are motivated by self interest rich or poor, it's just the more rich and powerful you are the bigger the ripples in the pond.

Apr 15, 2024 20:18:13 GMT Gyro LC said:

Apr 15, 2024 0:37:19 GMT Ness said:

Mental health is also a joke, nothing but a cash grab as I learned a few months ago

I've found therapy to be helpful. Not every therapist is a good match for every patient. Why do you think it's a cash grab and joke?

I understand healthcare is first and foremost a business, it ain't unicef, but the way they operated rubbed me the wrong way. Felt like it was less coordinating something for me personally and more trying to shoehorn me into their system. It was like pulling teeth trying to get out of doing weekly appointments. I was paying outta pocket and they even acknowledged it was expensive this way, but were stubborn which just made me think they were just trying to get paid. Even my therapist spent the first 5-10 minutes trying to set up future appointments. How about you let me get my other foot in the door and we see how today goes before we start piling on the debt? I'm sure therapy isn't a 60:00 stop watch, but it always felt he was wrapping up around minute 40. When I explained my financial issues he said we could do 30 minute appointments instead (still insisting on weekly). I held my tongue by not saying we already are...

I decided to try some recommended medication and see how it goes solo dolo, but then they sent me a nasty certified saying they can't help me anymore. Translation if you aren't giving up 500/mo. for sessions we don't even wanna deal with you. Okay, thanks for for that I guess.

Where do you think wages are gonna go? Clearly we're a long ways away from UBI (as evidenced by how they're STILL shaming normies for that 1000 they got years ago) and even if they do, won't it actually not change anything like with student loans and any form of guaranteed government money?

Apr 19, 2024 17:04:31 GMT Ness said:

Apr 15, 2024 20:18:13 GMT Gyro LC said:

I've found therapy to be helpful. Not every therapist is a good match for every patient. Why do you think it's a cash grab and joke?

I understand healthcare is first and foremost a business, it ain't unicef, but the way they operated rubbed me the wrong way. Felt like it was less coordinating something for me personally and more trying to shoehorn me into their system. It was like pulling teeth trying to get out of doing weekly appointments. I was paying outta pocket and they even acknowledged it was expensive this way, but were stubborn which just made me think they were just trying to get paid. Even my therapist spent the first 5-10 minutes trying to set up future appointments. How about you let me get my other foot in the door and we see how today goes before we start piling on the debt? I'm sure therapy isn't a 60:00 stop watch, but it always felt he was wrapping up around minute 40. When I explained my financial issues he said we could do 30 minute appointments instead (still insisting on weekly). I held my tongue by not saying we already are...

I decided to try some recommended medication and see how it goes solo dolo, but then they sent me a nasty certified saying they can't help me anymore. Translation if you aren't giving up 500/mo. for sessions we don't even wanna deal with you. Okay, thanks for for that I guess.

Yeah, that sounds like a frustrating experience. I wouldn't have stuck with that office either. If you have a normal doctor they can prescribe generic Lexapro (cheap!) or something else. You don't need a specific brain doctor for that.

I'd recommend not giving up and trying other offices if they are available. Taking care of your brain makes life so much better.

Apr 19, 2024 17:38:30 GMT Ness said:

Where do you think wages are gonna go? Clearly we're a long ways away from UBI (as evidenced by how they're STILL shaming normies for that 1000 they got years ago) and even if they do, won't it actually not change anything like with student loans and any form of guaranteed government money?

Wage will be kept as low as they can without people revolting.  Way it always works.  They let things get so low now that unionization is back after Reagan crushed them.  And slowly spreading through even deep red areas as conservatives realize they will get a lot more pay under a union.  Can talk up socialism all you want, but when you are looking at more cash in your pocket, ideals go out the window for most people.

Biggest change coming that is terrifying management, is when execs replace them with AI.  AI management is a hot commodity now and nearly ready for mass testing.  Companies see now management as a highly overpaid part of the production team, and some companies are gutting middle management entirely now, while others want to stop at the top and replace them with AI and just hire people to babysit and check the AI.  

Incy should be backing this as AI gives no shit about hours, only production.  Most people should like this as it is very likely the appearance of working hard can be dropped with AI oversight and the move to production base metrics.  The downside is if they use personalized based productive metrics, which rate each person's production differently, and assign different values to different people doing the same task, which Amazon AI does now.  Hopefully the old attitudes change and we just go to value for production units as a target measure.  Solving Goodhart's law will be required but that is mostly looking for ways the system can be gamed and staying on top them.

It'll get real interesting as we move further into the Yang territory. He was talking about trucking mostly, but we're seeing a lot of that in fast food. Very small staffing as they push towards kiosk and app ordering, side of grocery pick up and we're really sprinting away from brick and mortar. Yeah it's great you can have your milk sititng out for hours on your porch while you're working so you don't gotta go to kroger... but what happens when there's no jobs for people to buy the shit?

What actually generates money? It seems the way people really get rich is in everything associated away from labor and physical cash. Real estate is a big one as a double whammy. You get to use perceived now and future value of it to buy more and basically create a "controlled frenzy" money tree. People are paying off the mortgage and you use the equity in a gamble with more monopoly properties.

Stocks is just a weird scam in general. Being in certain clubs just gives you early access. WEBISTICS! Use the code to their advantage? Dude, they're not even playing the same game.

Crazy pills.

Either I'm the only one who wasn't in on the joke or a lot of people are in denial.

It's that scene from Oz finding out about the sun. Maybe it's so bleak the dream is the delusion we need to march on. "Civilization" is both a scam and pill we need to keep chugging. Is there really no way for humans to live? All those sci fi (syfy) shows where they travel to other plants or timelines, what are they doing differently?

Always has been.

To get rich with a business you need to provide a product or service that people are willing to pay money for. If you can't deliver it on your own (either due to complexity or scale) then you hire people to assist (which is how most people make their money). Ideally you reach a point where you do minimal work and take a piece of what the employees generate.

The stock market is theoretically buying a piece of that action and future profits. A lot of traders treat stocks like something to flip, they aren't interested in the long term. It's more like a lottery ticket for them.

People rarely get rich off labor. If they do it's high-demand, high-complexity labor for something that makes infinite money for the owners (big tech and such). A bus driver isn't getting rich off his paycheck. He needs to use his paycheck to stack investments.

At the very low end - which is us, the common man or woman, the differences that the yappers and social media bros talk constantly about is how money is spent, or utilised.

I'll use an example of receiving an inheritance of $100,000.

The savviest of us might take that $100,000 and invest it in, say real estate. And they'll eventually see a return. Over 5 or 10 years, the ROI in real estate - as we've seen through covid, may mean that property is worth 2 or 3 times what one initially paid for it. They'll sell, then take the cash and reinvest it again. Or they borrow on the equity and purchase more property and the cycle continues until they're filthy rich on paper at least. And eventually filthy cash rich upon an early retirement.

The extreme alternative is, the PIG mentality - The problem of immediate gratification. This is how rappers and lottery winners go broke. But even the average person can burn through $100k pretty quickly if your factor in a new car and a European holiday or two. And 6 months of buying whatever you want. It's gone... forever.

Most of us, the average person might use $100,000 to also buy a house. A new house, an upgrade from where we're living or maybe entering the housing market for the first time. Great. It's an asset, and it gives you a stable environment. Fine choice.

So without coming from wealth, it is possible to turn a little into a lot with the right mindset. Of course there's risks, and of course it's not a guarantee. But it is possible. But it is a long game, not a get rich quick thing.

I really wanted to circle back to this, but I had been too sick.
Gyro LC & N A T H made some great points about money.

The short version to money, is that to make it you need to use your money to purchase something that generates income, then you use that income to live.
With the cost of living crisis people are finding it hard to create space between their earnings and living expenses to find the money to do that.

There is a very old boomer book called "The richest man in Babylon".
The premise is simple, "Pay yourself first"
I actually did this when I was starting out, the idea is that if you have $20 in your wallet you will spend it, if you have $25 in your wallet you will spend it.
The goal being to take a portion of your income before you see it and move it somewhere you can't touch it and live off what is left. Back when I did it we were a two income household and living comfortably within our means so it was a lot easier to do back then.
Doing this meant that when my employer filed for bankruptcy, we had the time and the money to start a business... The rest is history.

I know it isn't nearly as easy today, but there are opportunities that exist for extra cash now, that never existed before like UberEats and these types of small income generating opportunities.
My big one I would push is taking a weekend job doing some sort of sales and take all of that money and bank it, for a couple of reasons:

1. Commissioned based selling is a great way to separate the time versus income generated equation.
2. Sales skills are the best way to get paid more without needing special qualifications

The "Pay yourself first" formula is exactly what I've been doing for years iNCY

In the beginning, I would do exactly as you've said. Move a certain amount of my salary into another account and the remaining would cover my living expenses.

Eventually I set myself a limit for my Everyday Account at say, $10,000. And once or twice every month, I would do a cleanse after being paid and move anything above that number into the other account. Leaving an even 10k.

The interest on the other account earned, I throw back into my Everyday account as additional spending money.

---

In this day and age, too many people are prepared to break even or run at a loss. They're happy if their salary is covering all of their overheads.

But if those same people had a business, I bet they wouldn't dare suggest running at a lose or suggesting breaking even was ok long-term. So why would an intelligent individual who has the ability to save, not do it? Instant Gratification, maybe. Lack of discipline, sure, any number of things potential.

Saving money, cash.. doesn't have to be the be all and end all, but it's one of the few guaranteed safety nets, and it doesn't require a lot of brain power to do it.

Apr 26, 2024 1:46:15 GMT N A T H said:

In this day and age, too many people are prepared to break even or run at a loss. They're happy if their salary is covering all of their overheads.

But if those same people had a business, I bet they wouldn't dare suggest running at a lose or suggesting breaking even was ok long-term. So why would an intelligent individual who has the ability to save, not do it? Instant Gratification, maybe. Lack of discipline, sure, any number of things potential.

Saving money, cash.. doesn't have to be the be all and end all, but it's one of the few guaranteed safety nets, and it doesn't require a lot of brain power to do it.

You would be surprised
In my experience most people have lifestyles that are about 105% of their expenses, everyone thinks they need more money and of course some do, but generally lifestyle creep is a thing.

I might of mentioned it, but I joined a business owners group about a year back.
Love the meetings, it is sort of like acting as a Board of Directors for each other.
There's 13 in the group, 10 of us are business owners, the other 3 are MD's.
I drive the shittiest car of everyone and my house is not spectacular.
What I realised is that most of these people live their lives like the gravy train rolls on forever and maybe it does...

I tend to ignore good years and just bank/invest the money when things go well. My wife and I have decent cars, but both around 8-10 years old now... 
A couple of years ago I started a book could "Profit First" but never finished it because it was stupidly obvious to me.
The author kept talking about visiting CEO's with fancy houses that had plastic furniture because they couldn't furnish them.

Our place is a renovated weatherboard, and isn't exactly anyone's dream home, although it sits on a monster block. We have three cars, but both daily cars being relatively new.

It's very easy for me to look at families that to me have over capitalised and convince myself I've done the right thing by living and spending below our means, but some days, I do wish for that same brand new McMansion and every possible toy in it, despite the fact they're all cash poor.

I've had a reply to my cop thread sitting for a bit, but it keeps coming back here. It seems the whole System is corrupt and maybe that's the actual message behind ACAB. Like a lot of things they got the people trained. Don't got anything to hide... and yet cops are more scared of a camera than they are of a gun. Qualified immunity means other than a few select cases there's nothing we can do really. How many aspects of our lives do we just make the "catholic church shuffle" quip and then go about our day. Shitty supervisor harassing, sexually assaulting, etc. - what happens? Paid vacation, they send them to a new facility to hurt others. There's really no justice in this world. We all know the situation. Teachers turn a blind eye to bullying until the kid fights back then they intervene. Daddy by default. France and their illegal paternity testing. Guilty until proven innocent. It's really bleak.

Anyways back to more hate watching and fantasizing about freedom.

Well, and I've heard this muttered across two major businesses : policy exists to protect the business, not the person.

When I was covering a lot of injury recovery cases, the first question asked by the brass wasn't " are they ok? " it was " is their training up to date? " and fingers crossed it wasn't, as the injured employee has an obligation to complete their assigned online training, including updates for previously completed courses. If it wasn't and they hurt themselves, it was on the employee, not the business. As part of providing a safe work place was assigning the training.

It's a tough world, but if you want to play the game, first you've got to learn the rules, as painful or unfair as they are.