Although that's all completely good advice for everyone, the facts on the ground are that we can't all be rich. The majority of rich people are the beneficiaries (either directly or indirectly) of an inherently exploitive system. A trivially small number of them actually added true wealth to the world equal to or greater than the wealth they've captured.

I didn't mean "in reality, we aren't all rich", I meant "in the reality of our economic system and the way it works fundamentally, it is impossible for us to all be rich."

Whatever possible route there is to everyone being rich, it involves a fundamentally different economic system. Socialists would have you believe they have the answer to that, but there's good reasons to be highly skeptical. Capitalists don't pretend to have the answer, they (generally, there's lots of variations of "capitalism") openly accept that we need some people to be rich and others to be poor in order for the system to operate.

I used to try to live according to Kant's Categorical Imperative where I would aim to be the example for the world I want to see, the one where everyone would prosper if they all behaved as I do. Then, I realized that was just a delusional way to think. It's an interesting philosophical question to discuss, but people don't all act as I do in reality, so acting as though that fantasy were real is often totally counterproductive or self-sacrificing with nobody benefiting. Reality is complicated and complex.

When I say the following:

> Be the example that you don't believe exists.

It's in response to you saying:

> of an inherently exploitive system. A trivially small number of them actually added true wealth to the world

And I agree, not everyone can be rich, but on an individual basis it's not that hard.

The good thing about capitalism is that the average quality of life gets elevated. The rich do get richer (which we shouldn't focus on) but poverty also gets eliminated at the same time.

And yes, as you say, people won't act like the utopia we'd like, so it's not perfect. But it's better than anything else by a long shot.

> on an individual basis it's not that hard.

Well, yeah, that's the difference between micro and macro. In a free society without a nobility or class system, it's possible for any one individual to rise from poverty to privilege with luck and hard work. But if it's a zero-sum game where one success is another's loss, then "being the example" isn't an example of anything, it's just being the winner instead of the loser. Of course, most success isn't entirely zero-sum, but it has too many zero-sum elements far too often and is also too-often entirely zero-sum. And some people try to ignore the entire issue of when or whether or how-much some success is zero-sum.

> The good thing about capitalism is that the average quality of life gets elevated.

Crediting "capitalism" here is entirely dubious. The correct credit goes to technology and innovation. There's nowhere near adequate evidence to conclude that capitalism itself automatically increases average quality of life. Perhaps you are mistakenly lumping all of trade and markets with "capitalism"? Markets are often positive for everyone, and trade is generally positive for everyone, raising everyone's quality of life. In our society, probably because of propaganda to this effect, people consider markets and capitalism synonymous sometimes, the same semantic way people in some contexts might consider "moral" and "religious" (or even "Christian") to by synonymous.

In short, if you're just saying that markets and trade benefit everyone generally (but not necessarily), then we have no disagreement there.

I don't mean to be snarky at all, but I already do those things!

I really don't think there is a way to shoe-horn this for everyone.

If there was an easy way for everyone to be able to afford a house, it probably would have happened by now??

There are only so many 100k per year jobs available, and there's only so much expense cutting you can do.

At some point, the asset is just priced too high, often for artificial reasons.

See also: en wiki . org / 2007 mortgage loan crisis

You're looking at the cost of Bentleys and wondering how most people afford a car. They afford it by buying used Honda Civics.

Which is to say that there are job opportunities in Dallas and Indianapolis and Atlanta and so on and so on, which are all cities with the housing equivalent of Honda Civics.

If you insist on a Bentley (i.e. the largest coastal cities), then I guess I just don't know what to tell you except that you should reconsider a visit to the Honda lot.

1. You don't need a $100k per year job to buy a house. 2. Easy way = not spending but rather saving. It's simple, but not fun in the short term. 3. House too expensive? Save more or buy cheaper. 4. 2007 loan crisis. I.e. don't buy a house that's too expensive.

What can Money-Moustachism do about the fact that the well-paying jobs are increasingly concentrated in a few cities on either coast? Is the future that everyone becomes a down-at-heel rentier just like he is? Are we all supposed to be cheap John Arillagas living off the people who do actual, productive work?

Do work, save, don't go into debt, invest.