Posted on 02/29/2024 9:08:09 AM PST by george76
Please note, that where I live, it's easier to achieve an upper middle-class lifestyle as an Assistant principal of a public elementary school, than it is through starting your own business. And utterly risk free.
I wonder if some of you have actually started a small business?
I think they(billionaires and others) are buying farm land as a hedge against inflation.
Real estate that has an income of some type(not fallow ground) is one of the best hedges against inflation.
This is most likely why billionaires are buying land. It is better than GOLD or silver. Especially, if you also own the mineral rights underneath.
Remember, Lucy from Peanuts didn’t want flowers or chocolates.
She wanted Real Estate.
The best-performing luxury real estate market in the world was Manila, Philippines, with 26% growth.
EXCUSE ME?
I’ve been to Manila about a dozen times, and it’s not exactly the place I’d think of the ultra-rich choosing as a luxury location. Sure Makati, and some of the NCR places are nice looking NOW, but will they fall apart like Chinese high rises? I don’t know! Also, the traffic sucks, and you’d be hard pressed to find a place where the divide between the haves and the have nots is bigger.
There are people who travel around to the fried chicken restaurants and collect the trash. They go through this trash and find any chicken bones that still have meat on them. They scrape this meat off and make a “stew” of sorts with it which they sell for (last I heard) about 20 cents a serving. (Which includes rice).
And this is done not far from those luxury condos.
The *ONLY* thing that makes sense is that this is simply Chinese looking to park money in real estate somewhere.
Top ten largest private landowners:
Emmerson family 2.411 million acres
John Malone 2.2 million acres
Ted Turner 2 million acres
Reed family 1.661 million acres
Stan Kroenke 1.627 million acres
Irving family 1.267 million acres
Buck family 1.236 million acres
Singleton family 1.1 million acres
Brad Kelley 1 million acres
King Ranch Heirs 911,215 acres
I have personally met two of the people on this list.
Red Emmerson is a salt of the earth lumberman. He started Sierra Pacific Industries in Northern California.
I have also met James D Irving. He owns most of northern Maine and most of the Province of New Brunswick.
In addition to sawmills & paper mills he also owns a petroleum refinery in NB, and hundreds of Irving gas stations across Canada and New England.
FYI the Weyerhaeuser Corporation/REIT is the largest landowner in the USA:
1. Weyerhaeuser
12,412,000 acres
2. Rayonier
2,174,000 acres
3. Turner Enterprises
2,000,000
4. The Nature Conservancy
2,000,000 acres
5. Sierra Pacific Industries
1,959,666 acres
6. PotlatchDeltic
1,905,000 acres
7. Green Diamond Resource Company
1,729,000 acres
8. CatchMark Timber
1,577,200 acres
9. J.D. Irving
1,246,346 acres
10. CalPERS
1,108,000 acres
Almost all of the above are timber/sawmill companies.
Yes, somewhere OUTSIDE of China.
Glad to see my taxes are going to help the super rich homeless.
Yes, a system of capitalism will always help the super-rich. So how did those super-rich get that way? A tiny percentage of the population inherits that kind of money.
The super-rich are the lynchpin of a good economy. They put out the seed money that builds everything. The Poor build nothing, they subtract. As net worth rises people contribute more to society through paid taxes and investments in businesses directly or through stock ownership. A tiny percentage of extremely rich people can’t spend all that money on themselves, and even the money they do spend on themselves means jobs. Somebody has to build, maintain, service and guard, clean, fly or pilot all those
homes, yachts and planes. Worrying over a tiny percentage of the population getting very rich is zero-sum thinking and a mistake, imo. I want to live in the country with the most super-rich people, the more super-rich, the more opportunities for me to be “mini-rich.”
I am so damn happy that you've been insulated enough from that to feel compelled to lecture me on Macroeconomics 101.
Thanks for that, and best of luck to you.
One thing that history has taught me is that pride goeth before the fall. Or was that the Bible?
I honestly don't even remember my original post; I was probably drunk.
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