From what I’ve seen, of the people who focus on making money, they generally fall into three categories: 1) those who use it to keep score, (2) those who are afraid to death of not being able to support themseves or their family, and (3) those who spend it. There are of course ppl who do not care about money, and there are ppl who make a lot of money simply doing what they love - I’m not talking about them. The first two will will never have enough money; you’ll always want to run up the score, or you’ll always be afraid a rogue wave will come and wipe you out. I remember being in the bullpen as an analyst and we would talk about this, guessing how much the MDs were worth. We all agreed $2mm was an unimaginable bounty. Then a few years later it became $5mm, then for a while consensus was $10mm, now it is generally $20mm.
Where I struggle on this question is the value of the dollar. The US has taken on a massive amount of debt. The only way it can get out of this hole is 1) to keep rates low in order to keep Interest Expense muted, and 2) to dilute its currency (to effectively lower the principal amount). As an example of the power of dilution on a micro scale, if you bought a house in the 1950s, your entire mortgage was somewhere around $5k depending on location; that’s just 2 months of P&I on the same house today. Dilution makes it easier to pay off the debt (a $250k mortgage today will be peanuts, just 2 months of P&I 60yrs from now). The price of real assets will likely sky rocket (in USD terms; I.e. less bang for the buck); fueled by free money and devalued currency. Wages and cost of goods will remain muted, so traditional inflation metrics won’t apply here. Those who rent, or who buy without effectively using the cheap leverage, will not be able to keep up with others on a relative basis. So if I have $10mm today, it can buy a certain kind of property and lifestyle, but as the dollar continues to get devalued (diluted), what will it buy in 20yrs? 40yrs? Especially if I’m drawing down 4% of the principal per year over that period, and generally investing that money “safely” (<4% return per annum) where I am getting diluted on a real basis