this post was submitted on 28 Jun 2026
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Because securing generational wealth isn't as simple as "locking in," and neither is maintaining it.
Firstly, there's a threshold of income that you have to reach before you even become capable of purchasing an appreciating asset without enough debt to make your financial situation too precarious. In the US the average threshold is around 90k per year (though this varies a lot by region). Below that threshold people have to invest nearly all their income into simply making ends meet, with anything left going to a rainy day fund that gets periodically wiped out by unexpected expenses (if they can even manage that, otherwise the unexpected expenses force them to fall back on others or take a hit that pushes them further down the income ladder). There is no self-directed opportunity for advancement at this level without taking on debt (and therefore a great deal of risk), or you need a lucky break.
Finally, let's say you do get your lucky break and manage to buy a nice house, or some land, or start a successful business. Now the problem is making sure your wealth not only holds its value, but grows in value at a rate that exceeds inflation, keeps pace with a changing economy, and multiplies by however many inheritors you intend to pass it down to. This introduces another threshold below which the wealth will dwindle and disappear after only a few generations (the value of a lone house can collapse in just one). I don't know exactly what this threshold is right now in the US, but I know that above it it's virtually impossible to lose wealth because it grows rapidly on its own without intervention (this is because owning private property enables you to extract the value of others' labor, creating the previously mentioned problems. yay capitalism!).