What do you mean by this? You can generally replace the CPU on a desktop or laptop motherboard.

> Based on data pulled from 2,650 Tesla owners, the average household income of a Tesla Model X owner is $143,177 per year.

> The average household income of a Tesla Model S owner is $153,313 per year.

> This compares to the United States national medium household income of $78,500.

143k is about the 85th percentile ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United... )

So, this is at least upper middle class.

A laptop overheating from few minutes of 100% CPU is not normal.

> I'm not going to try and debate anything with someone who thinks economics is the only measure of life, you're too narrow minded.

I don't think money is the only measure of life. Then what do you want to use to measure it?

Of course it's about economics as it deals with policy and impacts on people. Simple arguments are better.

Not using economics is a cop-out from using rigorous quantitative analysis. It's interesting that on say climate change HN will be all like we should follow the science, yet economics is the science relevant to our discussion.

> There's far more to life, and to a country, than GDP.

True, so what? More money is still better. GDP per capita is a good measure of peoples' living standards.

An interesting read about "The Economics of Happiness" is https://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/speech/bernanke201... by Ben S. Bernanke, former chair of the Federal Reserve (the part starting from "As you might guess, when thinking about the sources of psychological well-being" is most relevant).

https://www.gapminder.org/news/hdi-surprisingly-similar-to-g...

> As for ordinary people "owning" companies, that's either a naive or disingenuous argument.

The stats don't back your stance. "Compare that to the middle class, which has a median value of a mere $14,000 a household."

Also, bond yields (and bank interest) go up when stock yields go up and (I don't know if CNN counted this or not) people invest in retirement funds which invest in stock. And insurance companies also invest their customers' money.

(http://money.cnn.com/2014/09/18/investing/stock-market-inves... )

http://www.valuewalk.com/2013/03/retail-investors-hold-38-of...

"A surprising fact revealed in the report is that retail investors have invested $9.8 trillion in the U.S. equities, or 38 percent of the total $25.8 trillion corporate equity holdings. Additionally, $812 billion hedge fund assets belong to US retail investors. To put in context hedge funds have total assets under management of approximately $2 trillion. This would mean that approximately 40% of hedge fund assets come from retail investors in the US, the remainder comes from foreign investors and institutions."

> They're a tiny percentage. It is widely acknowledged the benefits of economic recovery has almost entirely been captured by rich people and ordinary people haven't seen an effective wage increase in a decade.

The stats don't back your stance.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:U.S._Income_Share_of_Top_... here, rejoice that the top 1%'s share is mostly static

Meanwhile,

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSA672N it's increased by 7.3% from 2012-2015

Interestingly, you said "The stats don't back your stance." while not using any stats yourself and only using weasel words like "It is widely acknowledged the benefits of economic recovery".

Your assertion may be wrong; it depends on what is "poor" in a poverty-stricken zipcode.

The median per capita income in India is 616$. PPP adjusted that is 2351$.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_income_in_the_United_... shows people at the 6.48th percentile in the United States earn $2500.

If the tax system is so broken that the poorer are paying for the richer's protection, then fix the tax system so that the rich person pays the "correct/fair" amount. For example, remove most of the deductions and other rules and replace it with a simple flat tax.

Anyways, why are you saying "rich people"? Ordinary people own these companies and purchase from these companies. They benefit.

It's as fair as buying something for cheaper when you can.

In fact, it's probably more fair as globalization lifts foreign workers out of poverty.

A richer local worker loses while a poorer foreign worker wins and the U.S. overall wins.