Well, that's rich. Or is it?
January 29, 2023 4:56 PM Subscribe
What does it mean to be rich in America, where the elite need to re-earn their position anew each day and
experience the demands of wealth without its promised sense of security and ease?
How is it possible that a couple with kids making $500k a year are scraping by ? (ignore the sales shenanigans at the end) And to further the conversation, let's talk salary transparency in New York and elsewhere, with corporations finding fun ways of avoiding it.
The paywalled links above: 1, 2, 3, 4
How is it possible that a couple with kids making $500k a year are scraping by ? (ignore the sales shenanigans at the end) And to further the conversation, let's talk salary transparency in New York and elsewhere, with corporations finding fun ways of avoiding it.
The paywalled links above: 1, 2, 3, 4
There are two definitions of wealth as far as I can tell.
1 - Wealth is the amount of money you have. The more money you have, the richer you are.
2 - Wealth is the relationship of your needs to your assets. The more your assets exceed your needs, the richer you are.
In definition #1, there's only one course of action: get more money.
In definition #2, there's a choice of actions: increase your money or decrease your needs (or wants).
Guess which definition runs our world?
posted by Joan Rivers of Babylon at 5:11 PM on January 29, 2023 [21 favorites]
1 - Wealth is the amount of money you have. The more money you have, the richer you are.
2 - Wealth is the relationship of your needs to your assets. The more your assets exceed your needs, the richer you are.
In definition #1, there's only one course of action: get more money.
In definition #2, there's a choice of actions: increase your money or decrease your needs (or wants).
Guess which definition runs our world?
posted by Joan Rivers of Babylon at 5:11 PM on January 29, 2023 [21 favorites]
Ah, yes, Megan McArdle, who once indignantly denied that her life had been subsidized by her parents after school because, after all, they could've rented that bedroom in their Upper East Side co-op to someone else!
I would point out that both of these people are conservative columnists who have a strong interest in making it seem like the wealthy aren't that well off after all, have to re-earn their position every day, etc.
posted by praemunire at 5:11 PM on January 29, 2023 [81 favorites]
I would point out that both of these people are conservative columnists who have a strong interest in making it seem like the wealthy aren't that well off after all, have to re-earn their position every day, etc.
posted by praemunire at 5:11 PM on January 29, 2023 [81 favorites]
Metafilter had a similar debate years ago when the the author Neal Gabler revealed in print how broke he was. There are a lot of minefields in this type of discussion so I'll point out there is a big difference between being affluent like the Manhattan lawyers making $500K and being truly wealthy. I have interacted with families who have net worths of more than 50M; their wealth is generational and almost always comes from some type of equity: a successful business, real estate holdings, etc. They do have a sense of security that these lawyers, whose income is employment based, lack. I would basically describe them as courtiers to the truly wealthy. The status of this class is insecure in a way that it doesn't for the generationally wealthy. They can't necessarily replicate it for their children.
In the abstract, I really don't have any sympathy for people in this position, but I don't think the authors are necessarily out to lunch. There are gradations of wealth that are invisible to the vast majority of people outside it.
posted by fortitude25 at 5:33 PM on January 29, 2023 [33 favorites]
In the abstract, I really don't have any sympathy for people in this position, but I don't think the authors are necessarily out to lunch. There are gradations of wealth that are invisible to the vast majority of people outside it.
posted by fortitude25 at 5:33 PM on January 29, 2023 [33 favorites]
Of course there is the fundamental human reality that no matter how much one has, it doesn't feel like enough, and the vast majority of people at all wealth levels hope someday to have more. Which is why the idea and phrase "ban billionaires," as well as any comment saying someone else "has more than enough," is unlikely to have an impact on public policy.
posted by twsf at 5:41 PM on January 29, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by twsf at 5:41 PM on January 29, 2023 [2 favorites]
What I've considered the most accurate delineator between Upper Class and the other classes is, whatever your daily lifestyle is, whether you have to keep working to maintain that lifestyle, or whether you don't.
You can be quite well off by the vast majority of people's definitions -- fancy cars, exotic vacations, expensive tastes -- but if you are in a position where all of that is based on earning money rather than having money, you're not truly in the upper class.
posted by tclark at 5:42 PM on January 29, 2023 [37 favorites]
You can be quite well off by the vast majority of people's definitions -- fancy cars, exotic vacations, expensive tastes -- but if you are in a position where all of that is based on earning money rather than having money, you're not truly in the upper class.
posted by tclark at 5:42 PM on January 29, 2023 [37 favorites]
I mean, rising housing costs + childcare, etc. have made it harder for everyone to feel like they belong in whatever socioeconomic class they were born into - but for some reason some low-end rich people are convinced they're exceptional in this regard.
posted by coffeecat at 5:51 PM on January 29, 2023 [17 favorites]
posted by coffeecat at 5:51 PM on January 29, 2023 [17 favorites]
I have interacted with families who have net worths of more than 50M; their wealth is generational and almost always comes from some type of equity: a successful business, real estate holdings, etc. They do have a sense of security that these lawyers, whose income is employment based, lack. I would basically describe them as courtiers to the truly wealthy. The status of this class is insecure in a way that it doesn't for the generationally wealthy.
I mean, this is accurate, and yet it is still absurd for these two to focus on the "insecurity" of families whose main concern is that after saving the maximum for retirement, paying to build equity in their homes, and taking a couple nice vacations a year, choosing to pay absurd sums to reproduce state-provided services because they don't think their little darlings should mingle with the proles means they don't have much free cash flow.
posted by praemunire at 5:53 PM on January 29, 2023 [77 favorites]
I mean, this is accurate, and yet it is still absurd for these two to focus on the "insecurity" of families whose main concern is that after saving the maximum for retirement, paying to build equity in their homes, and taking a couple nice vacations a year, choosing to pay absurd sums to reproduce state-provided services because they don't think their little darlings should mingle with the proles means they don't have much free cash flow.
posted by praemunire at 5:53 PM on January 29, 2023 [77 favorites]
I mean, rising housing costs + childcare, etc. have made it harder for everyone to feel like they belong in whatever socioeconomic class they were born into - but for some reason some low-end rich people are convinced they're exceptional in this regard.
My theory is that it is because they are so close and yet still so far from that kind of generational security. They can see it, they almost certainly know and interact with people (like the company owner, clients at work, or parents at the private school) who are in that class, and yet there really isn't any path from where they are to having that security. Those of us even a bit further down the ladder don't really have that unobtainable carrot dangling in front of our noses (aside from fantasies like winning the lottery or becoming a professional athlete).
I can sympathize with the insecurity, but there also should be a recognition of how many layers of safety net someone has who is in a two-earner, highly educated, property-owning, well-funded retirement accounts kind of situation, compared to the much, much larger swath of people who really are one paycheck away from not making rent.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:07 PM on January 29, 2023 [18 favorites]
My theory is that it is because they are so close and yet still so far from that kind of generational security. They can see it, they almost certainly know and interact with people (like the company owner, clients at work, or parents at the private school) who are in that class, and yet there really isn't any path from where they are to having that security. Those of us even a bit further down the ladder don't really have that unobtainable carrot dangling in front of our noses (aside from fantasies like winning the lottery or becoming a professional athlete).
I can sympathize with the insecurity, but there also should be a recognition of how many layers of safety net someone has who is in a two-earner, highly educated, property-owning, well-funded retirement accounts kind of situation, compared to the much, much larger swath of people who really are one paycheck away from not making rent.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:07 PM on January 29, 2023 [18 favorites]
Right now, I'm on (Australian) government unemployment benefits. I receive A$232 a fortnight.
Fuck these arseholes, whoever the fuck they think they are, and wherever the fuck they get their money from. Fuck them. FUCK THEM.
posted by prismatic7 at 6:10 PM on January 29, 2023 [41 favorites]
Fuck these arseholes, whoever the fuck they think they are, and wherever the fuck they get their money from. Fuck them. FUCK THEM.
posted by prismatic7 at 6:10 PM on January 29, 2023 [41 favorites]
My theory is that it is because they are so close and yet still so far from that kind of generational security.
Speaking as a lawyer, this situation ruins characters if you're not careful. Lawyers and university administrators seem most vulnerable to it, or maybe it's just that the corruption of ideals is most obvious there.
BTW, when I was a (single) lawyer earning ~$375K in Manhattan, I, personally, had more than enough. I got out as soon as I could after I finished paying off my (gargantuan) student loans.
posted by praemunire at 6:12 PM on January 29, 2023 [15 favorites]
Speaking as a lawyer, this situation ruins characters if you're not careful. Lawyers and university administrators seem most vulnerable to it, or maybe it's just that the corruption of ideals is most obvious there.
BTW, when I was a (single) lawyer earning ~$375K in Manhattan, I, personally, had more than enough. I got out as soon as I could after I finished paying off my (gargantuan) student loans.
posted by praemunire at 6:12 PM on January 29, 2023 [15 favorites]
Praemunire, thanks for the CN: Megan McArdle so I didn’t walk in unprepared.
posted by toodleydoodley at 6:12 PM on January 29, 2023 [6 favorites]
posted by toodleydoodley at 6:12 PM on January 29, 2023 [6 favorites]
That they have to keep their high power jobs in order to maintain their frankly lavish lifestyle, I frankly do not give a fuck. If they lose their job, they have to get another, or they may not be able to afford that vacation home in the south of France. If I lose my job, I live on the street, within weeks. I eat out of dumpsters. I no longer have health care. In short order I die. This last is probably a mercy considering that someone else may have to live that way for years.
posted by evilDoug at 6:12 PM on January 29, 2023 [32 favorites]
posted by evilDoug at 6:12 PM on January 29, 2023 [32 favorites]
No, they're rich.
The even richer people with millions of generational net worth etc. are simply obscene and shouldn't be allowed to exist at all.
posted by kyrademon at 6:13 PM on January 29, 2023 [29 favorites]
The even richer people with millions of generational net worth etc. are simply obscene and shouldn't be allowed to exist at all.
posted by kyrademon at 6:13 PM on January 29, 2023 [29 favorites]
The notion that practicing law should make you actually rich is, at best, two generations old. But this isn't really a thread about lawyers (he said to himself, as a third-gen lawyer).
posted by snuffleupagus at 6:20 PM on January 29, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by snuffleupagus at 6:20 PM on January 29, 2023 [3 favorites]
The notion that practicing law should make you actually rich is, at best, two to three generations old.
No, if you go back a few generations, the top lawyers were socioeconomic equals of all but the very wealthiest American businessmen. Paul D. Cravath was on the board of the Metropolitan Opera! It's just that the top layer of American businessmen, and their progeny, have pulled so very far ahead of everyone else.
posted by praemunire at 6:25 PM on January 29, 2023 [11 favorites]
No, if you go back a few generations, the top lawyers were socioeconomic equals of all but the very wealthiest American businessmen. Paul D. Cravath was on the board of the Metropolitan Opera! It's just that the top layer of American businessmen, and their progeny, have pulled so very far ahead of everyone else.
posted by praemunire at 6:25 PM on January 29, 2023 [11 favorites]
both of these people are conservative columnists who have a strong interest in making it seem like the wealthy aren't that well off after all,
Yeah, if the mainstream US media was anywhere near "liberal", McArdle & Douthat would be columnists for the National Inquirer not the WP and the NYT.
posted by soundguy99 at 6:25 PM on January 29, 2023 [17 favorites]
Yeah, if the mainstream US media was anywhere near "liberal", McArdle & Douthat would be columnists for the National Inquirer not the WP and the NYT.
posted by soundguy99 at 6:25 PM on January 29, 2023 [17 favorites]
the top lawyers....Cravath....Metropolitan Opera
Like I said. It's meant to be a ticket to "respectability" (laden as that is), not aristocracy. Thus its corruption beyond the expectations of the framers of this lawyer's republic.
But, I have work to bill and bills to pay, right now, so I'll leave it there. You can debate my grandpa's ghost.
posted by snuffleupagus at 6:26 PM on January 29, 2023 [2 favorites]
Like I said. It's meant to be a ticket to "respectability" (laden as that is), not aristocracy. Thus its corruption beyond the expectations of the framers of this lawyer's republic.
But, I have work to bill and bills to pay, right now, so I'll leave it there. You can debate my grandpa's ghost.
posted by snuffleupagus at 6:26 PM on January 29, 2023 [2 favorites]
I think a lot of the reason there is mockery of people making $400k defining themselves as middle class is because very few people in America will admit they're poor, and admission that $400k a year is middle class means that your $100k a year defines you as poor - ie, will never own a house, and likely live paycheck to paycheck, or pretty close to it. The actual numbers vary radically depending on where you live, of course.
My oversimplified definition of rich is that you don't have to work for a living and your kids won't have to either. The 500k a year lawyer has to work for a living if they want to buy their kids way into the ivies. The only stories in this arena I find interesting are those who decide to transmute that $500k by giving up on the status displays and bailing once they've got $3-5M in the bank and decamp to a $300k house in the midwest. Or people who had more baseline corporate jobs who gave it up for vanlife and more precarious and lower paid but less stressful and more meaningful jobs.
The only people who can build generational wealth now are bigtime business owners or similar folks working the financial markets, so while I don't feel sorry for doctors or lawyers making $500k a year, I understand the perception of precarity.
posted by MillMan at 6:28 PM on January 29, 2023 [16 favorites]
My oversimplified definition of rich is that you don't have to work for a living and your kids won't have to either. The 500k a year lawyer has to work for a living if they want to buy their kids way into the ivies. The only stories in this arena I find interesting are those who decide to transmute that $500k by giving up on the status displays and bailing once they've got $3-5M in the bank and decamp to a $300k house in the midwest. Or people who had more baseline corporate jobs who gave it up for vanlife and more precarious and lower paid but less stressful and more meaningful jobs.
The only people who can build generational wealth now are bigtime business owners or similar folks working the financial markets, so while I don't feel sorry for doctors or lawyers making $500k a year, I understand the perception of precarity.
posted by MillMan at 6:28 PM on January 29, 2023 [16 favorites]
From the McArdle piece: Thus, the unsolvable dilemma of the broke 2-percenter. If you would be satisfied knowing that your child had a secure but unremarkable life managing a Walmart in some exurb, the government could probably guarantee that. And, with a solid six-figure income, you could probably prepare them for that world without any government assistance. But then, if you could be satisfied with a solid ordinary life, you probably wouldn’t have spent decades working overtime and delaying gratification in order to make it into the 2 percent.
There's something illuminating here, I think? "Managing a Walmart in some exurb" is a very weird example. Like, a rich kid from the Upper East Side or Westchester who almost got into an Ivy League school but for the parents hiring one more calculus tutor to turn that B+ into an A isn't going to be working the floor at Walmart striving to get into management (and is managing a huge retail store in the exurbs even a good example of a stable, unremarkable job? ). They wouldn't have the cultural competency to manage an exurban retail store or even the desire.
Like, worst case they'll just... get an office job of whatever kind of office jobs are around when they graduate? Like, they'll get a job at a bank that's not Goldman Sachs, or work on Capitol Hill, or go to law school, or do PR for a tech company, or do Teach for America, or start a Ponzi scheme or Medicaid fraud ring or something, right?
posted by smelendez at 6:30 PM on January 29, 2023 [32 favorites]
There's something illuminating here, I think? "Managing a Walmart in some exurb" is a very weird example. Like, a rich kid from the Upper East Side or Westchester who almost got into an Ivy League school but for the parents hiring one more calculus tutor to turn that B+ into an A isn't going to be working the floor at Walmart striving to get into management (and is managing a huge retail store in the exurbs even a good example of a stable, unremarkable job? ). They wouldn't have the cultural competency to manage an exurban retail store or even the desire.
Like, worst case they'll just... get an office job of whatever kind of office jobs are around when they graduate? Like, they'll get a job at a bank that's not Goldman Sachs, or work on Capitol Hill, or go to law school, or do PR for a tech company, or do Teach for America, or start a Ponzi scheme or Medicaid fraud ring or something, right?
posted by smelendez at 6:30 PM on January 29, 2023 [32 favorites]
$100k a year defines you as poor - ie, will never own a house, and likely live paycheck to paycheck,
Nah. I have also earned $100K living in Manhattan. I was not poor. Not owning a house does not make you poor. Nor, though I didn't have a huge margin, did I live paycheck to paycheck. Due to my participation in an income-restricted program at one point, I can in fact report that I was officially, government-sanctioned middle income!
posted by praemunire at 6:33 PM on January 29, 2023 [19 favorites]
Nah. I have also earned $100K living in Manhattan. I was not poor. Not owning a house does not make you poor. Nor, though I didn't have a huge margin, did I live paycheck to paycheck. Due to my participation in an income-restricted program at one point, I can in fact report that I was officially, government-sanctioned middle income!
posted by praemunire at 6:33 PM on January 29, 2023 [19 favorites]
The US is the sixth richest country in the world by gross national income per capita, at around $71,000/year. The world average is around $12,000/year.
$500,000/year is about 7x higher than the US average. Gross national income in the US is about 6x higher than the world's average. I'm seeing a parallel here. How much money is too much?
posted by aniola at 6:33 PM on January 29, 2023 [7 favorites]
$500,000/year is about 7x higher than the US average. Gross national income in the US is about 6x higher than the world's average. I'm seeing a parallel here. How much money is too much?
posted by aniola at 6:33 PM on January 29, 2023 [7 favorites]
Like, worst case they'll just... get an office job of whatever kind of office jobs are around when they graduate?
Yep. And...also...man. I know a lot of these people. For the most part--especially the white ones from comfortable backgrounds--they are not extraordinary striving dreamers chasing perfection! They are just reasonably well-educated people lacking math skills and a real passion beyond the desire to reproduce the social class of their childhood (which I understand, but it hardly makes you special). You don't find the brilliant dreamers in the offices of law firm and consultancy partners.
posted by praemunire at 6:36 PM on January 29, 2023 [5 favorites]
Yep. And...also...man. I know a lot of these people. For the most part--especially the white ones from comfortable backgrounds--they are not extraordinary striving dreamers chasing perfection! They are just reasonably well-educated people lacking math skills and a real passion beyond the desire to reproduce the social class of their childhood (which I understand, but it hardly makes you special). You don't find the brilliant dreamers in the offices of law firm and consultancy partners.
posted by praemunire at 6:36 PM on January 29, 2023 [5 favorites]
Where do you find them, presumptively? Pitching to VCs? This is such a weird conversation.
posted by snuffleupagus at 6:44 PM on January 29, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by snuffleupagus at 6:44 PM on January 29, 2023 [1 favorite]
...Almost anywhere besides places that trade soul-killing hours for a semi-guaranteed comfortable livelihood doing technical work to make the really rich richer.
posted by praemunire at 6:47 PM on January 29, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by praemunire at 6:47 PM on January 29, 2023 [3 favorites]
This is such a weird conversation.
I would gently refer you back to the original linked articles, if you are confused as to what I am responding to.
posted by praemunire at 6:49 PM on January 29, 2023 [1 favorite]
I would gently refer you back to the original linked articles, if you are confused as to what I am responding to.
posted by praemunire at 6:49 PM on January 29, 2023 [1 favorite]
Nah, I get it. This is getting too specific without being a reflection on the role of lawyers in the US, plus my own perspective is not the norm for the profession, so I'm going to go make dinner.
posted by snuffleupagus at 6:53 PM on January 29, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by snuffleupagus at 6:53 PM on January 29, 2023 [1 favorite]
God, that "secure unremarkable life" McArdle refers to so dismissively...it really sticks in my craw. Put aside the rest of the world. Put aside the fact that I'm not sure Walmart store managers even make that much. How many Americans would give almost anything to make sure their kids had "only" that? Steady work! Health care!
(No, I don't think she's articulating a POV she doesn't actually share there.)
posted by praemunire at 6:55 PM on January 29, 2023 [21 favorites]
(No, I don't think she's articulating a POV she doesn't actually share there.)
posted by praemunire at 6:55 PM on January 29, 2023 [21 favorites]
On a tangentially-related note, I've been re-watching Black Sails of late and the other day I wondered how much loot Spain took from the New World. Some googling led me to Earl Hamilton's 1929 paper on the subject. Hamilton went to Spain and pored through the registries and the accounts and the bills of lading and so forth. He claimed that (1500 to 1660) the take in silver was 16,632,648.20 kg and, over the same period, the take in gold was 181,234.95 kg. Using modern spot prices, I came up with a total value for the loot of 24 billion in modern US dollars.
At that point, I was all "Shoot, that doesn't sound like very much money" so I checked the 2022 Forbes 400 list. There are like 26 LIVING PEOPLE RIGHT NOW who are EACH worth more than the entirety of Spain's New World Loot. Richer than the Incan Empire and the Aztecs combined. Three of them are Waltons.
Late-stage capitalism is insane.
posted by which_chick at 6:57 PM on January 29, 2023 [54 favorites]
At that point, I was all "Shoot, that doesn't sound like very much money" so I checked the 2022 Forbes 400 list. There are like 26 LIVING PEOPLE RIGHT NOW who are EACH worth more than the entirety of Spain's New World Loot. Richer than the Incan Empire and the Aztecs combined. Three of them are Waltons.
Late-stage capitalism is insane.
posted by which_chick at 6:57 PM on January 29, 2023 [54 favorites]
“The only people who can build generational wealth now are bigtime business owners or similar folks working the financial markets, so while I don't feel sorry for doctors or lawyers making $500k a year, I understand the perception of precarity.“
Does this mean that these people can be trusted to support inheritance taxes?
posted by Selena777 at 7:05 PM on January 29, 2023 [3 favorites]
Does this mean that these people can be trusted to support inheritance taxes?
posted by Selena777 at 7:05 PM on January 29, 2023 [3 favorites]
That depends on who's voting, whose inheritance is being taxed, and when.
Ultimately, everything will be on the table when the alternative is that the Boomers don't get their SS checks. For so long as they have the numbers. And the capital.
posted by snuffleupagus at 7:29 PM on January 29, 2023
Ultimately, everything will be on the table when the alternative is that the Boomers don't get their SS checks. For so long as they have the numbers. And the capital.
posted by snuffleupagus at 7:29 PM on January 29, 2023
Does this mean that these people can be trusted to support inheritance taxes?
Only if the inheritance tax kicks in at a threshold above what they have. But they might support an increase in capital gains tax (because much of their income is earned) or especially a higher tax bracket for those who make more than they do.
posted by qxntpqbbbqxl at 7:30 PM on January 29, 2023 [5 favorites]
Only if the inheritance tax kicks in at a threshold above what they have. But they might support an increase in capital gains tax (because much of their income is earned) or especially a higher tax bracket for those who make more than they do.
posted by qxntpqbbbqxl at 7:30 PM on January 29, 2023 [5 favorites]
They can see it, they almost certainly know and interact with people (like the company owner, clients at work, or parents at the private school) who are in that class, and yet there really isn't any path from where they are to having that security. Those of us even a bit further down the ladder don't really have that unobtainable carrot dangling in front of our noses
Hmm, I certainly interact with people who own homes (however modest) and I can see the world of the comfortably middle class, but I'm in my late 30s and I've yet to manage to get there. I don't think the sense of being close yet so far away to achieving some sort of class security is unique to the rich.
posted by coffeecat at 7:37 PM on January 29, 2023 [7 favorites]
Hmm, I certainly interact with people who own homes (however modest) and I can see the world of the comfortably middle class, but I'm in my late 30s and I've yet to manage to get there. I don't think the sense of being close yet so far away to achieving some sort of class security is unique to the rich.
posted by coffeecat at 7:37 PM on January 29, 2023 [7 favorites]
Poor man wanna be rich
Rich man wanna be king
And a king ain't satisfied
'Til he rules everything...
posted by praemunire at 7:50 PM on January 29, 2023 [11 favorites]
Rich man wanna be king
And a king ain't satisfied
'Til he rules everything...
posted by praemunire at 7:50 PM on January 29, 2023 [11 favorites]
I'm surprised no one has mentioned the Cantillion Effect. It contributes to this inequality by preferentially enriching those closest to the 'new money' via uneven expansion. When combined with inflation, the monetary system is rigged to suck wealth out of almost everyone and deposit it into the hands of the super wealthy.
posted by neonamber at 7:54 PM on January 29, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by neonamber at 7:54 PM on January 29, 2023 [1 favorite]
The only people who can build generational wealth now are bigtime business owners or similar folks working the financial markets, so while I don't feel sorry for doctors or lawyers making $500k a year, I understand the perception of precarity.
I don't understand this at all and I say this as an engineer with a cushy tech job and my wife a licensed physician. we make very good money. we own a house, we have significant savings that we barely touch, we should probably get a financial adviser because that cash isn't 'growing' inside of 'vehicles with better returns' but it doesn't matter at all really, it's so much money
my parents were immigrants and they worked multiple minimum wage jobs when I was a kid until I graduated with a bachelor's. my partner's parents are 'frontline workers' or whatever moniker we're utilizing as a sineater for not mandating basic public health measures during a historic pandemic. both of us grew up with strongly stated restrictions on what we could expect in terms of gifts or expensive extracurriculars or clothing or etc etc
I give a ton of money to mutual aids and GoFundMes on a monthly basis - I have a recurring budget for it exceeding 20% of our total income. a very small percentage of it is tax deductible. I still feel incredibly guilty for being able to have the quality of life that I do now, for the money we have left over as savings/disposable income. it is far and away so unnecessary for us to have this much money
so I say to you, as one of these 'precarious' rich assholes, 100000% fuck people who make this much money and think their lives are precarious, that they have to work a job that is dozens of times less exploitative in terms of capital share than most jobs on the market, who never have to worry about basic needs, who always say yes when their child wants to go on some expensive ass camp or needs a tutor or whatever
you should have zero fucking sympathy for people who are 'forced to work' and make so much money that their primary concerns are optimizing their child's education such that they remain in the same social class as them
fuck this whole topic, fuck people who make this much money (myself included), and fuck that we live in a society whose structure allow for such vast differences in basic quality of life
posted by paimapi at 8:10 PM on January 29, 2023 [72 favorites]
I don't understand this at all and I say this as an engineer with a cushy tech job and my wife a licensed physician. we make very good money. we own a house, we have significant savings that we barely touch, we should probably get a financial adviser because that cash isn't 'growing' inside of 'vehicles with better returns' but it doesn't matter at all really, it's so much money
my parents were immigrants and they worked multiple minimum wage jobs when I was a kid until I graduated with a bachelor's. my partner's parents are 'frontline workers' or whatever moniker we're utilizing as a sineater for not mandating basic public health measures during a historic pandemic. both of us grew up with strongly stated restrictions on what we could expect in terms of gifts or expensive extracurriculars or clothing or etc etc
I give a ton of money to mutual aids and GoFundMes on a monthly basis - I have a recurring budget for it exceeding 20% of our total income. a very small percentage of it is tax deductible. I still feel incredibly guilty for being able to have the quality of life that I do now, for the money we have left over as savings/disposable income. it is far and away so unnecessary for us to have this much money
so I say to you, as one of these 'precarious' rich assholes, 100000% fuck people who make this much money and think their lives are precarious, that they have to work a job that is dozens of times less exploitative in terms of capital share than most jobs on the market, who never have to worry about basic needs, who always say yes when their child wants to go on some expensive ass camp or needs a tutor or whatever
you should have zero fucking sympathy for people who are 'forced to work' and make so much money that their primary concerns are optimizing their child's education such that they remain in the same social class as them
fuck this whole topic, fuck people who make this much money (myself included), and fuck that we live in a society whose structure allow for such vast differences in basic quality of life
posted by paimapi at 8:10 PM on January 29, 2023 [72 favorites]
Wanna way to keep more of the money you make and live a lower stress life?
Not having children.
posted by djseafood at 8:22 PM on January 29, 2023 [16 favorites]
Not having children.
posted by djseafood at 8:22 PM on January 29, 2023 [16 favorites]
I have extremely little sympathy for people making $400k who are "scraping by," regardless of where they live, but I acknowledge that I live in rural America, where costs are (generally speaking) significantly lower for just about everything, starting with housing, and also there's really no one to play status anxiety games with, so they just don't happen.
posted by jscalzi at 8:31 PM on January 29, 2023 [7 favorites]
posted by jscalzi at 8:31 PM on January 29, 2023 [7 favorites]
the 400k a year people are building generational wealth, in their home equity, primarily, although it’s unlikely that they do not also own stocks which just don’t show up in these weird reports of “scraping by” because they don’t count as income. generational wealth doesn’t have to mean the kind of stuff that anderson cooper was born into because 100 years before he was born his ancestor murdered striking workers, it can also just mean that your parents are able to come up with the cash for a down payment on your first house, or pay for your ivf, making it much easier to have a family, etc. anyway these things drive me nuts, it turns out anyone can just scrape by if they spend all their income (where spend also means invest, apparently)
posted by dis_integration at 8:56 PM on January 29, 2023 [10 favorites]
posted by dis_integration at 8:56 PM on January 29, 2023 [10 favorites]
From WWII up until 1981 when Reagan got elected everyone with the same education and the same seniority but in different professions got bascially the same salary. Banker, lawyer, doctor, university professor, librarian, scientist, civil servant, you could choose your career knowing you wouldn't suffer financially. CEOs made twenty or thirty times what you made but not five hundred or a thousand times. There were rich people, yes, but they were as rare as concert pianists.
Today, you can't throw a rock in NYC, Palo Alto, Aspen, Miami, and elsewhere without hitting a billionare. They are everywhere. Where did they come from? How did they get that money? I don't know. But I do know that the wealth separation among people who are basically the same in terms of education, age, family background, and work ethic is enormous. Some were in the right place at the right time and hoovered up millions. A few others get $400k/yr. The rest, $45k and congrats for doing a good job.
It didn't used to be that way. That's why the $400k crowd look at the billionaires and wonder, "What did I do wrong?"
posted by mono blanco at 9:19 PM on January 29, 2023 [16 favorites]
Today, you can't throw a rock in NYC, Palo Alto, Aspen, Miami, and elsewhere without hitting a billionare. They are everywhere. Where did they come from? How did they get that money? I don't know. But I do know that the wealth separation among people who are basically the same in terms of education, age, family background, and work ethic is enormous. Some were in the right place at the right time and hoovered up millions. A few others get $400k/yr. The rest, $45k and congrats for doing a good job.
It didn't used to be that way. That's why the $400k crowd look at the billionaires and wonder, "What did I do wrong?"
posted by mono blanco at 9:19 PM on January 29, 2023 [16 favorites]
26 LIVING PEOPLE RIGHT NOW who are EACH worth more
This common bit of language is one I would particularly like to go away. Every living person is worth one living person. No more, no less. Nobody talks about people with reasonable amounts of savings as "worth" their savings, so we can replace worth with hoard.
posted by aniola at 9:33 PM on January 29, 2023 [17 favorites]
This common bit of language is one I would particularly like to go away. Every living person is worth one living person. No more, no less. Nobody talks about people with reasonable amounts of savings as "worth" their savings, so we can replace worth with hoard.
posted by aniola at 9:33 PM on January 29, 2023 [17 favorites]
your $100k a year defines you as poor - ie, will never own a house
$100K was just about the median income for new homebuyers last year. So half of all people buying a house had a household income lower than this.
posted by escabeche at 10:02 PM on January 29, 2023 [12 favorites]
$100K was just about the median income for new homebuyers last year. So half of all people buying a house had a household income lower than this.
posted by escabeche at 10:02 PM on January 29, 2023 [12 favorites]
If you think of a middle-aged professional couple living in, say, New York City or San Francisco, each making about $200,000 a year, filing a joint tax return, already in a high bracket, paying through the nose for rent or maintenance or a mortgage, you’re probably not going to describe their lifestyle as “rich.” They’re scrimping to send their kids to college, driving a Camry, if they have a car at all, and wondering why eggs have gotten so damned expensive.
They can say it and say it and say it in the newspaper but if your household makes $400,000 a year any questions you have about the price of eggs are purely recreational. Nobody's finances are so incredibly tightly balanced that they were like "well I jockeyed the private school tuition and the mortgage to line up with my after-tax salary so precisely that I had exactly thirty dollars a month left for eggs, but then the damn price went up, what the hell am I supposed to do now?"
posted by escabeche at 10:08 PM on January 29, 2023 [53 favorites]
They can say it and say it and say it in the newspaper but if your household makes $400,000 a year any questions you have about the price of eggs are purely recreational. Nobody's finances are so incredibly tightly balanced that they were like "well I jockeyed the private school tuition and the mortgage to line up with my after-tax salary so precisely that I had exactly thirty dollars a month left for eggs, but then the damn price went up, what the hell am I supposed to do now?"
posted by escabeche at 10:08 PM on January 29, 2023 [53 favorites]
Today, you can't throw a rock in NYC, Palo Alto, Aspen, Miami, and elsewhere without hitting a billionare.This has real "I've sold monorails to Brockway, Ogdenville, and North Haverbrook, and, by gum, it put them on the map!" energy.
The differences between rich people might mean a lot to a piece of shit like Megan McCardle but honestly who else cares. They all need to be taxed out of existence.
posted by zymil at 10:13 PM on January 29, 2023 [11 favorites]
"Raise taxes on the rich" is my own desire, too, but sadly it has been a losing political message for many, many decades.
posted by twsf at 10:36 PM on January 29, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by twsf at 10:36 PM on January 29, 2023 [3 favorites]
My theory is that it is because they are so close and yet still so far from that kind of generational security. They can see it, they almost certainly know and interact with people (like the company owner, clients at work, or parents at the private school) who are in that class, and yet there really isn't any path from where they are to having that security.
There absolutely is a path to building generational wealth for these people - five hundred thousand dollars a year. Compound interest exists. The percentage you need to stash away every month for that to reach the same ballpark as your quoted fifty million by the end of a working life is not that big.
Now these dickheads might be too spendy to put any meaningful money away at all. But if I could save over 10% of my wage when I was on 24k, they can fucking save some of that half a fucking million dollars every year.
posted by Dysk at 10:38 PM on January 29, 2023 [13 favorites]
There absolutely is a path to building generational wealth for these people - five hundred thousand dollars a year. Compound interest exists. The percentage you need to stash away every month for that to reach the same ballpark as your quoted fifty million by the end of a working life is not that big.
Now these dickheads might be too spendy to put any meaningful money away at all. But if I could save over 10% of my wage when I was on 24k, they can fucking save some of that half a fucking million dollars every year.
posted by Dysk at 10:38 PM on January 29, 2023 [13 favorites]
Ross Douchehat—what meritocracy is he talking about? When someones a priori claims are this nonsensical, it's difficult to finish reading what dribbles out of their head. It's amazing how many of these clueless, opinionated people are employed by the Post, the Times, the Chronicle, etc. (I understand that these media companies are owned by the actually wealthy who want to continue propagating these myths because they'd rather live in a dystopia, I guess?)
As others have said, all this precarity has been exacerbated by 40+ years of massive tax cuts for the wealthy, combined with the evisceration of the social safety net, disinvestment in public goods, union busting and the destruction of the working class (who are the middle class). The genocidal settler colonial mentality, and master/slave fetishization that continues to exist in this country and which infects enough minds so that people believe that those who live in abject poverty, and those who bathe in champagne, are both equally deserving of their fate, doesn't help either.
Have these unfortunate strivers never visited a country with a welfare state and strong enforceable worker protections, and thought to themselves: "I wonder why the schools are good, healthcare is cheap, the police aren't militarized, and the people working at McDonalds get paid vacations and paid sick leave?" Surely they travel, despite their "precarity" (lol), and surely they're capable of critical thought? Did it ever occur to them that maybe our society shouldn't be structured like a giant ponzi scheme? Generational wealth is dumb—and I say this with all due respect to those friends and acquaintances who have never had to work a day in their lives to earn a living.
posted by nikoniko at 11:12 PM on January 29, 2023 [20 favorites]
As others have said, all this precarity has been exacerbated by 40+ years of massive tax cuts for the wealthy, combined with the evisceration of the social safety net, disinvestment in public goods, union busting and the destruction of the working class (who are the middle class). The genocidal settler colonial mentality, and master/slave fetishization that continues to exist in this country and which infects enough minds so that people believe that those who live in abject poverty, and those who bathe in champagne, are both equally deserving of their fate, doesn't help either.
Have these unfortunate strivers never visited a country with a welfare state and strong enforceable worker protections, and thought to themselves: "I wonder why the schools are good, healthcare is cheap, the police aren't militarized, and the people working at McDonalds get paid vacations and paid sick leave?" Surely they travel, despite their "precarity" (lol), and surely they're capable of critical thought? Did it ever occur to them that maybe our society shouldn't be structured like a giant ponzi scheme? Generational wealth is dumb—and I say this with all due respect to those friends and acquaintances who have never had to work a day in their lives to earn a living.
posted by nikoniko at 11:12 PM on January 29, 2023 [20 favorites]
The only people who can build generational wealth now are bigtime business owners or similar folks working the financial markets, so while I don't feel sorry for doctors or lawyers making $500k a year, I understand the perception of precarity
This is kind of funny.
You know how people often blame poor people for not handling their money responsibly? "Of course they'll stay poor if they keep blowing their paychecks on TVs and phones and clothes instead of understanding the power of compound interest!" Whereas there are many reasons for that kind of spending, and one of the arguments is that saving $10 here and $50 there is never going to amount to much - definitely not enough to take you out of poverty - and one small disaster is going to be enough to wipe it all away. So instead of saving up for a stable long term that will never actually materialize you might as well spend and see some short term benefits now.
It's remarkable to see this same kind of argument applied to amounts like $500k. "We'll never be billionaires, so saving up multiple millions over time by restricting ourselves to an annual budget of oh, I don't know, $200k is useless. The level of scrimping and saving required to live on a paltry $200k, and at the end of all that deprivation to only bequeath a single- or double-digit number of millions to our kids is not worth it, so we'll just live on our full budget and moan about our precarity!" I'm sorry, but amassing generational wealth at that level is only impossible if you have no understanding of what wealth and precarity actually are.
posted by trig at 12:38 AM on January 30, 2023 [26 favorites]
This is kind of funny.
You know how people often blame poor people for not handling their money responsibly? "Of course they'll stay poor if they keep blowing their paychecks on TVs and phones and clothes instead of understanding the power of compound interest!" Whereas there are many reasons for that kind of spending, and one of the arguments is that saving $10 here and $50 there is never going to amount to much - definitely not enough to take you out of poverty - and one small disaster is going to be enough to wipe it all away. So instead of saving up for a stable long term that will never actually materialize you might as well spend and see some short term benefits now.
It's remarkable to see this same kind of argument applied to amounts like $500k. "We'll never be billionaires, so saving up multiple millions over time by restricting ourselves to an annual budget of oh, I don't know, $200k is useless. The level of scrimping and saving required to live on a paltry $200k, and at the end of all that deprivation to only bequeath a single- or double-digit number of millions to our kids is not worth it, so we'll just live on our full budget and moan about our precarity!" I'm sorry, but amassing generational wealth at that level is only impossible if you have no understanding of what wealth and precarity actually are.
posted by trig at 12:38 AM on January 30, 2023 [26 favorites]
Stop paying for your kids to attend private schools. That's it. If you're wasting $100K per year on some preposterous illusion that that is the only way your kids can possibly have a happy life, then you're the one who needs a better education. 90% of US kids attend public schools. That has been true for decades. If you don't know any, you live in a ridiculous bubble. Those of us who attended public schools are doing just fine. If you don't know any of us, again, you live in a ridiculous bubble.
posted by hydropsyche at 3:28 AM on January 30, 2023 [26 favorites]
posted by hydropsyche at 3:28 AM on January 30, 2023 [26 favorites]
Several years ago, Jon Ronson wrote an article called "Amber Waves of Green" - he worked out that, to go from the financial world of somebody making $10 and hour and a the Forbes rich-list, you have to go through six stages of multiplying a person's income by five; those who, in a week take home $200, $900, $5,000, $25,000, $125,000 and $625,000. Ronson goes out to interview 5 of those people: from a dish washer, through himself at the $5,000 level through to a self-storage billionaire. Its a nice portrait of how wealth changes the things that matter: the woman on $125,000 talks about how she can worry about bills not at all - just throw them in a box and hand them to her business manager. But she is not yet at the level of being able to hire her own doctor on staff. The guy at the top seems mostly concerned with giving money away; to the Republican party in public and to charities in secret, it seems.
posted by rongorongo at 4:24 AM on January 30, 2023 [8 favorites]
posted by rongorongo at 4:24 AM on January 30, 2023 [8 favorites]
"It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven."
posted by DJZouke at 5:04 AM on January 30, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by DJZouke at 5:04 AM on January 30, 2023 [3 favorites]
Wanna way to keep more of the money you make and live a lower stress life?
Not having children.
“The rich get richer and the poor get - children.”
posted by mikelieman at 5:26 AM on January 30, 2023 [2 favorites]
Not having children.
“The rich get richer and the poor get - children.”
posted by mikelieman at 5:26 AM on January 30, 2023 [2 favorites]
Does this mean that these people can be trusted to support inheritance taxes?
Potentially, yes! That's why it is actually worth engaging in what might otherwise be navel gazing discussion about the micro-structure of different kinds of "rich" people". Many of these people (broadly my own cohort) are deeply unhappy with the professional lives they have had to choose but they are also acutely aware of how shitty a country the US is for poor people so will do almost anything to make sure that their class is reproduced in their children. The equivalent educated upper middle class in a country like The Netherlands just isn't nearly as stressed and anxious about their children as these people.
It is worth splitting out this administrative / courtier class from the owners of capital writ large because the latter cannot run our society without the former. Look at almost every successful revolution!
See also Peter Turchin's model of social instability and revolution which has both mass immiseration and elite dissatisfaction as independent variables.
Have these unfortunate strivers never visited a country with a welfare state and strong enforceable worker protections, and thought to themselves: "I wonder why the schools are good, healthcare is cheap, the police aren't militarized, and the people working at McDonalds get paid vacations and paid sick leave?" Surely they travel, despite their "precarity" (lol), and surely they're capable of critical thought? Did it ever occur to them that maybe our society shouldn't be structured like a giant ponzi scheme? Generational wealth is dumb—and I say this with all due respect to those friends and acquaintances who have never had to work a day in their lives to earn a living.
It's a lot easier to sell a genuinely transformative model like that to marginal members of the upper middle class than you might think. European socialist parties have historically built their broad coalitions on substantially increased spending on education which is very attractive to people who might consider paying for private schools but would rather not.
It's remarkable to see this same kind of argument applied to amounts like $500k. "We'll never be billionaires, so saving up multiple millions over time by restricting ourselves to an annual budget of oh, I don't know, $200k is useless. The level of scrimping and saving required to live on a paltry $200k, and at the end of all that deprivation to only bequeath a single- or double-digit number of millions to our kids is not worth it, so we'll just live on our full budget and moan about our precarity!" I'm sorry, but amassing generational wealth at that level is only impossible if you have no understanding of what wealth and precarity actually are.
Indeed. On $500k, saving $300k is far from impossible and would likely have you financially independent at that expenditure within a decade.
posted by atrazine at 5:29 AM on January 30, 2023 [10 favorites]
Potentially, yes! That's why it is actually worth engaging in what might otherwise be navel gazing discussion about the micro-structure of different kinds of "rich" people". Many of these people (broadly my own cohort) are deeply unhappy with the professional lives they have had to choose but they are also acutely aware of how shitty a country the US is for poor people so will do almost anything to make sure that their class is reproduced in their children. The equivalent educated upper middle class in a country like The Netherlands just isn't nearly as stressed and anxious about their children as these people.
It is worth splitting out this administrative / courtier class from the owners of capital writ large because the latter cannot run our society without the former. Look at almost every successful revolution!
See also Peter Turchin's model of social instability and revolution which has both mass immiseration and elite dissatisfaction as independent variables.
Have these unfortunate strivers never visited a country with a welfare state and strong enforceable worker protections, and thought to themselves: "I wonder why the schools are good, healthcare is cheap, the police aren't militarized, and the people working at McDonalds get paid vacations and paid sick leave?" Surely they travel, despite their "precarity" (lol), and surely they're capable of critical thought? Did it ever occur to them that maybe our society shouldn't be structured like a giant ponzi scheme? Generational wealth is dumb—and I say this with all due respect to those friends and acquaintances who have never had to work a day in their lives to earn a living.
It's a lot easier to sell a genuinely transformative model like that to marginal members of the upper middle class than you might think. European socialist parties have historically built their broad coalitions on substantially increased spending on education which is very attractive to people who might consider paying for private schools but would rather not.
It's remarkable to see this same kind of argument applied to amounts like $500k. "We'll never be billionaires, so saving up multiple millions over time by restricting ourselves to an annual budget of oh, I don't know, $200k is useless. The level of scrimping and saving required to live on a paltry $200k, and at the end of all that deprivation to only bequeath a single- or double-digit number of millions to our kids is not worth it, so we'll just live on our full budget and moan about our precarity!" I'm sorry, but amassing generational wealth at that level is only impossible if you have no understanding of what wealth and precarity actually are.
Indeed. On $500k, saving $300k is far from impossible and would likely have you financially independent at that expenditure within a decade.
posted by atrazine at 5:29 AM on January 30, 2023 [10 favorites]
One thing I find funny is how much of this struggle for money among the "middle rich" is centered around wanting to get that foot wedged in for their kids - and especially how do you get them into the Ivy League? So parents in expensive (and especially East Coast) cities are throwing more and more money into private schools and tutoring and pricey camps and everything they can think of to give their kids that competitive edge against all the other kids in their city.
And meanwhile these universities are looking for geographic diversity.
If you have a really smart kid and your work is portable, move to North Dakota. You'll give the kid more of an edge, and end up far ahead of the game financially. If you don't have a really smart kid, then you're just throwing your money away and I'm perfectly fine with however you want to waste it.
posted by Mchelly at 6:09 AM on January 30, 2023 [5 favorites]
And meanwhile these universities are looking for geographic diversity.
If you have a really smart kid and your work is portable, move to North Dakota. You'll give the kid more of an edge, and end up far ahead of the game financially. If you don't have a really smart kid, then you're just throwing your money away and I'm perfectly fine with however you want to waste it.
posted by Mchelly at 6:09 AM on January 30, 2023 [5 favorites]
hydropsyche: Stop paying for your kids to attend private schools. That's it. If you're wasting $100K per year on some preposterous illusion that that is the only way your kids can possibly have a happy life, then you're the one who needs a better education.
We took our kids out of public schools during the pandemic lockdowns and now have them in private, and yes it's eating through all of our savings and income. The teacher's union and the school district basically refused to budge on each other's ultimatums over pandemic safety, so nobody went to school until May of 2021. Half of the high school students in our urban district never showed up for a single online class in 2021.
Meanwhile, before the pandemic, the school was unable to do anything about students who were physically abusing others and tearing apart the classroom because the program for disruptive behavioral issues was full and the bar had been raised to "actually committing felonies" level. Yes, we advocated for 5 years with the district on this and several other issues. No, they did nothing, because their priority was the superintendent's anti-bias restorative justice program that had bullies meet with their victims and the school counselor. If you've ever been bullied, you can guess how the those meetings went and their aftermath.
Let's not even start on the district's program to eliminate all tracking in math, which would result in our daughter repeating two years of math in high school. It's not about ensuring my little princess gets into Yale, it's about ensuring she doesn't get press-ganged into teaching the class again and go back to playing stupid in order to fit in.
I was a good liberal and fought as long as I could. At a certain point, you tap out and use your money to save your kids. My children no longer hate school nor do they self-harm to avoid going. I miss the community of our public school, and feel out of place among the self-satisfied wealthy families, but holy shit do I not miss the public schools themselves.
posted by xthlc at 6:51 AM on January 30, 2023 [19 favorites]
We took our kids out of public schools during the pandemic lockdowns and now have them in private, and yes it's eating through all of our savings and income. The teacher's union and the school district basically refused to budge on each other's ultimatums over pandemic safety, so nobody went to school until May of 2021. Half of the high school students in our urban district never showed up for a single online class in 2021.
Meanwhile, before the pandemic, the school was unable to do anything about students who were physically abusing others and tearing apart the classroom because the program for disruptive behavioral issues was full and the bar had been raised to "actually committing felonies" level. Yes, we advocated for 5 years with the district on this and several other issues. No, they did nothing, because their priority was the superintendent's anti-bias restorative justice program that had bullies meet with their victims and the school counselor. If you've ever been bullied, you can guess how the those meetings went and their aftermath.
Let's not even start on the district's program to eliminate all tracking in math, which would result in our daughter repeating two years of math in high school. It's not about ensuring my little princess gets into Yale, it's about ensuring she doesn't get press-ganged into teaching the class again and go back to playing stupid in order to fit in.
I was a good liberal and fought as long as I could. At a certain point, you tap out and use your money to save your kids. My children no longer hate school nor do they self-harm to avoid going. I miss the community of our public school, and feel out of place among the self-satisfied wealthy families, but holy shit do I not miss the public schools themselves.
posted by xthlc at 6:51 AM on January 30, 2023 [19 favorites]
playing stupid in order to fit in
oh boy does that phrase give me some flashbacks. I'm glad you're doing what you can for your kids.
posted by Not A Thing at 7:08 AM on January 30, 2023 [3 favorites]
oh boy does that phrase give me some flashbacks. I'm glad you're doing what you can for your kids.
posted by Not A Thing at 7:08 AM on January 30, 2023 [3 favorites]
>Using modern spot prices, I came up with a total value for the loot of 24 billion in modern US dollars.
Which is a mistake. Gold and silver were worth a lot more back then than today, whether you denominate in hours worked, loaves of bread, or acres of farmland. And Spain looted a lot more than just shiny metals.
posted by Easy problem of consciousness at 7:17 AM on January 30, 2023 [3 favorites]
Which is a mistake. Gold and silver were worth a lot more back then than today, whether you denominate in hours worked, loaves of bread, or acres of farmland. And Spain looted a lot more than just shiny metals.
posted by Easy problem of consciousness at 7:17 AM on January 30, 2023 [3 favorites]
On $500k, saving $300k is far from impossible
I hope it's clear from my comments so far on this post that I am firmly in the "$400K = fucking blessed" category, but if you're earning $500K in W2 income in NYC, taxes will take roughly half of that to start with, so not really. I assume, but don't know, that it's similar in SF.
Politically, it's better to have such people convinced of the truth that, privilege-wise, they are closer to us than to the 0.5%, I'm sure, but the way people like McArdle and Douthat cast it, it's always more "don't envy your betters, uneasy lies the head that wears the UWS co-op title."
posted by praemunire at 7:34 AM on January 30, 2023
I hope it's clear from my comments so far on this post that I am firmly in the "$400K = fucking blessed" category, but if you're earning $500K in W2 income in NYC, taxes will take roughly half of that to start with, so not really. I assume, but don't know, that it's similar in SF.
Politically, it's better to have such people convinced of the truth that, privilege-wise, they are closer to us than to the 0.5%, I'm sure, but the way people like McArdle and Douthat cast it, it's always more "don't envy your betters, uneasy lies the head that wears the UWS co-op title."
posted by praemunire at 7:34 AM on January 30, 2023
if you're earning $500K in W2 income in NYC, taxes will take roughly half of that to start with, so not really. I assume, but don't know, that it's similar in SF.
Only if you have a really terrible accountant.
posted by srboisvert at 7:37 AM on January 30, 2023 [1 favorite]
Only if you have a really terrible accountant.
posted by srboisvert at 7:37 AM on January 30, 2023 [1 favorite]
Nah. That's about what I was paying when I was earning less than that (I'd have to look up my records, so don't hold me to an exact percentage). My big disadvantage was not owning property, so not being able to deduct mortgage interest and property taxes...the latter is now capped so that anyone in this bracket on a W2 income is already going to hit the cap just on state/local taxes so you won't get much, if any, benefit, but certainly mortgage interest would shave a few percentage points off. Either way, you're probably not seeing more than $300K after taxes.
The sweet tax shelters for people at, like, the dentist level that existed in the 70s have mostly been blown up over the years.
posted by praemunire at 7:43 AM on January 30, 2023 [1 favorite]
The sweet tax shelters for people at, like, the dentist level that existed in the 70s have mostly been blown up over the years.
posted by praemunire at 7:43 AM on January 30, 2023 [1 favorite]
if your takehome is 250k annual then 30% of your income, ie the maximum amount of your budget you should be dedicating to housing to optimize savings, is still $6k. average rent in Manhattan is $4.5k, average mortgage in NYC is $3k, average SF rent cost is $4k, average SF mortgage is also $3k
no sympathy, tysm
posted by paimapi at 7:43 AM on January 30, 2023 [1 favorite]
no sympathy, tysm
posted by paimapi at 7:43 AM on January 30, 2023 [1 favorite]
I was a good liberal and fought as long as I could. At a certain point, you tap out and use your money to save your kids.
...but that's not what this thread is about. It's about people sending their multiple kids to the BEST private schools possible from day 0, with all the trimmings, so they can get into ivy's, as some sort of basic fundamental right alongside "eating", now that they drive the same brand of cars that plutocrats have garages full of.
posted by lalochezia at 7:44 AM on January 30, 2023 [9 favorites]
If they lose their job, they have to get another, or they may not be able to afford that vacation home in the south of France.
Be careful. The fact that this couple cannot afford a vacation home in the south of France is exactly the type of example they would trot out to explain that they are not rich. But they are rich, as evidenced by the fact that they can rent a house at one of the nicer beaches for a week in August, or go to Vermont to ski for a long weekend, without truly worrying about the cost. (And of course that's on top of buying a house in a good school district, etc.)
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 8:02 AM on January 30, 2023 [1 favorite]
Be careful. The fact that this couple cannot afford a vacation home in the south of France is exactly the type of example they would trot out to explain that they are not rich. But they are rich, as evidenced by the fact that they can rent a house at one of the nicer beaches for a week in August, or go to Vermont to ski for a long weekend, without truly worrying about the cost. (And of course that's on top of buying a house in a good school district, etc.)
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 8:02 AM on January 30, 2023 [1 favorite]
xthlc: I have an autistic, disabled child who is the exact kind of kid that your school district is trying so hard to accommodate and include, and whom you are trying so hard to marginalize and push aside and treat as an ugly inconvenience in the way of "normal children".
Your comment has me literally crying right now.
posted by splitpeasoup at 8:02 AM on January 30, 2023 [9 favorites]
Your comment has me literally crying right now.
posted by splitpeasoup at 8:02 AM on January 30, 2023 [9 favorites]
If you have a really smart kid and your work is portable, move to North Dakota. You'll give the kid more of an edge, and end up far ahead of the game financially.
This is not even close to true, like most of the comments in this thread about wealth, income, lawyers, etc. Even the state of Illinois with exceptional schools and billionaires trades at a deficit to Ivy Leagues vs the north east, you think a place like North Dakota is going to carry? If you are moderately wealthy and you can promise the absolute smartest kid in North Dakota, then maybe you should try this....
Also that Chris Rock thing is outdated, because those people are wealthy now. People in this thread apparently have no idea that income is additive over time.
$100K was just about the median income for new homebuyers last year. So half of all people buying a house had a household income lower than this.
Per your thread, the median household income in the US is $68k, which covers 24% of homebuyers. So what you said is technically true, but 26% had incomes greater than $68k, but less than $100k. Which is larger by itself (or approximately equal) to all the people who were able to buy at the median household income or below. So that mean 75% who purchased a home did so with an income higher than the median US. Can you do it? Yes, but you again, have a lot of competition.
posted by The_Vegetables at 8:09 AM on January 30, 2023 [1 favorite]
This is not even close to true, like most of the comments in this thread about wealth, income, lawyers, etc. Even the state of Illinois with exceptional schools and billionaires trades at a deficit to Ivy Leagues vs the north east, you think a place like North Dakota is going to carry? If you are moderately wealthy and you can promise the absolute smartest kid in North Dakota, then maybe you should try this....
Also that Chris Rock thing is outdated, because those people are wealthy now. People in this thread apparently have no idea that income is additive over time.
$100K was just about the median income for new homebuyers last year. So half of all people buying a house had a household income lower than this.
Per your thread, the median household income in the US is $68k, which covers 24% of homebuyers. So what you said is technically true, but 26% had incomes greater than $68k, but less than $100k. Which is larger by itself (or approximately equal) to all the people who were able to buy at the median household income or below. So that mean 75% who purchased a home did so with an income higher than the median US. Can you do it? Yes, but you again, have a lot of competition.
posted by The_Vegetables at 8:09 AM on January 30, 2023 [1 favorite]
I'll confess I'm not quite sure what this thread is about; the discussion has been interesting but the first link killed so many brain cells that I didn't try the rest of them.
That said, if we accept the underlying framing and the validity of this particular, SES-centric idea of "class", it does seem like the McArdle column has at least one valid point about how this system works :
posted by Not A Thing at 8:11 AM on January 30, 2023 [4 favorites]
That said, if we accept the underlying framing and the validity of this particular, SES-centric idea of "class", it does seem like the McArdle column has at least one valid point about how this system works :
This zero-sum bidding war will consume any amount of extra money a normal professional can earn, because there is always something else you could be doing to give your kid a better shot at a good school and a good life — another tutor, another consultant, another enrichment program.IMO this shows the bankruptcy of this kind of class analysis, but also is a valid demonstration of how it becomes a trap for anyone unwise enough to buy in.
posted by Not A Thing at 8:11 AM on January 30, 2023 [4 favorites]
splitpeasoup: let me tell you about the time I fought for six months to get a teacher fired because she stood a learning disabled student up in front of the class and mocked him, while refusing to follow his IEP.
She had been shuffled from school to school for six years, each time her disciplinary record getting reset, because it was easier to shove her over the early retirement line than have to fight the union to get her fired.
Eventually the district compromised and made up a bullshit medical leave (her hand got trapped in a binder apparently) and she was quietly ushered away.
I am not your enemy. I'm just tired and unwilling to fight a losing battle against institutional rot anymore.
posted by xthlc at 8:15 AM on January 30, 2023 [10 favorites]
She had been shuffled from school to school for six years, each time her disciplinary record getting reset, because it was easier to shove her over the early retirement line than have to fight the union to get her fired.
Eventually the district compromised and made up a bullshit medical leave (her hand got trapped in a binder apparently) and she was quietly ushered away.
I am not your enemy. I'm just tired and unwilling to fight a losing battle against institutional rot anymore.
posted by xthlc at 8:15 AM on January 30, 2023 [10 favorites]
Today, you can't throw a rock in NYC, Palo Alto, Aspen, Miami, and elsewhere without hitting a billionare. They are everywhere.
I guess we need more rocks
posted by chavenet at 8:21 AM on January 30, 2023 [10 favorites]
I guess we need more rocks
posted by chavenet at 8:21 AM on January 30, 2023 [10 favorites]
Your comment has me literally crying right now.
That's not fair. Per xthlc, the district was not keeping their kid safe from bullies and was not challenging their kid intellectually. Two dead solid, totally reasonable reasons to find a new school.
posted by everythings_interrelated at 8:22 AM on January 30, 2023 [22 favorites]
That's not fair. Per xthlc, the district was not keeping their kid safe from bullies and was not challenging their kid intellectually. Two dead solid, totally reasonable reasons to find a new school.
posted by everythings_interrelated at 8:22 AM on January 30, 2023 [22 favorites]
a valid demonstration of how it becomes a trap for anyone unwise enough to buy in.
Right, but these are educated people with choices, so...hard not to blame them for buying in. (As always, the analysis becomes more complicated when you're talking about parents of color or of kids with serious disabilities, whom it's hard to begrudge fighting for every scrap for their kids, knowing what an uphill battle they'll have.)
I wish I could find that passage in Bonfire of the Vanities about "hemorrhaging money," but it doesn't seem to be readily available online.
posted by praemunire at 8:33 AM on January 30, 2023
Right, but these are educated people with choices, so...hard not to blame them for buying in. (As always, the analysis becomes more complicated when you're talking about parents of color or of kids with serious disabilities, whom it's hard to begrudge fighting for every scrap for their kids, knowing what an uphill battle they'll have.)
I wish I could find that passage in Bonfire of the Vanities about "hemorrhaging money," but it doesn't seem to be readily available online.
posted by praemunire at 8:33 AM on January 30, 2023
If they set their expectations lower for Brands they wouldn't be stressed out. Don't get the biggest house, don't get the consumer-available luxury car, don't send your kids to private school (unless its a "wow this place is collapsing" reason as above).
Why is everyone itching to cosplay as the wealthy? Is there nothing enjoyable or interesting to do outside of Being Seen As Rich?
posted by Slackermagee at 8:33 AM on January 30, 2023 [2 favorites]
Why is everyone itching to cosplay as the wealthy? Is there nothing enjoyable or interesting to do outside of Being Seen As Rich?
posted by Slackermagee at 8:33 AM on January 30, 2023 [2 favorites]
IMO this shows the bankruptcy of this kind of class analysis, but also is a valid demonstration of how it becomes a trap for anyone unwise enough to buy in.
Not really, because for one thing, the education/lifestyle of children is not equal to the sum total of working years of adults, even if you have several kids. Also, kids are not products, some are smart straight off the bat so the amount of 'enrichment' you have to pay for is not fixed. Finally 'enrichment costs' are extremely variable. Schools even pay for some of them, not so much for others.
posted by The_Vegetables at 8:39 AM on January 30, 2023
Not really, because for one thing, the education/lifestyle of children is not equal to the sum total of working years of adults, even if you have several kids. Also, kids are not products, some are smart straight off the bat so the amount of 'enrichment' you have to pay for is not fixed. Finally 'enrichment costs' are extremely variable. Schools even pay for some of them, not so much for others.
posted by The_Vegetables at 8:39 AM on January 30, 2023
the education/lifestyle of children is not equal to the sum total of working years of adults,
Unless you are Duggar/Quiverfull family, but then 'enrichment' per child is again, very different.
posted by The_Vegetables at 8:41 AM on January 30, 2023
Unless you are Duggar/Quiverfull family, but then 'enrichment' per child is again, very different.
posted by The_Vegetables at 8:41 AM on January 30, 2023
Not content with having almost all the money the rich have also decided they want all the sympathy too.
posted by srboisvert at 8:52 AM on January 30, 2023 [17 favorites]
posted by srboisvert at 8:52 AM on January 30, 2023 [17 favorites]
Almost all private schools are inherently ableist.
Most any private school would refuse to admit my child. That's exclusion. It's legal when private schools do it.
Public schools do not always do well by disabled children (I'm all too aware of that). But private schools are worse: they simply deny the child.
posted by splitpeasoup at 8:54 AM on January 30, 2023 [11 favorites]
Most any private school would refuse to admit my child. That's exclusion. It's legal when private schools do it.
Public schools do not always do well by disabled children (I'm all too aware of that). But private schools are worse: they simply deny the child.
posted by splitpeasoup at 8:54 AM on January 30, 2023 [11 favorites]
if your takehome is 250k annual then 30% of your income, ie the maximum amount of your budget you should be dedicating to housing to optimize savings, is still $6k. average rent in Manhattan is $4.5k, average mortgage in NYC is $3k, average SF rent cost is $4k, average SF mortgage is also $3k
The "average mortgage" is from 10 years ago, when prices were 1/3rd what they are today. A $3k mortgage in NYC today will buy you a studio apartment. In the suburbs, it won't buy you anything at all -- exclusionary zoning forbids anything affordable.
The "average rental" is a 1bdr, hardly what families like Ms. McArdle's are looking for.
The American squeeze on working people is a squeeze on everyone -- even the very well-off. If you work for your money, you get screwed. That's the whole of the law, the heart of the system. People who "did everything right" feel just as cheated as the folks at the bottom of the pyramid, even when their material conditions are quite good.
If you make money working a job for $500k in NYC, your marginal tax rate is 35% + 6.85% + 3.875% = 45%. If you make that same amount of money as gains on your inherited wealth, your tax rate is most likely around 6% (inherited roth account is 0% federal, 6.85% state, minus retirement deduction) and definitely no worse than 26.85% (top cap gains tax bracket federal, 6.85% state, no retirement deduction)
That's the kind of thing that makes a lot of very comfortable people very angry at the system that allows them their comforts
posted by your postings may, in fact, be signed at 9:00 AM on January 30, 2023 [16 favorites]
The "average mortgage" is from 10 years ago, when prices were 1/3rd what they are today. A $3k mortgage in NYC today will buy you a studio apartment. In the suburbs, it won't buy you anything at all -- exclusionary zoning forbids anything affordable.
The "average rental" is a 1bdr, hardly what families like Ms. McArdle's are looking for.
The American squeeze on working people is a squeeze on everyone -- even the very well-off. If you work for your money, you get screwed. That's the whole of the law, the heart of the system. People who "did everything right" feel just as cheated as the folks at the bottom of the pyramid, even when their material conditions are quite good.
If you make money working a job for $500k in NYC, your marginal tax rate is 35% + 6.85% + 3.875% = 45%. If you make that same amount of money as gains on your inherited wealth, your tax rate is most likely around 6% (inherited roth account is 0% federal, 6.85% state, minus retirement deduction) and definitely no worse than 26.85% (top cap gains tax bracket federal, 6.85% state, no retirement deduction)
That's the kind of thing that makes a lot of very comfortable people very angry at the system that allows them their comforts
posted by your postings may, in fact, be signed at 9:00 AM on January 30, 2023 [16 favorites]
All that comfortable anger gets us, is the status quo.
posted by snuffleupagus at 9:12 AM on January 30, 2023 [4 favorites]
posted by snuffleupagus at 9:12 AM on January 30, 2023 [4 favorites]
I wish that articles like this had more of a geographic cost of living component.
Though $49,000 doesn't necessarily sound like living large, this calculator says that $100,000 in San Francisco is equivalent to $48,834 in Birmingham, Alabama.
I'm not an economist and don't know much about how these variations are typically normalized but when we have these discussions it sort of feels like higher earners in rural/lower cost places just get a lot less scrutiny. Without including some sort of geographical comparison I don't really understand how we can compare and it seems like this is designed to fuel even more of this "coastal elites" attitude. How different would this read if the $400,000 was contextualized to a place like Alabama compared to a "coastal elite" city like NYC or LA?
According to this calculator $400,000 in Birmingham is the equivalent to $819,110 in San Francisco.
https://www.nerdwallet.com/cost-of-living-calculator/compare/
posted by forkisbetter at 9:15 AM on January 30, 2023 [2 favorites]
Though $49,000 doesn't necessarily sound like living large, this calculator says that $100,000 in San Francisco is equivalent to $48,834 in Birmingham, Alabama.
I'm not an economist and don't know much about how these variations are typically normalized but when we have these discussions it sort of feels like higher earners in rural/lower cost places just get a lot less scrutiny. Without including some sort of geographical comparison I don't really understand how we can compare and it seems like this is designed to fuel even more of this "coastal elites" attitude. How different would this read if the $400,000 was contextualized to a place like Alabama compared to a "coastal elite" city like NYC or LA?
According to this calculator $400,000 in Birmingham is the equivalent to $819,110 in San Francisco.
https://www.nerdwallet.com/cost-of-living-calculator/compare/
posted by forkisbetter at 9:15 AM on January 30, 2023 [2 favorites]
Also, kids are not products, some are smart straight off the bat so the amount of 'enrichment' you have to pay for is not fixed.
I mean, if you buy into a vision of society as a hierarchical ladder that you and your children must constantly be climbing (because otherwise you will be a failure), which seems to be what McArdle is describing, then you have the problem that your child will always have an equally-matched opponent for whatever the next rung is. It won't matter if they are "smart straight off the bat" if they are matched against someone with identical advantages. Which is why this is a nonsense system that makes people do terrible and destructive things. Ideally, the fact that their worldview is causing them to do terrible and destructive things would make people reconsider the whole thing, but.
That said, if we're talking about sympathy or whatever, then IMO we also asking the wrong questions. Moralistic personal approaches to collective problems are always a distraction, because they always just boil down to some version of "why doesn't everybody just".
If we stick with a personal frame, if I had to sum up all the lessons I have learned in life so far in four words, "Stay away from ladders" would probably be my best shot. But that has consequences too.
posted by Not A Thing at 9:24 AM on January 30, 2023 [9 favorites]
I mean, if you buy into a vision of society as a hierarchical ladder that you and your children must constantly be climbing (because otherwise you will be a failure), which seems to be what McArdle is describing, then you have the problem that your child will always have an equally-matched opponent for whatever the next rung is. It won't matter if they are "smart straight off the bat" if they are matched against someone with identical advantages. Which is why this is a nonsense system that makes people do terrible and destructive things. Ideally, the fact that their worldview is causing them to do terrible and destructive things would make people reconsider the whole thing, but.
That said, if we're talking about sympathy or whatever, then IMO we also asking the wrong questions. Moralistic personal approaches to collective problems are always a distraction, because they always just boil down to some version of "why doesn't everybody just".
If we stick with a personal frame, if I had to sum up all the lessons I have learned in life so far in four words, "Stay away from ladders" would probably be my best shot. But that has consequences too.
posted by Not A Thing at 9:24 AM on January 30, 2023 [9 favorites]
All that comfortable anger gets us, is the status quo.
Look, I don't have a theory of change, here. I don't have a way out, a master plan.
Nevertheless, I think it is probably not a bad thing that right-wing, petit bourgeoisie writers like Ms. McArdle are forced to confront the contradictions intrinsic to the system that abuses us all. Her material conditions oblige her to grapple with these problems, no matter how ideologically pre-disposed she is to ignore them.
(Of course, there are a number of ways to "resolve" those contradictions and some revolutions of the comfortable middle class had ugly consequences in the 20th century. There's no sure thing in politics.)
posted by your postings may, in fact, be signed at 9:37 AM on January 30, 2023 [4 favorites]
Look, I don't have a theory of change, here. I don't have a way out, a master plan.
Nevertheless, I think it is probably not a bad thing that right-wing, petit bourgeoisie writers like Ms. McArdle are forced to confront the contradictions intrinsic to the system that abuses us all. Her material conditions oblige her to grapple with these problems, no matter how ideologically pre-disposed she is to ignore them.
(Of course, there are a number of ways to "resolve" those contradictions and some revolutions of the comfortable middle class had ugly consequences in the 20th century. There's no sure thing in politics.)
posted by your postings may, in fact, be signed at 9:37 AM on January 30, 2023 [4 favorites]
I think Ross Douthat and Megan McCardle should be deplatformed and run out of town on a rail.
posted by aspersioncast at 9:52 AM on January 30, 2023 [11 favorites]
posted by aspersioncast at 9:52 AM on January 30, 2023 [11 favorites]
Today's news
The share of Americans who say they live paycheck-to-paycheck climbed last year, and most of the new arrivals in that category were among the country’s higher earners, a new study shows.
posted by infini at 9:55 AM on January 30, 2023 [3 favorites]
The share of Americans who say they live paycheck-to-paycheck climbed last year, and most of the new arrivals in that category were among the country’s higher earners, a new study shows.
posted by infini at 9:55 AM on January 30, 2023 [3 favorites]
The American squeeze on working people is a squeeze on everyone -- even the very well-off. If you work for your money, you get screwed. That's the whole of the law, the heart of the system. People who "did everything right" feel just as cheated as the folks at the bottom of the pyramid, even when their material conditions are quite good.
this is 101 Marxist analysis, sure. the difference is that those making 500k+ building equity, having Roth IRAs, with kids in private schools that began their existence as a resistance to integration, etc are so much more complicit in that system of exploitation than someone without. the health outcomes of someone with that much better socioeconomic status (SES) is far and away much better than someone who has had ACEs, who didn't have access to basic educational resources, who lived in basement apartments filled with mold, and so on
all of that passive income, 10%+ returns, equity - all of that is just you literally cutting out your own chunk of the extracted capital from your everyday worker who is charged 5x the manufacturing cost for a product that they pay for using the 1% of the profit they get from their own labor. there are very good reasons that groups like Resource Generation have dedicated time to outlining along with resources outlining the definition of wealth
you should absolutely organize, on a principled level, with people of much lower net wealth than you but you should also learn the grace of not talking about how much pressure you're feeling compared to the lived experiences of someone making so much less than you
the only reason we should be hearing about it is if it's a fun rhetorical trick you're specifically aiming at another high net wealth individual to get them to vote for huge increases in tax rates on the extremely wealthy provided you intend to follow-up with an argument about why you also believe that we should be taxed to smithereens too because, after all, isn't a hundred millionaire jealous of the billionaire? and the billionaire of those with even more?
posted by paimapi at 10:01 AM on January 30, 2023 [6 favorites]
this is 101 Marxist analysis, sure. the difference is that those making 500k+ building equity, having Roth IRAs, with kids in private schools that began their existence as a resistance to integration, etc are so much more complicit in that system of exploitation than someone without. the health outcomes of someone with that much better socioeconomic status (SES) is far and away much better than someone who has had ACEs, who didn't have access to basic educational resources, who lived in basement apartments filled with mold, and so on
all of that passive income, 10%+ returns, equity - all of that is just you literally cutting out your own chunk of the extracted capital from your everyday worker who is charged 5x the manufacturing cost for a product that they pay for using the 1% of the profit they get from their own labor. there are very good reasons that groups like Resource Generation have dedicated time to outlining along with resources outlining the definition of wealth
you should absolutely organize, on a principled level, with people of much lower net wealth than you but you should also learn the grace of not talking about how much pressure you're feeling compared to the lived experiences of someone making so much less than you
the only reason we should be hearing about it is if it's a fun rhetorical trick you're specifically aiming at another high net wealth individual to get them to vote for huge increases in tax rates on the extremely wealthy provided you intend to follow-up with an argument about why you also believe that we should be taxed to smithereens too because, after all, isn't a hundred millionaire jealous of the billionaire? and the billionaire of those with even more?
posted by paimapi at 10:01 AM on January 30, 2023 [6 favorites]
I think Ross Douthat and Megan McCardle should be deplatformed and run out of town on a rail .
I’d rather just read them with great skepticism.
posted by ducky l'orange at 10:09 AM on January 30, 2023 [2 favorites]
I’d rather just read them with great skepticism.
posted by ducky l'orange at 10:09 AM on January 30, 2023 [2 favorites]
xthlc: I have an autistic, disabled child who is the exact kind of kid that your school district is trying so hard to accommodate and include, and whom you are trying so hard to marginalize and push aside and treat as an ugly inconvenience in the way of "normal children".
Neurodiversity and private schools are a wide spectrum and to apply one person's particular situation to your own is troubling. There is sensitivity and anger here that needs to be addressed more productively. Please do not push away potential allies. Take time to learn about other people's situations before hastily jumping on them.
Some perspective below:
I attended a special ed class in pre-K because of selective mutism. At the time, the school grouped all disabled kids together in one class but it was mostly physical disabilities (wheelchairs, blind, dead, etc.). Because of this, I believe strongly in inclusive classrooms where it benefits rather than harms. I have a 4 year old son and I encourage friendships with neurodiverse and disabled children because of my own great experience. One of his friends has moderate autism and they play together quite well. However, neurodiversity is a spectrum and some behaviorally challenged kids are violent on a consistent basis and not able to be controlled by school staff especially as they get older and stronger.
I agree that many private schools are complete a$$holes when it comes to accepting children who are disabled and different but not all private schools are exclusionary. However, inclusive or no, private schools have to screen because they may not have the expertise or staff to deal with the particular kind of disability for a kid. They should be able to tell you this in a nice way but many private schools are just outright mean. My son was in Early Intervention and I always disclosed his EI status when applying and some private schools were awful (ignoring questions, saying they don't welcome therapists, etc.) while other private schools asked more questions and delved deeper into why my son was in EI and if he could be a fit. However, the NYC private school market is tight with not many spaces for all kids so by that standard, my son did not pass screens above kids who did not go to EI. However, I am proud I disclosed and really fascinated by the types of behavior I saw from the different private schools. I was so glad to see everyone's true colors! And really, who wants to attend a school who doesn't want your kid anyway?
My son attends a private pre-K but they accept kids by lottery and they accept disabled and neurodiverse kids. There is a neurodiverse (ND) kid in my son's class who my son absolutely hates because he constantly picks on my son (pokes him, puts his fingers in my son's mouth, pushes him, etc.). This ND kid was asked to leave his previous preschool. His mother is lovely and a friend and is going through an emotional time because of his diagnosis. However, her kid was hurting my kid so I had to ask the teacher to separate the two as this was happening for months and no amount of discipline was stopping the abuse, it just went underground. I suspect the teacher was trying to put them together because they both intensely like the same thing (building) and my son is really calm and quiet and is able to tolerate a lot. This just to say, his private school has been able to handle the ND kid so far but adjustments had to be made and some parents (me) will want their kid to be separated. My kid was crying everyday and was expecting to be hurt everyday because of the ND kid. However, my son loves his autistic friend and they interact very differently.
If there was a public school class made up of half of the ND kid who was abusive, we would certainly leave. Inclusion needs to be balanced with the needs of the full group. Public school teachers here are paid more than private school teachers. They also have more support with push-in therapists and coordination with IEPs. However, even public schools have issues with special needs kids. My son's autistic friend is currently attending a special needs private school funded by government because his public school was not meeting his needs.
This is all to say, please take some time to look things at perspective. And when private schools are mean to you, it's almost a blessing - imagine if you were accepted? You and your kid would have to deal with those terrible people on a daily basis.
posted by ichimunki at 10:25 AM on January 30, 2023 [9 favorites]
Neurodiversity and private schools are a wide spectrum and to apply one person's particular situation to your own is troubling. There is sensitivity and anger here that needs to be addressed more productively. Please do not push away potential allies. Take time to learn about other people's situations before hastily jumping on them.
Some perspective below:
I attended a special ed class in pre-K because of selective mutism. At the time, the school grouped all disabled kids together in one class but it was mostly physical disabilities (wheelchairs, blind, dead, etc.). Because of this, I believe strongly in inclusive classrooms where it benefits rather than harms. I have a 4 year old son and I encourage friendships with neurodiverse and disabled children because of my own great experience. One of his friends has moderate autism and they play together quite well. However, neurodiversity is a spectrum and some behaviorally challenged kids are violent on a consistent basis and not able to be controlled by school staff especially as they get older and stronger.
I agree that many private schools are complete a$$holes when it comes to accepting children who are disabled and different but not all private schools are exclusionary. However, inclusive or no, private schools have to screen because they may not have the expertise or staff to deal with the particular kind of disability for a kid. They should be able to tell you this in a nice way but many private schools are just outright mean. My son was in Early Intervention and I always disclosed his EI status when applying and some private schools were awful (ignoring questions, saying they don't welcome therapists, etc.) while other private schools asked more questions and delved deeper into why my son was in EI and if he could be a fit. However, the NYC private school market is tight with not many spaces for all kids so by that standard, my son did not pass screens above kids who did not go to EI. However, I am proud I disclosed and really fascinated by the types of behavior I saw from the different private schools. I was so glad to see everyone's true colors! And really, who wants to attend a school who doesn't want your kid anyway?
My son attends a private pre-K but they accept kids by lottery and they accept disabled and neurodiverse kids. There is a neurodiverse (ND) kid in my son's class who my son absolutely hates because he constantly picks on my son (pokes him, puts his fingers in my son's mouth, pushes him, etc.). This ND kid was asked to leave his previous preschool. His mother is lovely and a friend and is going through an emotional time because of his diagnosis. However, her kid was hurting my kid so I had to ask the teacher to separate the two as this was happening for months and no amount of discipline was stopping the abuse, it just went underground. I suspect the teacher was trying to put them together because they both intensely like the same thing (building) and my son is really calm and quiet and is able to tolerate a lot. This just to say, his private school has been able to handle the ND kid so far but adjustments had to be made and some parents (me) will want their kid to be separated. My kid was crying everyday and was expecting to be hurt everyday because of the ND kid. However, my son loves his autistic friend and they interact very differently.
If there was a public school class made up of half of the ND kid who was abusive, we would certainly leave. Inclusion needs to be balanced with the needs of the full group. Public school teachers here are paid more than private school teachers. They also have more support with push-in therapists and coordination with IEPs. However, even public schools have issues with special needs kids. My son's autistic friend is currently attending a special needs private school funded by government because his public school was not meeting his needs.
This is all to say, please take some time to look things at perspective. And when private schools are mean to you, it's almost a blessing - imagine if you were accepted? You and your kid would have to deal with those terrible people on a daily basis.
posted by ichimunki at 10:25 AM on January 30, 2023 [9 favorites]
I read McArdle's op-ed this morning. As it happens, my cousin was a Walmart manager - until they fired her, just before she would have been eligible for additional retirement benefits. Put the affluent people's problems into perspective, maybe not the way the author intended.
posted by mersen at 11:00 AM on January 30, 2023 [7 favorites]
posted by mersen at 11:00 AM on January 30, 2023 [7 favorites]
Please excuse my typos. I realized I typed "dead" instead of "deaf". I am badly in need of a copy editor.
posted by ichimunki at 11:47 AM on January 30, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by ichimunki at 11:47 AM on January 30, 2023 [3 favorites]
According to this calculator $400,000 in Birmingham is the equivalent to $819,110 in San Francisco.
How does the social safety net compare? I have a low income. I live in California. The free piles have quality clothing and household goods, I won't have to unexpectedly pay for raising a kid because abortion is legal here, my healthcare is free, the schools have books in them, etc.
posted by aniola at 11:56 AM on January 30, 2023 [5 favorites]
How does the social safety net compare? I have a low income. I live in California. The free piles have quality clothing and household goods, I won't have to unexpectedly pay for raising a kid because abortion is legal here, my healthcare is free, the schools have books in them, etc.
posted by aniola at 11:56 AM on January 30, 2023 [5 favorites]
I’d rather just read them with great skepticism.
I want them to have to get real jobs. There are nine million people, at least, more deserving of their sinecures.
posted by praemunire at 5:32 PM on January 30, 2023 [5 favorites]
I want them to have to get real jobs. There are nine million people, at least, more deserving of their sinecures.
posted by praemunire at 5:32 PM on January 30, 2023 [5 favorites]
According to this calculator
These calculators are almost never very useful and often contain lots of hidden assumptions or restrictions designed to keep things locked to whatever lifestyle they think is normative. For example it's common for them to restrict housing costs to newly-built homes.
Where I live, metro Buffalo, is usually a good test case. The median sale price of single-family homes in Erie County was $235K in December after a small decline from the low 250s in summer (according to redfin). The calculator thinks that median price of a 3br/2ba is $440K or 87\% too high. Maybe not coincidentally, this wouldn't be out of line for new builds here.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 7:13 PM on January 30, 2023 [2 favorites]
These calculators are almost never very useful and often contain lots of hidden assumptions or restrictions designed to keep things locked to whatever lifestyle they think is normative. For example it's common for them to restrict housing costs to newly-built homes.
Where I live, metro Buffalo, is usually a good test case. The median sale price of single-family homes in Erie County was $235K in December after a small decline from the low 250s in summer (according to redfin). The calculator thinks that median price of a 3br/2ba is $440K or 87\% too high. Maybe not coincidentally, this wouldn't be out of line for new builds here.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 7:13 PM on January 30, 2023 [2 favorites]
I wish that articles like this had more of a geographic cost of living component. ...
I'm not an economist and don't know much about how these variations are typically normalized but when we have these discussions it sort of feels like higher earners in rural/lower cost places just get a lot less scrutiny. Without including some sort of geographical comparison I don't really understand how we can compare and it seems like this is designed to fuel even more of this "coastal elites" attitude. How different would this read if the $400,000 was contextualized to a place like Alabama compared to a "coastal elite" city like NYC or LA?
I think this is yet one more way we are going to see increased stratification. It used to be that the tradeoff for moving to a cheaper place was that salaries were also typically lower.
But now a subset of generally highly-paid workers are able to disconnect where they earn and where they live. Most people don't get to work remotely even in the same city, much less move hundreds or thousands of miles away. However, a substantial minority of workers can now do that, and that's impacting things like housing costs in places where people who work and earn locally still get lower salaries.
It's a different issue than what the main articles focus on, but is a connected problem, and must raise complicated questions for the same kinds of people the articles are talking about, high earners with terrible class anxiety for their kids.
posted by Dip Flash at 8:09 PM on January 30, 2023 [2 favorites]
I'm not an economist and don't know much about how these variations are typically normalized but when we have these discussions it sort of feels like higher earners in rural/lower cost places just get a lot less scrutiny. Without including some sort of geographical comparison I don't really understand how we can compare and it seems like this is designed to fuel even more of this "coastal elites" attitude. How different would this read if the $400,000 was contextualized to a place like Alabama compared to a "coastal elite" city like NYC or LA?
I think this is yet one more way we are going to see increased stratification. It used to be that the tradeoff for moving to a cheaper place was that salaries were also typically lower.
But now a subset of generally highly-paid workers are able to disconnect where they earn and where they live. Most people don't get to work remotely even in the same city, much less move hundreds or thousands of miles away. However, a substantial minority of workers can now do that, and that's impacting things like housing costs in places where people who work and earn locally still get lower salaries.
It's a different issue than what the main articles focus on, but is a connected problem, and must raise complicated questions for the same kinds of people the articles are talking about, high earners with terrible class anxiety for their kids.
posted by Dip Flash at 8:09 PM on January 30, 2023 [2 favorites]
To me, this is like the capitalism equivalent of "the patriarchy hurts men, too." There are absolutely winners and losers under capitalism. And though the winners suffer less than the losers, they do also suffer. This analogy falls apart a bit because you need a third category for people with generational wealth or sufficient assets that there is no conceivable need to work to maintain any lifestyle regardless of the level of luxury required. But I think it captures something basic about the dynamic under discussion.
posted by prefpara at 6:50 PM on January 31, 2023
posted by prefpara at 6:50 PM on January 31, 2023
The only people who can build generational wealth now are bigtime business owners or similar folks working the financial markets, so while I don't feel sorry for doctors or lawyers making $500k a year, I understand the perception of precarity.
This. Realistically, the only people that can build generational wealth in our world are people that start with generational wealth. This means multiple solid, multi-faceted, well-funded businesses that mostly run themselves (because the only way to make more than wages is to have people that you pay less than they make for you). Sure, there are people that started a business, made smart decisions and prospered to the extent they can pass on that wealth to their children. But for every one of those, there's a handful that started a business and just muddled along earning the equivalent of average wages for working 100 hours a week and end up with nothing to pass on, plus another handful that started a business and failed to a greater or lesser degree, potentially creating generational debt on the way.
There are really only two ways for the so-called middle class to 'succeed' - scramble your whole life to keep up with what society tells you (and you voluntarily swallow hook, line and sinker) success looks like or step back and focus on living well within your means, as long as you're prepared to be shunned by people in similar earnings brackets for being a 'failure'. We are constantly told to strive for more, to own more, to spend more and to work harder and harder. Who is telling the middle-class to do these things? The rich people that own the businesses that need middle-class people to be unhappy with their lives and strive for more so they can sell them their shit and make even more money. We're all a bunch of suckers, really. We're told that all it takes to be rich is to work hard and buy more shit and we fall for it every time.
I'm another that put their kids into private school - my eldest and middle daughter were bored and not challenged, my youngest daughter was being bullied and nobody would do anything (until I told her the next time someone bullied her, she should punch them as hard as she could until they stopped) and my son was lost and floundering in a cookie-cutter environment totally focussed on university entrance. I agree private schools can be exclusionary and a lot of that is related to the school funding model (in Australia), but the school my daughters attended has actually recognised they are part of the problem and established an adjacent school for students with special needs that is largely funded by the 'main' school and provides for the individual needs of their students while integrating them with the 'main' school as much as possible. I don't know of any other school doing anything like this, but I hope others see the success of the model and copy it.
I don't know how we get ourselves off this hamster wheel of our own making. Lots of people say 'tax the rich', but that's just giving more money to governments that are captured by the rich so, even if any government could ever do that, they'll just give it all back in government contracts and piss the rest up against the wall and none of it is going to end up improving economic equality. The older I get, the more revolution looks like the only solution.
posted by dg at 6:59 PM on January 31, 2023 [1 favorite]
This. Realistically, the only people that can build generational wealth in our world are people that start with generational wealth. This means multiple solid, multi-faceted, well-funded businesses that mostly run themselves (because the only way to make more than wages is to have people that you pay less than they make for you). Sure, there are people that started a business, made smart decisions and prospered to the extent they can pass on that wealth to their children. But for every one of those, there's a handful that started a business and just muddled along earning the equivalent of average wages for working 100 hours a week and end up with nothing to pass on, plus another handful that started a business and failed to a greater or lesser degree, potentially creating generational debt on the way.
There are really only two ways for the so-called middle class to 'succeed' - scramble your whole life to keep up with what society tells you (and you voluntarily swallow hook, line and sinker) success looks like or step back and focus on living well within your means, as long as you're prepared to be shunned by people in similar earnings brackets for being a 'failure'. We are constantly told to strive for more, to own more, to spend more and to work harder and harder. Who is telling the middle-class to do these things? The rich people that own the businesses that need middle-class people to be unhappy with their lives and strive for more so they can sell them their shit and make even more money. We're all a bunch of suckers, really. We're told that all it takes to be rich is to work hard and buy more shit and we fall for it every time.
I'm another that put their kids into private school - my eldest and middle daughter were bored and not challenged, my youngest daughter was being bullied and nobody would do anything (until I told her the next time someone bullied her, she should punch them as hard as she could until they stopped) and my son was lost and floundering in a cookie-cutter environment totally focussed on university entrance. I agree private schools can be exclusionary and a lot of that is related to the school funding model (in Australia), but the school my daughters attended has actually recognised they are part of the problem and established an adjacent school for students with special needs that is largely funded by the 'main' school and provides for the individual needs of their students while integrating them with the 'main' school as much as possible. I don't know of any other school doing anything like this, but I hope others see the success of the model and copy it.
I don't know how we get ourselves off this hamster wheel of our own making. Lots of people say 'tax the rich', but that's just giving more money to governments that are captured by the rich so, even if any government could ever do that, they'll just give it all back in government contracts and piss the rest up against the wall and none of it is going to end up improving economic equality. The older I get, the more revolution looks like the only solution.
posted by dg at 6:59 PM on January 31, 2023 [1 favorite]
Lots of people say 'tax the rich', but that's just giving more money to governments that are captured by the rich so, even if any government could ever do that, they'll just give it all back in government contracts and piss the rest up against the wall and none of it is going to end up improving economic equality
This doomerism flies in the face of facts, both current and historical. Redistributive taxation is a thing. Welfare systems are a thing. Not pipe dreams, not unattainable, real, actual, viable things that are happening in countries around the world right now. Writing off the possibility of things getting better is a self-fulfilling prophecy.
posted by Dysk at 9:24 PM on January 31, 2023 [4 favorites]
This doomerism flies in the face of facts, both current and historical. Redistributive taxation is a thing. Welfare systems are a thing. Not pipe dreams, not unattainable, real, actual, viable things that are happening in countries around the world right now. Writing off the possibility of things getting better is a self-fulfilling prophecy.
posted by Dysk at 9:24 PM on January 31, 2023 [4 favorites]
Well, I wish I could be that optimistic, but the fact is that most governments are beholden to their donors, so very unlikely to do anything too far away from the donors' wishes, except perhaps in token ways. Sure, this is not the case everywhere, but it certainly is in many, many countries. I certainly don't want to write off any possibility of these good things happening, but haven't seen any signs of the widespread changes in the people that make up governments that would be needed to make this common.
posted by dg at 9:55 PM on January 31, 2023
posted by dg at 9:55 PM on January 31, 2023
You're saying "governments" like it applies to all of them, and while nowhere is perfect, the very stuff you say is basically unattainable is just Tuesday in a lot of places. If you have somewhere specific in mind, maybe mention it, because it comes across like you think these are laws of nature when counterexamples are fairly commonplace, and you're maybe actually talking about a handful of English-speaking countries?
posted by Dysk at 10:04 PM on January 31, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by Dysk at 10:04 PM on January 31, 2023 [3 favorites]
Fair enough. I shouldn't have suggested I have a solid understanding of 'most' governments when I clearly don't. I certainly see this in the US and, to a lesser extent, here in Australia. Even the reasonably new left-wing government here backed away from axing tax cuts for the top income earners (put in place by the previous government, but not yet enacted at the time) when they had the chance. Governments here on both sides have continued to throw huge amounts of money at schemes with a veneer of social responsibility, but so ill-conceived in operation it looks like they were designed so as to funnel money into the hands of business owners at the expense of, well, everyone else. Of course, I must be careful not to attribute to malice that which can be explained by mere incompetence.
posted by dg at 10:23 PM on January 31, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by dg at 10:23 PM on January 31, 2023 [1 favorite]
Having lived through the last decade plus of Tories here in Britain (and New Labour before that) I get the frustration and how it can look really bleak. It's important to remember that the dysfunction we're both currently experiencing isn't the best we can hope for or achieve.
posted by Dysk at 10:30 PM on January 31, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by Dysk at 10:30 PM on January 31, 2023 [2 favorites]
I also get the frustration, but governments are accountable to their voters, too. The US, at least, has no shortage of well-funded politicians and wannabe politicians whose careers went nowhere because a majority of voters said "no, thanks."
posted by Gelatin at 4:21 AM on February 1, 2023
posted by Gelatin at 4:21 AM on February 1, 2023
Countries with good and bad public services tend to sit on either side of a phase transition in how their bourgeois classes use certain services. This discontinuity comes about because as a particular public service deteriorates, people stop using it roughly in order of wealth and once you hit a certain tipping point which sits within what we in the UK would call the middle class (Americans: read upper middle class) it suddenly no longer has political valence sufficient to be improved back to the other side of the barrier.
One example is education, choosing private schools is a genuinely rare, almost quixotic thing to do in The Netherlands or France. It is normal that wealthy and influential people use the (very far from equitable internally) state systems for their children. As a result, at least some tiers of that system are protected from funding cuts.
Another is health, we're teetering at quite a dangerous point in the UK where if services don't improve soon and rapidly, we will start seeing bourgeois defection happening seriously. It is already the case that many people have some health benefits through work but those are mostly for things like getting to see a physio faster, it would be rare for someone in the UK to make a career decision based on such benefits or for those benefits to provide "serious" medical care. If we reach a point where that does happen, it will be hard to recover. India has a free state health system that none of my Indian friends would ever think of using.
Third is public transportation. In a place like London, all but the most stratospherically wealthy are frequent users of bus, tube, and train and budgets are therefore relatively safe. In other places in this country, most of the US, and many rural parts of European neighbours, the services are sufficiently bad that nobody who isn't poor would routinely use them but the very poor are not a reliable voting block let alone a donor block and our administrators are not typically drawn from that class either.
The reason that these are unstable points is that once you've defected, you now "need" that money to pay for your service. If your country has no reliable state pension, healthcare, or education then you will aggressively resist increases in taxation since there is a point where that tax is taking away your ability to retire, afford healthcare, and educate your children but you haven't yet improved services to make the private tier unnecessary.
This is also the logic for universal, non-means-tested services, their universality protects them from attack.
I happen to think that politically, big funded and credible pushes for performance improvements in these core areas are easier to sell than small ones because the small ones just sound like bullshit. Taxes will go up 1% and we'll make the NHS and education slightly less shit? That doesn't motivate me, I'd rather keep my 1% and send my kids to private school. Taxes go up by 5% and we're going to cut class sizes in all primary schools to 20 or below? Now we're cooking, and maybe I'm happy enough to vote for my taxes to go up in order to fund a school system that leads to a counter-defection away from the private option.
posted by atrazine at 4:44 AM on February 1, 2023 [10 favorites]
One example is education, choosing private schools is a genuinely rare, almost quixotic thing to do in The Netherlands or France. It is normal that wealthy and influential people use the (very far from equitable internally) state systems for their children. As a result, at least some tiers of that system are protected from funding cuts.
Another is health, we're teetering at quite a dangerous point in the UK where if services don't improve soon and rapidly, we will start seeing bourgeois defection happening seriously. It is already the case that many people have some health benefits through work but those are mostly for things like getting to see a physio faster, it would be rare for someone in the UK to make a career decision based on such benefits or for those benefits to provide "serious" medical care. If we reach a point where that does happen, it will be hard to recover. India has a free state health system that none of my Indian friends would ever think of using.
Third is public transportation. In a place like London, all but the most stratospherically wealthy are frequent users of bus, tube, and train and budgets are therefore relatively safe. In other places in this country, most of the US, and many rural parts of European neighbours, the services are sufficiently bad that nobody who isn't poor would routinely use them but the very poor are not a reliable voting block let alone a donor block and our administrators are not typically drawn from that class either.
The reason that these are unstable points is that once you've defected, you now "need" that money to pay for your service. If your country has no reliable state pension, healthcare, or education then you will aggressively resist increases in taxation since there is a point where that tax is taking away your ability to retire, afford healthcare, and educate your children but you haven't yet improved services to make the private tier unnecessary.
This is also the logic for universal, non-means-tested services, their universality protects them from attack.
I happen to think that politically, big funded and credible pushes for performance improvements in these core areas are easier to sell than small ones because the small ones just sound like bullshit. Taxes will go up 1% and we'll make the NHS and education slightly less shit? That doesn't motivate me, I'd rather keep my 1% and send my kids to private school. Taxes go up by 5% and we're going to cut class sizes in all primary schools to 20 or below? Now we're cooking, and maybe I'm happy enough to vote for my taxes to go up in order to fund a school system that leads to a counter-defection away from the private option.
posted by atrazine at 4:44 AM on February 1, 2023 [10 favorites]
> when private schools are mean to you, it's almost a blessing - imagine if you were accepted? You and your kid would have to deal with those terrible people on a daily basis.
Where do you think the kid ends up instead? A loving, supportive, well-funded public school with teachers who have all the resources they need?
posted by The corpse in the library at 2:07 PM on February 4, 2023
Where do you think the kid ends up instead? A loving, supportive, well-funded public school with teachers who have all the resources they need?
posted by The corpse in the library at 2:07 PM on February 4, 2023
If your country has no reliable state pension, healthcare, or education then you will aggressively resist increases in taxation since there is a point where that tax is taking away your ability to retire, afford healthcare, and educate your children but you haven't yet improved services to make the private tier unnecessary.
This.
Having lived in the US system and the Indian system mentioned by atrazine above (plus Singapore, Malaysia, The Netherlands, and Kenya for a dash of spice) before settling permanently in Finland, I often find myself blurting out to city or state employees: "thank you, this is why I love paying my taxes". Most often, it happens in the city's libraries. The system works and is designed to work.
However, the most wonderful thing this week has been the discovery of the city of Helsinki's community centers gearing up with special training to help residents come back out of their shells after the trauma of the pandemic years followed by a madman next door bent on invading countries. I left with the sense that the system would *not* let me slip through the cracks if they could help it.
Take my taxes, please. At least they're being used for free yoga and subsidized coffee and cake for a lonely pensioner who drops in to read the papers with four others in a living room for a change after years of isolation and not guns bombs and jails.
posted by infini at 3:25 PM on February 4, 2023 [4 favorites]
This.
Having lived in the US system and the Indian system mentioned by atrazine above (plus Singapore, Malaysia, The Netherlands, and Kenya for a dash of spice) before settling permanently in Finland, I often find myself blurting out to city or state employees: "thank you, this is why I love paying my taxes". Most often, it happens in the city's libraries. The system works and is designed to work.
However, the most wonderful thing this week has been the discovery of the city of Helsinki's community centers gearing up with special training to help residents come back out of their shells after the trauma of the pandemic years followed by a madman next door bent on invading countries. I left with the sense that the system would *not* let me slip through the cracks if they could help it.
Take my taxes, please. At least they're being used for free yoga and subsidized coffee and cake for a lonely pensioner who drops in to read the papers with four others in a living room for a change after years of isolation and not guns bombs and jails.
posted by infini at 3:25 PM on February 4, 2023 [4 favorites]
It's much easier to manage someone else's money than one's own. I admire the truly disciplined, who are able to plan, budget, invest, and always make the right decisions with whatever money they have. I have tried and failed to be that kind of person.
posted by chaz at 3:37 PM on February 4, 2023
posted by chaz at 3:37 PM on February 4, 2023
Where do you think the kid ends up instead? A loving, supportive, well-funded public school with teachers who have all the resources they need?
90% of US kids attend public school. 90%! Yes, most are underfunded and underresourced, but many many many of them are loving and supportive. Yes, I too have memories of my 13 years of public school that are less than perfect and have heard individual horror stories of true problems with public schools, but the vast majority of those problems could be fixed with better funding, which we could get if the wealthiest folks in the country would get behind funding those schools instead of spending huge amounts of money to avoid sending their kids there.
posted by hydropsyche at 4:25 PM on February 4, 2023 [1 favorite]
90% of US kids attend public school. 90%! Yes, most are underfunded and underresourced, but many many many of them are loving and supportive. Yes, I too have memories of my 13 years of public school that are less than perfect and have heard individual horror stories of true problems with public schools, but the vast majority of those problems could be fixed with better funding, which we could get if the wealthiest folks in the country would get behind funding those schools instead of spending huge amounts of money to avoid sending their kids there.
posted by hydropsyche at 4:25 PM on February 4, 2023 [1 favorite]
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Sure, we have a pastoral art movement that claims living in a dirt hut and kneading rye bread is the pinnacle of human bliss, but there's also the argument for not dying of childbirth after your 8th kid or being buried in the potter's field after lock-jaw carried you off after sharpening the wheat scythe.
On the flip side, hookers and blow are awesome until you debauch out, and end up as the star guest on a child-porn-ring reveal live-tv gotcha journalism show.
Why is this so hard? Seriously? All I see is suffering, at every level.
posted by metametamind at 5:02 PM on January 29, 2023 [3 favorites]