Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Greenspun: Let's stop investing in our kids

blogs.law.harvard.edu

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 79 posts

Re: Greenspun: Let's stop investing in our kids

#51

Post by steveklabnik »

ilkhd2 wrote: post #2

Read the article. Visited link to Wikipedia article? Daymit, how you can SURVIVE on 35K a year in USA??? Maybe somewhere in Mississippi, but not in North USA. Still, you'll have to eat random crap from 7-11 and macdonalds...

I've never made close to 35K. I've been self-sufficient for the last 4 years or so, and I was living on roughly $17k for most of that, and I'm living comfortably on $24k right now.

I mean, Pittsburgh is a cheap city, but still, I live in the city. If I lived in the 'burbs I could do it for less. Well, maybe not, needing a car would probably make up the savings in other expenses.

Re: Greenspun: Let's stop investing in our kids

#52

Post by steveklabnik »

pyre wrote: post #10
thecombjelly wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I and many of my friends survive on less than 10K in the USA. Even Derek Sivers (from Mixergy interview) claims to live on 20K or less.

And that is able to cover: shelter, food, health care, transportation, electricity, internet? I'd really be interested in seeing a break-down of costs and how that is possible. [Note: I realize that electricity and Internet are not necessary to survive, but the person claiming to survive on $20K/year obviously has both.] [Aside: I hope that the answer doesn't come down to something stupid like, "I invested $1-million…

Here's a rough look at my finances. I currently take home $2k a month, and live in the city of Pittsburgh, for reference. I live in one of the nicer neighborhoods in the city, though I managed to find a pretty cheap place.

    Rent: $325/mo ($950 split three ways)
    Student loan bills: $500/month
    Fios/gas/electric: $70/mo, (again, $210 split three ways.)
    Food: I eat out a fair bit, so probably like $500/mo, on average? I could cut down on this a lot if I tried.
    Transportation: I bike everywhere. Spent $600 three years ago.
    Phone: $60/month, Nexus One on T-Mobile with unlimited data/text, small amount of minutes that I never use.
I don't currently have health care.

That puts me at roughly $1450 of spending. I'm sure I'm forgetting something minor. But for just expenses, that'd end up being $17,400 / year.

Re: Greenspun: Let's stop investing in our kids

#53

Post by ojbyrne »

houseabsolute wrote: post #4

I can't take an article seriously that claims we'd be better off without doctors and hospitals. Whatever fallacy that's called, I'm definitely guilty.

He makes that argument in several other blog posts, and the argument is that the cost of doctors and hospitals is so high that the entire thing could be allocated to other initiatives with better overall outcomes.

I think its actually a better argument than this one.

Re: Greenspun: Let's stop investing in our kids

#54

Post by ojbyrne »

nostrademons wrote: post #35
ilkhd2 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, but they have free healthcare (at least 400$/month worth), live in miserable living conditions (3 roommates in a basement), and have 0 savings. And, apparently they walk naked. Do not forget to add taxes. And waterbill. And trashbill. And phonebill. My observations are in total correspondence with Daniel Kanemann's research: For good life in USA you need $60K/year - more will not make you happier, less will make…

3 roommates in a basement is only miserable living conditions when compared to the McMansions that people are moving into now. My dad grew up in a 3rd world country. His family would be considered upper-class within their city, and yet they had 10 children crammed into a couple rooms, geckos in their living spaces, and mosquito nets to keep away the malaria. And they got bombed out of their home by the Americans, and…

People who make 10-20k a year still pay FICA. I did some rough calculations and someone making $400 a week in California will pay 20% in federal and state taxes, medicare and social security.

Re: Greenspun: Let's stop investing in our kids

#55

Post by wyclif »

btilly wrote: post #48
mattmcknight wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What this article does successfully through hyperbole is to remind us to add opportunity costs into evaluating the value of an education. Your quibbles about the obviously rough numbers don't subtract much from that key point. It obviously doesn't make sense to abandon education, but it also obviously doesn't make sense to pay $500k for it. "That the current salaries of recent college graduates represent their probab…

"That the current salaries of recent college graduates represent their probable average output over their lifetime." It doesn't represent that at all. It is saying that the value due to education can be roughly approximated by the starting salary. The gains from there are then more based on experience/work, not the education. Of course, you ignore the money made while you would have been in school. You also ignore th…

And it [a college degree] is an advantage again if you need to switch careers. (Which is becoming very common.)

But where's the educational correlation between a degree in a specific discipline and a change to what is presumably a different discipline? If I have a degree in Literature, I'm an editor at a publishing firm, and I get fired and then get a job in, say, the biological sciences, how is my degree intrinsically an advantage other than as a barrier to entry (a weeding-out tool) to the professional class, which is not purely educational in nature?

Re: Greenspun: Let's stop investing in our kids

#56

Post by seanharper »

houseabsolute wrote: post #12

The article pretends - That the current salaries of recent college graduates represent their probable average output over their lifetime. This is absurd for reasons that I hope I don't need to explain to all you startup founders. - That the salary of a graduate is a total representation of that person's value to society (and, transitively, of their education). This is wrong even if you think the total value of an edu…

I paid out the ass for my undergrad and graduate degrees, for neither was the primary benefit economic.

What is the ROI on reading literature, or listening to music, or doing puzzles or making art?

He is right, though, education has inflated at a ridiculous rate, it is a giant bubble, in part fueled by cheap debt.

For those of us that spend most of our income on education and also live in hip urban areas that have seen so much inflation in real estate, our overall inflation rate has been >10% / year for the past decade.

Re: Greenspun: Let's stop investing in our kids

#57

Post by BrandonM »

blehn wrote: post #49
ilkhd2 wrote: post #2

Read the article. Visited link to Wikipedia article? Daymit, how you can SURVIVE on 35K a year in USA??? Maybe somewhere in Mississippi, but not in North USA. Still, you'll have to eat random crap from 7-11 and macdonalds...

Really, it's not that hard. Conservative estimates: Wages: 35k Taxes: 10.5k Rent: 1000/mo = 12k Utilities: 200/mo = 2.4k Transportation (car): 200/mo+200/mo = 4.8k Food: 400/mo = 4.8k Total: 34.5k Get a roommate, use public transportation, get rid of TV, make your own meals, and you could probably put 5-8k in the bank each year. Even if you're living in NYC, it should be pretty easy to "survive" on 35k a year.

For me (the differences) --

Rent [1]: 300/mo = 3.6k

Transportation [2]: 100/mo = 1.2k

Food [3]: 250/mo = 3k

Total: 20.7k

Obviously that leaves a lot of things out, but that is what the other $14K+ is for. If you can't live on 35K, I'm guessing it's because you're either carrying too much debt, or you've convinced yourself you need to spend $X/mo on a car/living in /whatever when you really don't.

[1] Right now I actually am renting an entire house with one roommate and we each pay $125/mo, but we are renting from a friend. Before I moved here, I paid about $240 a month. I could easily find a place under $300/mo here in Columbus, OH.

[2] I don't have a car right now; instead I use public transportation or ride with my roommate or other friends. Even giving my friends gas money and renting a car once a month or so would only come to 1-1.5K per year.

[3] I could easily get by on about $125/mo for groceries. Doubling that allows me to go out a couple times a week as well.

Re: Greenspun: Let's stop investing in our kids

#58

Post by lr »

America (and we are not alone) is in a race to the bottom. Just like Coke and Pepsi spend more an more each year on advertising,-- because the other does the same -- doesn’t mean they are making that much more in profits each year. The same can be said for education: Costly perks need to be added because “the other guy is doing it”, and in the end, we just pay more for (mostly) what we had before. Seriously, has basic calculus changed so much in 30 years?

Re: Greenspun: Let's stop investing in our kids

#59

Post by t_androidicus »

houseabsolute wrote: post #12

The article pretends - That the current salaries of recent college graduates represent their probable average output over their lifetime. This is absurd for reasons that I hope I don't need to explain to all you startup founders. - That the salary of a graduate is a total representation of that person's value to society (and, transitively, of their education). This is wrong even if you think the total value of an edu…

I feel like this article conflates individual cost/opportunity with economy-wide cost/opportunity and then comes to a very wrong and dangerous conclusion.

-The individual case: First, the average graduate with a bachelors earns $50k and the average HS graduate earns $30k (1). So, let's take the worst case scenario, namely that you decided to go out of state without any financial aid. Your opportunity cost is $120k and your out of pocket expenditure is going to be roughly $160k for a total of $280k, which will take 14 years to amortize. I personally came out of college with $4k in debt, and worked p/t and in the summer to pay for rent and food (probably $10k/yr), which I would have had to pay for anyway, so if we adjust the opportunity cost accordingly, that's $80k + $4k = $84k which will take me 4 years to bring to parity. Not to mention, I'll probably enjoy the college educated work quite a bit more. Further, the opportunity cost issue doesn't take into account the fact that I got to spend four years studying abroad, partying with gorgeous coeds, etc.

-The economy-wide case: The key point to note here is that educated workers contribution to the economy is vastly greater than just their salary. If you work at Apple, your work is worth $1.3 million per year (2), and if you work at Matrixx Initiatives your work is worth $3.4 million per year (3). Now, let's say that the $500k figure is accurate. If you're a Matrixx Initiatives employee, in just one year, you justify the entire education of seven people. Of course it's all way more complicated than that: these employees probably have more than bachelors, if they'd started work at six or seven years old in a factory, they would have an extra fifteen or so years of income, etc., but if everyone went to the factories instead of school, our economy would probably look more like Vietnam's.

1. http://www.earnmydegree.com/online-education/learning-center... 2. http://primitus.com/blog/revenue-per-employee-in-china-vs-us... 3. http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fsb/fsb100/2006/top_performer...

Re: Greenspun: Let's stop investing in our kids

#60

Post by BrandonM »

ilkhd2 wrote: post #33
teaspoon wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jason Rohrer is an American programmer whose family has annual expenses of less than $15k: http://hcsoftware.sourceforge.net/jason-rohrer/supportMyWork... From the sound of it, they're not living on Big Macs. But they do live an unconventional lifestyle and have made material sacrifices to minimize their consumption.

I think, his parenting rights has to be taken back. He buys toys for kids used - which is very unhealthy. And he will not be able to buy cutting edge or very good stuff this way. No new books kids - Nope! Dad knows better. No new dress - nope! Dad has THE idea! In case of emergency he will not be able to pay for care for kids, unless he depend on government provided healthcare (do not get me wrong, I am "socialist" m…

Is this comment serious, or were you just trying to figure out a good way to get downvotes?
Post reply on HN