Does anyone have recommendations on how to overcome the resentment I feel against people like the author? I am jealous and frustrated by their advantage, but that opinion is purely negative and doesn't help me at all.
My Parents Give Me $28k a Year
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Re: My Parents Give Me $28k a Year
#72Relevant John Adams quote:
I could fill volumes with descriptions of temples and palaces, paintings, sculptures, tapestry, porcelain, etc., etc., etc.—if I could have time. But I could not do this without neglecting my duty. The science of government it is my duty to study, more than all other sciences: the art of legislation and administration and negotiation, ought to take place, indeed to exclude in a manner all other arts. I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce, and agriculture, in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain.
Re: My Parents Give Me $28k a Year
#73My guess is this is of interest to us because it sounds an awful lot like UBI. But, I think the key difference is that the money is connected to parents, who presumably have a standard for how it's spent. If E.J. ended up spending it on drugs or other perceived vices, there's a chance the money might be cut off. The point of UBI is that it is 100% no-strings-attached, which has a different dynamic. That dynamic is on…
We already provide a UBI to an entire demographic of people who are hopelessly dependant on drugs and mostly just sit around watching TV. It actually works out just fine. We call them seniors and their UBI social security.
Re: My Parents Give Me $28k a Year
#74Re: My Parents Give Me $28k a Year
#75Boy, does reading this make me a bit frustrated/jealous. Some people are just incredibly lucky (at no fault of their own!). I would write more, but it would be more therapeutic for me than entertaining to read for you. I also found the author referencing gender/race distracting(?), this situation could happen to anyone. If you do find this type of stuff about what the wealthy do with their wealth interesting, I highl…
As someone whose parents don't even earn/live off 28k/yr USD, I can relate to this feeling.
I didn't find the author referencing gender or race distracting, though I did find it very simplified/101 level. And yet she's still probably more self aware than her lucky peers...
Re: My Parents Give Me $28k a Year
#76Does anyone have recommendations on how to overcome the resentment I feel against people like the author? I am jealous and frustrated by their advantage, but that opinion is purely negative and doesn't help me at all.
I have none of those advantages either but I am fantastically lucky to be basically perfectly healthy.
I can only imagine what someone in chronic lifelong pain must feel about me.
I can just jump up and run whenever, wherever I feel like and my prescription drug bill each month is zero. Talk about an unfair advantage in life!
Re: My Parents Give Me $28k a Year
#77Small sample size, but I happen to know multiple people in their thirties and forties whose parents continue to fund their 'creative' lives. I can assure you they are not as happy as you think free money might make you.
Wow.
I'd love to hear a perspective from a parent funding their middle aged children's creative lives. Do they feel like they've failed to make their children self sufficient?
Re: My Parents Give Me $28k a Year
#78Plus, the parents apparently paid at least $250k in college tuition for her. So she has world class education, zero debt from it, and then this stipend on top of that . The stipend wouldn't go anywhere near as far if she were saddled with crushing student loans. I come from a more privileged background than I realized and that included better educational opportunities. I was in gifted programs as early as second grad…
Your point becomes even more true when you think about kids who grew up with not enough or even unhealthy foods. Their brains didn't have the resources to develop, so they are hamstrung from the start. Even more true when you see poorer neighborhoods near polluting factories and industrial zones.
Yes, I would really like to do something to put in a floor, so to speak. Something to help mitigate conditions for the people who are the most burdened by current circumstances.
Other people seem to think that's charity or a bleeding heart or something. I see it as just insurance to protect everyone so that stumbling doesn't ruin your life permanently with little to no hope of ever finding your way back to a comfortable life. I also see it as insurance against bloody revolution.
My opinion: Tech giants planning to flee to New Zealand when the Zombie Apocalypse finally hits are fools. A plan to ruin the climate and destroy the social fabric to line their pockets so they can live out the rest of their days in a bunker is lunacy. Why not just, you know, not be so monstrously greedy and, instead, leave the world intact so you can have a better quality of life than that?
Re: My Parents Give Me $28k a Year
#79My guess is this is of interest to us because it sounds an awful lot like UBI. But, I think the key difference is that the money is connected to parents, who presumably have a standard for how it's spent. If E.J. ended up spending it on drugs or other perceived vices, there's a chance the money might be cut off. The point of UBI is that it is 100% no-strings-attached, which has a different dynamic. That dynamic is on…
Yeah, my parents just started sending me $30,000 dollar checks this year and the first thing they said to me was "We aren't giving you this money so you can go off and buy a Maserati".
Re: My Parents Give Me $28k a Year
#80Maybe this isn't the right place to ask, but could someone explain the rationale for taxing gifts within a family? Ignoring the possibility of using it to circumvent an income tax, etc., my initial thought is that if my dad wants to give me $30,001 this year, or even $300,000 this year, that he's already paid taxes on it and it's not the government's business. I feel the same way about inheritance taxes, although tho…
At low levels, which aren't taxed, it's not going to affect anything. At high levels, like giving your kid ten billion dollars, you're making it impractical or impossible for others to advance economically. You're creating a class of people with indestructible inherited wealth that never have to work, that only have to collect interest and rent on the backs of everyone else. That's what inheritance tax and gift taxes…
> like giving your kid ten billion dollars, you're making it impractical or impossible for others to advance economically.
Zero-sum is one perspective, but not one that I subscribe to.
Does your neighbor having $10b of stuff make you better or worse off than if than if there's $10b of stuff at the bottom of the ocean?