My Parents Give Me $28k a Year • Hacker News Board

Re: My Parents Give Me $28k a Year

#211

Post by maerF0x0 » Mon, Oct 29, 2018, 11:07 PM UTC

astrodust wrote: post #194

maerF0x0 wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 wealth is invested in profitable ventures that either create benefits in the system (assuming rational actors) or 2) lose value due to poor choices. Capital is rewarded because the investors are taking opportunity cost risks that advance the s…

I think you have a profound misunderstanding of what someone with billions of dollars in inherited wealth does with their money. It's not investing in "profitable ventures" that "create benefits", it's tied up in businesses they inherited, it's squirreled away in tax havens, it's spent on lavish properties, club memberships, expensive cars, and tuition for their children. If you're lucky a tiny fraction of that trick…

> it's spent on lavish properties, club memberships, expensive cars, and tuition for their children.

All of that is trickle down to workers for those jobs

> it's tied up in businesses they inherited

That means the sum benefit to humanity is still going!

> Then that money generates enough of a return that their kids can inherit billions in turn and the cycle repeats.

I cant imagine someone who more deserves to direct the money after their death than the one who earned it. I'm sure many parents (not Buffet though) would rather their child have it than the government.

> If you have even half competent people managing your money an estate worth $10B

I'm sure those half competent people are well compensated for their skills. Shame that billionaires are so evil as to provide those jobs...

Re: My Parents Give Me $28k a Year

#212

Post by njarboe » Mon, Oct 29, 2018, 11:09 PM UTC

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #200

frgtpsswrdlame wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet I bet that 95%+ of American white males would easily, easily, easily make the trade between 'shopping while black' and $28,000/year. I actually wonder if you took the poorest 50% of white males and asked them what poor treatment they would suffer for $28,000/year tax-free - how much would they willing endure? I dare to say quite a lot. >Having even absurd amounts of money doesn't make bias just go away. And h…

Intersectionality ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intersectionality ) is an interesting subject. Privilege has many axes and can vary with circumstances; it's dangerous to reduce to a one-dimensional less-than/greater-than scale. A black woman from a wealthy family may have more privilege and more opportunities than a white man from a dirt-poor family, and that must be taken into consideration if we want to make a be…

It almost like one should judge people individually and not by the groups they are a part of.

"I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."

Re: My Parents Give Me $28k a Year

#213

Post by sidlls » Mon, Oct 29, 2018, 11:09 PM UTC

merpnderp wrote: post #103

DoreenMichele wrote: post #63

Plus, 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…

And yet if you even dare to open up the argument that government should try to encourage the types of families and behavior that show the best results for this type of childhood, you'll immediately be drowned out in ad hominem attacks. Even Obama took a lot of heat for saying dad's should help raise their kids. Never mind more seriously statically relevant approaches like waiting until after high school and marriage…

Most of the arguments you refer to are actually thinly veiled racism ("black dads don't care about their kids") and that is the source of antagonism against them. There is more than a little classism behind Obama's remarks, though: he wasn't exactly raised impoverished or by family who were constantly running afoul of a racist, classist "justice" system.

Re: My Parents Give Me $28k a Year

#214

Post by aidenn0 » Mon, Oct 29, 2018, 11:12 PM UTC

drblast wrote: post #24

The value of this gift is much greater than then nominal sum. My parents gave me $3000 for the down-payment on my first house, which cost $100k. Otherwise I wouldn't have been able to afford to buy a house. But I bought instead of renting and ended up selling it for $200k years later. That was a big financial win early on and meant I was never in debt again. My financial situation at the time was barely-making-ends-m…

My parents and my wife's parents together loaned me money for 6 months to buy a house and it saved me gobs of money.

This was just after the mortgage crash, so the fact that I could make a cash offer probably saved me $50-$100k on the price of the house alone.

In both cases, they just exercised an existing line of credit, so just them extending to us the credit they already received was sufficient to save us an absurd amount of money.

Re: My Parents Give Me $28k a Year

#215

Post by CobrastanJorji » Mon, Oct 29, 2018, 11:12 PM UTC

slimshady94 wrote: post #205

dumbfoundded wrote: post #72

Relevant 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 o…

What do the children of poets and musicians study?

I can't wait to find out!

Re: My Parents Give Me $28k a Year

#216

Post by xahrepap » Mon, Oct 29, 2018, 11:16 PM UTC

Inconel wrote: post #210

roymurdock wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If/when you have kids, assuming the economy looks roughly the same when they graduate college, would you consider providing them a similar $28k/year stipend if they decided to pursue their goal in the arts/a non-lucrative career? Maybe non-monetary support such as having a place to live with you at home? Or would you want them to learn lessons the hard way?

This is getting very hypothetical here, but I'll be glad to indulge your question. I'm unsure at this stage in my life whether I'll ever have the opportunity to have children of my own, but I would certainly like to. As I've spent some time in the foster care system, and seeing as it ended rather disastrously with me spending a good chunk of my HS years homeless, I'd very much like to get involved in being a foster p…

> I'd very much like to get involved in being a foster parent.

(Sorry to hijack) As a former foster parent, and now an adoptive parent, and a hopeful future foster parent: I strongly encourage anyone who is able to get involved to do so. There are so many kids who need the help only foster parents can give. There will never be a "perfect" time, trust me. But it makes me so sad to hear stories like yours about kids who are homeless :(

Re: My Parents Give Me $28k a Year

#217

Post by PhilWright » Mon, Oct 29, 2018, 11:17 PM UTC

slimshady94 wrote: post #205

dumbfoundded wrote: post #72

Relevant 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 o…

What do the children of poets and musicians study?

Their children are tired of living in poverty and go back to step 1.

Re: My Parents Give Me $28k a Year

#218

Post by monochromatic » Mon, Oct 29, 2018, 11:17 PM UTC

nickthemagicman wrote: post #206

maerF0x0 wrote: post #144

> With the arts, a student may be accepted to an arts program without a scholarship and find herself $200,000 in debt before realizing she isn’t going to be able to get a real paycheck with her arts degree—at least in the next decade. We need the government to stop backing these bad loans. Any bank that makes enough bad loans will eventually fail, so they try and avoid it. I'd rather see someone say "Well, you can bo…

Theoretically college is not supposed to be a purely business transaction.

College isn’t. Loans are.

Re: My Parents Give Me $28k a Year

#219

Post by jiveturkey » Mon, Oct 29, 2018, 11:20 PM UTC

DoreenMichele wrote: post #63

Plus, 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…

How wise of you to recognize your privilege. Very many don't. How old were you when you came to realize the advantages you had? Wondering if it was in your 20s, 30s, what.

Re: My Parents Give Me $28k a Year

#220

Post by robotrout » Mon, Oct 29, 2018, 11:24 PM UTC

njarboe wrote: post #212

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Intersectionality ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intersectionality ) is an interesting subject. Privilege has many axes and can vary with circumstances; it's dangerous to reduce to a one-dimensional less-than/greater-than scale. A black woman from a wealthy family may have more privilege and more opportunities than a white man from a dirt-poor family, and that must be taken into consideration if we want to make a be…

It almost like one should judge people individually and not by the groups they are a part of. "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."

It is politically useful to pick at partially healed wounds to make them bleed again, rather than allow them to heal completely. I hope that MLK would have fought against the current trend of re-opening those wounds and undoing any healing that had already begun.