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My Parents Give Me $28k a Year

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Re: My Parents Give Me $28k a Year

#231

Post by [deleted] »

sidlls wrote: post #213
merpnderp wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

[deleted]

Re: My Parents Give Me $28k a Year

#232

Post by cdoxsey »

soared wrote: post #71

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.

Gratitude for the things you do have and remembering how fleeting all of it is.

We all die the same in the end, so what really matters?

Jesus said:

“Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions.”

16 And he told them this parable: “The ground of a certain rich man yielded an abundant harvest. 17 He thought to himself, ‘What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.’

18 “Then he said, ‘This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store my surplus grain. 19 And I’ll say to myself, “You have plenty of grain laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.”’

20 “But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’

21 “This is how it will be with whoever stores up things for themselves but is not rich toward God

Re: My Parents Give Me $28k a Year

#233

Post by forapurpose »

robotrout wrote: post #220
njarboe wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> I hope that MLK would have ...

I once said similar things. Then I learned that MLK was told similar things then - he was constantly told that he was creating trouble by inflaming things. I strongly encourage you to read his "Letter From a Birmingham Jail" to see not only that the same things have always been said, but his response - it transformed my understanding of these issues.

> partially healed wounds ...

> re-opening those wounds and undoing any healing that had already begun.

I think we should question the assumptions that the wounds were as healed as perhaps is widely thought by people who aren't in minorities. What makes you say they are healed to the extent you think? When I ask people who have those experiences personally and directly, they almost always have a starkly different view of the amount of 'healing'.

Part of MLK's response is that, unless compelled to address it, people don't take them seriously and they linger. Racism has lingered in the U.S. for centuries. IME, people who aren't directly affected by problems tend to project their experiences onto them - they unconsciously infer that 'I don't see bad things' means 'it's not bad'.

Finally, a bit of a tangent: MLK is often adopted by white Americans because his message, misunderstood, makes them feel comfortable. MLK was very much about making people uncomfortable, and he believed (again, see the Letter) that that was the only way to foster change. (And IIRC, even after the Voting Rights Act, surveys showed that MLK had more people in the U.S. who thought negatively about him than positively.)

Re: My Parents Give Me $28k a Year

#234

Post by rory »

bachmeier wrote: post #174
ntumlin wrote: post #21

Maybe 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…

> I feel the same way about inheritance taxes, although those are high enough I'm not too concerned about it. Having just gone through this, your parents must be really, really wealthy if your inheritance taxes are high. You can inherit many millions of dollars and not pay a cent in taxes in the US.

Some states have their own tax which starts lower. Here in Massachusetts it kicks in at $1MM.

Re: My Parents Give Me $28k a Year

#235

Post by mmirate »

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.

It's a service, just like any other; and, in the occasion that the customer is able to utilize that service to the full extent, it is also a creation of a valuable good (human capital).

Re: My Parents Give Me $28k a Year

#236

Post by forapurpose »

Asking where the money will come from is buying into the way the GOP frames the issue: It assumes there is a shortage of money.

The U.S. is the wealthiest, highest earning country in the history of the world, with no real peer. #2 is the U.S. last year. When the U.S. was much poorer, it provided quality, inexpensive college education. Other countries that are not as wealthy do it. There is no shortage of money.

Re: My Parents Give Me $28k a Year

#237

Post by mmirate »

TimTheTinker wrote: post #181
DoreenMichele wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 comforta…

> Other people seem to think that's charity or a bleeding heart or something. I see it as just [...] I firmly believe that moral virtue and wisdom are inseparable. That is, to behave more virtuously or with more charity (in the old definition) is to benefit oneself more.

How so, and more importantly, how?

Re: My Parents Give Me $28k a Year

#238

Post by DoreenMichele »

jiveturkey wrote: post #219
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.

I believe I was 47 and had already been on the street about a year before I got solid perspective. My mother worked as a maid most of my life. For the longest time, I absolutely did not see myself as coming from some kind of privileged background.

Re: My Parents Give Me $28k a Year

#239

Post by RhysU »

bradleyjg wrote: post #209
jws wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the generational time frame, the estate tax serves to capture otherwise untaxed asset appreciation… Consider Grandpa buys an asset; as company, land, a football team, whatever. 50 years later Grandpa dies and his will transfers it to you. If Grandpa had sold it the day before he died and given you the stack of money, he would have been taxed on the appreciation of the investment. If there were no estate tax, then…

I’d argue that we should eliminate the step up basis at death despite having an estate tax. The estate tax after all only starts at $11 million dollars. Why should an estate with $10 million worth of appreciated assets pay no capital gains and no estate tax?

Why should an estate with $100K worth of appreciated assets pay no capital gains and no estate tax?

Re: My Parents Give Me $28k a Year

#240

Post by bradleyjg »

RhysU wrote: post #239
bradleyjg wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d argue that we should eliminate the step up basis at death despite having an estate tax. The estate tax after all only starts at $11 million dollars. Why should an estate with $10 million worth of appreciated assets pay no capital gains and no estate tax?

Why should an estate with $100K worth of appreciated assets pay no capital gains and no estate tax?

Right. I don't see why we need a step up basis at death. If you want to put it at $10,000 or something just to avoid a lot of paperwork for a de minimis tax loss, that'd be fine. But otherwise the tax basis of an asset should be whatever it was bought for, by whoever bought it.
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