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My Parents Give Me $28k a Year

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Re: My Parents Give Me $28k a Year

#251

Post by refurb »

BugsJustFindMe wrote: post #207
jimbobimbo wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

RE: "All white people": You are a white person living in Eastern Europe. How's your advantage now?

Compared to a black person living in the same place and going to the same school and having the same number of living parents with the same jobs and same dedication to success, probably very good. Please remember to keep other factors equal when comparing aspects of demography. Otherwise you've just strayed off into the wilderness of logical fallacyland.

Ok, you’re a white farmer living in South Africa.

How’s you’re whiteness helping you now?

Re: My Parents Give Me $28k a Year

#252

Post by toasterlovin »

ZeroFries wrote: post #52
eatbitseveryday wrote: post #43

> Still, when my parents told me they were going to give me about $2,000 a month, [...] I took it, spent part of it helping my then-boyfriend pay off his student loans and put the rest in the bank. > When my boyfriend suddenly left me (as men in New York are occasionally known to do), I had to pay $1,450 a month for rent on my own ($17,400 a year) on the lease we had just started, not including utilities. I quickly d…

Even marriage doesn't guarantee safety from a break-up, yet most marriages split finances. Suppose you thought with all sincerity you would get married, then helping your partner makes rational sense, especially if your partner is paying interest on a loan. That's your future joint account being drained.

To be fair, the level of commitment in a marriage is much higher.

Re: My Parents Give Me $28k a Year

#253

Post by microtherion »

refurb wrote: post #250
microtherion wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 Surely you agree that if he instead were to hire an extra gardener with the same $30,000, that money would be taxable as the gardener's income? So why should somebody who works for their money pay taxes on it, but not somebody who receives the money as a gift?

Because the money has already been taxed? But to your point, a gift tax also stops people from “gifting” their gardener and avoiding taxes on both ends.

> Because the money has already been taxed?

I stipulated that it is the SAME money. In both cases, it has "already been taxed" by the person spending the money. Yet in one case, the person receiving the money pays taxes, in the other, they do not.

Re: My Parents Give Me $28k a Year

#254

Post by DoreenMichele »

mberning wrote: post #167

First off - I really dislike it when people deal with blocks of people as if they are a monolith. As if all white people have some innate starting advantage, all black people have some disadvantage, etc. It’s a brutally racist mentality that is very common. Secondly, poverty is not a lack of money or material wealth. That is part of it and is definitely a symptom. But actual poverty is a culture and a set of habits t…

On the one hand, while homeless, being white very much helped protect me most of the time from things like simply being thrown off the premises. (Though certainly not always.)

Just as poverty isn't about lack of money per se, white privilege mostly isn't about money per se either. As you say, the money (or lack thereof) is really a symptom.

On the other hand, I also have a predominantly Caucasian genetic disorder classified as a dread disease because of the horrors it inflicts upon your life. So being white absolutely comes with a very huge downside for me.

I mostly don't get a lot of sympathy for that. I mostly get attacked and told I'm making crap up.

I wish we could default to seeing each other as spirits in a material world and try harder to find solutions, not scapegoats.

/2cents

Re: My Parents Give Me $28k a Year

#255

Post by ImprovedSilence »

mobileexpert wrote: post #27

A refrain that is very true in NYC. It is a bit off-putting (and just wrong) to read the author talk about white male privilege being a comparable head start to her half a million dollars of family money she’s received. (And 28,000/yr still coming!) For an essay centered on owning up to personal privilege it still has some serious short comings in recognizing how extreme her wealth privilege is versus almost all intr…

(bless her heart)

Re: My Parents Give Me $28k a Year

#256

Post by thex10 »

mberning wrote: post #167

First off - I really dislike it when people deal with blocks of people as if they are a monolith. As if all white people have some innate starting advantage, all black people have some disadvantage, etc. It’s a brutally racist mentality that is very common. Secondly, poverty is not a lack of money or material wealth. That is part of it and is definitely a symptom. But actual poverty is a culture and a set of habits t…

> I really dislike it when people deal with blocks of people as if they are a monolith. As if all white people have some innate starting advantage, all black people have some disadvantage, etc. It’s a brutally racist mentality that is very common.

Dislike it all you want, but observing realities that are often shared within blocks of people (as opposed to randomly distributed across every slice of every group of population) and daring to discuss them (out loud!) in a moderately visible venue should not be seen as problematic, and certainly not as "a brutally racist mentality".

Re: My Parents Give Me $28k a Year

#257

Post by GuiA »

darawk wrote: post #166
mpolichette wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Serious question, I'm wondering, why you, personally, value other people getting MBA/Engineering degrees over arts? I really enjoy going to the theater and seeing performances of all kind, just as I like tech/business advances. I want people to enhance the arts as well as the sciences. I acknowledge the idea of focusing on marketability and "ROI" for someone choosing their own path... However, when providing "access"…

> Serious question, I'm wondering, why you, personally, value other people getting MBA/Engineering degrees over arts? Because they increase GDP, and thereby pay back their education in the form of income taxes, and increase the available wealth for everyone.

...buying theater tickets or books also increases the GDP?

Re: My Parents Give Me $28k a Year

#259

Post by xyzzyz »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #195
mFixman wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is that the average person doesn't get $28000 a year. A landlord won't raise the rent of the author just because he has more money.

Why not? That's literally the most obvious thing to do as a landlord.

For the same reason a grocery store doesn't charge you more for milk just because you're rich: if they did, you'd simply shop elsewhere.

You know what happens if you raise your tenant's rent because you learned they have more money now? They move, and now you're losing money as you are trying to find a new tenant.

Re: My Parents Give Me $28k a Year

#260

Post by TheCoelacanth »

OJFord wrote: post #183
microtherion wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 Surely you agree that if he instead were to hire an extra gardener with the same $30,000, that money would be taxable as the gardener's income? So why should somebody who works for their money pay taxes on it, but not somebody who receives the money as a gift?

I assume therefore that you dutifully calculate and pay income tax on any and all birthday or Christmas presents?

Yes, I have calculated and paid tax on all gifts that I have ever given in excess of the reporting threshold (i.e. none, because I don't give away gifts worth tens of thousands of dollars).
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