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Dad, Are We Rich?

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Re: Dad, Are We Rich?

#81

Post by _bxg1 »

rb808 wrote: post #34

I think the HN bubble is far detached from the real world. If you own 100k+ of assets, most of the people in the world will see you as incredibly rich. If you own a house in the Bay Area even with a mortgage most Americans will see you as rich. Sure you might not feel rich because you have to go to the office each day and you dont have a sports car, but you are. Median and mean wealth per adult, in US dollars. USA: 6…

To be fair I also think this article's author is far detached even from the HN community. I could be wrong.

Re: Dad, Are We Rich?

#82

Post by _ah »

I think there's an important distinction to be made between rich and wealthy.

Rich is defined by income level, and often by lifestyle. A high-spending star athlete can be rich AND broke. There's a reasonable argument to be made that a high-income, high-expense lifestyle in the Bay means that you are NOT "rich".

Wealthy is a measure of saved, investable assets. Wealth is not income-dependent, and ideally grows over time rather than diminishing. A person with wealth may also be rich depending on the income generated by that wealth and their local cost of living, however they may also be merely comfortable.

The key point is: if you are Rich, good for you! But use that income to build Wealth which will serve you better.

Re: Dad, Are We Rich?

#83

Post by brokensegue »

geggam wrote: post #15
bob33212 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Humans naturally anchor to their social network. If those people grew up in rural West Virginia with coal miner family income they would tell you that 250k/year is wealthy. You have to actively resist this anchoring behavior. You have to remind yourself that just because your neighbor has a 50k car, it doesn't mean that your 10k car is not a good fit for you.

I came from a poor area. I used to think 80k/yr was rich. Time passed, I got work in Silicon valley with a wife and kids. Living there I think 500k would be middle class. Not even upper middle class. Perspectives change as you are exposed

500k/yr is definitely, at least, upper middle in the bay area.

Re: Dad, Are We Rich?

#84

Post by mtVessel »

scient wrote: post #68
themagician wrote: post #49

Only wealthy people have a hard time figuring out what the correct measurement is for rich. It’s a total lack of perspective. It’s always laughable to me what rich people consider “middle”. It’s like the word has a different meaning. Middle, to a wealthy person, extends from the middle all the way up to the top 10% by any measure. Maybe even to the top 5% of they want to talk about how expensive it is where they live…

I think you are the one lacking perspective here. The same way you are trying to make a point, I can make a counter point. The person making $20 is considered comparatively rich by someone making less than a dollar a day in some underdeveloped country. Everything is relative. If you make $100k and you live paycheck to paycheck because of housing costs, education costs, grocery cost etc., how can you claim their shoul…

Yes, but the point is that the gap between rich and middle-class in a single nation, under a single political system, perhaps shouldn't be as wide as the gap between developed and developing nations.

Re: Dad, Are We Rich?

#85

Post by 5trokerac3 »

sudosteph wrote: post #67

It's a bit ridiculous to see the hoops that some of the wealthy will jump through so they don't have to feel guilty about their position in the world. The person writing this article is almost certainly "rich" by any reasonable standard. Meanwhile, most families making 60k in the US (especially in areas with the best job markets and high COL) - are not. The world income comparison thing at the end is not meaningful i…

Studies show that money can, in fact, buy happiness, but its effect starts to plateau at the point someone makes enough to not worry about whether they can pay their monthly bills.

IMO that's the real separator you're getting at here - which, of course, fluctuates based on location.

Re: Dad, Are We Rich?

#86

Post by strikelaserclaw »

throwayEngineer wrote: post #52
rb808 wrote: post #34

I think the HN bubble is far detached from the real world. If you own 100k+ of assets, most of the people in the world will see you as incredibly rich. If you own a house in the Bay Area even with a mortgage most Americans will see you as rich. Sure you might not feel rich because you have to go to the office each day and you dont have a sports car, but you are. Median and mean wealth per adult, in US dollars. USA: 6…

The Physician takes for granted that his profession has a monopoly on perscriptions and declaring medical necessity. >Laughably some consider me rich I know the article is supposed to hate on the 0.1%ers, but since Physicians always say this crap about their income, it's important to know Healthcare costs are terrible because he is paid so well.

I personally think health care costs are inflated by middlemen like insurance companies.

Re: Dad, Are We Rich?

#87

Post by gowld »

teachrdan wrote: post #56

Was anyone else surprised that Dinesh D’Souza defines anyone who earns up to $15 million as "Upper Middle"? That can't be correct, can it?

You just can't fit such a wide range into a small number of levels. And at higher wealth numbers, there is a huge difference in total wealth including past expenditures for the same current wealth.

Re: Dad, Are We Rich?

#88

Post by themagician »

scient wrote: post #68
themagician wrote: post #49

Only wealthy people have a hard time figuring out what the correct measurement is for rich. It’s a total lack of perspective. It’s always laughable to me what rich people consider “middle”. It’s like the word has a different meaning. Middle, to a wealthy person, extends from the middle all the way up to the top 10% by any measure. Maybe even to the top 5% of they want to talk about how expensive it is where they live…

I think you are the one lacking perspective here. The same way you are trying to make a point, I can make a counter point. The person making $20 is considered comparatively rich by someone making less than a dollar a day in some underdeveloped country. Everything is relative. If you make $100k and you live paycheck to paycheck because of housing costs, education costs, grocery cost etc., how can you claim their shoul…

Everything isn’t relative. The middle is still the middle.

When you are in the top 10% by income claiming to be in the middle you are failing to realize that their are some 250 million people in your own country that are below you. The people who make your coffee, butcher your meat, package your products. You are failing to realize that there are 100-200 million people living either an actual middle class life or are in poverty by any standard you would understand.

Living in a place with high costs is a choice. It’s s choice that wealthy people get to make. Living in San Francisco in a small studio on a $100k+ salary and jokingly “feeling poor” is a choice that wealthy and privileged people get to make. It’s a choice I’ve made. It’s probably a choice you’ve made. But I’m not going to pretend for a moment, if I’m being honest, that my life even approaches an actual middle class life. I get to live in one of the best places on the planet with the best food, weather, museums, drinks, bars, technology, etc.. I have access to the best of everything… how the hell is that being in the middle? Go spend a summer in middle America where everything is cheap and see how most people actually live. Hell, take the BART to the end of the line and drive one town further and try living and working there for a bit.

Re: Dad, Are We Rich?

#89

Post by [deleted] »

rb808 wrote: post #34

I think the HN bubble is far detached from the real world. If you own 100k+ of assets, most of the people in the world will see you as incredibly rich. If you own a house in the Bay Area even with a mortgage most Americans will see you as rich. Sure you might not feel rich because you have to go to the office each day and you dont have a sports car, but you are. Median and mean wealth per adult, in US dollars. USA: 6…

[deleted]

Re: Dad, Are We Rich?

#90

Post by jedberg »

sorokod wrote: post #75
jedberg wrote: post #7

My measure of rich is "Can I live my current lifestyle without regular income from a job?". If the answer is yes, then you are rich. The trick here is to make sure to keep your lifestyle costs in line with your salary when you first start out, so that as your income grows you can save. So yeah, if you want a big house and nice cars and nice vacations, you wouldn't consider yourself rich compared to people who don't h…

What is so special about "current" in "my current lifestyle"? I am not saying it's a bad definition, but it highlites the choices that one can make, and so subverts the whole concept of "rich".

The purpose of "current" is to ground you and give you a baseline. If you're relatively happy with your current lifestyle, can you lock it in now and stop working? If yes, then rich, if no, then keep saving/investing/growing your income.

My overall point is that there is an upper limit to that number, after which no lifestyle (barring crazy outliers like buying a yacht a week) would require you to keep working.

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