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Dad, Are We Rich?

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Re: Dad, Are We Rich?

#141

Post by war1025 »

Spooky23 wrote: post #13
war1025 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having kids is the wrench in the gears for many people I'd guess. There's a reason for the term DINK (Dual income, no kids). Edit: Also to clarify, I absolutely agree with the living frugally thing, and think most people would be in general better off if they focused less on spending every penny they make.

The costs of having children are dramatically over-costed on internet forums. People going the DINK route are mostly prioritizing careers over life. It's a vicious cycle for many, who end up changing their mind and spending alot of money and opportunity cost trying to make up for it.

I agree that the costs are over-estimated. I think for me it is more the thing the sibling post pointed out of your risk profile changing dramatically when you have dependents. Most things in life these days, I don't really worry about how it will affect me, I worry how it will affect my wife / kids. Makes me much more cautious than I otherwise might have been.

Re: Dad, Are We Rich?

#142

Post by magnamerc »

trowawee wrote: post #130
magnamerc wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doctors are way overpaid. The barriers to entry to become a physician are un-necessarily high, and I have a suspicion that that's by design. You only need a moderate amount of intelligence to learn and apply medicine. If the barriers to entry were lowered, then physician salaries would fall precipitously as supply would outgrow demand.

Disclaimer: I'm married to a doctor. That said, I agree with your point that they are over-paid, but I absolutely don't agree with the idea that you only need a moderate amount of intelligence to work as a physician. A slight majority of my friend group is physicians, both through my spouse's education and work and through a collegiate friend group that mostly went into medicine. While I have many, many complaints ab…

I didn't mean that to across the way it did. I know some doctors, and they are extremely intelligent people, but it's a selection bias due to the high educational requirements required to get into med school. I think my point is that you don't need to be extremely intelligent to learn or apply medicine. I'd say medicine is on par with engineering, but the requirements to become an engineer are way lower than the requirements to become a doctor.

Re: Dad, Are We Rich?

#143

Post by cr0sh »

I don't typically worry about my level of income or whatnot, except when I think of retirement (which I also don't think will happen, honestly).

I'm more concerned on whether my family (wife and dogs - no kids - talk about a money sink) is happy and safe. On that level, we are doing very well.

We have a roof over our head in a relatively safe, if older, neighborhood. We have reliable vehicles (ok, both of mine are money pits - but off-roading ain't cheap). We have electricity, water, cooling and heating. We have time and money for regular entertainment and minor "luxuries". We have good health, and can afford a doctor's or dental visits. We have vision care. We can and do eat well. We have time for leisure and laying around doing virtually nothing if we want. We can afford hobbies and other interests.

By such a measure, and yes it is arbitrary and may not fit with other's ideas - we are "rich". But more than that, we are happy and safe. We have decent incomes, modest savings, and virtually zero debt (other than our mortgage, which is secured debt and doesn't really count - we didn't buy our house as an investment, but rather to live in - amazing idea, huh?).

Yes, we both know we are rich. To that end, when and where and how we can, we also donate to charities and other non-profit causes, respective to our values.

At the same time, I know monetarily I am not "rich" compared to even my local peers in the software engineering realm. I am sure that if I tried and looked (though my age might be a hindrance), that I could probably break six figures as an SWE here in the Phoenix area. It kinda irks me that I haven't yet, despite having over 25 years of experience, but it's mainly because I tend to enjoy and thrive at working for smaller software engineering businesses which tend to have few employees, and smaller client contracts. I'm fine with that, as I am happier in such places than in larger ones with more internal politics; or at least that's how I perceive it.

I don't make as much as I could - but I make enough to keep my family and I happy, safe, and comfortable. That's my definition of rich, for as little as it's worth I guess.

Re: Dad, Are We Rich?

#144

Post by war1025 »

docker_up wrote: post #57
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…

This answer is nonsensical. Yes there are vast swaths of people who are living in areas that are much poorer than the US. But that doesn't mean we need to measure ourselves based on the poorest of the world. Does that mean that we should ignore the demands of workers who want a liveable wage of $15/hr in the US? Should we tell them "you're rich compared to most of the people in the world"? The fact is that we measure…

I think what the parent poster was trying to get at is people tend to lump themselves in the "barely scraping by" bracket, no matter where they actually fall on the economic ladder. It's easier to see the people who have things you don't than to realize what you have that others don't.

Re: Dad, Are We Rich?

#145

Post by war1025 »

stevekemp2 wrote: post #44
lotsofpulp wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not the cost of birthing/feeding/clothing/daycaring. It's the cost of having a house in the best school district you can afford, sending your kids on ski trips or international vacations with their friends who also have higher income parents, and various other activities that are involved with being in the "up and coming" social group.

I think that's an America-centric view. In a lot of places in Europe it wouldn't matter what neighborhood you lived in - the schools available would be equally good.

It's not event an America-centric view, it's an urban America view. Live in a district that has only one school for each grade level, and suddenly the rich kids and the poor kids get the same education opportunities. I personally believe that's one of the reasons the upper midwest consistently has the best overall ranked schools in America.

Re: Dad, Are We Rich?

#146

Post by hakka-nyu-su »

themagician wrote: post #119
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…

It's worth noting the median income in around $60k per household, not individual. That's split between single income households and dual income households. A large (and growing) portion of households are dual income and $60k is roughly equivalent to two people in minimum wage, or slightly above wage, jobs. Being single in the Bay Area and making $100k as a software developer and jokingly "feeling poor" is not the sam…

Doesn't this "silent majority" get disproportionate political power in America due to the constitution's bias towards rural, White states (by, e.g. the senate and electoral college)?

Rent and other living expenses are also much higher in the Bay Area than in, say, Montana. So a dollar-to-dollar comparison that doesn't consider purchasing power isn't very useful.

Re: Dad, Are We Rich?

#147

Post by themagician »

hakka-nyu-su wrote: post #146
themagician wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's worth noting the median income in around $60k per household, not individual. That's split between single income households and dual income households. A large (and growing) portion of households are dual income and $60k is roughly equivalent to two people in minimum wage, or slightly above wage, jobs. Being single in the Bay Area and making $100k as a software developer and jokingly "feeling poor" is not the sam…

Doesn't this "silent majority" get disproportionate political power in America due to the constitution's bias towards rural, White states (by, e.g. the senate and electoral college)? Rent and other living expenses are also much higher in the Bay Area than in, say, Montana. So a dollar-to-dollar comparison that doesn't consider purchasing power isn't very useful.

It does give them disproportionate political power. But they’ve not had much choice in recent times because the political establishment ignores them. All Trump had to do to win was acknowledge they exist.

It is useful. It’s not like you don’t get anything for living in San Francisco. Wealthy people love to pretend like their is some kind of equivalence in terms of lifestyle because the big coastal cities are so expensive to live in. But they aren’t arbitrarily expensive. You pay more money and you get more things—things that people in Montana don’t have access to. You get access to jobs, technology, amazing food, cheap international flights, public transit, museums, parks, amazing weather, the list goes on and on. Making $100k in San Francisco still gets you $100k worth of stuff. Making $50k in Montana still gets you only $50k worth of stuff. Different stuff, but not even close to equivalent lifestyles. You’re not magically middle class just because you happen to make $120,000/yr and live in a $3,000/mo apartment. Do you realize how insane that sounds?

Re: Dad, Are We Rich?

#148

Post by ultrasaurus »

chrismeller wrote: post #10

So “comfortable” (or what I will equate with upper-middle) is now somewhere between 100k and 15m? Even excusing cost of living differences (BFE Kansas vs Market District, SFO or Manhattan), that’s a hell of a range. Assuming I’m single and have no kids one of those is, to me at least, comfortable to the point that I’m comfortable traveling pretty much whenever and wherever I want. The other is quite literally “f * yo…

I tuned out there as well. To describe upper middle class as those earning between 112k and 1.5MM a year... well sounds exactly like what someone peddling financial advice to doctors might say.

Re: Dad, Are We Rich?

#149

Post by rootusrootus »

username90 wrote: post #140
rootusrootus wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That may very well be true, but I don't have any good data. To hit 1% in income, you need to make about 750K a year. To hit 1% in net worth, you have to clear a bit more than 10M. So the question would be how many people hit 750K for a year, or a few years of their life, without accumulating 10M in net worth? Depending on lifestyle and location, I bet there are plenty of people who make a load of money but also spend…

> To hit 1% in income, you need to make about 750K a year. Source? Looks like the cutoff is just 300k a year. A pretty large fraction of developers at big companies like Google and Facebook should get above that in their lifetime. https://dqydj.com/top-one-percent-united-states/

I skipped past the dqydj.com hits on Google beacuse I don't recognize the name. Which isn't to say that it isn't valid data, just that I was looking for something that I felt was plausibly accurate. For example, this Investopedia article puts it at $718K when written [1]. CBS News puts it at 421K. CNN Money put it at $388K ... in 2014. In 2018 Forbes put it at $488K.

So it depends on who you think ran the numbers right. Or what they mean by 1% (some sources try to combine income and net worth to make a hybrid definition of 1%, which just muddies the water even more).

1. https://www.investopedia.com/personal-finance/how-much-incom...

Re: Dad, Are We Rich?

#150

Post by true_religion »

crispwafer wrote: post #114
g_sch wrote: post #9

I think the author is a bit too narrow in their definition of "political clout". They seem to define it as the ability to personally influence federal policy. However, as a class, people with $4M in wealth or more have an immense amount of political clout. Most contemporary US local, state, and even federal policies are geared toward attracting and retaining these people. Think property tax caps, mortgage interest de…

This is such a weird, backwards way of framing the situation. People in that income/wealth group fund essentially the entire government budget while also costing essentially nothing, so of course there is an incentive to retain them, but generally governments are trying to just stop one cent short of bleeding them so dry that they move away. In 2018: "The top 1 percent paid a greater share of the federal tax revenue…

My local school would have problems if that were the case, but median income is over 100,000 in my district.

All local schools basically get money from their surrounding households, and high income families live in entirety different zipcodes from low income ones.

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