On Being Rich-ish: Lessons I learned becoming suddenly middle-class • Hacker News Board

Re: On Being Rich-ish: Lessons I learned becoming suddenly middle-class

#121

Post by JamesBarney » Fri, Aug 05, 2022, 9:42 PM UTC

legitster wrote: post #7

I can relate to a lot of this, I was pretty stinking poor growing up. Now I make good money. (I still buy used tires from shady lots tho). But even now that I'm making good money, it boggles my mind how richer everyone else still seems. Like, how do so many young people have a favorite island in Hawaii? How is everyone out there affording new cars? People actually picked a college major without thinking about cost? O…

> One thing I have to constantly wrap my head around is that being broke doesn't correlate to income. I have a family and a mortgage and savings and nothing left over for luxuries at the end of the month. But someone working as a bartender can afford a new Jeep and go to Vegas 4x a year because they have a good roommate situation and they are due to inherit their parent's second house one day.

I feel like we don't count our own responsible expenses but double count other people's luxury expenses.

A new jeep is maybe 6k/yr. A trip to Vegas is maybe 1k. That's maybe a total 12k/yr

If you're mortgage is 3k a month and he's paying 500 a month in rent, you throw in two kids @ $1,000 a month and maybe 500/month in savings and you're looking at 66k in expenses which dwarfs the 12k.

Re: On Being Rich-ish: Lessons I learned becoming suddenly middle-class

#122

Post by ncmncm » Fri, Aug 05, 2022, 10:19 PM UTC

sershe wrote: post #116

ncmncm wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

America is a rich country. But the overwhelming bulk of its property and income is concentrated in the upper class. They drop crumbs for the rest of us. Sweden, e.g., is much less rich, but its regular citizens get a decent cut. So they are mostly a little better off than the typical American. That word "whining" is an effective trick. It distracts attention very conveniently.

If you look at the actual data, it's simply not true. Per capita disposable income in the US is 40% higher than Sweden. Housing spending as % of income is somewhat higher in Sweden. Household debt as %% of income is twice as high in Sweden (I was actually surprised by that). Net worth in Sweden is somewhat lower as %% of income, I guess it would make it a bit higher in absolute terms? Tax burden in Sweden is much hig…

The higher taxes actually buy them things, instead of making billionaires out of military contractors.

Re: On Being Rich-ish: Lessons I learned becoming suddenly middle-class

#123

Post by Feritioyyyyy » Sat, Aug 06, 2022, 11:27 AM UTC

samhw wrote: post #118

Feritioyyyyy wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh boy... My wife wouldn't and no woman in a relationship I know would care about this either. Love is not based on income. That sounds tremendous depressing. A partnership is teamwork not two doing different things.

So what if it’s tremendous[ly] depressing? It’s depressing that basically no animal dies of old age in the wild. It’s still the reality. Your comment doesn’t really seem to be trying to substantiate your claim, so much as it’s trying to paint a picture of how depressing his description of reality is. From that, I’m pretty confident you’re trying to define some ideal definition of love – which, if he’s correct, would…

He describes his mental image and his current relationship in a way which says 'if I'm poor my wife would leave me'.

In my relationship and in my marriage it's not me who is poor it's us. Or it's us who have money.

And neither of us would leave each other because of money.

And the sentiment his comment convays is at least also not reflected in relationships around me.

Re: On Being Rich-ish: Lessons I learned becoming suddenly middle-class

#124

Post by sershe » Sat, Aug 06, 2022, 4:16 PM UTC

ncmncm wrote: post #122

sershe wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you look at the actual data, it's simply not true. Per capita disposable income in the US is 40% higher than Sweden. Housing spending as % of income is somewhat higher in Sweden. Household debt as %% of income is twice as high in Sweden (I was actually surprised by that). Net worth in Sweden is somewhat lower as %% of income, I guess it would make it a bit higher in absolute terms? Tax burden in Sweden is much hig…

The higher taxes actually buy them things, instead of making billionaires out of military contractors.

What things? Anything actually quantifiable?

Perhaps American can use their wildly higher incomes to buy more things that they actually want.