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Wells Fargo to pay $3.7B for mistreating customers

finance.yahoo.com

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Re: Wells Fargo to pay $3.7B for mistreating customers

#271

Post by xyzelement »

dvt wrote: post #198
bityard wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't mean to marginalize your frustration, but I feel like you may have unrealistic expectations. First, you have a tech industry salary, which is probably at least twice as much as the median wage, if not more. Not only is it white-collar work with practically no risk to your physical safety (assuming you exercise, eat right, etc), but monetarily this puts you _way_ ahead of most people right out of the gate. If…

> Since you asked for it, my advise is to live well under your means, save aggressively, set goals, and never stop learning. If you want to challenge yourself, look into a concept called "early retirement." Good luck. Ah yes, glamorizing the hustle. You'll surely make it if you just "work hard enough," wink wink. Working a 9-5 career is (and has been) a net negative ROI for at least 2 decades, if not more. To be comp…

// You'll surely make it if you just "work hard enough," wink wink. Working a 9-5 career is (and has been) a net negative ROI for at least 2 decades, if not more.

Counterpoint - tech professional about 20 years out of college. Just bought a house in a nice suburb of NYC and all my neighbors are likewise working professionals. Some are in medicine, some in tech, some in things like construction management and education.

So seems like there is plenty of people for whom working has paid off.

Or to say it another way, who do you think lives in all these houses? Boomers and Russian oligarchs?

Re: Wells Fargo to pay $3.7B for mistreating customers

#272

Post by sweezyjeezy »

bityard wrote: post #187
sizzle wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can’t even afford a home right now on a tech salary with sky high rent paying off my landlords 2% refi’d mortgage and student loans making it impossible at 6-7% fed interest rate hikes and inflated home prices after the insane COVID housing price bubble increase. I feel like life won’t start for another 5+ years for people like me, unless we gamble on being underwater on an inflated mortgage entering at the peak of…

I don't mean to marginalize your frustration, but I feel like you may have unrealistic expectations. First, you have a tech industry salary, which is probably at least twice as much as the median wage, if not more. Not only is it white-collar work with practically no risk to your physical safety (assuming you exercise, eat right, etc), but monetarily this puts you _way_ ahead of most people right out of the gate. If…

(I live in London) You didn't save til 40, now own multiple properties? Yeah our generation can't do that. While having a high paying job is great, it usually comes hand-in-hand with HCOL and obscene local property prices, meaning you have to either a) move to and live somewhere else (work remotely?), b) have to settle for living somewhere basic for a few years, c) rent forever.

That decision really sucks. Previous generations didn't face this. Yes of course, we have to set our expectations accordingly. But some acknowledgement from people like yourself who got started in easier times, and didn't actually go through this, would be appreciated.

https://www.longtermtrends.net/home-price-median-annual-inco...

Re: Wells Fargo to pay $3.7B for mistreating customers

#273

Post by ryanianian »

sizzle wrote: post #255
mrhands556 wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I bought my first two houses over the last 10 years and each time I thought we were at the peak, and I was way wrong. First mortgage had over 5% mortgage rate and 2nd was the same. Outside of closing costs mortgage rates are temporary (can always refi). Land is a finite resource. It should continue to go up.

You really think the people who got a <3.5% interest rate loan will let go of their properties in the next 5 years to purchase a 5%+ mortgage for a more expensive monthly payment? What incentive do they have?

"Starter homes" (1-2 bedrooms) see lots of turnover as families outgrow them.

Re: Wells Fargo to pay $3.7B for mistreating customers

#275

Post by xyzelement »

sizzle wrote: post #139
obblekk wrote: post #9

I feel so much cognitive dissonance realizing that there are hard working people literally losing their home and shelter wrongly while I might be sitting across from them at any time, expecting them to behave within normal social boundaries. Imagine a family with a new born, working 50+ hours at a physically demanding job, making $80k/yr combined, and then losing their home for no reason... and then being expected to…

I can’t even afford a home right now on a tech salary with sky high rent paying off my landlords 2% refi’d mortgage and student loans making it impossible at 6-7% fed interest rate hikes and inflated home prices after the insane COVID housing price bubble increase. I feel like life won’t start for another 5+ years for people like me, unless we gamble on being underwater on an inflated mortgage entering at the peak of…

// I can’t even afford a home right now on a tech salary

As another poster commented - where have you looked and what have you tried?

From recent experience, a nice but modest house in the suburbs of NYC is like 1.5 million. An equivalent house in a nice suburb of Cleveland is like 500k, and a smaller 3 bed/2 bath there can be had for under 300. If you are willing to go further afield (but still be in a town with a decent school etc) you can get that for under 170 [1]

What's the thing you can't afford, the 1.5 mil or the 170k house? And if you really can't swing the later on a tech salary, maybe we can talk about what's going on there because you should be able to.

Also heuristically, whenever someone talks about stuff like their landlord's mortgage rate rather than factors under their own control, it's a bad sign.

[1] https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/9672-E-Idlewood-Dr-Twinsb... for example.

Re: Wells Fargo to pay $3.7B for mistreating customers

#277

Post by madengr »

dvt wrote: post #241
saagarjha wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, you already probably know this, but the risk profile of a startup that fails is not that you keep your money constant. It’s that you’ve been spending it all on rent and utilities for the last 7 years and have nothing to show for it. You’re still gambling away your savings, at a much slower and controlled rate, and the house at least doesn’t have the advantage over you, but it’s still incomparable to the risk…

Yep, a 9-5 has no risk, but no upside. In my humble opinion, a startup provides the best "balance" between risk and upside for those of us that come from lower or lower-middle class. I think your 7-year example is a bit contrived, since (barring exceptions like biotech, space, etc.) if you're working on a project for more than 6 months without product-market fit and/or growth, you're doing something wrong.

No post body was provided.

Re: Wells Fargo to pay $3.7B for mistreating customers

#278

Post by dvt »

xyzelement wrote: post #271
dvt wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Since you asked for it, my advise is to live well under your means, save aggressively, set goals, and never stop learning. If you want to challenge yourself, look into a concept called "early retirement." Good luck. Ah yes, glamorizing the hustle. You'll surely make it if you just "work hard enough," wink wink. Working a 9-5 career is (and has been) a net negative ROI for at least 2 decades, if not more. To be comp…

// You'll surely make it if you just "work hard enough," wink wink. Working a 9-5 career is (and has been) a net negative ROI for at least 2 decades, if not more. Counterpoint - tech professional about 20 years out of college. Just bought a house in a nice suburb of NYC and all my neighbors are likewise working professionals. Some are in medicine, some in tech, some in things like construction management and educatio…

I mean you’re a gen X-er, it makes sense that you have zero idea what people that graduated college in 2008 went through. For context, people that had degrees in comp sci were working as Best Buy’s Geek Squad.

On the bright side, you timed the dot-com dip perfectly!

Re: Wells Fargo to pay $3.7B for mistreating customers

#279

Post by dvt »

scarface74 wrote: post #260
dvt wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Since you asked for it, my advise is to live well under your means, save aggressively, set goals, and never stop learning. If you want to challenge yourself, look into a concept called "early retirement." Good luck. Ah yes, glamorizing the hustle. You'll surely make it if you just "work hard enough," wink wink. Working a 9-5 career is (and has been) a net negative ROI for at least 2 decades, if not more. To be comp…

> To be completely honest, this is why I'm on HN: doing your own startup is one of the few relatively low risk gambles one can take. This take is relatively…naive Most startups fail and you would be much better off “grinding LeetCode and working for a FAANG” (tm r/cscareerquestions). That’s just like people “starting their own business” and buying a franchise where their net profit is less than $70K a year and that’s…

I disagree on a number of levels, but especially because big tech valuations were propped up by QE over the past 10 years, Tesla being the poster child there. But Amazon, Google, etc. have all been impacted by macro elements. So that “TC” people brag about has been heavily subsidized by the FED.

The irony of calling me naive when not even understanding macroeconomic effects is… something.

Re: Wells Fargo to pay $3.7B for mistreating customers

#280

Post by xyzelement »

sweezyjeezy wrote: post #272
bityard wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't mean to marginalize your frustration, but I feel like you may have unrealistic expectations. First, you have a tech industry salary, which is probably at least twice as much as the median wage, if not more. Not only is it white-collar work with practically no risk to your physical safety (assuming you exercise, eat right, etc), but monetarily this puts you _way_ ahead of most people right out of the gate. If…

(I live in London) You didn't save til 40, now own multiple properties? Yeah our generation can't do that. While having a high paying job is great, it usually comes hand-in-hand with HCOL and obscene local property prices, meaning you have to either a) move to and live somewhere else (work remotely?), b) have to settle for living somewhere basic for a few years, c) rent forever. That decision really sucks. Previous g…

Is it really true that previous generations didn't have to sacrifice to buy homes? That seems patently false to me.

First, previous generations were significantly more thrifty which meant more cash on hand. Don't believe me? Let's say you save 30 bucks a day starting at 20 (most of us can easily do that by controlling how much we eat out) - that means you have 110k in your bank for a down payment on your 30th birthday (ignoring interest). How much of the current generation thinks that way and cares about saving 30 bucks a day?

Second and perhaps more obviously - our parents generation and their parents traded off affordable housing for long commutes. They weren't buying 3 bedroom apartments on park avenue, they bought 3 bedroom houses in the burbs and commuted an hour+ each way every day.

Compare to that, your options of working remote or living somewhere basic for a bit sound obviously better.

If you aren't willing to trade off what you want long term for something you can give up now, you won't have anything. And neither would anyone in a previous generation.

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