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

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

#81

Post by akavi »

ncmncm wrote: post #61

The hell of it is, he still isn't middle class. The US doesn't even have a middle class anymore. He is just no longer at the very bottom of the underclass. He is now mid-lower lower class. It is impossibly hard for most people not in the upper class in the US to conceive of just how impossibly far they are from that upper class. $100k/yr? Lower class. $200k/yr? Still lower class: you still can't afford to send your k…

> you still can't afford to send your kids through college, and still make your house and car payments, replacing your car every year or two. Yes, that was what middle-class people used to do.

Where is this halcyon universe where the median (or even the 75th percentile) American:

* Paid for their children to go to college

* Bought a new car every other year

'Cause that doesn't resemble any point in the past century of the universe we currently inhabit.

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

#82

Post by AnimalMuppet »

ncmncm wrote: post #75
ffggvv wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this is the distribution. https://www.statista.com/statistics/203183/percentage-distri... OP is just making stuff up arbitrarily

You wish. But I remember an America that still had a middle class. It wasn't like this. My father grew up on a farm, upper middle class. He carried around a roll of $100 bills, and once bought an airplane on the spot, out of it (plus the motorcycle he rode up on). By the time I went to college, we were mid-lower middle, and I worked my way through (took 7 years), but there still was one.

When I ask for evidence, and someone else supplies it, "you wish" isn't a strong rebuttal to the evidence.

> It wasn't like this.

I kind of have to agree with you here. I think three things made a huge difference: The breakup of the extended family, the rise in medical costs, and the rise in college costs. And, maybe, the failure of the pre-college education system to prepare people for the workforce (or even for adult life).

But the 50s through 70s were a golden time, at least in the US. Everyone else was rebuilding, and we had all the industry, and so we had a ton of jobs. But it wasn't always like that.

My father was born in 1930. He tells about having to re-use thread, not because they didn't have money to buy thread, but because the thread factories had closed. They didn't know when (if ever) it was going to be different. That was the first eight years of his life. So... it wasn't always like the 50s, either.

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

#84

Post by sershe »

ncmncm wrote: post #61

The hell of it is, he still isn't middle class. The US doesn't even have a middle class anymore. He is just no longer at the very bottom of the underclass. He is now mid-lower lower class. It is impossibly hard for most people not in the upper class in the US to conceive of just how impossibly far they are from that upper class. $100k/yr? Lower class. $200k/yr? Still lower class: you still can't afford to send your k…

This is an utterly deluded perspective that maybe only applies in hyper-regulated, to borrow from one below comment, "hellscapes" like NYC an SF. And maybe not even then. A median house is $400k (and yes, it's located near a job, probably a median job). A payment on that is In most of the country, $200k is not middle class indeed - it's "rich".

Real /median/ household income is still on "relentless rise": https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSA672N

Middle class "shrinking": https://www.aei.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/middleclass1....

To counter other left-wing delusions implied in this post, housing-to-income ratio is long-term almost flat, until the recent inflation: https://www.longtermtrends.net/home-price-median-annual-inco... I am not sure if they adjust by size, as median house size has also increased by a lot over this time; if they don't it understates the modestly of the housing price increases.

Government spending as %% of GDP is constantly growing, or at most flat in good times: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FYONGDA188S

And social services as %% of that are growing, too: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/04/04/what-does-t...

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

#85

Post by sershe »

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…

I am sorta in the same boat, because I grew up relatively poor I'm paranoid so I save/invest a lot and drive a Honda while my coworkers complain of dealer markups on their new Porsche :)

It would be a real bummer if civilization collapses and it would all be for nothing, but otherwise I hope to FIRE in a few years...

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

#86

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

ncmncm wrote: post #70
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #52

> We are slightly terrified at all times of losing these things. This is something that folks that came from The Other Side of the Tracks have. I came from there. People my age have grandparents (or, in some cases, parents) that lived through The Great Depression, and they have this, writ large. I still basically live pretty low on the hog, even though it is not necessary. This recession is an annoyance; not a disast…

> We are slightly terrified at all times of losing these things. This is something practically everybody in the US has. They are right to be terrified. The overwhelming majority of us are one life-threatening illness away from homelessness.

> This is something practically everybody in the US has.

You might be surprised. It is a valid fear, and I suspect folks that are older, and have families, may feel that way, but a lot of highly-paid, young professionals don't seem to understand that.

You will see this in action, as more and more tech companies start laying off their engineers.

I started off very humbly, and am constantly around folks that don't have a pot to piss in (and some of them used to be millionaires).

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

#87

Post by ffggvv »

entropicgravity wrote: post #44

And this is why Sweden has a more creative economy than the US. The state takes a bit more from the rich so that those at the bottom have at least, decent housing, health care, nutrition and education. In a capitalist system the top 10% will always be richer and the bottom 10% will always struggle. And this would still be true even if a magic genie came a long and made everyone ten times smarter. This isn't a knock o…

yeah except any innovation in last 50 years was in america not sweden. though i guess you guys have spotify and notch. (that was sweden right)

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

#88

Post by sershe »

ncmncm wrote: post #68
refurb wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This take is not based in reality. An individual income of $200k put your firmly in the top 10% of income earners in the US. But the claim is they are lower class? This seems really disconnected with reality. I’m not sure you understand what life is like for the average American.

I understand very, very well. The average American lives in a hellscape, one serious illness removed from homelessness. If you can imagine losing your home to illness, you are lower class like the rest of us. Upper class is what they call the 1%. Most of us are among the other 99%.

An average American lives unbelievably rich, safe life by the standards of pretty much any major country that has ever existed or currently exists (yes, including Europe - see e.g. disposable income, debt etc. here - https://data.oecd.org/hha/household-disposable-income.htm).

An average American is indeed saddled by a healthcare system distorted by misaligned incentives (tax-free benefits), tons of regulation and government ineptitude, corporate lobbyists abusing regulation and government ineptitude, and self-serving unions (AMA). However, the probabilistic impact of medical bills is basically non-existent on an average American. This is kinda like car crashes vs plane crashes - one is actually a cause for concern, the other makes good news stories.

The biggest difference between median and average, for Americans, is the amount of whining - while a median American seems pretty ok, the average is driven up by super-whiners who tend to either live in a crappy, expensive city for no reason; have a useless humanities degree; or think that luxury is a human right. Or some combination of the three :)

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

#89

Post by refurb »

ProjectArcturis wrote: post #80
ncmncm wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no middle class anymore. What you mention are lower class pressures. Middle-class pressures, back when there was one , meant you were expected to get a new car every year. There were reasons for that, back then: tetraethyl lead additives in the gasoline destroyed engines in no time. But it was not a big drain on middle-class people, just an expense to keep up with. "They" have been very, very good at convinc…

I don't know why you're claiming middle class people used to get a new car every year. It used to be that a man with a high-school education could provide fairly well for his family as the sole breadwinner. But a new car every year is fantasy.

I know plenty of people who live off one income, not always but usually the father.

They’re usually people working trades in the mid-west, but they own a nice house, have cars, and savings in the bank.

It’s still possible. But it seems like few people are interested in those careers or living in those locations any more. Usually because neither is prestigious enough.

If everyone wants an office job that pays enough to live in a trendy HCOL coastal city - yeah, a single income with high school only won’t cut it.

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

#90

Post by ncmncm »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #86
ncmncm wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We are slightly terrified at all times of losing these things. This is something practically everybody in the US has. They are right to be terrified. The overwhelming majority of us are one life-threatening illness away from homelessness.

> This is something practically everybody in the US has. You might be surprised. It is a valid fear, and I suspect folks that are older, and have families, may feel that way, but a lot of highly-paid, young professionals don't seem to understand that. You will see this in action, as more and more tech companies start laying off their engineers. I started off very humbly, and am constantly around folks that don't have…

Young people don't understand risk.

They imagine they are well-paid, but their fraction of company revenue is small enough that, all added up, it leaves enough to make the C-suiters billionaires.

Many of them will begin to learn, soon.

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