Second long post of the day!
Sep. 28th, 2010 10:04 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sarasvatiPost roundup of an issue involving a guy who makes about half a million dollars per year complaining that it's just not enough to live on and that he's just barely scraping by.
... There aren't enough desks in the world to hit my head on.
According to this link, this person's budget breakdown is as follows:
* $60,000 in student loan payments
* $40,000 is employer contributions to 401(k) and similar retirement savings vehicles
* $15,000 is employer contributions to health insurance
* $60,000 is untaxed employee contributions to tax-favored retirement savings vehicles
* $25,000 building equity in their house
* $80,000 in state and federal income taxes
* $15,000 in property taxes
* $10,000 for automobiles
* $55,000 in housing costs for a $1M house
* $60,000 in private school costs for three children
* $35,000 in other living expenses
So right now, this guy sets aside the same amount of money per years for cars that Rei makes in that entire year and has to live on because I'm unemployed at the moment.
When I was employed, and making a good percentage above minimum wage (and I'd like to stress that by "a good percentage", I mean about $3 per hour more), we were together still making less than what this guy puts aside for "other living expenses." And we were living well. Not great, but certainly much better than we're doing now. His "other living expenses" (which may or may not include things like food, I'm not sure) covered our rent, bills, groceries, bus passes, medications, various debts, and still left enough at the end to allow us to rent a movie now and then or buy a video game and treat ourselves to a $40 restaurant meal every once in a while.
Oh, let me be more specific. His "other living expenses" would allow us to do all that stuff and still leave about $10000 spare at the end of the year.
Oh yeah, he's totally just scraping by, isn't he? He makes around 20 times what Rei and I made together each year! 20 freaking times! If I spent a single month earning as much money as he does, we could live better than we do now for over a year.
Like most working Americans, insurance, doctors’ bills, utilities, two cars, daycare, groceries, gasoline, cell phones, and cable TV (no movie channels) round out our monthly expenses. We also have someone who cuts our grass, cleans our house, and watches our new baby.... [W]e have less than a few hundred dollars per month of discretionary income. We occasionally eat out but with a baby sitter, these nights take a toll on our budget. Life in America is wonderful, but expensive. If our taxes rise significantly... the (legal) immigrant from Mexico who owns the lawn service we employ will suffer, as will the (legal) immigrant from Poland who cleans our house a few times a month. We can cancel our cell phones and some cable channels, as well as take our daughter from her art class at the community art center...
Most working Americans have two cars? How are they supposed to do that on the average income of $50000 a year? That's still a lot of money, by my way of thinking, and if we were making $50k a year Rei and I might invest in a car, but certainly not two, even if I could drive.
They only have a few hundred dollars each month to spend on nonessentials? Oh noes, poor them. Maybe they should clean their own damn house and cut their own damn lawn! Oh, but that would punish the poor people they hire to do those things for them, and we can't have that.
I'm sorry, Mr. Jackass, but when you're earning almost half a million dollars each year, you can afford your taxes. Nobody's forcing you to live in a fancy-ass house. Nobody's making you send your kids to a private school. Nobody's making you buy a new car every year or two.
His yearly income could allow around 30 single people to live in modest but comfortable apartments, eat well, pay their bills without trouble, and even have some left over for debt or splurges as the situation requires. (Of course, that's only if you ignore the advice given by financial experts that one's rent/mortgage should be no more than 30% of your total income... Honestly, though, if a person's making $15k a year, they can probably afford a $400-500 1-bedroom apartment without much trouble, if they're careful.) He is supporting 5, possibly 6 people (likely 6 since I can't see why he'd be paying private school tuition for his new baby) on what could easily support 5 times that number on a more modest budget and yet still let those people live comfortable lives.
He claims not to be rich. By the standards of over 90% of Americans, he is rich. He's just too busy sticking his head up his ass to understand that the majority of people do not live like him, cannot live like him, and probably wouldn't know what to do with all of his money if they had it!
I also love his comment: We pay about $15,000 in property taxes, about half of which goes to fund public education in Chicago. Since we care the education of our three children, this means we also have to pay to send them to private school. "Look at me, paying such high taxes to support worthy causes like public education. Which I clearly look down upon and think of as crappy because I 'care' enough about my children's education to send them to private school." Maybe if you took the $60000 a year you use to pay for private school and gave it to public schools instead, public education would get better for more people than just your kids.
I really despise people like this. They remove themselves so much from the majority of the populace, live better than most people, and then claim that it's just not good enough. No, what's "not good enough" are the rising unemployment rates, the economic waste because people are forced to live beyond their means just to pay the bills, the way this man doesn't even see the masses gathered below him who are crying out for just a few of his table scraps because what he throws away without thinking could make all the difference to somebody else.
As I said ontorachan's journal, I dare this man to walk up to anyone who's homeless and hungry because they can't find work, and tell them that he knows what they're going through, that he feels their pain, that he's just like them.
... There aren't enough desks in the world to hit my head on.
According to this link, this person's budget breakdown is as follows:
* $60,000 in student loan payments
* $40,000 is employer contributions to 401(k) and similar retirement savings vehicles
* $15,000 is employer contributions to health insurance
* $60,000 is untaxed employee contributions to tax-favored retirement savings vehicles
* $25,000 building equity in their house
* $80,000 in state and federal income taxes
* $15,000 in property taxes
* $10,000 for automobiles
* $55,000 in housing costs for a $1M house
* $60,000 in private school costs for three children
* $35,000 in other living expenses
So right now, this guy sets aside the same amount of money per years for cars that Rei makes in that entire year and has to live on because I'm unemployed at the moment.
When I was employed, and making a good percentage above minimum wage (and I'd like to stress that by "a good percentage", I mean about $3 per hour more), we were together still making less than what this guy puts aside for "other living expenses." And we were living well. Not great, but certainly much better than we're doing now. His "other living expenses" (which may or may not include things like food, I'm not sure) covered our rent, bills, groceries, bus passes, medications, various debts, and still left enough at the end to allow us to rent a movie now and then or buy a video game and treat ourselves to a $40 restaurant meal every once in a while.
Oh, let me be more specific. His "other living expenses" would allow us to do all that stuff and still leave about $10000 spare at the end of the year.
Oh yeah, he's totally just scraping by, isn't he? He makes around 20 times what Rei and I made together each year! 20 freaking times! If I spent a single month earning as much money as he does, we could live better than we do now for over a year.
Like most working Americans, insurance, doctors’ bills, utilities, two cars, daycare, groceries, gasoline, cell phones, and cable TV (no movie channels) round out our monthly expenses. We also have someone who cuts our grass, cleans our house, and watches our new baby.... [W]e have less than a few hundred dollars per month of discretionary income. We occasionally eat out but with a baby sitter, these nights take a toll on our budget. Life in America is wonderful, but expensive. If our taxes rise significantly... the (legal) immigrant from Mexico who owns the lawn service we employ will suffer, as will the (legal) immigrant from Poland who cleans our house a few times a month. We can cancel our cell phones and some cable channels, as well as take our daughter from her art class at the community art center...
Most working Americans have two cars? How are they supposed to do that on the average income of $50000 a year? That's still a lot of money, by my way of thinking, and if we were making $50k a year Rei and I might invest in a car, but certainly not two, even if I could drive.
They only have a few hundred dollars each month to spend on nonessentials? Oh noes, poor them. Maybe they should clean their own damn house and cut their own damn lawn! Oh, but that would punish the poor people they hire to do those things for them, and we can't have that.
I'm sorry, Mr. Jackass, but when you're earning almost half a million dollars each year, you can afford your taxes. Nobody's forcing you to live in a fancy-ass house. Nobody's making you send your kids to a private school. Nobody's making you buy a new car every year or two.
His yearly income could allow around 30 single people to live in modest but comfortable apartments, eat well, pay their bills without trouble, and even have some left over for debt or splurges as the situation requires. (Of course, that's only if you ignore the advice given by financial experts that one's rent/mortgage should be no more than 30% of your total income... Honestly, though, if a person's making $15k a year, they can probably afford a $400-500 1-bedroom apartment without much trouble, if they're careful.) He is supporting 5, possibly 6 people (likely 6 since I can't see why he'd be paying private school tuition for his new baby) on what could easily support 5 times that number on a more modest budget and yet still let those people live comfortable lives.
He claims not to be rich. By the standards of over 90% of Americans, he is rich. He's just too busy sticking his head up his ass to understand that the majority of people do not live like him, cannot live like him, and probably wouldn't know what to do with all of his money if they had it!
I also love his comment: We pay about $15,000 in property taxes, about half of which goes to fund public education in Chicago. Since we care the education of our three children, this means we also have to pay to send them to private school. "Look at me, paying such high taxes to support worthy causes like public education. Which I clearly look down upon and think of as crappy because I 'care' enough about my children's education to send them to private school." Maybe if you took the $60000 a year you use to pay for private school and gave it to public schools instead, public education would get better for more people than just your kids.
I really despise people like this. They remove themselves so much from the majority of the populace, live better than most people, and then claim that it's just not good enough. No, what's "not good enough" are the rising unemployment rates, the economic waste because people are forced to live beyond their means just to pay the bills, the way this man doesn't even see the masses gathered below him who are crying out for just a few of his table scraps because what he throws away without thinking could make all the difference to somebody else.
As I said on
torachan's journal, I dare this man to walk up to anyone who's homeless and hungry because they can't find work, and tell them that he knows what they're going through, that he feels their pain, that he's just like them.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-09-28 02:35 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-09-28 04:16 pm (UTC)I earn a bit less than what he spends on housing costs and I like to think I'm doing really, really well! Even in an area that has a high cost of living! I once got into a fight with someone on a forum (yeah, I know, I should know better) who kept insisting I was just scraping by because I don't buy Starbucks every morning (I don't drink coffee), don't have cable (don't watch tv), and don't have an iPhone (...and if I don't want AT&T's crappy service in my area??). I don't need any of that stuff so why should I be made to feel like I'm
"living in poverty" because I don't have it.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-09-28 04:25 pm (UTC)People also seem to have a problem accepting the lifestyles of those who aren't blatant consumerists, too. The shift in attitude from penny-pinching to spending money all over the place isn't really a good one. I noticed during the US recession that it was people who had practiced frugality for years who didn't have much of a change in their standard of living, if any change came at all, and a lot of them were doing very well for themselves.
Hell, I went for years without a cell phone, figuring that for the amount of calls I make when I'm outside, spending 25 cents on a payphone would be cheaper than $30 a month for a cell phone just made the most financial sense. The only reason I have a cell phone now is because my mother offered to pay for it until I get a job again, and an emergency last winter in which a cell phone would have been very handy convinced me that it would be foolish of me to refuse that offer.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-10-01 03:09 am (UTC)Yes, because it would be impossible for both of us to work without two cars. I once looked into taking the bus to work (for grins) and it would take 3 hours in the morning and 3 1/3 hours in the evening, with a 1/2 mile and a mile walk on either side, with me only being able to work from 10:30 - 2:15. Of course, we have a laughable public transport system (I'd have to travel all the way north to downtown, when I work 14 miles east of my house), and even besides work I wouldn't be able to get much of anywhere - the grocery store's only a mile away, I could do that, but that's about it.
There are plenty of places where life without cars just isn't possible, especially in the more rural MidWest. Granted, if I lived in downtown Chicago and a parking space was going to cost me $30,000 and the buses went everywhere I wanted to go, I'd ditch my car. But I really can't.
Now, you might say that "sure, but you could get dropped off at work by your husband, and get by with just one car!" (or vice versa). And, if we both wanted to waste hours out of our day, not to mention driving miles and miles extra, it might be possible, but it'd be annoying. And as my car is 12 years old and has been paid off for a long, long time, it's actually cheaper to keep it than it would be to buy the extra gas to drive all those extra miles (not to mention me not having to be at work early, or stay late, or run out at lunch to swap the car!).
That said, I don't claim to be poor or 'barely scraping by', and I certainly don't make that much! Of course, we also cut our own grass and clean our own house...
Now, the public/private school issue? I don't know about that - actually, public schools in parts of the US are very well funded, it's just... mismanaged. There was a study that shows the average funding per student was higher in public schools than it was in private schools, and yet the quality of education in private schools was better!? I think the issue isn't of enough money, rather, keeping that money going where it should.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-10-01 09:50 am (UTC)And I can definitely see how cars would be handy in suburban and rural areas.
Though I still contest that most working Americans have two cars. A good percentage, perhaps, and enough to be worthy of note, but I doubt that figure is over 50%. And if it is, by some chance, I think it would, for the most part, be another example of people trying to live outside their means.
As for the private versus public education thing, yeah, a lot of funding does get seriously mismanaged in public schools. Just referencing the school I went to, most text books were around 30 years old, if not older, and building was in need or repairs in many places... but by damn, the football players had shiny new uniforms! Some of that came out of the student fees we all had to pay, but there was some dropping of the financial ball all around, and we were still one of the best schools in the city. I think part of the reason for higher educational standards in private schools stems from the fact that they can often offer higher teacher salaries to attract better teachers, and will often also have a much closer student-to-teacher ratio.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-10-01 12:12 pm (UTC)You don't have to live outside your means to have a car (though I do know a lot of people do, although mostly with the house, I think). My first car, which my mother drove before me, cost us $400 and we had it for four years. It wasn't the nicest car (obviously) but it got us around! I drove to high school, because there wasn't a bus and it really was kinda far to walk.