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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:the middle class is a very malleable concept - should we hold ourselves to what would have been a "middle class" lifestyle in 1910? or 1950? or 1980? where's the line you draw? Sure but a lot of the signifiers of “middle class” highlighted in these articles about how $250k/yr isn’t middle class anymore, aren’t. Median household income in 2017 was $61k. Top tenth decile is greater than 178k. 75th is 111k and 25th is 30k. If we accept the middle class as the middle two quartiles, that would pit it between 30-111k which is a hell of a spread. Even at 111k (household, remember), the absolute upper end of what should constitute middle class, a lot of the vacations, new cars, home ownership, etc that you commonly see as signifiers are not going to be effortlessly afforded. Basically we have been sold a consumerist vision of average middle class that is really the lifestyle of the upper middle class and low end rich. Which is a big part of what leads to so much thread content like people taking out 20% loans for a car that costs as much as they make in a year.
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Sep 13, 2019 17:28
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Ebola Roulette posted:How is it even possible to spend $400 a month at Old Navy? Wtf are they throwing their clothes away instead of washing them? Trick question. At current Old Navy quality levels, washing clothes also trashes them. 
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Sep 13, 2019 17:32
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I grew up poor so my perspective of middle class is that it starts when you’re making like... $60k+ in your household. I’m well above middle class in my eyes but based on the definitions in this thread I’m not there yet. It just seems like a relative concept that gets skewed the more money you make/the more privileged your upbringing.
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Sep 13, 2019 17:35
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Middle class is everyone making from half to twice as much as the person believing themselves to be middle class.
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Sep 13, 2019 17:40
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crazypeltast52 posted:Middle class is everyone making from half to twice as much as the person believing themselves to be middle class. Don't surveys (not sure how good they are) show that like 80% of people call themselves middle class? I don't remember the exact numbers I've seen, but it's something like people earning $600,000/year call themselves middle class, as do people earning $26,000. No one wants to admit to being an outlier, or some of them just don't realize how far off the tail of the bell curve they are.
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Sep 13, 2019 17:59
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ChickenOfTomorrow fucked around with this message at 03:08 on Apr 18, 2021 |
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Sep 13, 2019 18:07
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How many shares of VTSAX do I need to own to be considered beourgoise?
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Sep 13, 2019 18:15
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ChickenOfTomorrow posted:there's no such thing as middle class, just proletariat and bourgeoisie It makes more sense when you read it as "have to work for a living" - your job might be showing up and sitting at a desk and collecting a huge paycheck, but if you don't have an option to just live off your trust fund you could convince yourself you're "middle class", not like those guys that get private jets all the time
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Sep 13, 2019 18:15
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Two close boyhood friends grow up and go their separate ways. One becomes a humble monk, the other a rich and powerful minister to the king. Years later they meet. As they catch up, the minister (in his fine robes) takes pity on the thin, shabby monk. Seeking to help, he says: “You know, if you could learn to cater to the king you wouldn’t have to live on rice and beans.” To which the monk replies: “If you could learn to live on rice and beans you wouldn’t have to cater to the king.” (the Monk was summarily executed for his beourgoise offenses as he did not have to work for a living)
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Sep 13, 2019 18:19
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ChickenOfTomorrow posted:there's no such thing as middle class, just proletariat and bourgeoisie That’s not what the bourgeoisie is.
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Sep 13, 2019 18:21
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Cyrano4747 posted:Sure but a lot of the signifiers of “middle class” highlighted in these articles about how $250k/yr isn’t middle class anymore, aren’t. i wonder what the spread on quartile ranges are at this point, i gotta think there's a lot more dispersion these days
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Sep 13, 2019 18:21
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GoGoGadgetChris posted:How many shares of VTSAX do I need to own to be considered beourgoise? 420.69 shares.
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Sep 13, 2019 18:23
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Middle class is where you’re not worried about food but you don’t send the kids to private school.
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Sep 13, 2019 18:23
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DJCobol posted:420.69 shares. 31 thousand dollars?! That's not even enough for a middle class wedding!
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Sep 13, 2019 18:25
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DJCobol posted:420.69 shares. That's only 31442.37. Pshaw.
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Sep 13, 2019 18:26
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GoGoGadgetChris posted:Two close boyhood friends grow up and go their separate ways. One becomes a humble monk, the other a rich and powerful minister to the king.
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Sep 13, 2019 18:30
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Cyrano4747 posted:The larger issue is that what most people think of as a “middle class” lifestyle is decidedly upper class, or at least very upper middle class. Like, taking a vacation that involves an airplane twice a year wasn’t a middle class norm for a long time. OK so the problem is that reducing some of the ridiculous spending doesn't really help. I ran some rough numbers and was able to trim nearly $100k of spending pretty easily, but that was mostly an adjustment to a normal COL area. Killing off some of the ridiculous spending helps some, but not as much as that. So by my math, we end up with a family that needs to gross $190k/year to get what these people have at a more reasonable spending level. In reality, they're comfortable. They can afford to have things without going in to crippling debt. And most people can't say that, so that's a great position to be in. However, the REAL larger issue is that they need to make top-10% money to be comfortable. We seem to think that crazy things like retirement, day care/pre-k, and college are things that you only deserve if you have a high income.
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Sep 13, 2019 18:31
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To be honest, guillotine everyone who makes more than me, and anyone who makes less should just pull themselves up by the bootstraps.
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Sep 13, 2019 18:33
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DaveSauce posted:However, the REAL larger issue is that they need to make top-10% money to be comfortable. We seem to think that crazy things like retirement, day care/pre-k, and college are things that you only deserve if you have a high income. Yeah, in a lot of discussions I always point out that the problem isn't that some people make too much money, it's that everybody else isn't making enough. I want to be first in line to pull the guillotine lever but making enough money to save for retirement/kids college/still take a vacation isn't guillotine territory - should really be the baseline.
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Sep 13, 2019 18:45
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Moneyball posted:To be honest, guillotine everyone who makes more than me, and anyone who makes less should just pull themselves up by the bootstraps. But not too much, or it's guillotine time. totalnewbie posted:Yeah, in a lot of discussions I always point out that the problem isn't that some people make too much money, it's that everybody else isn't making enough. These things are very much correlated though. Giving a whole country a decent standard of living means that there's just gonna be less room for disgustingly rich people to be disgustingly rich. But you're right that retirement/college/vacation doesn't hit that threshold, not even close. Griefor fucked around with this message at 18:51 on Sep 13, 2019 |
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Sep 13, 2019 18:48
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totalnewbie posted:Yeah, in a lot of discussions I always point out that the problem isn't that some people make too much money, it's that everybody else isn't making enough. Look, if people didn't want to live like post-apocalypse wasteland scavengers, they'd be smart, good-looking, and get born into good families. How are you supposed to force these people to generate your wealth if 1. They don't know who their betters are, 2. They don't live in a near constant state of anxiety because your scraps just barely keep them alive, or 3. They don't keep playing a rigged game for something they need? If you let all these people take vacations and go to school, who's gonna serve me on my vacation and let me ruin everything of value daily?
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Sep 13, 2019 19:14
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GoGoGadgetChris posted:Two close boyhood friends grow up and go their separate ways. One becomes a humble monk, the other a rich and powerful minister to the king. The journalist passing by shouts "you should learn to code"
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Sep 13, 2019 19:54
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GoGoGadgetChris posted:Two close boyhood friends grow up and go their separate ways. One becomes a humble monk, the other a rich and powerful minister to the king. Goddamn this is a terrible retooling of Diogenes' greatest burn on Plato Well, greatest burn excluding the time he brought a plucked chicken to one of Plato's lectures.
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Sep 13, 2019 19:56
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canyoneer posted:The journalist passing by shouts "you should learn to code"
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Sep 13, 2019 19:57
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If you've ever been on a a vacation farther south than Florida: guillotine.
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Sep 13, 2019 20:04
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I am learning to code while driving an Uber and vaping out the window. When I get home at the end of my long day being managed by an algorithm, I greet my Airbnb guests who are trashing my place and leaving a 1 star review because it wasn't instagrammable enough.
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Sep 13, 2019 20:05
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Lowness 72 posted:I am learning to code while driving an Uber and vaping out the window. When I get home at the end of my long day being managed by an algorithm, I greet my Airbnb guests who are trashing my place and leaving a 1 star review because it wasn't instagrammable enough.
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Sep 13, 2019 20:06
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Moneyball posted:To be honest, guillotine everyone who makes more than me, and anyone who makes less should just pull themselves up by the bootstraps.
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Sep 13, 2019 20:19
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DaveSauce posted:OK so the problem is that reducing some of the ridiculous spending doesn't really help. I ran some rough numbers and was able to trim nearly $100k of spending pretty easily, but that was mostly an adjustment to a normal COL area. Killing off some of the ridiculous spending helps some, but not as much as that. So by my math, we end up with a family that needs to gross $190k/year to get what these people have at a more reasonable spending level. I fully agree that a comfortable life shouldn’t be the domain of the rich. My issue is that what we, as a culture, have determined is “comfortable” is loving insane. Vacations are a great example. Drive out to the country and rent something near a lake? loving human right tier poo poo here. But most people you see talking about a “typical vacation” are talking airplanes and hotels and experiences. This thread has a long history of laughing st people with crazy CC debt from financing some insane trip to Mexico or whenever. Or how about our favorite thhread third rail, weddings? The fact that even guillotine candidates making $100,001 think a $20k wedding is a normal middle class expectation is perverse. I’m not going on piss on people who are caught up in this bullshit. They’re victims as much as anyone else. But we have a culturally accepted idea of “comfortable” that is loving luxuriant.
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Sep 13, 2019 20:56
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Ebola Roulette posted:How is it even possible to spend $400 a month at Old Navy? Wtf are they throwing their clothes away instead of washing them? I heard on marketplace a well or so ago that on average an article of clothes is worn 7 times, 3 times in China. So probably yes.
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Sep 13, 2019 20:59
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spwrozek posted:I heard on marketplace a well or so ago that on average an article of clothes is worn 7 times, 3 times in China. So probably yes. Finally something I'm above average at.
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Sep 13, 2019 21:02
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Unfortunately I have to go to China to be above average
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Sep 13, 2019 21:45
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Moneyball posted:Unfortunately I have to go to China to be above average 
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Sep 13, 2019 21:48
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Sep 13, 2019 21:50
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Exploiting peoples’ dumbass patriotism is extremely GWM
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Sep 13, 2019 21:59
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I’m dying at the hand full of American flags and what is basically a single Russian flag.
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Sep 13, 2019 22:06
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Not a big hit of the BWM good stuff, but a lot of mini-hits: https://melmagazine.com/en-us/story...tm_medium=email quote:“At the time, we all thought we were going to the moon and there would be Lambos lined up on the other side,” says Kyle, a crypto community moderator. “But turns out most of us ended up with Camrys.”
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Sep 13, 2019 22:06
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 Sucks that dude got banned and we can't hear more about the bog witch
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Sep 13, 2019 22:17
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You want an update?
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Sep 13, 2019 22:20
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Moneyball posted:You want an update?
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Sep 13, 2019 22:21
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