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Senor_Macho_Solo
08/17/09

In reply to Washington Post Empathizes With Family 'Squeaking By' On $300K A Year
"We drive nice cars." Well, don't.
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vdiddy210
08/17/09

In reply to Washington Post Empathizes With Family 'Squeaking By' On $300K A Year
jesus. you guys are so upset but face it. you love it. you love seeing them hurt and it makes you feel better about yourself knowing that though you don't make as much money you are not wallowing like they are.

those who say 300k is rich are misguided, 300k is upper middle class. as a doctor, i work incredibly (i mean 85+) long hours to earn close to that salary. my lifestyle is a blend of saving and spending. but when my taxes get raised people say I deserve it. why? I spent the time going to school. I work almost twice the average work week. I spend overnights at the hospital. what do you do to earn your 40k? work 40 hours a week? if that's true then you have no right to argue. anyone who is willing to work hard can do what i do. I was raised in the ghetto, i was on welfare growing up. I know what it is like to be exceedingly poor. yet i didn't wallow in it and instead made something of myself. i went to college and then med school i busted my ass in residency working 100+ hours for 35k and now i'm a specialist and i feel like I deserve what I am now receiving. if you'd like to argue otherwise, please do.

I will admit that there are many people (housewives, born rich, celebrities, old money) that have excessive amounts of money and haven't earned it. but to say someone who works hard to make 300k a rich man who shouldn't cry because he makes much more than the average american is mean and obnoxious. if i make that much in my profession, it is because i am good at what i do and because I spent my twenties instead of partying working hard and crafting my trade.

the government takes 36% of my salary away from me. that's 3 months of work! I work 3 months of the year just for you guys not for myself, is that fair? I could pay my kids college tuition with that money. or I could afford some personal luxury. people at the cut off points are the ones that get shafted the most, they have to pay the high tax but don't get the luxury of having millions.

so think about that next time, I'm not saying this women is right. but before you clump her into the VAST majority of professionals who work hard for their living understand that they've worked their ass off to get to this level and they deserve some credence of luxury.
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El_Gato
08/17/09

@vdiddy210: This was all just an excuse for you to complain about your life.
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LatestBy
08/17/09

@vdiddy210: But your entire argument is based on the idea that people who make less work less hard. I could put in 80-plus hours a week. (And often do) without coming close to your salary.

I'm glad doctors are well-paid, I'm glad you found your calling, I'm glad there are people who work as hard as you do, but it's unjust and insulting to say that people who don't do what you do are working less hard.
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lefteye
08/17/09

@vdiddy210: I can support you on some fronts, but you totally lose me at the "I work 3 months of the year for you guys not for myself, is that fair?" Do you use roadways or public transportation, or have you magically hovered above the ground for your entire life? Do police prevent crime in or near your neighborhood? Did welfare put food on your family's table when you were a child?

Just please don't act as if your income taxes are all about supporting the rest of us.
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formergr
08/17/09

@vdiddy210: Actually, the 36% in taxes is for you too, not just for "you guys [us]."

Or do you not drive on roads, or would forego calling the police if your house were on fire?
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vdiddy210
08/17/09

@LatestBy: forgive me if i sound like i am generalizing. I was using the national average work day as my guide.

i agree that there are people who work very hard and still don't make ends meet and that can be upsetting and I can relate to that (i spent much of my life hearing my parents argue about it)

however, my post is generally aimed towards those that think that people who are making 300k are living a very privaledged and undeserving life when on the contrary they are the ones working very hard to be put in that category.

@ el gato. I am in no way complaining about my life. I enjoy it immensely. but I know that in a second it could be all gone, whether by death or debt.

but i will tell you it is very hard to swallow april 15th when I lose about 85k to taxes. on top of malpractice and loans and cost of living you can easily see where this is going...
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adoringava
08/17/09

In reply to Washington Post Empathizes With Family 'Squeaking By' On $300K A Year
I used to work in collections at an auto finance company and I had sooo many housewives that would a)claim it was the husbands bill-despite the account being in their name, and b)tell me they could pay; if they didnt have Billys little league and Susies ballet, and private school, and swim lessons, and they just had to hire an interior decorater, and the nanny comes first, etc. I always wanted to say "Maybe you shouldnt have bought the BMW SUV and instead settled for the Toyota"
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Mean_Ol_Liberal
08/17/09

In reply to Washington Post Empathizes With Family 'Squeaking By' On $300K A Year
This chick is pathetic, but less pathetic than the neighbors all equally "hurting", yet too ashamed to even talk about it. at least Steins is willing to break the bubble of illusion that in part contributed to the mess of overspending in the first place.

My husband, son and I live in the next town over from Steins on one third of her "squeak-by" income. We still get the excellent, but just not as swanky, Rye Neck schools. What we DON'T have is this ridiculous out-of-whack standard because my husband and I based our lifestyle on ONE income. If he loses his job, I go back to work for less than he can earn, but still pay the bills. (Son is currently 2, so I'm home.)

And no, we're NOT "just squeaking by". That condition had a lot to do with our earlier comments of "650 thousand for THAT? Are they out of their fucking minds?? No way." and similar commentary on housing prices in this area.

I've lived in Manhattan on 45-50K a year. It was easy to decide against ever sweating out that monthly panic shit again.
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Botswana Meat Commission FC
08/17/09

In reply to Washington Post Empathizes With Family 'Squeaking By' On $300K A Year
Julius Seizure would be an awesome band name.
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TheologicalSong
08/17/09

In reply to Washington Post Empathizes With Family 'Squeaking By' On $300K A Year
of course, the Post had to come to New York for this story.
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wonky-tonk
08/17/09

In reply to Washington Post Empathizes With Family 'Squeaking By' On $300K A Year
From time to time, nattily dressed "down on their luck" upper crusts should be blindly teleported mid match-point to some Guatemalan mountain bean field. Then see how "merciless" that midday sun feels praying to hoe a dollar a day subsistence! Any family or couple who hesitates to be deliriously happy on $300,000 gross income should be abruptly converted to compost! There is no honest, creative, hardworking and responsible man or woman in the whole damned universe who deserves or needs such a selfish annual stipend. Capitalism would thrive with a cap of $300,000 per year per truly exceptional earner…once all the corporate oligarchs and greedy vampires were financially stripped for their unforgivable larceny and obscene consumption, then chained to a barren reef, deep in the North Atlantic.
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HurtsSoGood
08/17/09

@wonky-tonk: Capitalism did thrive in an environment where excessive income was subject to confiscatory taxation and was thereby capped, more or less. It was the 1950s, the era of chrome and tail fins and two-tone pastel-shaded refrigerators and push-button everything. $10,000 was an executive income in the Eisenhower era - the rough equivalent of $250,000 today.
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johnny_carsick
08/17/09

@wonky-tonk:

*stands up, starts clapping*
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purn
08/17/09

In reply to Washington Post Empathizes With Family 'Squeaking By' On $300K A Year
anyone make 300K want to say something?
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CountryClubRepublican
08/17/09

@purn: if we cap all income at $300,000, who's going to give to the charities? Where will investment money come from to start new businesses and invest in new technology? We make that much and I'm still driving a 2000 Jeep because we can't afford a new one. Once you start making a huge mortgage payment and private school tuition, not to mention the high country club dues, $300,000 doesn't get what it used to.
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Grim Reaper of the Forest
08/17/09

@CountryClubRepublican: Well, that's the whole problem with the concept of "squeaking by". Middle class people would consider squeaking by having difficulty keeping a roof over their head and eating well. Rich people apparently think "squeaking by" is having difficulty affording country club dues and a ski vacation and the mortgage on the McMansion. I don't resent wealth at all and have a number of wealthy relatives who belong to golf clubs, etc. But when the wealthy see the resentful comments on stories like these they assume it is because people hate rich people, and don't seem to get that they live in an alternate universe to the majority of people in this country. I don't think we should start capping incomes, but I do lack some sympathy for the money problems of the wealthy.
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formergr
08/17/09

@CountryClubRepublican: If you can't afford to replace your 9 year old car, maybe the mortgage payment is a bit too high?

Private school tuition is certainly a priority, I understand that, but shouldn't there be some cushion? i.e. is it living outside your means then? I hope I don't sound judgmental, because I'm not (to each their own, etc), just genuinely curious.
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CarlIguana
08/16/09

In reply to Washington Post Empathizes With Family 'Squeaking By' On $300K A Year
Oh yes, a just vengeful God indeed, especially since the hard-up woman featured in the article was a vice president of a credit card company, of all things! Did she learn nothing from working in that industry?
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MollyBloomberg
08/16/09

In reply to Washington Post Empathizes With Family 'Squeaking By' On $300K A Year
I deal with this mentality every day. Here in the Bible-Belt (Oklahoma,) this lifestyle is ordained by God. I have friends with McMansions that look sweet on the outside but once you step inside, it's a meth-lab.

The irony is that this has lead me to actually believe in God. A just vengeful God.

Thank you, Jesus.
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baconismyaesthetic
08/16/09

In reply to Washington Post Empathizes With Family 'Squeaking By' On $300K A Year
Out here in San Francisco, 80% of all featured stories about families dealing with the recession are about the upper middle class and flat out wealthy. This is not an obscure story in the Bay Area. The "real story" of the recession encompasses everyone's stories, there is no single story, but god help me if I read another story about people like the ones featured in the Washington Post I'm going to torch the palace, suburban or otherwise. I know these are real people who are feeling the hurt in various ways, but as someone who has been poor in the past, and who is having a hard time putting food on the table, I feel this sort of helpless rage I can't control when I read about the struggles of living on 300K a year.
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___
08/16/09

In reply to Washington Post Empathizes With Family 'Squeaking By' On $300K A Year
I know at least two dozen families who are living on borrowed time....they burned through three or four months of severance pay and now they are burning through their savings with absolutely no change to their lifestyle and no prospect of a job in site.....even as the economy "recovers" a lot of these people will be left out of the loop.
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hypocriteoath
08/17/09

@Big Poppa: good? that was hard to type but I can't help but feel it is sort of the right thing. If people aren't learning to save and moderate NOW then they sort of deserve the worst that comes to them.
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Unsolicited Advice
08/16/09

In reply to Washington Post Empathizes With Family 'Squeaking By' On $300K A Year
This illustrates the recession most accurately, I think. People unable to buy food are not news. Suburban people facing foreclosure and upper-middle-class people facing a far less glamorous lifestyle are the real story of the recession.

People were blindsided out of lives they felt they were entitled to lead. THAT is new in America. Suffering at the bottom rungs isn't and never will be.
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skt.smth
08/16/09

@Unsolicited Advice: But it's not new. America is the land of upward and downward mobility. People rise and fall here all the time. It's all part of the big risk/big reward culture that's existed since the nation's inception. So really, there is no story here. And these people are not falling because of the recession. They're falling because they tied up insane amounts of money on the belief that their economic standing could never change. To say that this is news in America is like saying it's news that teenagers think they're invincible.
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___
08/16/09

@skt.smth:

But what is different is the millions of upper middle class Americans who felt entitled to the lifestyle of their parents...who built their foundation on real estate, banking or law who have had the rug pulled up from under their feet. A lot of these people are yet to come to terms with their inevitable downward mobility.
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skt.smth
08/16/09

@Big Poppa: Just because some people haven't yet come to terms with it doesn't mean that many before them haven't had to.
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___
08/16/09

@skt.smth:

I was only talking from my own experience. I honestly think all people can be clearly divided in two camps: spenthrifts and pennypinchers. There was an article in the Times this weekend about how the spendthrifts always marry the pennypinchers. I'm a spendthrift!
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Unsolicited Advice
08/16/09

@skt.smth:

I don't think you can argue that Americans weren't uniquely leveraged this time around. It's one thing if a neighbor binges on debt, but this was a national movement.
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skt.smth
08/16/09

@Unsolicited Advice: And the only way such a leveraging can flourish is in a culture prone to such reckless risk-taking. Doesn't work quite as well in a place like Japan, now does it?
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oneninesevenfour
08/17/09

@skt.smth: There was no flourishing of reckless risk taking in 1980s and 90s Japan? Leveraged on an out of whack exchange rate, corrupt banking, bad lending and property values where 200 acres was worth more than all of California? Um, I think there are some out of work salarymen that would beg to differ with you. Oh, and a dropping national birth rate after a decade of financial ruin. If birth rates could differ with you, they would.
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skt.smth
08/17/09

@oneninesevenfour: I never said any of those things, but if you look at Japanese culture, people are, by and large, savers rather than spenders. Which is why their economy grows at such a relatively slow rate compared to ours (even though they are, by most measures, the second or third largest economy in the world). There's a difference between people getting rich off bubble economics in Japan, and the way the average Japanese person actually handles his/her finances.
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hypocriteoath
08/17/09

@Big Poppa: only 2 camps? um. no. no way. grey exists. it just does. always has, always will.
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Pope John Peeps II
08/16/09

In reply to Washington Post Empathizes With Family 'Squeaking By' On $300K A Year
Julius Seizure is a pretty fucking great internet name.
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BookishLookish
08/16/09

@Pope John Peeps II: Agreed, though I am broyges with you because you will not heart me.
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Pope John Peeps II
08/16/09

@BookishLookish: My screen has a little heart under your name. It's even all red with love. Did I not heart you right?
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Rozelle’s Bagman
08/16/09

In reply to Washington Post Empathizes With Family 'Squeaking By' On $300K A Year
We are intrigued by your ideas and would like to subscribe to your newsletter - NYT Styles Eds.
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