patrick.net

That's probably true. People tend to identify with their perceived peer group and their relative position in it.

A study once asked a group of Harvard graduates if they would accept a certain amount (let's say 100,000 dollars a year for life) as long as their peer graduates got (let's say130,000 for life), or would they rather have (let's say 80,000 for life) as long a their peer graduates got only (let's say 50,000 for life, I don't have the exact figures). The majority chose to get less as long as their peers got even less than they did.

Status and wealthy perception are often relative within groups. If you think you are doing all right compared to your friends/relatives, you probably will not be that unhappy with what you have.

Class warfare is usually more about your own class and your attempt to do better than about a pie in the sky class you don't identify with.

There were actually people in poor communities during the Great Depression who thought they had happy childhoods, because everybody they knew was poor but they had a positive sense of community. They didn't even know they were poor until they went to cities to see that there were actually very wealthy people, and the poor there were treated badly.

Ceffer says

The majority chose to get less as long as their peers got even less than they did.

I'm familiar with that study. There's a correlating Russian proverb that goes something like: a magic genie agrees to grant an abject pauper any one wish he chooses, on the condition that the pauper's neighbor gets twice the amount; the pauper then wishes for the genie to gouge out one of his eyes.

JodyChunder says

Blurtman says

I am a millionaire+ now.

Me too, but I'm a dumbfuck.

There is an overemphasis on the money/success framework in the West. I sincerely believe that most people - no matter how enlightened they fancy themselves - cannot accept the premise that anyone can be really truly bright if they aren't also truly wealthy.

I agree with you on all counts.

JodyChunder says

Blurtman says

I am a millionaire+ now.

Me too, but I'm a dumbfuck.

There is an overemphasis on the money/success framework in the West. I sincerely believe that most people - no matter how enlightened they fancy themselves - cannot accept the premise that anyone can be really truly bright if they aren't also truly wealthy.

Except this - having a couple of million is not being wealthy. Recall that Mr. Drysdale from the Beverly Hillbillies was a millionaire in the 60's when that meant something. If they did the show today, he'd be a billionaire.

Being a millionaire today is being middle class, or what middle class should be. Except people have been pissed down on so long they don't know it.

Blurtman says

having a couple of million is not being wealthy.

sure it is. wealth is being well, and having no unmet needs.

Blurtman says

Being a millionaire today is being middle class, or what middle class should be.

middle class is having to actually work -- personally create goods or services -- for a living, while upper class is having your assets work for you.

$1M in assets throws off $20,000 in income if put into 10 year treasuries.

$1M distributed in say 25 $200,000 rental properties throws off a lot more than that.

$1M in cash is 25 years of middle-class income essentially. Halfway to the upper class lifestyle of not having to work at all.

Ceffer says

A study once asked a group of Harvard graduates if they would accept a certain amount (let's say 100,000 dollars a year for life) as long as their peer graduates got (let's say130,000 for life), or would they rather have (let's say 80,000 for life) as long a their peer graduates got only (let's say 50,000 for life, I don't have the exact figures). The majority chose to get less as long as their peers got even less than they did.

this is actually rational since so much of life's scarce essentials and luxuries is sold on the bid.

We find this in housing. Double area salaries and area home prices will skyrocket, too.

Life is a treadmill, as structured, thanks to all the rent-seeking going on.

finehoe says

That's the way the rentier class wants it. Give the peons just enough to keep them from rising up and taking back the ill-gotten gains the oligarchy has stolen.

The 1% collect all the welfare in the end. Just follow the money!

JodyChunder says

I actually think most Americans simply suffer from low expectations. I don't know why that is...complacency? Mass sedation? Impoverished imaginations? What is it?

We're all monkeys, and imprisoned by monkey-see monkey-do thinking.

This is a pretty good nation for getting ahead still, but you've got to see an angle and be able to capitalize on it.

All this takes figuring out how the world actually works, something that is not taught in public schools all that well.

But there are millions of people in the underground economy with the can-do attitude you speak of.

Hell, a rented meth house blew up not too far from me last year. The immigrant mexican stirring the batch got messed up pretty bad, but he did show the initiative it takes to be a productive citizen here -- find a need and fulfill it.

But it all comes down to capital wealth. Capital is that which assists in the production of end goods and services. The wealthier you are the more access to business capital you have, more connections to people who know WTF they're doing, and the more chances you can mess up before succeeding.

Major problem though is simply the masses are running out of money. No paying customers no business! Too much money is flowing up the pyramid and out of the paycheck economy, via housing rents, high healthcare costs, our $500B/yr trade deficit, and our corporatocratic economy.

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/CP

Like I say, the wealthy have a million ways to beat money out of the poors. The poors only have two, and one is a felony.

The housing boom/bubble of 2002-2007 was an immense stealth stimulus that distributed $7T or so of spending money into the paycheck economy. It was why things recovered from the dotcom recession, and papered over the bigger problems in the economy -- said trade deficit and collapse of local economies due to the rise of big box retailing.

Bellingham Bill says

Blurtman says

having a couple of million is not being wealthy.

sure it is. wealth is being well, and having no unmet needs.

Blurtman says

Being a millionaire today is being middle class, or what middle class should be.

middle class is having to actually work -- personally create goods or services -- for a living, while upper class is having your assets work for you.

$1M in assets throws off $20,000 in income if put into 10 year treasuries.

$1M distributed in say 25 $200,000 rental properties throws off a lot more than that.

$1M in cash is 25 years of middle-class income essentially. Halfway to the upper class lifestyle of not having to work at all.

$20,000 a year is poverty level income.

Blurtman says

$20,000 a year is poverty level income.

172% of poverty level for a single person.

Poverty is having unmet needs.

$20,000/yr -- $1600/mo -- with ObamaCare is workable I think.

PPACA exchange subsidies will reduce my health insurance premiums to $80/mo, 1/4 what they are now.

So health is taken care of.

Food? $200/mo tops.

Shelter? $100/mo prop tax, $100/mo insurance, $200/mo utilities, $200/mo maintenance set-aside.

Up to $900/mo, leaving $700/mo for other stuff.

Lease a Nissan Leaf for $200/mo, +$50/mo insurance.

Down to around $500/mo for everything else.

Not poverty.

Bellingham Bill says

Blurtman says

$20,000 a year is poverty level income.

172% of poverty level for a single person.

Poverty is having unmet needs.

$20,000/yr -- $1600/mo -- with ObamaCare is workable I think.

PPACA exchange subsidies will reduce my health insurance premiums to $80/mo, 1/4 what they are now.

So health is taken care of.

Food? $200/mo tops.

Shelter? $100/mo prop tax, $100/mo insurance, $200/mo utilities, $200/mo maintenance set-aside.

Up to $900/mo, leaving $700/mo for other stuff.

Lease a Nissan Leaf for $200/mo, +$50/mo insurance.

Down to around $500/mo for everything else.

Not poverty.

Your housing expenses are only workable if you have a paid off mortgage. Which means that you will need to have assets other than $1 million that's generating bond income.

for those of you that don't believe how good folks are living on govt benefits, keep working even harder with your head in the sand too busy slaving away to notice that those on the dole have it better than most working people. How do you think maury povich fills his audience seats every day with hooters and hollers. oh, i forgot, your too busy working to watch daytime tv.

JodyChunder says

Your gig in tech today was yesterday's job in the John Deere foundry; just a good-paying blue collar job...baby blue, but blue nevertheless.

100% Agreed!
Just 10 to 15 years ago, the wages I make now would have been enough to consider my self upper upper middle class. I could have considered Waterfront property near the beach.

To day it's just barely enough to keep afloat with a Ranchero Brubdale house, with lower middle class wants and needs.

Today my wife(who has never worked a day in the 20 years we've been married) would have to get a job and make what I make. For us to realize the same finances, that just my income alone would have made 10 years ago.

I'm making almost double now, but it seemed we had more disposable income when I only made 60K year, that was just before the bubble kicked in last decade.

CaptainShuddup says

To day it's just barely enough to keep afloat with a Ranchero Brubdale house, with lower middle class wants and needs.

What part of California are you in? You'd be sitting pretty with your salary out this way whereabouts I am.

Bellingham Bill says

PPACA exchange subsidies will reduce my health insurance premiums to $80/mo, 1/4 what they are now.

So health is taken care of.

You're going to make a Damn fine Republican, I guaran-fuckin'-TEE!

JodyChunder says

What part of California are you in? You'd be sitting pretty with your salary out this way whereabouts I am.

Florida, but I forgot to include, I have two daughters 18 and 17 who have it in mind, that my income is their income.

CaptainShuddup says

JodyChunder says

What part of California are you in? You'd be sitting pretty with your salary out this way whereabouts I am.

Florida, but I forgot to include, I have two daughters 18 and 17 who have it in mind, that my income is their income.

Might be time to wean them off.

New Renter says

Might be time to wean them off.

I have, but their Liberal education, expects me to support their every whim from that nice outfit at Wet Seal, to Monday through Sunday hang out money, lest they call me Captain Meany Pants.

Get this, one even has a Job. But that's her money to piss away in the same night of payday.

CaptainShuddup says

I have, but their Liberal education, expects me to support their every whim from that nice outfit at Wet Seal, to Monday through Sunday hang out money, lest they call me Captain Meany Pants.

So? Their "liberal education" is trumped by your "conservative purse strings". Wet Seal be damned, TJ Maxx, Ross, and yes even Goodwill have some plenty fine clothes. If they don't like it tell them fine, you'll buy the clothes yourself.

I'm sure they'll love what you pick out for them.

Given what people here call you I'm sure you can tolerate "Captain Meanie Pants"

This is main problem with anchor babies. It creates risks of a cycle of dependency.

http://news.yahoo.com/nations-breadbasket-latinos-stuck-poverty-120309988.html

adarmiento says

It creates risks of a cycle of dependency.

anyone serious on the cycle of dependency would work towards freeing the renting masses from their indentured servitude to landlords.

And we can't do this via Section 8, that's just rent supports.

We need to construct millions of quality homes in thousands of communities, to break the scarcity of livable neighborhoods and thus drive housing rents down to the actual cost of the capital -- sticks and concrete -- instead of the massive economic rents -- a trillion or so -- housing is pulling from the paycheck economy now.

A $200,000 capital investment can create a pretty damn fine housing unit, and 100 of those together is a good-sized multifamily complex.

That's a $20M capital investment. The Fed is buying $85B/month in bonds, we'd be better off if the Fed deployed that e-capital such that we could build 400,000 new mfh units a month!

That would push construction employment to the max:

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/USCONS

easily adding 5M+ jobs to the paycheck economy.

5M new housing units a year would mean a community the size of Fresno would receive 8,000 new apartment/condo units in a single year -- and that level of construction would be all across the nation!

That would crush housing rents everywhere, allowing the paycheck economy to use that money towards other wants and needs beside housing, and push landlords to find more useful investments for their capital.

Bellingham Bill says

anyone serious on the cycle of dependency would work towards freeing the renting masses from their indentured servitude to landlords.

if you dont like where your at.. move! Rent too expensive in SFBA.. move to Fresno.

Bellingham Bill says

That's a $20M capital investment. The Fed is buying $85B/month in bonds, we'd be better off if the Fed deployed that e-capital such that we could build 400,000 new mfh units a month!

See the great public housing programs that went belly up decades ago. What went wrong ?

CaptainShuddup says

Get this, one even has a Job. But that's her money to piss away in the same night of payday.

I don't get it...what's the problem, here?

Sounds like the all-American spirit.

adarmiento says

This is main problem with anchor babies. It creates risks of a cycle of dependency.

http://news.yahoo.com/nations-breadbasket-latinos-stuck-poverty-120309988.html

On balance, does mom's vegetable picking and resultant low food prices balance out the costs of schooling and medical care for her seven kids and herself?

Blurtman says

adarmiento says

This is main problem with anchor babies. It creates risks of a cycle of dependency.

http://news.yahoo.com/nations-breadbasket-latinos-stuck-poverty-120309988.html

On balance, does mom's vegetable picking and resultant low food prices balance out the costs of schooling and medical care for her seven kids and herself?

Women who care about their children's future, use birth control, and so do their sons.

It's because people in "poverty" in the US have a pretty high standard of living by world standards.

Blurtman says

On balance, does mom's vegetable picking and resultant low food prices balance out the costs of schooling and medical care for her seven kids and herself?

No.

Blurtman says

$20,000 a year is poverty level income.

That's the problem! We need to redefine "poverty" to much lower levels to match what they are in other parts of the world.

zzyzzx says

It's because people in "poverty" in the US have a pretty high standard of living by world standards.

They really don't. I was in Havana last month, and believe it or not, it's far less terrifying to be marginalized in that country. I'm not saying it's good, but it's worse here in many ways.

I was in Havana, Santa Clar and Cienfuegos. I'd been meaning to get back there since I was a young man. I've just always had a soft spot for Cuba, and more specifically, Cuban people -- honestly, the best people I've ever encountered anywhere on the planet, and Jody's logged some miles.

Wanted to get a jump on things before it opens up and there's a Starbucks on every corner!

JodyChunder says

Wanted to get a jump on things before it opens up and there's a Starbucks on every corner!

what would life be today with out those US financed Havana Casino's and Hotels from the 1930s and 40s.

thomaswong.1986 says

what would life be today with out those US financed Havana Casino's and Hotels from the 1930s and 40s.

I'm not sure what you're getting at here, Tom, but to answer your question in my own estimation: better.