I have to call BS on this!

[Robert Morse]

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/a...ing-on-500-000-a-year-in-income-can-seem-hard

If you are too lazy to read, the gist of the article is "people with an income of 500k are doing ok" and they should have nothing to complain about (the underlying implication is that we can safely raise taxes on that stratum).

Here is a rough breakdown of the budget for one of my coworkers who roughly takes home that much. First, Uncle Sam (Federal, State, City) takes his 35-45 percent, leaving him with roughly 300 grand. Private school for his two kids is probably anywhere from 60 to 100 thousand a year (not sure where they go, but more if it's a "good place" like the Lycée Français de New York). Then you have the mortgage (let's say 60k a year) and the maintenance/taxes on the property (another 25-30) which now he can't even deduct from his taxes (unlike cocaine, a legitimate business expense that he's not even trying to deduct). Before you know it, he's left with 150k to live on and the New York City is pretty FUCKING EXPENSIVE. This is before he set a single penny aside for his retirement. He certainly does not feel rich or even well-off.

The other bit that the author is forgetting is how fleeting the success is in almost every business. There was a study that about 10% of people reach the top 1% by income at least once in their lives. If you can't set aside much in those years, it really sucks.

Sorry, sle, but someone working in NYC does not have to live in NYC. They do not have to spend $1.2mm+ on their home ($5000/month is about a $1mm mortgage) and do not have to send their kids to private school. There are a number of good public schools in northern NJ, Westchester and Nassau counties (or Western CT) where you can buy a 3000 square foot 4 bedroom home and have a commute to Penn station or GCT that is 45 min or less and save the NYC 4% income tax and spend $700K to $1mm. If you make $500K a year, you should be smart enough to have a budget and know what will work for you and your family.

 

[Overnight]

Sorry, sle, but someone working in NYC does not have to live in NYC. They do not have to spend $1.2mm+ on their home ($5000/month is about a $1mm mortgage) and do not have to send their kids to private school. There are a number of good public schools in northern NJ, Westchester and Nassau counties (or Western CT) where you can buy a 3000 square foot 4 bedroom home and have a commute to Penn station or GCT that is 45 min or less and save the NYC 4% income tax and spend $700K to $1mm. If you make $500K a year, you should be smart enough to have a budget and know what will work for you and your family.

The above is all exactly equal to correct.

 

[Robert Morse]

For those that make $500,000+ year and spend all their money, let me play you a sad Song on the World's smallest Violin.

 

[fan27]

I drive a decrepit Toyota Fit that probably costs less than my garage a month. My total cost of ownership (garage, insurance and maintenance) is just about 8k a year. I can't imagine how much people in my garage pay for their Porsches.


Well, it happens naturally. My tax brackets and tax brackets of some dude in West Virginia are the same, even though my cost of living is probably 3-4 times higher.


A good place to live and a good school for the kids is pretty much a basic necessity. If you want to work in finance (realistically), you have to live somewhere within a reasonable commuting distance as you are gonna be working long hours. Pretty much any place like that would be priced rather richly and whichever of these places have good public schools usually have very high property taxes.

Move to Florida, launch your own fund and live like a king!

 

[Robert Morse]

Move to Florida, launch your own fund and live like a king!

Is that what you did?

 

[fan27]

Is that what you did?

Well....I was in diapers when I moved from NYC to Florida....so not exactly.

 

[destriero]

Lake Tahoe/Northern NV. I pay under 15% effective. A one hour flight to SF, door to door.

 

[Robert Morse]

Well....I was in diapers when I moved from NYC to Florida....so not exactly.

That was a clear set up for a joke, but I decided to pass.

 

[Overnight]

Lake Tahoe/Northern NV. I pay under 15% effective. A one hour flight to SF, door to door.

EXACTLY! OMG it makes my blood BOIL when I see these WHINERS go on about how poor they are by having to spend $4,000/month rent living in a shithole on the Upper East Side or wherever, while OWNING A CAR IN MANHATTAN which they don't fucking NEED (Are they afraid the subway ghouls will eat them? Too pussy to venture underground?), all to say they did it?

It is not smart. OMM said all that was needed to be said and more tactfully...I just had to chime in because I could not hold it in.

I am seething at the thought of all the half-million-dollar-per-year WHINERS who think they are poor. You MADE yourselves poor, you dumbasses!

When I was your age, we ate wood and rocks! <----(Bonus cookie to anyone who can recall from where that line came.)

 

[qlai]

I don't think it's good to have a system where people are discouraged to earn more. So someone is choosing to earn more (presumably by working harder/smarter) and spend more for a certain quality of life, why should they be penalized or looked down upon? I don't have an incentive to work more/harder because, after taxes, I have such a marginal increase that it's just not worth the effort(working for someone else that is). Cannot be healthy for society.