Do most of you not realize how out of touch and privileged you are?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:apparently OP hit a nerve

She sure did. Look at how defensive they all are. "We're rich because we worked hard! All those LMC folks are poor / living paycheck to paycheck because they're lazy and stupid!"

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:apparently OP hit a nerve

She sure did. Look at how defensive they all are. "We're rich because we worked hard! All those LMC folks are poor / living paycheck to paycheck because they're lazy and stupid!"

OP, I bet you’d have lots more money if you didn’t waste your time responding to yourself on anonymous message boards.

[Anonymous]

I don’t know why there’s so much talk of immigrants in this thread. Indian-Americans are the highest earning ethnic group for a reason: it’s really hard to immigrate here legally (not seek asylum, which is a small minority of immigrants anyway) unless you have a higher degree and some wealth already.

So of course the kids of immigrants here are going to tend to be better off. There’s a higher likelihood that they were born to intelligent, well-educated people than there is for an American born to an American by birth. Immigrants aren’t the population to consider when evaluating what the US offers to average person.

One thing I think this board forgets is that only a third of American adults have a college degree, and that’s a lot higher than it was thirty years ago. If you were born to Americans with a degree, you’re already well ahead of the average American.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I hope, OP, you will donate your $600 stimulus check to the hungry people in poor countries. It’s a fortune to them, and many of them work way harder than you ever will, yet they don’t earn even $2 per day. Do you plan to keep your check?

+1

Spare us the sanctimony, OP.
Let's see the glass house you live in, I'm sure we wouldn't be shocked.

The irate diatribe would be more compelling if you walked your walk instead of just talking your talk.

Donate your stimulus and stop being a hypocrite.

[Anonymous]

We are immigrants. Legal. We did the work, Americans didn’t. Both my parents were educated and these were second jobs. No fun. It was all work. All the time, our privilege was and is that we were hard working and loyal to our family. We didn’t have abandoned fathers or money spent on nails and phones.

I do have a cousin now similarly brought up who pays his restaurant workers minimum wages (legally) and laughs all the way to the bank as we all pay his workers 20-30% in tips. These workers are privileged they work in a restaurant which is relatively less taxing than say someone loading grocery shelves in the night shift and doing a thankless job without tips.

This is a great country where colleges can legally ask for $80k in a single year of tuition despite sitting on millions and millions of dollars.

It’s also a great country that rewards you for having as many children as you can birth even if you have no means to care for them.

It’s a great country where you can become a millionaire even if you are here illegally.

OP, you shouldn’t complain so much.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I was just thinking about this very subject after reading some posts in the real estate thread about how there are no livable homes available below $1 million in the DMV. Where do people think the vast majority of the residents of this area live?

I think the cause of being out of touch is, for the most part, having also grown up UMC. I grew in a working class family. Neither of my parents went to college and worked in blue collar jobs. Our HHI is about $400K. I thank my lucky starts every day for this and live by the mindset that the rug could be pulled out from under me at any time. Despite my working class upbringing, I am not foolish enough to think I somehow "earned" my success. I had a loving family who supported me, worked in less than desirable jobs so I could go to college, and benefited from the luck of being in the right place at the right time in terms of career opportunities, the historic bull stock market, and low mortgage interest rates. A lot of people do all of the "right" things but the outcome is very different. We live in a $600K house in the suburbs. We drive Hondas and Toyotas. I do not have the sophisticated tastes of the UMC displayed on DCUM. I am more comfortable around WC and MC people. I do not care if my kitchen or bathrooms are the most up to date. My goals are to pay for as much education as my kids want and retire early because I value that more than annual European vacations.

I am like you though our HHI is ‘only’ $150k.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Just dropping in here to say that this forum makes me want to vomit. Especially here.

All this talk of people in their 30s buying million + dollar homes, people who are 40 years old and already 401(k) millionaires, people who have funded their future kids' college education while talking down to those who struggle to pay back their student loans only hoping for a break someday, people here bemoaning the budget constraints of a HHI of "only" $200K, people with investment properties, people with investments, period. Do you not understand that the average American cannot withstand a $500 emergency? That there is an eviction crisis in this country? That medical debt makes people wonder if their life-saving medical treatments are even worth the "life" they get to live afterwards? How one economic downturn can render a hardworking family penniless and homeless? That the AVERAGE household income yes IN THE DC AREA is far, FAR below the individual salaries thrown about in these discussions and that yes, AVERAGE and, gasp, below average HHI families need a place to live too? Two hour commutes each way be damned, "go move somewhere you can afford!"

I completely understand why people made guillotine memes in response to the proposed $600 stimulus checks this winter. And guess what, $1400 is not enough either. I hope all of you out of touch privileged people are taxed so hard your eyes bleed. You people are the swamp everybody else loves to hate. We need to tax the rich into oblivion and collectivize their assets, I swear to god. Don't EVER try to justify your cushy job as having "Earned" your right to complain about property taxes on your second investment property when this country operates like the Third World when trying to meet other people's basic needs.

Simmer down.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hope, OP, you will donate your $600 stimulus check to the hungry people in poor countries. It’s a fortune to them, and many of them work way harder than you ever will, yet they don’t earn even $2 per day. Do you plan to keep your check?

+1

Spare us the sanctimony, OP.
Let's see the glass house you live in, I'm sure we wouldn't be shocked.

The irate diatribe would be more compelling if you walked your walk instead of just talking your talk.

Donate your stimulus and stop being a hypocrite.

+1.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We are immigrants. Legal. We did the work, Americans didn’t. Both my parents were educated and these were second jobs. No fun. It was all work. All the time, our privilege was and is that we were hard working and loyal to our family. We didn’t have abandoned fathers or money spent on nails and phones.

I do have a cousin now similarly brought up who pays his restaurant workers minimum wages (legally) and laughs all the way to the bank as we all pay his workers 20-30% in tips. These workers are privileged they work in a restaurant which is relatively less taxing than say someone loading grocery shelves in the night shift and doing a thankless job without tips.

This is a great country where colleges can legally ask for $80k in a single year of tuition despite sitting on millions and millions of dollars.

It’s also a great country that rewards you for having as many children as you can birth even if you have no means to care for them.

It’s a great country where you can become a millionaire even if you are here illegally.

OP, you shouldn’t complain so much.

Haha. Good one. +1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don’t know why there’s so much talk of immigrants in this thread. Indian-Americans are the highest earning ethnic group for a reason: it’s really hard to immigrate here legally (not seek asylum, which is a small minority of immigrants anyway) unless you have a higher degree and some wealth already.

So of course the kids of immigrants here are going to tend to be better off. There’s a higher likelihood that they were born to intelligent, well-educated people than there is for an American born to an American by birth. Immigrants aren’t the population to consider when evaluating what the US offers to average person.

One thing I think this board forgets is that only a third of American adults have a college degree, and that’s a lot higher than it was thirty years ago. If you were born to Americans with a degree, you’re already well ahead of the average American.

This is a good point. There are lots of immigrants in my field but very, very few of them come from poor backgrounds. They all have engineering degrees from well respected universities in their countries of origin. Some of those countries are full of poverty, but none of these folks were actually living in poverty there. And now they support their families here and can also send money back to family in their home country where that money will go very far because the cost of living is much lower there.

It's a complicated situation. In our office, most of the POC in management or in well-paid technical positions are immigrants. Whereas a lot of the lower-paid support roles are filled by POC born in the US. It's simplistic to say "Oh, the immigrants worked harder." That's simply not true. In many cases, the difference is that the American was born and grew up very poor in a rich country, and the immigrant was born and grew up pretty well off in a poor country. The immigrant's situation was advantageous from the start, even if the average citizen of their country of origin is worse off than the average American.

[Anonymous]

I put myself through college so i guess i'm privilege or not? i worked, save and went to college, got a degree. Working, independent. Maybe I just make sound decisions. I even have a kid.

[Anonymous]

I find it interesting that it is considered "privileged" by some on this broad to have grown up in an intact family where there was some modicum of expectation that you would go to school and do well.

Isn't that basic stuff? I get it that life would be challenging if you did not have an intact family and expectation for decent school performance, but that makes you "challenged." It does not make the people with those basics "privileged."

"Privileged" would be getting big bucks from parents, so that you have no school loans etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Most of us worked hard in school, spend years in college and graduate school and put in long hours at work. It isn't that hard of a formula.

Also, your anger is directed at people who are WORKING for money. Maybe you should redirect it to people who either aren't working and living off the system or those not working and living off trust funds.

Janitors, cleaning staff, garbage collectors, restaurant workers, laborers and the like also work hard, most probably physically harder than you could. Lots of working class people work 2 jobs to keep up and pay the rent.

1%ers don’t corner the market on “hard work.”

[Anonymous]

Why should I apologize for my success?

I tithe, am extremely generous and provide hands on help to individuals in dire need. I’ve volunteered thousands of hours of my time - since I was a young teen.

I am just one generation removed from abject poverty. My father fled a treacherous home life via a college education and later, a career in the military.

My father set me on a course for success: the expectation that I would graduate from college (debt free), secure a well-paying career, make smart and prudent financial decisions save and invest.

Bought my first house at 29 - my family gave us a wedding gift of a nice down payment in lieu of a giant, fancy wedding reception. Sold the house to a builder, made a comfortable profit, turned around and reinvested in an larger, newer (but still modest) home. Was able to live frugally for over a decade so that I could be a SAHM.

Returned to work and my salary now putting DC through college, debt free.

In our community, we live quietly and humbly. I don’t have social media accounts, so I’m not posting about my charity or church work and most all of our family vacations are road trips to see relatives.

Again, not apologizing for anything I’ve obtained or even how we live-DH and I have strong work ethics and work very hard for what we have.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why should I apologize for my success?

I tithe, am extremely generous and provide hands on help to individuals in dire need. I’ve volunteered thousands of hours of my time - since I was a young teen.

I am just one generation removed from abject poverty. My father fled a treacherous home life via a college education and later, a career in the military.

My father set me on a course for success: the expectation that I would graduate from college (debt free), secure a well-paying career, make smart and prudent financial decisions save and invest.

Bought my first house at 29 - my family gave us a wedding gift of a nice down payment in lieu of a giant, fancy wedding reception. Sold the house to a builder, made a comfortable profit, turned around and reinvested in an larger, newer (but still modest) home. Was able to live frugally for over a decade so that I could be a SAHM.

Returned to work and my salary now putting DC through college, debt free.

In our community, we live quietly and humbly. I don’t have social media accounts, so I’m not posting about my charity or church work and most all of our family vacations are road trips to see relatives.

Again, not apologizing for anything I’ve obtained or even how we live-DH and I have strong work ethics and work very hard for what we have.

Who asked you to apologize?