This problem is RAMPANT in the DCUM crowd

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:honestly even $500K isn't a lot in DC if your kids are in privates

This comment is satire, right?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Nice 2500sf townhomes in Kentlands/Lakelands (Gaithersburg) or Vienna are $600k. In good public school districts. SFH’s and short commutes are luxuries, not necessities. Or better yet, get jobs in Reston/Herndon/Fairfax/Chantilly and live in eastern Loudoun. SFH and nice commute with DC pay.

shoehorning a family into a townhouse is kind of the definition of not rich, especially way out there

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Nice 2500sf townhomes in Kentlands/Lakelands (Gaithersburg) or Vienna are $600k. In good public school districts. SFH’s and short commutes are luxuries, not necessities. Or better yet, get jobs in Reston/Herndon/Fairfax/Chantilly and live in eastern Loudoun. SFH and nice commute with DC pay.

shoehorning a family into a townhouse is kind of the definition of not rich, especially way out there

2500 sq feet is shoehorning??

[Anonymous]

The majority of families in the DC area and the country live on less than 100K. Most people i know do. 100K is considered upper middle class in most of the country. If you are in the 300K range you are rich rich rich. You are in a bubble.

I come from a family of educators. I make 85K here in the DC area. Not one of my family anywhere else in the country makes that much, even with 1-2 advanced degrees and at the 20 year mark. And these are some of the brightest folks out there. If they reach 100K it due to a second/side job.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:https://palladiummag.com/2019/08/05/the-real-problem-at-yale-is-not-free-speech/


Teach your kids REALNESS, people, not this fluffy "we make 300k a year and are poor crap because COL is high" I see all over DCUM. One person CAN make a difference, and guess what, you ARE elite and need your kids to be raised with that knowledge.


"On the surface, there is nothing wrong with haphazard and sometimes warped class signaling. But if you put on a façade for long enough, you end up forgetting that it is a façade. The rich and powerful actually start believing that they are neither of those things. They actually start believing that there is not much difference in status and resources between themselves and the upper-middle class, the middle class—and eventually, between themselves and the actual poor. They forget that they have certain privileges and duties that others do not. They forget that the inside joke was just a joke all along.

When do the rich lose sight of their status? For most people, it starts well before Yale. One incident stands out from my high school years. I had attended a summer program at the Center for Talented Youth at Princeton and befriended a well-spoken boy of 17 from Hartford. The other students mocked him—not for being poor, but for being too rich. They would elevate their voices into a high-pitched taunt to mock his prestigious prep-school. I was angry, but didn’t know what to say at the time. I had no idea that these students were themselves from Harvard-Westlake, a prestigious and prohibitively expensive private school in Beverly Hills. I had no idea that these kids were even richer than the boy they were mocking. The only difference was that my friend showed the tells of his class.

When these kids grow up, they end up at conferences where everybody lifts their champagne glasses to speeches about how we all need to “tear down the Man!” How we need to usurp conventional power structures.

You hear about these events. They sound good. It’s important to think about how to improve the world. But when you look around at the men and women in their suits and dresses, with their happy, hopeful expressions, you notice that these are the exact same people with the power—they are the Man supposedly causing all those problems that they are giving feel-good speeches about. They are the kids from Harvard-Westlake who never realized they were themselves the elite. They are the people with power who fail to comprehend the meaning of that power. They are abdicating responsibility, and they don’t even know it.

Normal class dynamics shouldn’t trouble anyone. It doesn’t do much damage to society for the rich to sometimes hide their status to stay safe, or for the poor to pretend that they are richer than they are to fit in with their idols.

But something else is going on—something more systemic. We mock each other over wealth and mannerisms, to the point that we forget how and why wealth is built in the first place. We forget the extent of our own power and start blaming an ephemeral elite beyond ourselves for the ills of society. And when something does need to be challenged in elite thought, not in the fake, recuperated way that Greta Thunberg ritually challenges an already-supportive crowd at Davos, but in the real way that carries personal risk—we bail. When we see an unfashionable truth that may risk criticism or ostracism, we forget our own position of strength and assume we cannot bear those risks. We give up the fight before it even starts—as if somebody else can or will fight it.

That is what can lead to societal dysfunction. But it is also a symptom of that dysfunction."

Fatal flaw. There are no decent schools west of the Hudson.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:honestly even $500K isn't a lot in DC if your kids are in privates

This comment is satire, right?

Pretty accurate, actually.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:honestly even $500K isn't a lot in DC if your kids are in privates

Yeah, but the "If your kids are in privates" part means that you've chose an expensive privilege the rest of us really can't consider if we want to make ends meet.

That's your Porsche, your second home, all rolled up in one.

Face it, you're still rich. Even if you hang around with a lot of people who have the same amount of money. Your income is not average. Your money management skills may, however, be poor.

Bought and paid for with self-earned money. How is that a privilege (ie, a special right, advantage, or immunity granted or available only to a particular person or group)?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I grew up what I'd consider lower middle class, as in, there was never a question of "what do you want for dinner tonight?" It was always leftovers or whatever was on sale that day at the supermarket. We were never hungry, though, so I wouldn't say I grew up poor.

DH and I bring in around $350K. We live in a 3 bedroom row house in Adams Morgan. I walk to work. We pay a nanny and have older kid in private half-day preschool. We travel to Canada and Europe at least once a year to see family and we take another vacation within driving distance. I shop at Nordstrom Rack and Trader Joe's and get all the "necessary ingredients" (bread, some produce, fish) at Whole Foods. We have pension funds and our house is almost paid off.

I feel very very rich on $350K. SURE, we're not raking in millions but we have options, we are safe, and we do feel responsibility to support others, including by donating to charities and being active volunteers in our community.

Anyone living on annual income on this order of magnitude should feel very lucky indeed.

As for the article, it misses the point entirely but I have a 3 month old who wants milk so can't type why at the moment...

You feel rich b/c you aren’t paying for private school yet or tried to buy a home with good public schools (though I guess if you stay in a townhouse that will give you options — but good luck with frat boy neighbors playing video games till 4 am (our townhouse experience).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:300 in DC is not much

Not this again. Yes, it is. By every measure it is.

It’s a ton of money. If you can’t figure life out in that budget you definitely have lost the plot.

It just isn’t.

+1

If you’re not making north of 500k and or have north of 5 mil liquid, you’re not rich.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:300 in DC is not much

Not this again. Yes, it is. By every measure it is.

It’s a ton of money. If you can’t figure life out in that budget you definitely have lost the plot.

It just isn’t.

You are wrong. It is a lot of money. Just because it doesn't buy you as much as you would like it to, it is still a lot of money. And you can buy quite a lot if you are willing to leave the most desirable locales. So, just because it doesn't buy you the house you want in the best part of town, does not mean it isn't a lot of money.

It buys you a small, dumpy house in a suburb that is close to the city so that you can actually spend time with your kids and spouse.
It buys you options but it doesn’t mean that you are rich.

Yes. And it's a ton of money compared to the vast majority of americans. I worry about our democracy if people are so very out of touch to think they are mddle class while earning 300K a year. At that level, they are quite privileged and should be giving back.

We make overdouble that and that’s not rich either.

I think you just don’t know anything about rich people and how they live.

[Anonymous]

I am interested in how someone who is rich is supposed to act, to be “real?” Are they supposed to act like a rich a%#hole? Other than donating to charities, what other responsibilities do these people have? And how are these children supposed to be raised? So they know they are richer than everyone else?

This is just 100% ridiculous. We are 1% but prefer simple things and prefer the Warren Buffet model of living and that is how we raise our children. They are raised to be modest.

[Anonymous]

I make $60K. I'm so sorry for those struggling on $300K+. I can't imagine how rough it must be.

[Anonymous]

Wait-the kids from Beverly Hills were mocking the kid from Hartford? Hartford CT? What?

This can't be serious.

[Anonymous]

this thread is satire. Those poor, poor rich people!

[Anonymous]

The author of the article is correct. Liberal elites are imploding themselves. It is painful to watch them reelect Trump.