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

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, don’t forget some folks are EXTREMELY frugal. Like, penny-pinching savers who put away half their annual incomes, buy second hand EVERYTHING, rarely dine out or travel. If we all did that we’d be millionaires, too!

Yes- we don't look upper middle class at all, but we have assets. We have an average house (3 bd, 1 ba) in a working class neighborhood. I'm a SAHM, husband is in the trades (no college degree). Average wages. Before we had children, we lived on one income, even though we were both working, and we saved and invested. Is it now a privilege to stay married and have a spouse with a similar outlook on frugality/thriftiness? Maybe, but it's a great formula. You really can't beat that time when you have two incomes and no kids. During that time, husband worked OT whenever it was offered and I worked in the evening, after my FT job. That's the time to save, save, save.

[Anonymous]

Living in American is privilege in itself. Folks really need to travel overseas to get a true appreciation for what they have here.

Also, handouts never worked and never will work. The more you give the more people want. People wonder how "immigrants" have done so well to include cars, homes and wealth. That's because most don't expect the government to bail them out. Even working 2-3 jobs they will make more than they ever would back home!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Living in American is privilege in itself. Folks really need to travel overseas to get a true appreciation for what they have here.

Also, handouts never worked and never will work. The more you give the more people want. People wonder how "immigrants" have done so well to include cars, homes and wealth. That's because most don't expect the government to bail them out. Even working 2-3 jobs they will make more than they ever would back home!

I always thought this was a GOP talking point. Until this thread started. OP is basically a GOP boogyman come to life.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:" 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 "

That me but I'm self-made. My parents came to the United States as immigrants with $5 in their pocket. I learned hard work from them and started working at very early age and continue to do so today at the age of 41. Nothing was handed to us, no inheritance, no nothing. A lot of folks don't understand what they have here in the United States. It truly is the land of opportunity. A lof of us were not born with a gold spoon and have actually worked really hard for where we are today!

+2. Also an immigrant here whose family worked their asses off to get where we are today. My parents came to this country with no money, little education, no English skills and no connections. Despite that, they still succeeded.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would love a DCUM rule where you aren't allowed to post about yout >=$400k HHI without first acknowledging your privilege.

Do you mean acknowledging your gratitude or somehow conceding the fruits of our labors are unearned?

It’s a market economy. Some of us put our skills to work in jobs that reward us financially. Others lack such skills or prefer to pursue lower-paying jobs. People like the OP are a dime a dozen and brimming with resentment that usually stems from self-loathing.

[Anonymous]

Whiners like OP are extremely annoying.

If Elizabeth Warren succeeds in her "wealth tax" will a single poor person be better off? The answer is definitely no.

[Anonymous]

Most of us aren't living that way. We have a 900 foot fixer upper and no way near the income you state. We take vacations every few years and drive our cars till they are no longer safe (one is over 20 years old). We have savings because we save. We mainly DIY our house.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Whiners like OP are extremely annoying.

If Elizabeth Warren succeeds in her "wealth tax" will a single poor person be better off? The answer is definitely no.

If those taxes are used to pay for nationalized healthcare and education, then of course poor people will be better off.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, don’t forget some folks are EXTREMELY frugal. Like, penny-pinching savers who put away half their annual incomes, buy second hand EVERYTHING, rarely dine out or travel. If we all did that we’d be millionaires, too!

Buying used isn't always cheaper. I shop clearances and resell my kids clothing at consignment sales. I get what I paid if not more for it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Living in American is privilege in itself. Folks really need to travel overseas to get a true appreciation for what they have here.

Also, handouts never worked and never will work. The more you give the more people want. People wonder how "immigrants" have done so well to include cars, homes and wealth. That's because most don't expect the government to bail them out. Even working 2-3 jobs they will make more than they ever would back home!

I was in Sweden a few years ago. I definitely did not come back here with an appreciation for much of anything except cheaper clothing.

So how do countries like Germany, Denmark, etc. still succeed while supporting their people? Why aren't we comparing ourselves to them?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is just going to turn into a humble bragging circle-jerk for defensive so-called “self made” users here.

Yep. Lots of people explaining why THEY are super-rich because of their own hard work and good choices, and THEY deserve their good fortune, but THEY are super down to earth or aware of their privileges, and also everyone could be successful if they just worked hard enough, because that's definitely how life works.

But that is exactly how life works in the US. Not in many other countries, but definitely in the US. My mom came here when I was 6. She had $250 in her pocket, didn’t speak a word of English, and settled in subsidized housing given to her by the immigration agency as she was a refugee. She learned English, worked cleaning restaurants and offices, on weekends I helped. The school I went to wasn’t great by any means but if I brought home anything lower than top marks, there was hell to pay because “we came to this country for a chance and you have the chance to do better”. We didn’t own a TV, I slept on a mattress in the living room, food was pasta, so much pasta and whatever else was on sale. Clothes were all donations and books were from the library. I had no presents for my birthday, but she did make cake. No vacations, no camps, no lessons (though I did play an instrument after 6th grade thanks to music classes in school). For 10 years, she drove a run down car with peeling paint that was basically held together with duct tape. She got a couple of the ladies she worked with and they started a cleaning business. That business helped pay for college for me, along with Pell grants and me working. I didn’t go to a private college and lived at home to save money on housing. I didn’t get much choice in college major because I knew I needed to earn good money, I couldn’t just get my BA in Art History and intern for a year. I did accounting because it was practical and paid well. I got my masters. I married my husband (also from an immigrant family, he’s an attorney). We lived very frugally until his loans were paid off and then once he hit 35, his income really went up. Suddenly we are making serious money but we are investing it. We do own a $1m+ house, our cars are both under 50k and we paid cash for them. We took our first vacation after we paid off his loans. We have two kids (we can’t comfortably afford three), we help our parents out and they help us out with babysitting. The American dream is possible but what I see going on isn’t that the dream is dead, it’s that folks don’t want to work for it or they make dumb decisions.

Americans are up to their eyeballs in debt. I’m not talking medical debt (that’s it’s own separate issue and I very much support universal healthcare and would pay higher taxes for it). I’ve seen guys earning 100k and blowing it on car payments, buying houses they can’t afford, and other crap they don’t need. There’s a sense of entitlement to it, like they should be able to have everything. And then I also saw how little folks value education. Immigrant kids get a beating if they don’t bring home good grades, meanwhile you have American kids skipping school or talking back to teachers and parents support the kids! So all this crying about how life isn’t fair is ridiculous. Of course it’s not fair! Nothing is fair. Every country has its own problems, but be glad your problem is just debt. Where my mom is from, if you owed someone money, they’d come to your door in the middle of the night and you’d disappear. You wanted to start a business and it made someone upset, they could hire someone to shoot up your business. You got sick and didn’t have any money, there was plenty of hospital space but no medicine at all. And you can’t change anything about your situation. In America, you can change things. Your town has no jobs? Move. You can’t afford a house? Get a different job. America isn’t perfect (I’m not trying to sweep racial inequality under the table) but it’s got opportunities. It just requires you to actually work for the opportunities, instead of insisting on them just because you were born here.

Sometimes you can change things, not always and not always as easily as you make it out.

You talk about your mom and your upbringing, but you gloss over your DH and how his "serious money" got you where you are.

Pp, when I first got together with DH, I was earning more than him and he had loans to pay off. He makes better money than I do now but he wasn’t born with that money, he earned every penny of it by working hard. Stop with the excuses.

[Anonymous]

After being on DCUM for a couple years, I can tell you definitively that the answer is:

Absolutely, most people here (specifically on this board) have no concept of how out of touch and privileged they are.

It's crazy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Whiners like OP are extremely annoying.

If Elizabeth Warren succeeds in her "wealth tax" will a single poor person be better off? The answer is definitely no.

If those taxes are used to pay for nationalized healthcare and education, then of course poor people will be better off.

How would nationalized education be better than what we have now?

How would nationalized healthcare be better for poor people than the subsidized Obamacare they can get now?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

You are completely disregarding all the things you had in your favor before you worked hard. So many people never have the chance to go to college AND graduate school no matter how hard they are willing to work.

I always have to laugh at how "hard" rich people think they work when there are so many scraping by doing truly hard labor and often multiple jobs.

The responses to this thread just confirm what OP is saying, all these wealthy people who truly believe that all their wealth is 100% earned and because they *deserve* it. They have convinced themselves of this and will rationalize their worthiness to their dying day. To admit it was largely based on luck, be it in life events or the family they were born in to, would require them to face the fact that they aren't special and deserving.

Some of it is people who really want to be rich are willing to do work that others would find morally repugnant. I'd really rather make less and feel I'm a good person not profiting off the backs of other people who really put in the labor or shady real estate deals or legal work that undermines the environment but pays big bucks... on and on.

Lots of rich people are just willing to do questionable things others aren't.

If you were born in this country and are able bodied, you have no excuses. You are already in better position than the majority of people in this world. There are people who are literally dying to come to this country while you sit and whine. You’re poor because you think that you’re owed something by being born an American. You want good healthcare? Go work in an office for a large company. “But that’s no fun! I shouldn’t have to do that”. That will be your response, because it’s not fun to work a steady and boring 9-5 job. It’s nobody’s fault but your own that you didn’t get a decent education. I went to crap public schools and a state school for college and make 6 figures. Nobody puts a gun to your head and tells you to take out $100k in student loans. Go to community college and work if you can’t afford a private college. Cant afford a house in DC? There are plenty of other places in the US where housing is more affordable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would love a DCUM rule where you aren't allowed to post about yout >=$400k HHI without first acknowledging your privilege.

Do you mean acknowledging your gratitude or somehow conceding the fruits of our labors are unearned?

It’s a market economy. Some of us put our skills to work in jobs that reward us financially. Others lack such skills or prefer to pursue lower-paying jobs. People like the OP are a dime a dozen and brimming with resentment that usually stems from self-loathing.

This. There is no "deserve." Who can decide who deserves what? No one.