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baquerd posted:I don't think I said that, but it looks like social workers go from like $40k-120k or so in the Bay Area. That's poverty level to middle-middle class over there - the top end is what a fresh faced 20-21 year old developer makes. As somebody who has had/still has a bad relationship with money --- ugh.
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Feb 20, 2014 05:53
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BossRighteous posted:I'm going step in here to call you a selfish bastard because you finally sound committed to not needing the last word. We'll see if you can accept it quietly because deep down we all know you are proud of the fact.  Also the world is just and 100% of jobs are chosen by merit, not connections, luck, or other factors that don't affect how well someone does the job. Limited economic mobility exists because people are lazy, and this isn't just a convenient lie he tells himself to feel better about the rift between rich and poor.
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Feb 20, 2014 06:14
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Haifisch posted:It's not his fault the glorious free market doesn't pay teachers/social workers/etc as much as CEOs/bankers/tech monkeys. Who needs those people who actually contribute something positive to society, anyway? I agree with you, and also the selfish prick dude we are talking about.
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Feb 20, 2014 06:24
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All I know is, the banker starts with more dollars to buy supplies for his wagon (staples such as sugar, flour, bacon, and peperony and chease). But if you win as a farmer, I suppose that's more baller street cred.
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Feb 20, 2014 06:25
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Haifisch posted:It's not his fault the glorious free market doesn't pay teachers/social workers/etc as much as CEOs/bankers/tech monkeys. Who needs those people who actualldidn't come from financially, tribute something positive to society, anyway? While I agree that his posts seemed insensitive, I understand what he's trying to say. Essentially, if you make good decisions in life you will likely (not always) have better outcomes than if you make poor decisions. Sure luck plays a factor but I think it's equally poisonous to assume that all successful people are either born rich or just lucky. That discredits a lot of hard work and sacrifice made by those individuals. I know a lot of people who came from nothing and studied their asses off to get degrees in pharmacy, chem engineering, software engineering, nursing, finance, and those people will probably all live a comfortable lifestyle as long as they continue to play their cards right. Of course an unknown disaster could come by and destroy their financial solvency but life would still go on, and in the end, no one can take their extremely marketable degrees and educations from them. Life isn't fair, but that doesn't mean we should drat the successful people and champion a victim mentality. Life isn't fair but it's all about choices and what you do with what you're given. I also didn't come from money, and I'm the first person in my entire family on both sides to get a college degree. I made the smart choice and took out loans (gov and private) to obtain one of the most difficult undergrad degrees you can pursue because I knew that I'd have a job waiting if I did what I had to do. I knew it was going to suck dick and I knew I was going to have 40k on my back right out of school, but I made a smart choice. I had thousands of peers who all came from better families and more means than me, and they made horrible degree choices and now they're going to suffer the consequences. Who's fault is it that they studied art history or English? Luck had nothing to do with those choices. No one is arguing that some people aren't victims of circumstance. What we can argue is that people are often victims of their own poor decisions. Which is the theme of this thread.
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Feb 20, 2014 06:39
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Man, it's my job to judge people for making bad decisions and I'm already tired of this conversation. Some people do well because they had life handed to them. Some people did a trick with their bootstraps. Some people are so marginalized that bootstraps may as well not exist. The kid I just helped fill out a fafsa for a state school might have been able to go to Stanford, but maybe the diversity of background at a state school will allow him to do more while the culture at Stanford would have driven him to drop out. Individuals are both themselves and a part of a complex society with a history of structural inequality. I salute the prosperous child of public school teachers, I hope they are more proud of you than you are of them. Also, I hate how often I have to talk kids out of going to heald or ITT tech. It's like a disease in impoverished communities, vampires feeding on hope and misinformation.
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Feb 20, 2014 06:50
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fruition posted:Life isn't fair, but that doesn't mean we should drat the successful people and champion a victim mentality. Life isn't fair but it's all about choices and what you do with what you're given. I also didn't come from money, and I'm the first person in my entire family on both sides to get a college degree. I made the smart choice and took out loans (gov and private) to obtain one of the most difficult undergrad degrees you can pursue because I knew that I'd have a job waiting if I did what I had to do. I knew it was going to suck dick and I knew I was going to have 40k on my back right out of school, but I made a smart choice. I had thousands of peers who all came from better families and more means than me, and they made horrible degree choices and now they're going to suffer the consequences. Who's fault is it that they studied art history or English? Luck had nothing to do with those choices. I don't drat someone for being successful, I drat them when they wander along and announce that anyone who's poor just simply didn't choose to be successful, like it's a hard set yes or no choice you get to make the day you hit 18. And then I drat them some more when they get questioned on it and they go on about how they did it while admitting luck played a factor.
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Feb 20, 2014 07:15
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baquerd posted:I don't think I said that, but it looks like social workers go from like $40k-120k or so in the Bay Area. That's poverty level to middle-middle class over there - the top end is what a fresh faced 20-21 year old developer makes. Bullshit. You are bullshit. You talk bullshit. I hope you're American. You will get sick at some point. edit: just to clarify you are the physical manifestation of the money grabbing American capitalist that snorts with derision at people that chose a different path to you purely based on their bank balance. There is no value that can't be quantified in a profit and loss. The entire world hates you. You will be a grey old man when someone reaches out to you for a reason other than money and will realize your entire life has been a lie. Tony Montana fucked around with this message at 11:26 on Feb 20, 2014 |
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Feb 20, 2014 11:04
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Tony Montana posted:
Bad money story from me, this was about 8 years ago, during a blizzard I was asked to come into the shop at 2 AM and do inventory because the boss wasn't going to be able to get to it before his vacation to Cabo. Car was completely snowed in and I was late so I figured it'd be easier and safer to just walk the 2 miles to and back. I was really bundled up, but I ended up with a pretty painful and possibly deadly lung infection that was super resistant to treatment. I was in ICU for about a week and fortunately I had pretty good insurance so the final bill was just $8,000. Of course, since I missed work for a week, I lost my job, and I got all panicky. Instead of working with the hospital to figure out a payment plan, which I didn't even know you could do, I put it all on my credit card. My credit score was a solid 780 before the incident, but dropped to 620 afterward. I was able to get back into the workforce relatively quickly thankfully, but at just 12$/hr it took another good year and a half to pay off that credit card debt, and my credit score is just now really getting back to its former glory.
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Feb 20, 2014 13:39
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fruition posted:While I agree that his posts seemed insensitive, I understand what he's trying to say. Essentially, if you make good decisions in life you will likely (not always) have better outcomes than if you make poor decisions. Sure luck plays a factor but I think it's equally poisonous to assume that all successful people are either born rich or just lucky. That discredits a lot of hard work and sacrifice made by those individuals. I know a lot of people who came from nothing and studied their asses off to get degrees in pharmacy, chem engineering, software engineering, nursing, finance, and those people will probably all live a comfortable lifestyle as long as they continue to play their cards right. Of course an unknown disaster could come by and destroy their financial solvency but life would still go on, and in the end, no one can take their extremely marketable degrees and educations from them.
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Feb 20, 2014 14:59
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baquerd posted:People who are bad with money because they weren't educated or didn't have the opportunity are one thing, but people who are presented with the opportunity and turn away from hard work are another. How many of the people who are bad with money in this thread have internet access and enough free time to figure things out if they're reasonably intelligent and have a modicum of willpower? Almost all of them.
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Feb 20, 2014 15:03
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Perhaps baquerd's worst crime of all is the massive psychological trauma that he has inflicted upon the posters in this thread.
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Feb 20, 2014 16:00
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To get back on topic with being what most of us consider being bad with money: I grew up like powdered milk and food stamps poor. I was a latchkey kid that had a key at 5. My brother and sister and I would make hamburger helper on our own many evenings because you could get it cheap with coupons. Growing up like that gave me a totally different mentality about money. When I was growing up - I simply aspired to be able to live in peace and pay the bills. Nothing more. I never even gave thought to buying fancy stuff and considered it a massive luxury to even buy a soda when I got older. Because of that - I'm actually pretty pleased to be bringing in $46,000 on my own. It's not awesome for this particular city but it pays the bills and if my husband were to ever break it off with me, i'd be self sufficient and that's the most important thing to me. I guess i'm not a go getter and that might be bad. Seriously though - living with people in the tech industry can be absolutely detrimental to realization of what the rest of the US is like. My husband can pretty much buy anything he wants with out a 2nd thought. However this can backfire. When he first started out as an 18 year old kid back in earlier tech glory days - he was making 110,000 a year before that was common. However he managed to spend every single dime of his paycheck by week 2 of every month. 2 weeks of blowing it all and then 2 weeks of ramen like clockwork. Microsoft had to create their own credit union because so many software folk destroyed their credit through the same means. It took him some years to level out and once we got together he had mostly chilled out but i still sometimes see that spark in his eye where he's all OMG LETS GO BUY A TESLA! silicone thrills fucked around with this message at 22:17 on Feb 20, 2014 |
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Feb 20, 2014 16:16
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It's been mentioned in this thread a few times (or at least in the posts linked from r/personalfinance), but it bears reiterating how loving stupid people are when it comes to grad school. Case in point: a co-worker at the place where I work part time makes a pretty decent 60k a year in test development. He's competent, well-liked, and has seniority, so he could have a good future here. But no. He's leaving all this behind for a PhD in creative writing at a bottom-ranked program in a lovely part of the country. He's not even sure if he's getting funding yet. I want to slap him -- he's going to toil away in poverty for the next 5-8 years, likely take on a lot of debt, and have nothing to show for it. He'll be lucky to land a job adjuncting at Podunk State for $1500 a class. There must be some systemic issue here. Every academic field has its lovely programs, and those lovely programs have no shortage of otherwise intelligent people chomping at the bit to make a horrible financial decision. To an extent I can understand it: I remember being 22 and drunk on "passion" for my field, and hearing "yes, we want you to do a PhD here and work with Dr. X" was a pretty incredible feeling. But not incredible enough that I'd throw all caution to the wind and do something stupid. I did end up in grad school for in a semi-marketable field, but at a highly ranked program with good funding, and I now consider it a mistake even though my job prospects aren't that terrible. I can imagine it only gets worse for people less fortunate than me.
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Feb 20, 2014 17:50
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On topic: My in-laws just finished making installment payments (layaway maybe?) on an $800 tv. Not inherently bad until you consider their income. My father-in-law has an old school 80% pension and he took a second job. My mother-in-law works at a university and I'd put her income in the %50k-ish range. Both of them are at retirement age and experiencing health problems. According to them, "they can't afford to retire." As near as I can tell, most of their money is spent by my mother-in-law buying things for other people. I think she likes to spend money but feels too extravagant spending it on herself so she literally goes shopping every day to buy stuff she can give away. She does this to us with things we don't want. Literally, their income is higher than it has ever been in their lives and they are barely getting by. They live in a nice, big, upper middle-class house. It has 4 bedrooms for the two of them. One of them has been taken by my mother-in-law as her office. The another has been converted, by contractors, into a laundry room/closet. My father-in-law gets to keep his computer in the basement. Honestly, I'd have better stories about them but they do a fairly good job of hiding it. I only get to see through the cracks. Harry posted:It seemed like he's basically saying if you aren't a software developer you made a poor life choice even if you're making six figures. I'm sure he thinks the police chief who probably gets paid $300k a year, has some near unrivaled pension, and is part of the political elite in that area made made poor life choices. Welp, time to kick a hornets nest. I took it more like "anybody smart enough to do social work is probably smart enough to be an entry level developer." This is probably roughly accurate. Given the same starting resources and luck, either person who succeeded at either career could probably have succeeded at the other. There was a choice and that choice had consequences and benefits on both sides. There are plenty of examples out of bounds, but for most careers this is a fair example of how choice affects your future income is actually part of a bargain you make with yourself. I chose money over fun or rewarding work. I'm savvy enough to know that if someone who made my choice points out that I made a specific choice to earn more money, then I get this line: "Those poors! They should have just chosen to be rich! haha." And someone who made the other choice usually gets rescuers saying "oh, but the work you do is such good work." (As an aside, I always hear it as a slight oppression of the people who chose the good work. That attitude creates the surplus of people willing to do that kind of work. That surplus drives wages down.) I feel I made the right choice, like we all do, but it gets pretty annoying that I'm not allowed to defend it without drawing ire. I've always heard it like this: good work, good pay, good hours...pick two. If you choose good work over good pay, don't complain that the guy who made the other choice gets paid more than you do. Likewise if you took good pay over good work, don't complain that your job makes you feel trapped and depressed. If you got the poo poo end of two of these options, then there's a decent chance you made a bad choice. If you don't have any of the three in your favor, then it's almost (but not completely) certain that you made a bad choice or two. So that's what I assume until I see evidence to the contrary. tl;dr: I'm an rear end in a top hat.
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Feb 20, 2014 21:29
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Folly posted:I took it more like "anybody smart enough to do social work is probably smart enough to be an entry level developer." Just an idiot if you honestly believe this.
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Feb 21, 2014 01:00
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Man, I'm a social worker with a public Ivy League education and I don't even believe that part, though I am flattered. I will say that my choice to go into public social work instead of say, law, probably does cost me money though. However, as a high school drop out with a drug addict parent, I think I had a better chance of going to that fancy school for social work than for law or business, don't you? I don't think you're an rear end in a top hat. But as always, I'm glad I get to take your tax dollars without asking permission.
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Feb 21, 2014 01:07
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Folly posted:I took it more like "anybody smart enough to do social work is probably smart enough to be an entry level developer." This is probably roughly accurate. It's very nice and optimistic of you to think so, but the entire reason that good developers make such ridiculous amounts of money is because their talents can't easily be duplicated. Someone earlier mentioned a dev loving up dealing with their money like they were a fresh NFL player - that's a good analogy. You can't just *want* to be a professional quarterback, and you can't just *want* to be an all-star developer. It's interesting that one of the two professions gets a lot more hate than the other from the relatively poor masses though.
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Feb 21, 2014 01:10
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You actually equate the basics of learning a language and simple problem solving with helping people with significant life problems. The way you phrase it you actually put it so you're being generous saying that social work is probably about the level of an entry level developer. Do you have any concept of how insular and childishly naive you sound?
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Feb 21, 2014 01:12
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Tony Montana posted:You actually equate the basics of learning a language and simple problem solving with helping people with significant life problems. The way you phrase it you actually put it so you're being generous saying that social work is probably about the level of an entry level developer. On one level, you have a point that social work can be very detailed and not have a simple path to achieve goals. Software development is relatively simple and has direct and quantifiable goals. Given the importance society in general puts on making lots of money, why aren't there more software developers?
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Feb 21, 2014 01:16
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baquerd posted:On one level, you have a point that social work can be very detailed and not have a simple path to achieve goals. Software development is relatively simple and has direct and quantifiable goals. Given the importance society in general puts on making lots of money, why aren't there more software developers? If there were more software developers they wouldn't get paid as much? I'm having a hard time reconciling your position that anyone who can't make it just isn't working hard enough with your position that only God's chosen few can make it as programmers.
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Feb 21, 2014 01:20
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There are plenty, most of them now in China and India who will write code just as good as you but do it for a fraction of your wage. As your job is purely objective and you can literally email the input and say you want this output and you write the function in the middle, you're not on staff because of your personality. You're a code writing machine, albeit with an advanced interface to communicate requirements through. There will always be a top few percent in any industry, but that is where the majority of development is going. Have fun.
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Feb 21, 2014 01:21
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Oh my god, shut up with this debate. That poo poo is for D&D. This thread is for schadenfreude. Give me my schadenfreude!
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Feb 21, 2014 01:24
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Tony Montana posted:There are plenty, most of them now in China and India who will write code just as good as you but do it for a fraction of your wage. As your job is purely objective and you can literally email the input and say you want this output and you write the function in the middle, you're not on staff because of your personality. You're a code writing machine, albeit with an advanced interface to communicate requirements through. There will always be a top few percent in any industry, but that is where the majority of development is going. Have fun. The trend of outsourcing to India and Costa Rica and other low-wage places has actually been reversing in software because "email the input and say you want this output" doesn't actually work in practice. At least not if you want to stake your business on what you get back.
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Feb 21, 2014 01:26
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FrozenVent posted:If there were more software developers they wouldn't get paid as much? It's not that straightforward. Look to the analogy of NFL players - how loving simple is it to run a ball down the field and not get tackled? It's a hell of a lot easier than social work in principle, but somehow our society pays people who can do this really well hundreds to thousands of times what a social worker makes. Somehow, what seems simple on paper is actually incredibly difficult and can only be achieved by a small minority of people, and these people get paid for it. What does it take to be an NFL player? Genetics plus a poo poo ton of hard work. What does it take to be an all-star programmer? What does it take to be a lovely programmer/football player that nonetheless gets payed well? Now, what does it take to be a loving amazing social worker? I would think that it takes more than either NFL or software development, but somehow the compensation just isn't there. Someone who is capable of achieving that level of performance just doesn't do that because it doesn't make sense in a capitalist society. Therefore, social workers are either intelligent badasses who are poo poo with money, or just not very good at what they do.
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Feb 21, 2014 01:28
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baquerd posted:Someone who is capable of achieving that level of performance just doesn't do that because it doesn't make sense in a capitalist society. Holy moly
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Feb 21, 2014 01:33
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I wrote part of a reply and then stopped because talk about being dragged down to someone else's level
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Feb 21, 2014 01:35
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baquerd posted:It's not that straightforward. Look to the analogy of NFL players - how loving simple is it to run a ball down the field and not get tackled? It's a hell of a lot easier than social work in principle, but somehow our society pays people who can do this really well hundreds to thousands of times what a social worker makes. Somehow, what seems simple on paper is actually incredibly difficult and can only be achieved by a small minority of people, and these people get paid for it. You seem to completely ignore that having those genetics and putting in that hard work still doesn't put you anywhere near close to guaranteeing you a place on a NFL team. Same with your development job, you said yourself luck played a factor. Also you really are a piece of poo poo.
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Feb 21, 2014 01:38
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 There's also the fact that people who make lots of money used to have their wives do my job as a hobby or it was done by religious volunteers, thus hamstringing the "this is worth money" argument until recent years. SCHADENFREUDE DEPOSIT: a customer of my not-boyfriend spent 30k on audio equipment for his home theater. Then he got a husky puppy. Paradigm products make for some expensive chew toys. But since he is a software engineer living on Russian hill in SF, I'm sure he's good enough with life decisions to afford some new ones. Good puppy. Edit: spelling, also even Adam Smith said we should make provisions for orphans as those unable to care for themselves are not obliged to compete with capitalism. Mocking Bird fucked around with this message at 01:43 on Feb 21, 2014 |
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Feb 21, 2014 01:40
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baquerd posted:D&D poo poo Holy poo poo, shut up and tell us stories about people bad with money, please. On topic (finally): I work with a lot of "Keeping up with the Joneses". Hey, Bob bought a new Odyssey? Guess what, Jim has a Odyssey, now. They're keeping up with each other the houses on the hills, the cars, the kids, the boats, the trucks to pull the boats, etc. They're an awesome example of conspicuous consumption and I constantly cringe at how much debt these guys are racking to keep up appearances.
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Feb 21, 2014 01:43
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Cranbe posted:Oh my god, shut up with this debate. That poo poo is for D&D. This thread is for schadenfreude. Give me my schadenfreude! This please. So ruining this thread.
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Feb 21, 2014 01:43
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Sorry guys  My coworker paid $60 to take a taxi home from the office today rather than wait 20 minutes to catch a ride with me in my lovely beater. Her reasoning? "If I don't leave now I won't have time to get starbucks before the kids get off the bus." Presumably she had the cab go through the starbucks drive thru.
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Feb 21, 2014 01:48
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I got made fun of today for working from home instead of taking a $40 cab ride into work.
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Feb 21, 2014 01:50
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Could be worse, but one of my friends got back from a weekend interview/orientation for a job he wants to start this summer a couple weeks ago. He forgot his iPad on the plane on the trip back. Rather than 'suffer the embarrassment' of calling the airline and asking if they had found it, he just bought a new one. Yesterday his power got cut off because he didn't pay the bill due this month because he didn't have the money 'for some reason'.
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Feb 21, 2014 01:52
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Ok, this thread is getting lovely, wasn't a great idea in the first place, and is generating lots of crybaby reports. All currently extant bitchy slapfights must cease, and think long and loving hard about making another idiot post about the genetic suitability of the practitioners of entire professions and trades. Slo-Tek fucked around with this message at 02:24 on Feb 21, 2014 |
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Feb 21, 2014 02:21
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I think this qualifies as bad with money/finance, My co-worker and I were doing our regular talk about the company we work for. Long story short, the company sucks (owners basically rob it blind) but could be great, blah blah. He mentioned how it would be nice to have healthcare and I mentioned 401k. He gave me this look and said, "You're not getting 401k. You're the only person here that would benefit from a 401k so why should we (Granted most of my co-workers are over 55 but they're still dumb to throw away free money and tax benefits of a 401k) help you get a 401k? I was shocked at first, but the next time I passed him by I told him something like, "About that 401k thing, you're right you guys shouldn't have to pay for something you don't need. So I regret to inform you that I won't be signing up for HC if it's ever offered. I mean I'm the only young person here, I already get great HC with my wife's plan so why should I pay higher rates just so you old fucks can save hundreds of thousands of dollars on medical bills and maybe live a healthier life in the next decade?"  Seriously, I used to feel bad for him (he's the guy that could probably get decent exchange care today if he gave up the lottery tickets) but now I think I really would bail the company if they did ever force HC on us just because of that conversation. The only reason I stay is because it's easy, it pays well for being easy and I'm almost, in a sense, financially secure. Sephiroth_IRA fucked around with this message at 02:35 on Feb 21, 2014 |
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Feb 21, 2014 02:28
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Trilineatus posted:Sorry guys I actually have taken a cab through a drive through. Had a long layover at PHX with my girlfriend, she'd never been to In-N-Out, and a taxi was still cheaper than getting a rental car for an hour. Most expensive fast food I've ever had, though we did actually plan that cab fare in our vacation budget.
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Feb 21, 2014 02:51
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Orange_Lazarus posted:I think this qualifies as bad with money/finance,
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Feb 21, 2014 03:43
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Orange_Lazarus posted:I think this qualifies as bad with money/finance,
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Feb 21, 2014 03:50
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This thread loving sucks because of this derail.
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Feb 21, 2014 04:08
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