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AreWeDrunkYet posted:The 61% was a (since corrected) typo - I transposed a couple of numbers. It still doesn't change that (a) your 80% number was apparently arbitrary and (b) federal income tax is only a portion of overall tax load, and relatively progressive compared to other taxes meaning the overall load hits lower incomes filers harder. Holy poo poo. I'm not getting involved in this probation-fest of a debate, but seriously. "My numbers were wrong but your numbers are arbitrary, even though my links which I thought proved my point instead prove yours, but that evidence shouldn't be used because it no longer fits my argument." Edit: and the mortgage interest tax deduction should be killed because it distorts home prices and creates perverse incentives. Not because it gives the people who pay 80% of federal income tax a break. Krispy Wafer fucked around with this message at 02:18 on Jun 3, 2017 |
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Jun 3, 2017 02:16
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Pretend I posted a bird here.
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Jun 3, 2017 02:17
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Krispy Kareem posted:Holy poo poo. I'm not getting involved in this probation-fest of a debate, but seriously. His numbers were pulled from memory, and inaccurate for the tax year under discussion. I made a mistake, edited it out before his response, and acknowledged the mistake. Sorry?  This all stems from a poster who claimed that the mortgage interest deduction does not reinforce the existing income hierarchy, which it provably does. The money would be far better spent as means-tested housing subsidies.
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Jun 3, 2017 02:40
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Virtue posted:Pretend I posted a bird here. It pains me to agree, but yeah, BWM, not land use or housing policy unfortunately.
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Jun 3, 2017 02:44
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Bird bird bird
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Jun 3, 2017 03:08
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Droo posted:My numbers were literally correct and from multiple sources including your own, and yet you continue to call them "arbitrary" so at this point I assume you are too stupid to understand anything, but I will try anyway.
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Jun 3, 2017 03:14
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https://www.petcha.com/tax-breaks-for-pet-bird-owners/ posted:Pet Bird-Related Business Breaks Buying a bigger house for your bird and deducting the bird room from your taxes = GWM 
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Jun 3, 2017 03:17
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You want bad with money? Here's bad with money. https://backchannel.com/how-the-trendiest-grilled-cheese-venture-got-burnt-aa627b0c7ae1 In short: A tech bro genius who disrupted the camera industry decides that since he is so good at disrupting, he will disrupt the sandwich industry as well, refusing to be stopped by minor nitpicks like "there isn't really a sandwich industry to disrupt" and "do you know anything about sandwiches anyways" quote:“I didn’t know anything about the video camera ten years ago,” he boasted in a 2011 interview with Forbes, “and I don’t know that much about grilled cheese sandwiches or soup.” Oh. Well, look, running a restaurant is hard, but lots of morons do it; if you have a bunch of VC money, you can probably coast for a long time on that. You'll have plenty of time to focus on the important things. quote:Given the chance to do it over, “we should have been spending a lot more time on the food, the customer experience, the management, and the operations.” Oh. quote:Before, it envisioned itself tackling ambitious and systemic world problems, much as a tech company would. Now, its goals are individualistic and basic: delivering delicious sandwiches to customers. In short, it sounds like a restaurant. And technology has been reduced to a supporting role; The Melt’s tech should be “helpful,” just as its décor should be “welcoming” and its staff “friendly.” #smashingthestate with grilled cheese. I don't even want to quote the final paragraph. It's too perfect of a punchline for me to pull it out. But this story of a man wasting millions of dollars on a lovely restaurant because the concept of market research just BLOWS HIS MIND is a tale for the ages.
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Jun 3, 2017 03:18
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The prices of sandwiches and soups has gotten out of control
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Jun 3, 2017 03:46
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Tiny Brontosaurus posted:Christ this is bleak. Disability effectively functions as mincome for a wide swath of the country, and I don't begrudge them that at all, but what a hellish life. I don't even really see a "candles" in their budget, since even cable TV doesn't seem like an extravagance when you've got nothing else to enjoy in life. I agree. I mean, there's obviously some poor judgment being exercised but these are hardly people that have the social and educational resources to expect anything different. The article seems a bit meanspirited, and all this article did was make me feel pretty sad for people caught in this trap with no real prospects or adequate supports anywhere close,
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Jun 3, 2017 04:28
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I see what you are saying but in my mind it is just journalism to point out that among the many things occurring in the lives of these people are four divorces at age 55, prescription opiates filled before utility bills are paid, and $300 cell phone bills.
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Jun 3, 2017 04:47
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BEHOLD: MY CAPE posted:I see what you are saying but in my mind it is just journalism to point out that among the many things occurring in the lives of these people are four divorces at age 55, prescription opiates filled before utility bills are paid, and $300 cell phone bills. people leading miserable lives make poor romantic and spending decisions and abuse drugs. nobody knew!
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Jun 3, 2017 05:05
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BEHOLD: MY CAPE posted:I see what you are saying but in my mind it is just journalism to point out that among the many things occurring in the lives of these people are four divorces at age 55, prescription opiates filled before utility bills are paid, and $300 cell phone bills. I think the bills are mostly high because they're late. Not ideal, but not the same BWM as having a plan that's actually that expensive every month. The divorces and the opiates are just sad, and one of those things that seems easy to avoid in theory but in practice probably isn't.
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Jun 3, 2017 05:13
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Simple BWM: New coworkers (seasonal employees just came on) complaining about not being able to buy groceries until their first paycheck comes in. Then, not 10 minutes later, making reservations at a local dive to have dinner. I fear that all the money they make this summer will vanish into terrible food and expensive alcohol.
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Jun 3, 2017 05:14
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sparkmaster posted:Simple BWM: New coworkers (seasonal employees just came on) complaining about not being able to buy groceries until their first paycheck comes in. Then, not 10 minutes later, making reservations at a local dive to have dinner. I fear that all the money they make this summer will vanish into terrible food and expensive alcohol. That is the joy of being a seasonal employee.
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Jun 3, 2017 05:18
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BEHOLD: MY CAPE posted:I see what you are saying but in my mind it is just journalism to point out that among the many things occurring in the lives of these people are four divorces at age 55, prescription opiates filled before utility bills are paid, and $300 cell phone bills. If you're unmarried with kids, you are over four times as likely to be poor. Can't blame her. She was just trying to avoid becoming a statistic. Four separate times.
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Jun 3, 2017 05:20
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Coca Koala posted:You want bad with money? Here's bad with money. This is a thing of absolute beauty and all of you nerds need to check it out.
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Jun 3, 2017 05:37
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Krispy Kareem posted:If you're unmarried with kids, you are over four times as likely to be poor. They're religious too so she might have a stronger feeling that a serious relationship should be a marriage
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Jun 3, 2017 06:58
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Coca Koala posted:You want bad with money? Here's bad with money. “It turns out when you put soup and grilled cheese together, it’s really wonderful,” Kaplan informed his audience, as if divulging a trade secret.
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Jun 3, 2017 12:05
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the talent deficit posted:people leading miserable lives make poor romantic and spending decisions and abuse drugs. nobody knew! Eh, maybe. My grandparents grew up during the great depression and were way worse off than these people, I doubt divorce rates were that high then though.
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Jun 3, 2017 12:28
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Coca Koala posted:You want bad with money? Here's bad with money. This is a onion-style parody, right? Honestly, you could make a completely straight-faced documentary of this and it would be funnier than 'Silicon Valley'
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Jun 3, 2017 12:49
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Power of Pecota posted:I'm confused how $600/month for electricity breaks down (as someone who's only ever paid electricity bills for apartments with 0-2 roommates) but I'm guessing that has a lot of stuff rolled in with it. A lot of trailers/very cheap homes are effectively uninsulated metal cans with no shade and the cheapest possible AC window units.
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Jun 3, 2017 12:54
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OctaviusBeaver posted:Eh, maybe. My grandparents grew up during the great depression and were way worse off than these people, I doubt divorce rates were that high then though. For starters back in the depression it was for better or worse not possible to claim disability benefits from the government, so anyone not capable of working for a cash or food living would have to think very long and hard about the financial and social implications of divorcing
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Jun 3, 2017 13:26
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LLCoolJD posted:“It turns out when you put soup and grilled cheese together, it’s really wonderful,” Kaplan informed his audience, as if divulging a trade secret. I was honestly a little disappointed; it's actually a chain still in business and even though they didn't reach their comical growth goals the American appetite for greasy fast food is virtually bottomless
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Jun 3, 2017 13:29
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Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:How much money does a person end up with in each scenario? Scenario A is better for people who are BWM, since they can't gently caress it up by carrying $100 on a credit card and spending the rebate on horse vitamins. Scenario B is better for people who can use a rewards card responsibly, plus it generates more economic activity over giving shovels away unless the shovels actually cost $100 in which case they would have to sell for more.
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Jun 3, 2017 13:32
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OctaviusBeaver posted:Eh, maybe. My grandparents grew up during the great depression and were way worse off than these people, I doubt divorce rates were that high then though. Spouses abandoning one another was higher in the Great Depression, which certainly made the kids worse off. The Great Depression was an outlier in that you could do everything right and still be really poor. There have been studies that break down not being poor to 3 or 4 factors. Finish high school, don't do drugs, and wait until marriage for kids (or stay married if you have kids). You manage all three of those and your likelihood of poverty is exponentially less. I don't know if this lady finished high school, but she failed on at least two out of three. And before this becomes a debate about personal responsibility versus institutional poverty - government programs that encourage kids not to drop out, get pregnant, and do dope are also more effective in reducing poverty. Krispy Wafer fucked around with this message at 17:02 on Jun 3, 2017 |
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Jun 3, 2017 16:58
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Krispy Kareem posted:Spouses abandoning one another was higher in the Great Depression, which certainly made the kids worse off. The Great Depression was an outlier in that you could do everything right and still be really poor. Come on, if you want to call doing drugs a "choice," I disagree with you, but whatever. But you have no idea who left who. That's just lovely. A father can leave whenever he wants and trust that society will just scold the mother for being single.
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Jun 3, 2017 18:22
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Giant Isopod posted:It is a constant frustration of mine that America has decided to stop building light pickups. Sometimes you just need a truck bed and not a rolling fortress. You can rent a small trailer and use any car with a tow hitch instead of a light truck. Light trucks don't sell that well.
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Jun 3, 2017 19:38
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It sucks because light trucks are fun. My uncle had some Nissan (it may have even been a Datsun) with a stick and it was like a roller coaster ride. There's construction going on across the street from my kid's school and the workers all park their huge rear end trucks at the school. Driving a big truck to a construction site is like taking your glove to a baseball game. Odds are you'll never use it, but it makes you look cool and you can feel like a real ball player.
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Jun 3, 2017 20:03
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I'm surprised trucks were so cheap for so long before the car manufacturers realized that truck drivers are the dumbest, most insecure people that are most susceptible to pressure from conspicuous consumption.
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Jun 3, 2017 20:07
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cowofwar posted:I'm surprised trucks were so cheap for so long before the car manufacturers realized that truck drivers are the dumbest, most insecure people that are most susceptible to pressure from conspicuous consumption. Well, them and environmentalists. Anything priced on feeling good about yourself is gonna get gouged. edit: See also health food.
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Jun 3, 2017 20:12
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Last time I made a post about my coworker and his family, I (rightfully so) was yelled at for writing a book length post and it being generally confusing. To cut down on that, I'm just going to reduce it down to bullet points: -Three people involved: Mark (Coworker), Deb (Mom), Dan (Brother of coworker). All of them have access to each others banking accounts. Mark pulls in around 75k/yr, Deb 110k/yr, Dan 32k/yr. -Until recently Mark and Deb had cross financed each others vehicles as Deb had defaulted on a number of credit cards and had poor credit. Deb also opened credit cards in Mark's name and defaulted on them. Deb recently paid off her vehicle and Mark will pay his off soon. Rather than drive the car into the ground and pay down any other debt, Deb has decided to purchase a new second vehicle to drive as a daily driver and keep the paid off sports car for weekend driving. She told Mark she expects him to give his car to Dan and purchase a new vehicle in about a year (used cars unacceptable). Mark has his heart set on a new pickup truck. -Mark has a credit card that Deb is an authorized user on. They had managed to pay the card down from 25k to 18k, but it ballooned up back to 23k as both Mark and Deb bought items for their various collection hobbies. This month the min payment was around 3k which caused them both to miss payments on other cards/loans. At one point Mark complained about having to stretch 20 bucks for a week and a half of gas/food. He's planning on taking himself and Deb to a theme park for vacation later this year. -Deb is getting ready to retire early from her government job because she doesn't enjoy working anymore. Her home has about 40k left on the mortgage, no cash savings or 401k, and 4 or 5 maxed out credit cards (probably 60k?) that were 0% interest balance transfers that she did not pay off in time and so are charging super high interest. She has calculated that she'll probably receive about 70k a year from her gov. pension but won't be eligible for SS for another 10+ years. I told Mark to expect to have to house his mom in the near future.
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Jun 3, 2017 20:21
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William Munny posted:Last time I made a post about my coworker and his family, I (rightfully so) was yelled at for writing a book length post and it being generally confusing. To cut down on that, I'm just going to reduce it down to bullet points: The spending issues might improve a little once she quits the job she hates, but obviously that's not a given. At least it isn't as dire as a lot of people in this thread since that pension is pretty generous.
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Jun 3, 2017 21:48
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William Munny posted:Last time I made a post about my coworker and his family, I (rightfully so) was yelled at for writing a book length post and it being generally confusing. To cut down on that, I'm just going to reduce it down to bullet points: Every once in a while you just run into people/group of people who are incapable of making an acceptable decision. Not good, just acceptable. This seems like one of those groups.
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Jun 3, 2017 23:13
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Harry posted:Every once in a while you just run into people/group of people who are incapable of making an acceptable decision. Not good, just acceptable. This seems like one of those groups. True. It's just hard for me to understand how all three of them keep making bad financial choices. Like, yeah I guess another 30 hardback books are cool, but if you have to choose between that and buying clothes that you need for your job, you should get the clothes.
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Jun 3, 2017 23:42
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Harry posted:Every once in a while you just run into people/group of people who are incapable of making an acceptable decision. Not good, just acceptable. This seems like one of those groups. I don't know. Dan is getting a free car and seems to be avoiding all their stupid mistakes. If he's got his own checking and savings outside of their shared accounts then he's doing fine.
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Jun 3, 2017 23:43
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Solice Kirsk posted:I don't know. Dan is getting a free car and seems to be avoiding all their stupid mistakes. If he's got his own checking and savings outside of their shared accounts then he's doing fine. Sorry, I should have been a bit more clear. They all have accounts at different bank but they are all linked so they can see balances and transfer money among all of the accounts. He has 90kish in private loan debt co-signed by a different family member for a doctorate he dropped out of. He also seems to have an addiction to collecting things to the point of buying multiple copies of the same media. Something I just remembered, Mark and Deb both have a tendency to buy a piece of tech (say a fitness tracker), lose it in Deb's house, and then repeat this process 3 or 4 times.
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Jun 3, 2017 23:52
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William Munny posted:Sorry, I should have been a bit more clear. They all have accounts at different bank but they are all linked so they can see balances and transfer money among all of the accounts. He has 90kish in private loan debt co-signed by a different family member for a doctorate he dropped out of. He also seems to have an addiction to collecting things to the point of buying multiple copies of the same media. I don't know poo poo about graduate degrees but it was my understanding that if you're an interesting grad candidate for a PhD, in general the department will fund it? I did read a sad story of some journalist(?) dude that didn't get funding for his PhD and chose to press on. I can't find the article but it was fraught with all sorts of BWM. I will hunt for it. EDIT: Couldn't find aforementioned article but ran across this: https://theprofessorisin.com/2014/01/22/the-shame-of-ph-d-debt/ I guess PhD debt is more common than I realised. drat. rufius fucked around with this message at 00:16 on Jun 4, 2017 |
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Jun 4, 2017 00:14
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Power of Pecota posted:I'm confused how $600/month for electricity breaks down (as someone who's only ever paid electricity bills for apartments with 0-2 roommates) but I'm guessing that has a lot of stuff rolled in with it. Some of this: Tiny Brontosaurus posted:The article says that's with some late payments, and the fees for that get steep. Plus a couple ancient window shaker AC units or heat pump on a 1970s basically uninsulated trailer. It's easily doable.
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Jun 4, 2017 01:20
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hosed up attitudes towards food in silicon valley: My first year at Stanford i watched 4 separate dudes eat their first orange All of them upper middle class like nearly everyone else, they were just hosed up enough so that they'd never eaten an orange So i forced them to I was not surprised at all by soylent
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Jun 4, 2017 01:23
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