rickgrimes69 wrote:jbagelboy wrote:rickgrimes69 wrote:
That's quite possibly the most elitist thing I've seen uttered on this site (seriously). $160k is a shit ton of money and easily puts you in the top 5% of wage earners.
Oh rick, you (and others) completely missed the point, and the facetiousness.
Relatively speaking. Clearly it places you in a very high stratum of earners. It's more than either of my parents ever made or will make in a year. Average American family income is in the $45,000-50,000 range. But that's not the point. People change their lifestyle and their habits to get accustomed to new norms over time. Which all the kids beating each other down to go in debt for a $160k starting salary need the reality check. After a certain reasonable level of comfort, money doesn't correlate in any meaningful way with happiness, because humans just never seem to have enough.
No, I got your point, I just think it was worded extremely poorly (and frankly kind of offensively). I lived in Manhattan. I'm well aware of what $160k translates to in NYC. It doesn't change the fact that $160k is objectively a
shit ton of money that one doesn't need to be impoverished to appreciate on any basis, relatively or otherwise.
You're also acting like spending as much of that money as possible is a goddamned inevitability. It turns out that it's entirely possible to, you know,
not lock yourself into golden handcuffs.
Out of context, in an abstract universe of normative judgment, many otherwise sound points seem pretty fucked up. You're both missing context and applying inappropriate characterizations of human behavior - you may also be taking yourself too seriously.
(1) Michael Bloomberg is impoverished "relative" to Bill Gates. Both men are also exorbitantly wealthy, one statement does not invalidate the other. Again, if you're taking normative issue with my diction, then you're just not grasping the facetious nature of the post.
(2) As you consistently miss and has been repeated ad nauseum, $160k pretax on the average law school loan servicing is more like $65,000 take home. So it's "objectively" not $160,000, which is a large part of the point of these threads.
(3) As the practicing attorneys after me have correctly pointed out, few if any attorneys or bankers will maintain the same standard of living they kept as a student - yes, it's
possible, but statistically and psychoanalytically unlikely. You will find yourself taking more cabs, justifying an apartment closer to work, eating out more and at nicer establishments, ect. As you get older, orher costs accrue - your friends get married, maybe even YOU get married, who knows.
Even once debt is paid off, you are making choices, personal and fiscal, relative to your income, and these choices will make you feel poor again. You'll justify a 4BDR house with a guest room rather than the modest 2. Or maybe a German car instead of an American one, because all your new neighbors and coworkers have several and you've worked just as hard as them, right? Your payments will eat you up. Don't your kids deserve private pre-k? "Studies show..."
Its the same game. Find your bliss elsewhere.
