# rich people's problems



## science (Oct 14, 2010)

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-...rawal-means-trading-aspen-for-cheap-chex.html

Funny stuff. Such as:



> Schiff, 46, is facing another kind of jam this year: Paid a lower bonus, he said the $350,000 he earns, enough to put him in the country's top 1 percent by income, doesn't cover his family's private-school tuition, a Kent, Connecticut, summer rental and the upgrade they would like from their 1,200-square- foot Brooklyn duplex.
> "I feel stuck," Schiff said. "The New York that I wanted to have is still just beyond my reach."





> "*People who don't have money don't understand the stress*," said Alan Dlugash, a partner at accounting firm Marks Paneth & Shron LLP in New York who specializes in financial planning for the wealthy.


Honestly, I think I've spent five minutes laughing at that. I'll probably cry later, but for now....



> On a recent Sunday, he drove to Fairway Market in the Red Hook section of Brooklyn to buy discounted salmon for $5.99 a pound.





> A labradoodle named Zelda and a rescued bichon frise, Duke, cost $17,000 a year, including food, health care, boarding and a daily dog-walker who charges $17 each per outing, he said.





> "I can't imagine what I'm going to do," Schiff said. "I'm crammed into 1,200 square feet. I don't have a dishwasher. We do all our dishes by hand."





> Schiff said he brings home less than $200,000 after taxes, health-insurance and 401(k) contributions. The closing costs, renovation and down payment on one of the $1.5 million 17-foot-wide row houses nearby, what he called "the low rung on the brownstone ladder," would consume "every dime" of the family's savings, he said.
> 
> "I wouldn't want to whine," Schiff said. "All I want is the stuff that I always thought, growing up, that successful parents had."


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

Sounds tough. Stress is everywhere. Glad he doesn't want to whine.

Maybe it would be less expensive in Budapest?


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## emiellucifuge (May 26, 2009)

Poor soul, we should definitely have more tax breaks for the upper percentile.


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## brianwalker (Dec 9, 2011)

And poor people in American bitch about low wages and unions not having enough power and "income inequality" when people are starving in Africa.

Yeah, they have nothing *really* to complain about, but what about the envious scumbags that is OccupyWallStreet? They have nothing *really* to complain about either. People in China have it far worse.

All the stuff about "income inequality" and the "shrinking middle class" in the US is pretty hilarious.


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## HarpsichordConcerto (Jan 1, 2010)

Schiff is probably also in the top 1 percent idiocy bracket.


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## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

brianwalker said:


> And poor people in American bitch about low wages and unions not having enough power and "income inequality" when people are starving in Africa.
> 
> Yeah, they have nothing *really* to complain about, but what about the envious scumbags that is OccupyWallStreet? They have nothing *really* to complain about either. People in China have it far worse.
> 
> All the stuff about "income inequality" and the "shrinking middle class" in the US is pretty hilarious.


I personally find it difficult to determine what is an 'ethical' amount of money to earn and use on oneself when there is so much poverty-caused suffering in the world, but I wouldn't go so far as to say (not that you did - I'm not sure what you meant) that it's all relative. Whether 95% of the population moans unnecessarily or not, it is beyond doubt that the man's statements were obscene and out of touch.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Stressy, stressy. Actually, within his context, its all important, real, and the stress is genuine. But stuck in his own context, clearly has no idea how incredibly uninteresting to others his 'dilemma' and stress are, or how off-putting the whining is to others not in that context. I think he needs to 'get out' more.


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

Polednice said:


> I personally find it difficult to determine what is an 'ethical' amount of money to earn and use on oneself when there is so much poverty-caused suffering in the world, but I wouldn't go so far as to say (not that you did - I'm not sure what you meant) that it's all relative. Whether 95% of the population moans unnecessarily or not, it is beyond doubt that the man's statements were obscene and out of touch.


_Poley_, how much do I have to pay you not to quote _brianwalker_?


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## brianwalker (Dec 9, 2011)

Polednice said:


> I personally find it difficult to determine what is an 'ethical' amount of money to earn and use on oneself when there is so much poverty-caused suffering in the world, but I wouldn't go so far as to say (not that you did - I'm not sure what you meant) that it's all relative. Whether 95% of the population moans unnecessarily or not, it is beyond doubt that the man's statements were obscene and out of touch.


I'm not sure why we don't give them man a break when bitching is an institutionalized activity in the US anyways. His problems seem legitimate, and I'm not so sure that he's out of touch with the world as much as the world at large i.e. the non-rich are out of touch _with him. _

If this man (Schiff) is to be ridiculed because he is supposedly "privileged" and does not have the right to complain, where do we draw the line for legitimate complaint?

Occupy Wall Street was huge in the US and lasted for months, it's still in certain places, and what was it for? It was the middle class Americans clamoring for more money. It was the salaries bourgeois afraid of losing their place in society. That's what protectionism is about. Protectionism hurts poor people in poor countries, but it has huge support in the US.

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v34/n02/slavoj-zizek/the-revolt-of-the-salaried-bourgeoisie



> The notion of surplus wage also throws new light on the continuing 'anti-capitalist' protests.* In times of crisis, the obvious candidates for 'belt-tightening' are the lower levels of the salaried bourgeoisie: political protest is their only recourse if they are to avoid joining the proletariat.* Although their protests are nominally directed against the brutal logic of the market, they are in effect protesting about the gradual erosion of their (politically) privileged economic place. Ayn Rand has a fantasy in Atlas Shrugged of striking 'creative' capitalists, a fantasy that finds its perverted realisation in today's strikes, most of which are held by a 'salaried bourgeoisie' driven by fear of losing their surplus wage. *These are not proletarian protests, but protests against the threat of being reduced to proletarians. Who dares strike today, when having a permanent job is itself a privilege? Not low-paid workers in (what remains of) the textile industry etc, but those privileged workers who have guaranteed jobs (teachers, public transport workers, police). *This also accounts for the wave of student protests: their main motivation is arguably the fear that higher education will no longer guarantee them a surplus wage in later life.
> 
> At the same time it is clear that the huge revival of protest over the past year, from the Arab Spring to Western Europe, from Occupy Wall Street to China, from Spain to Greece, should not be dismissed merely as a revolt of the salaried bourgeoisie. Each case should be taken on its own merits. The student protests against university reform in the UK were clearly different from August's riots, which were a consumerist carnival of destruction, a true outburst of the excluded. One could argue that the uprisings in Egypt began in part as a revolt of the salaried bourgeoisie (with educated young people protesting about their lack of prospects), but this was only one aspect of a larger protest against an oppressive regime. On the other hand, the protest didn't really mobilise poor workers and peasants and the Islamists' electoral victory makes clear the narrow social base of the original secular protest. Greece is a special case: in the last decades, a new salaried bourgeoisie (especially in the over-extended state administration) was created thanks to EU financial help, and the protests were motivated in large part by the threat of an end to this.


People make purchases and plans based on expected future income, and when there are income shocks their plans go into disarray.

We have workers who are laid off complain about "globalization", "chinese worker", etc, but they're still much better than the world average.


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## presto (Jun 17, 2011)

I recon I’ve got it about right.
Enough money coming in to live a comfortable life but not too much coming in as to get everything I want too easily.
................you appreciate things much more if you have to wait or work for it.


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## Xaltotun (Sep 3, 2010)

Plato thought that both wealth and poverty are detrimental to the State. While I don't always agree with the old geezer, I think he got this one right.


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## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

Hilltroll72 said:


> _Poley_, how much do I have to pay you not to quote _brianwalker_?


Don't worry, I've realised it would be unwise to do so again in this thread.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

brianwalker said:


> Occupy Wall Street... was the middle class Americans clamoring for more money.


But men may construe things after their fashion, 
Clean from the purpose of the things themselves.


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## brianwalker (Dec 9, 2011)

science said:


> But men may construe things after their fashion,
> Clean from the purpose of the things themselves.


And oftentimes, to win us to our harm, 
The instruments of darkness tell us truths, 
Win us with honest trifles, to betray's
In deepest consequence


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

brianwalker said:


> And oftentimes, to win us to our harm,
> The instruments of darkness tell us truths,
> Win us with honest trifles, to betray's
> In deepest consequence


By implication, Occupy is Satanic.

You can backpedal if you like, but the dualistic worldview really is a problem.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

I'll have to read Thomas Frank's Pity The Billionaire for more funny stories about these poor rich folks!


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