money and identity

[amw]

Something i have been trying to write about for a while but never found the space is this issue of net worth and class

Comments

[geminiwench]

I got a $10,000 disbursement after my grandfather's death... I used it to work part time while *living* like I was working full time... like, not worrying about rent payments for my teeny studio apartment, eating out once in awhile, or buying a beer at a bar when out with friends. It felt like TRUE LUXURY

[davesmusictank]

Best advice would be simply be yourself and do not wotty about being richer than before.

[amw]

Thanks for sharing some of your story

[geminiwench]

What America tells the world about its population, and the actual conditions of its population are completely different

[geminiwench]

A couple years ago I went to a wedding between two PhD engineers... who waited to get married the summer after getting their doctorates. Everyone around me were material scientists, mechanical engineers, electrical engineers, structural engineers, metallurgists... etc and they had fun complaining about how much they pay in taxes as a sort of game of one-upmanship

[amw]

The first time i had exactly one of these conversations with a coworker was the day i realized how poorly i fit into the social circles of my colleagues. I still remember the date, it was the Christmas party after Occupy Wall Street (2011). I suppose i'd been working up to it for a couple years after feeling increasingly awkward around the wealthy and out-of-touch family of my wife.

I haven't really been able to feel comfortable at work since. Obviously i am just as wealthy as my colleagues (formerly income-wise, but now also assets-wise), but i feel like there's a drempel you cross beyond which you lost perspective. I don't want to cross that drempel, you know? I think that's my main worry right now.

[geminiwench]

I think it is about remembering how much *small amounts of money* mean life or death to people, literally

[amw]

It's interesting, because I definitely would consider someone earning 100k and with a few hundred k in assets to be rich. They might not be upper class "never had to work a day in my life" rich, but for sure they meet my threshold for upper middle class rich. There are a bunch of people in the 70-90 percentiles before becoming millionaires that could easily afford to pay a bit more taxes. I find people in that group more offensive than the top 10% or the top 1% because they don't have the excuse that they don't know any better. I tend to see the ultra rich as living in their own untouchable bubble, so I don't expect as much empathy from them, somehow.

But perhaps that's just me falling for the trick of keeping the working people squabbling while those with inherited wealth just chill and rake in the spoils.

[geminiwench]

I think of the math trick between median and average in American income