Florida State Seminoles

[hedge]

He didn't build that!

[10ac]

Concur and concur. Both sides are in it just for the short term. Fooling the peoples is all that matters.

[Jungle Rat]

Politics. Heh.

[Owlman]

the GOP shouldn't be coming up with an alternative anyways. The conservative solution should be a free market solution.

PPACA was the free market solution in 1994 proposed by the Republicans and formally by Lincoln Chaffee. Most Republicans supported it in opposition to what they thought Hillary Clinton was working on (a single payer system). That's why the Governor of Massachusetts proposed and passed it later. Require people to buy insurance that the insurance companies bid on to provide.

[Owlman]

Ha. Politics is bullshit, they just do whatever the fuck they want to achieve whatever short term fucking goal they have. Nobody really gives a flying fuck about having a platform or sticking to it. Hell it's a miracle when they can just work in the proper channels without just short circuiting the whole thing. The municipalities in Houston's transit authorities voted to build 5 light rail lines in the early 2000's and it passed. SO basically voters approved 5 lines, but there was some scuttlebutt about routing and such, and some of the suburban repubs (ie Tom Delay and John Culberson) in this area, naturally opposed it which is fine, but what kills me is the bullshit method that politics ends up playing out. What people voted on doesn't mean shit. Just recently, it has become a FEDERAL LAW, attached to a bill by John Culberson, that the federal government is not allowed to fund 2 of those rail lines. For basically no reasons except one asshole is against it and had enough power to attach it to House bill. No problem with spending the money anywhere else for rail, just not for those lines.

California will happily take that money

[Saint]

Jesus, aTm, don't ruin the mood.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Here's a question for the board...if you make $325,000 in annual take-home pay, are you rich? If not, what would you have to be making to feel 'rich'?

[hedge]

Rich is not what you might make for one year, but what you have in assets after settling all your debts. If you make $325K but live in a million dollar house that you still owe $750K on, you're not rich, you're in debt...

[aTm]

I agree wealth is measured in assets, not income.

[aTm]

It's all basically a smokescreen to the lower wealth folks. For most, since they don't really have a hoard of financial assets to speak of besides maybe a place to live, wealth to them is just seen as disposable income since that is what buys all the shiny toys they are jealous of. But as a basis of wealth, or even as a basis of taxation? Its ridiculous. Someone like MC Hammer or any other random short term star or someone like the NFL rookie. Those people are not really rich for the most part (or not as rich as they appear to be at first), the NFL career merely accelerates all of ones career earnings into an average of like a 3 year window where that player basically has to earn everything he can before its over for him. The government taxes him sure just like he was really wealthy (probably more so, because the really wealthy get rid of their "income" as far as the govt is concerned).

[Dr. Strangelove]

Rich is not what you might make for one year, but what you have in assets after settling all your debts. If you make $325K but live in a million dollar house that you still owe $750K on, you're not rich, you're in debt...

Okay, I'll rephrase...there was a survey conducted last year amongst folks with $1 M of assets or more.

http://business.time.com/2013/07/24/wha ... ica-today/

Of those with between $1M-$5M, only 28% said they would consider themselves 'rich'. Of those with OVER $5M in assets, there were still 40% who said, nope, I'm not rich.

When asked what it would take to feel rich, over half replied that being 'rich' was the equivalent of having no financial constraints on your activities whatsoever. So basically, unless you can live like Scrooge McDuck and swim in giant money bin or buy a $50 Million yacht every weekend, you aren't wealthy.

So are they right? No one's 'rich' unless they can live that way?

It's also a fact that if you make more than $48,000 you are in the top 1% of all income-earners in the world.

[Cletus]

Rich is not what you might make for one year, but what you have in assets after settling all your debts. If you make $325K but live in a million dollar house that you still owe $750K on, you're not rich, you're in debt...

Okay, I'll rephrase...there was a survey conducted last year amongst folks with $1 M of assets or more.

http://business.time.com/2013/07/24/wha ... ica-today/

Of those with between $1M-$5M, only 28% said they would consider themselves 'rich'. Of those with OVER $5M in assets, there were still 40% who said, nope, I'm not rich.

When asked what it would take to feel rich, over half replied that being 'rich' was the equivalent of having no financial constraints on your activities whatsoever. So basically, unless you can live like Scrooge McDuck and swim in giant money bin or buy a $50 Million yacht every weekend, you aren't wealthy.

So are they right? No one's 'rich' unless they can live that way?

It's also a fact that if you make more than $48,000 you are in the top 1% of all income-earners in the world.

I guess it's all a matter of situation. For my peers (mid to late 30's, young kids, living in a city), $1-5 million is not rich. If you are there, you are on your way to rich but not there yet.

[eCat]

with my peers you're a drug dealer


you're *my* drug dealer

[Dr. Strangelove]

Rich is not what you might make for one year, but what you have in assets after settling all your debts. If you make $325K but live in a million dollar house that you still owe $750K on, you're not rich, you're in debt...

Okay, I'll rephrase...there was a survey conducted last year amongst folks with $1 M of assets or more.

http://business.time.com/2013/07/24/wha ... ica-today/

Of those with between $1M-$5M, only 28% said they would consider themselves 'rich'. Of those with OVER $5M in assets, there were still 40% who said, nope, I'm not rich.

When asked what it would take to feel rich, over half replied that being 'rich' was the equivalent of having no financial constraints on your activities whatsoever. So basically, unless you can live like Scrooge McDuck and swim in giant money bin or buy a $50 Million yacht every weekend, you aren't wealthy.

So are they right? No one's 'rich' unless they can live that way?

It's also a fact that if you make more than $48,000 you are in the top 1% of all income-earners in the world.

I guess it's all a matter of situation. For my peers (mid to late 30's, young kids, living in a city), $1-5 million is not rich. If you are there, you are on your way to rich but not there yet.

Well, see, that's my problem with your response. Why are you only measuring yourself against people you consider your "peers"? And naturally, your peers are only those with your assets and above. Virtually everybody is around people who make more than they do. And everyone tends to associate with those in your socio-economic class. Most people making $300,000 a year don't hang around after work with the guys making $22 K. They hang around at the country club with people who make or own more, and that convinces you that, gee, I'm not very well off at all.

If you own more assets or make more money than 99.9% of all people on the planet, how can you possibly not be considered rich? If that's the case, then there's basically no rich people anywhere. It's sort of like saying Willie Mays wasn't really much of a homerun hitter because he's only in the bottom 40% of the Top 5...instead of saying he's #4 out of 20,000 players ever.

[sardis]

To me, having 5 million in assets makes you rich. That's when you can stop working and not worry about how bills will be paid the rest of your life. I am getting there, but have probably 10 more years of toiling at the grindstone.

[hedge]

Somebody posted a good article several months back about 5 or 6 different people in different income/asset classes. From GQ, maybe? It was interesting...

[hedge]

Here it is...

http://www.gq.com/news-politics/big-iss ... -july-2012

[Jungle Rat]

To me, having 5 million in assets makes you rich. That's when you can stop working and not worry about how bills will be paid the rest of your life. I am getting there, but have probably 10 more years of toiling at the grindstone.

Nailed it. Haven't worked in 10 years. Good luck getting there. Sounds like you're gonna do it and then some.

[Saint]

If you're making $325,000 a year, you're rich. If you choose to make bad investments or overextend yourself, that doesn't change the fact that you have substantially more income than most.

[BigRedMan]

Bingo.