6 ms·

>The rhetoric of “We are the 99 percent” has in fact been dangerously self-serving, allowing people with healthy six-figure incomes to convince themselves that

by jasode 9y ago

>The rhetoric of “We are the 99 percent” has in fact been dangerously self-serving, allowing people with healthy six-figure incomes to convince themselves that they are somehow in the same economic boat as ordinary Americans, and that it is just the so-called super rich who are to blame for inequality. [...] The strong whiff of entitlement coming from the top 20 percent has not been lost on everyone else. Ok, since it's not clear from the title, Richard V. Reeves is directing his tirade towards people making $100k+ and not the Bill Gates and Warren Buffetts of the USA. Since many HN readers earn $100k+, let's ask ourselves: Do you feel "rich"? Richard Reeves is calling you out as the class of the "rich" and to stop denying it. You agree? Do programmers and sysadmins feel like getting the job and six-figure salary was from luck or the result of a rigged system? (Attending the 4-year college, whiteboard interviews, etc, was "rigged" in your favor.) If you want to live in a neighborhood that prevents disassembled cars jacked up on cinder blocks, it doesn't really mean you want a nice-looking environment. Instead, you're just using the rules as a smoke screen to keep out low-income blacks and Latinos. You agree? If you take advantage of 529 deductions for your kids' education and mortgage deductions, these are financial games to keep the low-income people from achieving what you've accomplished. Richard Reeves says you should feel guilty? Do you feel guilty? EDIT ADD: Since none of the replies (so far) directly engage with what I was trying to ask, I'll try to pose the question more directly: Do HN readers agree with Mr Reeves that _you_ are to be blamed for the low-income people not moving up the ladder?

HelloMcFly 9y ago
Do I feel like the game is rigged to benefit me? Yes, to a certain (and meaningful) extent I do. I don't feel personally guilty about making decisions that are in my own best interests when the alternative would be to simply inconvenience me with no upside to any other party. I do feel some collective guilt in that we cannot get our country to do right by those coming from less advantaged positions.
ajdlinux 9y ago
I'm an HN reader who does not earn $100k+. In my view, very, very, very few programmers really deserve more than about $200k at most. If you're earning $100k+ and you don't have children or extenuating circumstances such as disabilities that increase your non-discretionary expenditure, you're absolutely rich, and if you don't feel rich then you're either spending your money wrong or your benchmarks of wealth are waaaay off.
- UK-AL 9y ago
  "In my view, very, very, very few programmers really deserve more than about $200k at most." Why?
  - ajdlinux 9y ago
    I can't say I have a particularly well reasoned argument for saying that. It's just my moral intuition. I definitely can say that I don't think that a person's wealth and well-being should be determined by "value to the market". (FWIW I also come from a public service town, where very intelligent and talented people lead decently upper-middle-class lives, but salaries top out well below where one could get in the private sector.)
- JoeAltmaier 9y ago
  It doesn't work like that. You don't get what you're 'worth'. You get what you negotiate. Its a market, your skills are for sale, you have to make a good deal.
  - ajdlinux 9y ago
    Yep. I know how the market works. something something ~capitalism~
- _pmf_ 9y ago
  Outside the US, they won't. Working at Daimler for 10 years, you don't clear 80000 EUR if not moving in a managerial tier, and even then you'll have to move quite far up. (Starting nowadays, you'll have 50000 EUR starting salary as a junior developer.) And this is before taxes; even with 2 children, I'll pay upwards of 40 percent income tax in addition to 19 percent mandatory health insurance. SV is a fantasy world.
Quarrelsome 9y ago
Consider my friend who did as he was told but sadly in his case that was to become one of the very best dancers in his time. Dancing doesn't pay. He now works 10 hour shifts as a Chef and just about gets by to provide for his family. Conversely I put an equal amount of effort in teaching myself how to code and can pull in over four times the salary he earns with slightly less effort and when I get home my body doesn't feel fatigued. So "hahahahaha", he chose wrong and I chose right? Right? I was just lucky that the money coincided with my interest in tech. Damn straight I feel guilty and what makes me mad is when people claim its about effort and hard work. Sure that's definitely part of the equasion but you can work twice as hard and put in twice as much effort and it doesn't mean a damn if you didn't back the "right" industry horse. Save a thought for those that chose different yet still totally as valid fields like nursing or teaching and appreciate the benefit that tech has "unfairly" brought you. Next time you're up late and working super hard just remember you're not literally cleaning up shit and piss for 1/4 of the money.
- DarkKomunalec 9y ago
  So while the ultra-rich corrupt democracy and amass ever more power, with increasing numbers of people vulnerable to their every whim, the people who work for a merely comfortable living should feel guilty? Why this focus on guilt? Are we not allowed to be angry, as long as we still have some shred of comfort in out lives?
  - pc86 9y ago
    I think the point is that it's a bit of mental gymnastics to rail against "the rich" when you're a senior developer at Netflix making 10x the median household income.
  - Quarrelsome 9y ago
    cause I know the tech industry is "bubbly". Lot of people working in tech don't quite grok how tough it is for others to get by. Lets face it, while we're high enough to see the "real money" we're still a lot higher than everyone else salary and job security wise. What if programmers were a dime a dozen and highly trained social care was where the lucra was at?
bitwize 9y ago
> Do programmers and sysadmins feel like getting the job and six-figure salary was from luck or the result of a rigged system? I'm white and male and relatively young still, so to some extent, yes, it is rigged in my favor.
- jasode 9y ago
  >I'm white [...] rigged in my favor Ok, how do Asians fit in that narrative? They suffer reverse-discrimination[1] and yet they are over-represented in high-paying technology jobs. Was the system "rigged" for them as well? [1] https://www.google.com/search?q=asians+reverse+discrimination+college+admissions https://www.google.com/search?q=asians+reverse+discriminatio...
vanderZwan 9y ago
> Richard Reeves says you should feel guilty? Do you feel guilty? Close: I feel privileged. I'm a man, Eurasian ethnicity (that is: can pass for "white"), have two sisters, one of which has an "exotic" first name. And yes, I see the system being "rigged" in my favour all the time, related to the things I mentioned, and the unfairness of it all does piss me off.
colanderman 9y ago
Yes I feel rich. I no longer have to worry whether I can pay bills at the end of each month, despite making discretionary purchases without a pre-planned budget. Yes I am lucky. Lucky to be both to parents who valued education, competency, and responsibility, knew how to instill those values in me, and had the capability to pull the right strings to see me through to a successful adulthood.
pjc50 9y ago
Guilt is mentioned exactly once in the article: "At least posh people in England have the decency to feel guilty." I think that's rather overstating it - some people, mostly traditional aristos, feel a sense of noblesse oblige, but they're only a small proportion of the rich population. I don't think framing it in terms of guilt is helpful, nor is trying to construct privilege as something that people should be ashamed of. It just makes people very defensive. What is better is for people to be aware of what advantages they had that other people did not, especially when they're telling other people what they should do or saying that everyone could get to their level if only they worked hard enough - hard work is not sufficient, avoidance of obstacles is also necessary. (Private education is tax-deductible in the US? Blimey. The UK setup is slightly different - private schools are usually structured as non-profit educational charities, with tax advantages, and even that is grudgingly accepted due to the age and character of the schools.) Did you have a computer at home as a child? That's a huge advantage that was outwith your control.
- presto8 9y ago
  Private education is not generally tax-deductible in the US (e.g., private high school). 529 funds can be used for post-secondary education, but even then it's only the gains on the account that are exempt from tax if used for education.
Jill_the_Pill 9y ago
Yes, a bit. I learned how wealthy, privileged, and protected even 100k is when we pulled our kids from a Catholic elementary school and moved them to an integrated urban magnet school (median income $35k). Suddenly we had some classmates who couldn't properly afford food, school clothes, and field trips. Not just one or two families, but many nice, hard-working families with smart kids. Just -- wow -- middle-class us -- we were suddenly rich, and I'd never really known it before. My eldest will perpetuate her privilege and attend an Ivy in the fall. Her classmates, with exactly the same talent, education, hard work, and academic achievement will not, despite the availability of financial aid. Their families just didn't know how to micro-manage the application process, they couldn't afford extra-curricular enrichment, and some had other issues at home like immigration status or family health problems. Edit: and legacy preference; I am an alumn. While I don't think it's malicious intent that "keeps low-income people from achieving what we've accomplished," there are definitely structural elements that do. I'm sure the existing system of financial games, housing, zoning, and education could be rearranged to help them much more.
vacri 9y ago
Crikey, what a strawman. The article isn't about making individuals feel guilty. It's about what it says on the tin: stop pretending you're not rich. The median household income in California is $64k; across the US as a whole it's $52k. Half of all households are below these figures. If you're earning six figures, you are rich. It doesn't matter where you live, or what you spend your money on, you are rich. You're earning a minimum of 50% more than the median household income in a wealthy state. "Yeah, but my rent is high!"... well, go and see how the poor people live. Your rent may be high, but that's because you choose to live somewhere nice. The article isn't about trying to make people feel guilty, it's about trying to pierce this bubble that the US upper middle class has (and HN has it in spades) that they're hard done by and kinda poor.
- JoeAltmaier 9y ago
  The article's conclusion is all about guilt and morality. Says so in the closing paragraphs.
  - vacri 9y ago
    It's about morality, but it's not about guilt. You don't have to feel guilty to break your own sense of entitlement. The whole theme of the article is 'stop pretending you're not rich', not 'you're rich and should feel guilty about it'.
    - jasode 9y ago
      >The whole theme of the article is 'stop pretending you're not rich', not 'you're rich and should feel guilty about it'. The "stop pretending" is certainly the title but it's not the whole theme. He covers several themes. The author also wrote: >The American myth of meritocracy allows them to attribute their position to their brilliance and diligence, rather than to luck or a rigged system. At least posh people in England have the decency to feel guilty. In other words, if Americans had the right moral sense, they'd feel guilty about it too. The theme for "pretending" is more about awareness if where six figures fits in the percentiles. Maybe people making $100k don't know or don't admit that such an income is in the top 17%. Yes, it's more than 83% others make so he advises, "don't pretend you're not rich." The other theme is guilt and morals which the author is trying to convey to readers via claims of "luck", "good fortune", and "myth of meritocracy". This line of argument is orthogonal to the "stop pretending" theme. At least 2 different themes with 2 different sets of supporting arguments in that blog post.
fireflash38 9y ago
Yes, to some extent. I don't have kids yet, but when I do I will send them to public school. I had the massive advantage of being able to afford buying a house in a good school district. The money spent on housing tends to be directly proportional to the quality of schooling, which has a massive impact on income mobility. Even if you discount better teachers and the like, going to a school where everyone's parents are invested in their kids' futures will produce very different outcomes from where parents aren't there (working multiple jobs, in jail, whatever). So even though I am not specifically putting a boot on someone's head to keep them down, I am a willing participant in a system that effectively does that.
ritchiea 9y ago
Yes, I look at the people I grew up around in a poor-to-working class neighborhood in Chicago and I feel guilty that most of them didn't get the same opportunity I did to do better. I was bused to better schools because of my test scores, I had a family that really cared and was relatively stable so while we didn't have a ton of money we had that. It's definitely not fair and not a product of anything I did other than being lucky to be born intelligent and into a caring stable family. I'm not sure whether I should be blamed for other people not moving up the ladder, I don't have kids or a house so some of his critiques don't apply to me. But it does feel like in many cases the upper middle class stands in the way of progressive policy.
JeremyNT 9y ago
I consider myself rich. I feel guilty about it. I make far less than many on HN (but live in an area which is much more affordable than SF). By the article's definition we are not in the top 20%, but given a cost of living adjustment I'd put us near it. Barring a catastrophe striking myself or my wife and permanently impeding our ability to work (and even potentially including a catastrophe striking only one of us) I will never have a concern about paying for food, shelter, transportation, clothing, education for my daughter, entertainment, or retirement. Nothing of any real import. I think the most serious plausible risk would be a drawn out medical disaster occuring to one or both of us, with exotic and expensive treatments and overwhelming hospice costs. Our society deems it fit to bankrupt families in this state. The truly rich are the only ones really exempted from this potential outcome. We have a house. It's about half paid off. Extremely high cost luxury items (such as exotic luxury cars) are either out of our grasp or ruled to be within our grasp but miserable investments, and are not seriously considered. As an example, our primary vehicle is 8 years old, and it cost ~$20k when new. We have a "spare" vehicle which is much older but is still reliable (I commute by bike, but having a "spare" vehicle is useful for emergencies or for very bad weather (when my daughter needs transportation and cannot ride with me safely)). We keep enough money in the bank to buy a similar new vehicle with cash if this one fails, or to pay for major problems with the house. If both occur at the same time, we would need to take out a home equity loan or an auto loan. We donate to charity but I feel guilty about how little. We donate more since the election. We still own luxury items. I have a $300 pair of shoes. My wife owns nice clothing. I own a $1500 bicycle (and have several more less valuable bicycles which I enjoy working on and tinkering with). I own ~$3000 worth of camera equipment. We shop at a co-op market, we buy local organic food. We eat out at restaurants several times a week. We travel every year, sometimes abroad. We never have to work on weekends or holidays. Our parents are not rich. We "earned" all of this on our own. Through, mostly, simply good fortune at being in the right place in the right time in the right generation. What is rich? What point is there in having more than this? How would it benefit society for us to have more than this? I suppose we could work less, but we both enjoy our work.
mcbruiser3 9y ago
Do I feel rich? No. Do I feel the system is rigged? Absolutely not and I'm sick and tired of people who make POOR decisions complaining about other people who work hard and make good decisions .. stop whining, and take some responsibility for your decisions. No, you can't have everything you want and no, the world is not fair.

by jasode 9y ago

HelloMcFly 9y ago

Do I feel like the game is rigged to benefit me? Yes, to a certain (and meaningful) extent I do. I don't feel personally guilty about making decisions that are in my own best interests when the alternative would be to simply inconvenience me with no upside to any other party. I do feel some collective guilt in that we cannot get our country to do right by those coming from less advantaged positions.

ajdlinux 9y ago

I'm an HN reader who does not earn $100k+. In my view, very, very, very few programmers really deserve more than about $200k at most. If you're earning $100k+ and you don't have children or extenuating circumstances such as disabilities that increase your non-discretionary expenditure, you're absolutely rich, and if you don't feel rich then you're either spending your money wrong or your benchmarks of wealth are waaaay off.

UK-AL 9y ago
"In my view, very, very, very few programmers really deserve more than about $200k at most." Why?
- ajdlinux 9y ago
  I can't say I have a particularly well reasoned argument for saying that. It's just my moral intuition. I definitely can say that I don't think that a person's wealth and well-being should be determined by "value to the market". (FWIW I also come from a public service town, where very intelligent and talented people lead decently upper-middle-class lives, but salaries top out well below where one could get in the private sector.)
JoeAltmaier 9y ago
It doesn't work like that. You don't get what you're 'worth'. You get what you negotiate. Its a market, your skills are for sale, you have to make a good deal.
- ajdlinux 9y ago
  Yep. I know how the market works. something something ~capitalism~
_pmf_ 9y ago
Outside the US, they won't. Working at Daimler for 10 years, you don't clear 80000 EUR if not moving in a managerial tier, and even then you'll have to move quite far up. (Starting nowadays, you'll have 50000 EUR starting salary as a junior developer.) And this is before taxes; even with 2 children, I'll pay upwards of 40 percent income tax in addition to 19 percent mandatory health insurance. SV is a fantasy world.

Quarrelsome 9y ago

Consider my friend who did as he was told but sadly in his case that was to become one of the very best dancers in his time. Dancing doesn't pay. He now works 10 hour shifts as a Chef and just about gets by to provide for his family. Conversely I put an equal amount of effort in teaching myself how to code and can pull in over four times the salary he earns with slightly less effort and when I get home my body doesn't feel fatigued. So "hahahahaha", he chose wrong and I chose right? Right? I was just lucky that the money coincided with my interest in tech. Damn straight I feel guilty and what makes me mad is when people claim its about effort and hard work. Sure that's definitely part of the equasion but you can work twice as hard and put in twice as much effort and it doesn't mean a damn if you didn't back the "right" industry horse. Save a thought for those that chose different yet still totally as valid fields like nursing or teaching and appreciate the benefit that tech has "unfairly" brought you. Next time you're up late and working super hard just remember you're not literally cleaning up shit and piss for 1/4 of the money.

DarkKomunalec 9y ago
So while the ultra-rich corrupt democracy and amass ever more power, with increasing numbers of people vulnerable to their every whim, the people who work for a merely comfortable living should feel guilty? Why this focus on guilt? Are we not allowed to be angry, as long as we still have some shred of comfort in out lives?
- pc86 9y ago
  I think the point is that it's a bit of mental gymnastics to rail against "the rich" when you're a senior developer at Netflix making 10x the median household income.
- Quarrelsome 9y ago
  cause I know the tech industry is "bubbly". Lot of people working in tech don't quite grok how tough it is for others to get by. Lets face it, while we're high enough to see the "real money" we're still a lot higher than everyone else salary and job security wise. What if programmers were a dime a dozen and highly trained social care was where the lucra was at?

bitwize 9y ago

> Do programmers and sysadmins feel like getting the job and six-figure salary was from luck or the result of a rigged system? I'm white and male and relatively young still, so to some extent, yes, it is rigged in my favor.

jasode 9y ago
>I'm white [...] rigged in my favor Ok, how do Asians fit in that narrative? They suffer reverse-discrimination[1] and yet they are over-represented in high-paying technology jobs. Was the system "rigged" for them as well? [1] https://www.google.com/search?q=asians+reverse+discrimination+college+admissions https://www.google.com/search?q=asians+reverse+discriminatio...

vanderZwan 9y ago

> Richard Reeves says you should feel guilty? Do you feel guilty? Close: I feel privileged. I'm a man, Eurasian ethnicity (that is: can pass for "white"), have two sisters, one of which has an "exotic" first name. And yes, I see the system being "rigged" in my favour all the time, related to the things I mentioned, and the unfairness of it all does piss me off.

colanderman 9y ago

Yes I feel rich. I no longer have to worry whether I can pay bills at the end of each month, despite making discretionary purchases without a pre-planned budget. Yes I am lucky. Lucky to be both to parents who valued education, competency, and responsibility, knew how to instill those values in me, and had the capability to pull the right strings to see me through to a successful adulthood.

pjc50 9y ago

Guilt is mentioned exactly once in the article: "At least posh people in England have the decency to feel guilty." I think that's rather overstating it - some people, mostly traditional aristos, feel a sense of noblesse oblige, but they're only a small proportion of the rich population. I don't think framing it in terms of guilt is helpful, nor is trying to construct privilege as something that people should be ashamed of. It just makes people very defensive. What is better is for people to be aware of what advantages they had that other people did not, especially when they're telling other people what they should do or saying that everyone could get to their level if only they worked hard enough - hard work is not sufficient, avoidance of obstacles is also necessary. (Private education is tax-deductible in the US? Blimey. The UK setup is slightly different - private schools are usually structured as non-profit educational charities, with tax advantages, and even that is grudgingly accepted due to the age and character of the schools.) Did you have a computer at home as a child? That's a huge advantage that was outwith your control.

presto8 9y ago
Private education is not generally tax-deductible in the US (e.g., private high school). 529 funds can be used for post-secondary education, but even then it's only the gains on the account that are exempt from tax if used for education.

Jill_the_Pill 9y ago

Yes, a bit. I learned how wealthy, privileged, and protected even 100k is when we pulled our kids from a Catholic elementary school and moved them to an integrated urban magnet school (median income $35k). Suddenly we had some classmates who couldn't properly afford food, school clothes, and field trips. Not just one or two families, but many nice, hard-working families with smart kids. Just -- wow -- middle-class us -- we were suddenly rich, and I'd never really known it before. My eldest will perpetuate her privilege and attend an Ivy in the fall. Her classmates, with exactly the same talent, education, hard work, and academic achievement will not, despite the availability of financial aid. Their families just didn't know how to micro-manage the application process, they couldn't afford extra-curricular enrichment, and some had other issues at home like immigration status or family health problems. Edit: and legacy preference; I am an alumn. While I don't think it's malicious intent that "keeps low-income people from achieving what we've accomplished," there are definitely structural elements that do. I'm sure the existing system of financial games, housing, zoning, and education could be rearranged to help them much more.

vacri 9y ago

Crikey, what a strawman. The article isn't about making individuals feel guilty. It's about what it says on the tin: stop pretending you're not rich. The median household income in California is $64k; across the US as a whole it's $52k. Half of all households are below these figures. If you're earning six figures, you are rich. It doesn't matter where you live, or what you spend your money on, you are rich. You're earning a minimum of 50% more than the median household income in a wealthy state. "Yeah, but my rent is high!"... well, go and see how the poor people live. Your rent may be high, but that's because you choose to live somewhere nice. The article isn't about trying to make people feel guilty, it's about trying to pierce this bubble that the US upper middle class has (and HN has it in spades) that they're hard done by and kinda poor.

JoeAltmaier 9y ago
The article's conclusion is all about guilt and morality. Says so in the closing paragraphs.
- vacri 9y ago
  It's about morality, but it's not about guilt. You don't have to feel guilty to break your own sense of entitlement. The whole theme of the article is 'stop pretending you're not rich', not 'you're rich and should feel guilty about it'.
  - jasode 9y ago
    >The whole theme of the article is 'stop pretending you're not rich', not 'you're rich and should feel guilty about it'. The "stop pretending" is certainly the title but it's not the whole theme. He covers several themes. The author also wrote: >The American myth of meritocracy allows them to attribute their position to their brilliance and diligence, rather than to luck or a rigged system. At least posh people in England have the decency to feel guilty. In other words, if Americans had the right moral sense, they'd feel guilty about it too. The theme for "pretending" is more about awareness if where six figures fits in the percentiles. Maybe people making $100k don't know or don't admit that such an income is in the top 17%. Yes, it's more than 83% others make so he advises, "don't pretend you're not rich." The other theme is guilt and morals which the author is trying to convey to readers via claims of "luck", "good fortune", and "myth of meritocracy". This line of argument is orthogonal to the "stop pretending" theme. At least 2 different themes with 2 different sets of supporting arguments in that blog post.

fireflash38 9y ago

Yes, to some extent. I don't have kids yet, but when I do I will send them to public school. I had the massive advantage of being able to afford buying a house in a good school district. The money spent on housing tends to be directly proportional to the quality of schooling, which has a massive impact on income mobility. Even if you discount better teachers and the like, going to a school where everyone's parents are invested in their kids' futures will produce very different outcomes from where parents aren't there (working multiple jobs, in jail, whatever). So even though I am not specifically putting a boot on someone's head to keep them down, I am a willing participant in a system that effectively does that.

ritchiea 9y ago

Yes, I look at the people I grew up around in a poor-to-working class neighborhood in Chicago and I feel guilty that most of them didn't get the same opportunity I did to do better. I was bused to better schools because of my test scores, I had a family that really cared and was relatively stable so while we didn't have a ton of money we had that. It's definitely not fair and not a product of anything I did other than being lucky to be born intelligent and into a caring stable family. I'm not sure whether I should be blamed for other people not moving up the ladder, I don't have kids or a house so some of his critiques don't apply to me. But it does feel like in many cases the upper middle class stands in the way of progressive policy.

JeremyNT 9y ago

I consider myself rich. I feel guilty about it. I make far less than many on HN (but live in an area which is much more affordable than SF). By the article's definition we are not in the top 20%, but given a cost of living adjustment I'd put us near it. Barring a catastrophe striking myself or my wife and permanently impeding our ability to work (and even potentially including a catastrophe striking only one of us) I will never have a concern about paying for food, shelter, transportation, clothing, education for my daughter, entertainment, or retirement. Nothing of any real import. I think the most serious plausible risk would be a drawn out medical disaster occuring to one or both of us, with exotic and expensive treatments and overwhelming hospice costs. Our society deems it fit to bankrupt families in this state. The truly rich are the only ones really exempted from this potential outcome. We have a house. It's about half paid off. Extremely high cost luxury items (such as exotic luxury cars) are either out of our grasp or ruled to be within our grasp but miserable investments, and are not seriously considered. As an example, our primary vehicle is 8 years old, and it cost ~$20k when new. We have a "spare" vehicle which is much older but is still reliable (I commute by bike, but having a "spare" vehicle is useful for emergencies or for very bad weather (when my daughter needs transportation and cannot ride with me safely)). We keep enough money in the bank to buy a similar new vehicle with cash if this one fails, or to pay for major problems with the house. If both occur at the same time, we would need to take out a home equity loan or an auto loan. We donate to charity but I feel guilty about how little. We donate more since the election. We still own luxury items. I have a $300 pair of shoes. My wife owns nice clothing. I own a $1500 bicycle (and have several more less valuable bicycles which I enjoy working on and tinkering with). I own ~$3000 worth of camera equipment. We shop at a co-op market, we buy local organic food. We eat out at restaurants several times a week. We travel every year, sometimes abroad. We never have to work on weekends or holidays. Our parents are not rich. We "earned" all of this on our own. Through, mostly, simply good fortune at being in the right place in the right time in the right generation. What is rich? What point is there in having more than this? How would it benefit society for us to have more than this? I suppose we could work less, but we both enjoy our work.

mcbruiser3 9y ago

Do I feel rich? No. Do I feel the system is rigged? Absolutely not and I'm sick and tired of people who make POOR decisions complaining about other people who work hard and make good decisions .. stop whining, and take some responsibility for your decisions. No, you can't have everything you want and no, the world is not fair.