27 ms·

My Parents Give Me $28k a Year

• backspace_ 8y ago
  Previous posts of this same article: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18324359 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18324359 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18316647 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18316647
• Breadmaker 8y ago
  > That’s a $22.4 million of unearned income for the children of the rich, whereas the working class get taxed on their first dollar earned. A person could at least argue that my parents earned the capital they live off of. But me? I didn’t actually earn it.
  • LarryDarrell 8y ago
    At least she is self aware. Most people have a blind spot when they are the receiving end. For example, "This was my Grandpa's watch." is more often said than "I bought this apartment with my Grandpa's $500,000". The original ownership of physical items is flaunted, the original ownership of money is quickly hidden.
  • gowld 8y ago
    Nitpick, but this is not quite true. There is the Earned Income Credit, as well as various welfare payments that working class are entitled to.
    • inscionent 8y ago
      For a single adult with no children EIC goes away at $15,000; that is a full time job at less than $6/hr. The 'working' class shouldn't need be dependent on welfare and assistance programs.
    • deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
  • whoTube- 8y ago
    how are working class taxed on first dollar earned? most dont pay any federal income tax.
    • dragonwriter 8y ago
      > how are working class taxed on first dollar earned? Payroll tax
    • undersuit 8y ago
      Even if it's a benefit you are still taxed SS and Medicare no matter how little you earn.
• thex10 8y ago
  Internal server error (HN hug of death?). Anyone got an alternate link in the meantime?
  • rnotaro 8y ago
    Here you go: http://archive.is/gBd5I http://archive.is/gBd5I
  • icameron 8y ago
    Perhaps some of that 28,000 could pay for some upgraded hosting.
  • topspin 8y ago
    Same problem. Then I saw the domain name: ejroller.com and associated it with jroller and everything made sense. I wonder if that happened to others...
• rnotaro 8y ago
  Archive url: http://archive.is/gBd5I http://archive.is/gBd5I
• deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
• kevin_thibedeau 8y ago
  > I get an annual gift of $28,000, distributed, in my case, in monthly checks mailed to my house for $2000 and $334 (to make it easier to deposit remotely), completely tax free. Why would this be necessary? The IRS knows this money is being distributed. What difference does it make if it comes as an annual lump sum?
  • intopieces 8y ago
    I'm not sure, but I think $2000 is the maximum amount she can deposit as a check using her bank's app. In this case, "remotely" meaning she doesn't have to go to an ATM or bank teller. As for not giving it all in $28k, I don't think this is an IRS issue, but a personal preference of the benefactors.
    • isostatic 8y ago
      I don't understand why they don't just set up a standing order. And I'm sure I'm not the only one with a twich about having a $2000 cheque and a $334 check, rather than 2 cheques of $1167
  • apazzolini 8y ago
    My guess is that their bank's app places a $2000 limit per check for deposits.
  • deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  • gowld 8y ago
    Strange that people who have so much money to throw around waste their time on paper checks. Maybe it's intentional, in hopes that the child will feel a consequence of losing a check?
    • user5994461 8y ago
      It's so she doesn't get the 28k at once and spend it one something stupid, like a new car or a designer handbag. Her parents might also be getting her bank statement monthly and check what is going on.
• intopieces 8y ago
  My guess is this is of interest to us because it sounds an awful lot like UBI. But, I think the key difference is that the money is connected to parents, who presumably have a standard for how it's spent. If E.J. ended up spending it on drugs or other perceived vices, there's a chance the money might be cut off. The point of UBI is that it is 100% no-strings-attached, which has a different dynamic. That dynamic is one that concerns the anti-UBI people.
  • mFixman 8y ago
    The point is that the average person doesn't get $28000 a year. A landlord won't raise the rent of the author just because he has more money.
    • TeMPOraL 8y ago
      Why not? That's literally the most obvious thing to do as a landlord.
      • xyzzyz 8y ago
        For the same reason a grocery store doesn't charge you more for milk just because you're rich: if they did, you'd simply shop elsewhere. You know what happens if you raise your tenant's rent because you learned they have more money now? They move, and now you're losing money as you are trying to find a new tenant.
        • TeMPOraL 8y ago
          Apartments are sticky in the way grocery stores aren't. Moving to another place is expensive (in effort, money and social costs), and while the landlord can't just triple your price overnight and hope you stay, they can raise your rent in increments.
  • ahoy 8y ago
    I think it's of interest to us because wealthy people so rarely speak so candidly about their wealth and the advantages it gives them.
• ntumlin 8y ago
  Maybe this isn't the right place to ask, but could someone explain the rationale for taxing gifts within a family? Ignoring the possibility of using it to circumvent an income tax, etc., my initial thought is that if my dad wants to give me $30,001 this year, or even $300,000 this year, that he's already paid taxes on it and it's not the government's business. I feel the same way about inheritance taxes, although those are high enough I'm not too concerned about it. I hope this doesn't start any arguments, but that's just my take on it and I'm open to hearing why it's a bad idea. Edit: I appreciate the responses, they've cleared up some misconceptions I had and moved my viewpoint a bit.
  • tanderson92 8y ago
    A common misconception is that gifts within a family are taxed. They are, but only after one exceeds the lifetime limit. That limit is around $11M (per parent). It is true that if you exceed a certain amount per year you have to fill out a form, but that is not to be confused with paying actual tax on the excess gift. It's good that you feel the same about the inheritance tax because it's the same tax code that govern each.
    • dragonwriter 8y ago
      Note that it's only if reportable gifts exclude the limit, nonreportable gifts (below the annual limit) don't count against the lifetime limit. Also, both limits tend to go up over time, so it's a moving target.
  • astrodust 8y ago
    At low levels, which aren't taxed, it's not going to affect anything. At high levels, like giving your kid ten billion dollars, you're making it impractical or impossible for others to advance economically. You're creating a class of people with indestructible inherited wealth that never have to work, that only have to collect interest and rent on the backs of everyone else. That's what inheritance tax and gift taxes seek to disrupt.
    • user5994461 8y ago
• drblast 8y ago
  The value of this gift is much greater than then nominal sum. My parents gave me $3000 for the down-payment on my first house, which cost $100k. Otherwise I wouldn't have been able to afford to buy a house. But I bought instead of renting and ended up selling it for $200k years later. That was a big financial win early on and meant I was never in debt again. My financial situation at the time was barely-making-ends-meet, so I had to sell the house to recover the equity to buy a car and move across the country when I was transferred. Had my parents given me $30k as a one-time gift, I wouldn't have had to sell that house at all and would have rented it out in perpetuity. That would have been about $1000k a month of income for me, in addition to keeping the equity in the house. I've resisted spending money on a lot of things like, say, home renovations, new cars, etc. until I felt like I was paying for it solely from interest earned on investments or the purchase was an absolute necessity. The only reason I was able to start investing at a young age, on a very small income, was the sale of that house. Those savings have compounded, but more importantly I've always had enough cash to cover incidental expenses and that's enabled me to continue investing. Even small gifts can lift you out of a cycle of poverty. $3000 at the right time made a dramatic difference in my financial situation and will for the rest of my life. But $30k at the right time would ultimately have been worth about an extra $500k to me twenty years later. $30k a year like in the article would have just ensured I was as rich as my parents. That would have all gone to investments.
  • deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  • rigged-system 8y ago
    I sometimes think about debt the same way. In college I scraped by on ramen noodles and avoided doing anything that cost money. For example I wanted to go camping but didn't have say, $100 for a tent. If I had just put the $100 on my credit card, I'd probably have happy memories with friends, but now I can't get that experience back for any price.
    • rorykoehler 8y ago
      When I was in college I was broke one summer and not keen on working as I was heavily invested in producing music (which wasn't paying at the time). I took a £500 credit card and then immediately blew it on a weekend at the Edinburgh fringe festival. I spent 3 weeks eating plain white rice afterwards until I started working because I had to as that was all I had left at home. Though I'm now interested in FIRE and have a family and this behaviour is the opposite of what is required I'm still happy I did it. One of the best memories I have. I should note that I definitely did this from a position of privilege and if shit really hit the fan I could have always swallowed my pride and asked for a family bail out. Not sure if I would feel the same way had this not been the case.
• mobileexpert 8y ago
  A refrain that is very true in NYC. It is a bit off-putting (and just wrong) to read the author talk about white male privilege being a comparable head start to her half a million dollars of family money she’s received. (And 28,000/yr still coming!) For an essay centered on owning up to personal privilege it still has some serious short comings in recognizing how extreme her wealth privilege is versus almost all intrinsic characteristic in society privileges.
  • crooked-v 8y ago
    Consider that even well-known black movie stars occasionally get the "shopping while black" treatment. https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/19/forest-whitaker-falsely-accused-shoplifting-frisked-new-york-deli_n_2719712.html https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/19/forest-whitaker-fa... Having even absurd amounts of money doesn't make bias just go away.
    • frgtpsswrdlame 8y ago
      And yet I bet that 95%+ of American white males would easily, easily, easily make the trade between 'shopping while black' and $28,000/year. I actually wonder if you took the poorest 50% of white males and asked them what poor treatment they would suffer for $28,000/year tax-free - how much would they willing endure? I dare to say quite a lot. >Having even absurd amounts of money doesn't make bias just go away. And having white skin and a penis doesn't make inequality go away either.
      • PhasmaFelis 8y ago
        Intersectionality (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intersectionality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intersectionality) is an interesting subject. Privilege has many axes and can vary with circumstances; it's dangerous to reduce to a one-dimensional less-than/greater-than scale. A black woman from a wealthy family may have more privilege and more opportunities than a white man from a dirt-poor family, and that must be taken into consideration if we want to make a better world. But at the same time, it remains true that the average black woman has less privilege (in most circumstances) than the average white man.
• ydnaclementine 8y ago
  Boy, does reading this make me a bit frustrated/jealous. Some people are just incredibly lucky (at no fault of their own!). I would write more, but it would be more therapeutic for me than entertaining to read for you. I also found the author referencing gender/race distracting(?), this situation could happen to anyone. If you do find this type of stuff about what the wealthy do with their wealth interesting, I highly recommend a book called `Millionaire Next Door`
  • soared 8y ago
    I am consistently frustrated/annoyed/jealous by most of my friends whose parents paid tuition, rent, etc. I am more annoyed that I hold that opinion though; its something I wish I could let go and forget but I can't seem to do it.
    • ydnaclementine 8y ago
      I guess it’s to look on the positive side. Like for me, I luckily went to college, making good career progression, and will have my loans paid off in the next 5 years with aggressive paying and money management. Many people don’t even make it to whatever step 0 is of that progression list.
  • thex10 8y ago
    As someone whose parents don't even earn/live off 28k/yr USD, I can relate to this feeling. I didn't find the author referencing gender or race distracting, though I did find it very simplified/101 level. And yet she's still probably more self aware than her lucky peers...
• eatbitseveryday 8y ago
  > Still, when my parents told me they were going to give me about $2,000 a month, [...] I took it, spent part of it helping my then-boyfriend pay off his student loans and put the rest in the bank. > When my boyfriend suddenly left me (as men in New York are occasionally known to do), I had to pay $1,450 a month for rent on my own ($17,400 a year) on the lease we had just started, not including utilities. I quickly drained my own savings and found myself completely dependent on the gift money from my parents. Why spend your money on another when they can just leave you later? They won't give you that money back. What did he do to earn your money (parents') to pay his student loans off?
  • ZeroFries 8y ago
    Even marriage doesn't guarantee safety from a break-up, yet most marriages split finances. Suppose you thought with all sincerity you would get married, then helping your partner makes rational sense, especially if your partner is paying interest on a loan. That's your future joint account being drained.
    • toasterlovin 8y ago
      To be fair, the level of commitment in a marriage is much higher.
  • Kaveren 8y ago
    Caring about a person can make you do nice things for them and support them even if that results in a financial loss. If one is of good character, and able to help someone they have a good relationship with, they will do so.
    • eatbitseveryday 8y ago
      My concern was more about responsibility. I do and buy things for my friends, like dinner, or presents, but I'm not going to pay for their student loans because that's a significant burden that would place me in a financially unstable situation (as the author admits herself to).
• underpand 8y ago
  I disagree with her premise that the government should fund people to have fulfilling creative careers. That's not how the world works. Creative outputs generally do not have 'efficienciecy' increases like other fields. Creative outputs are zero sum: people only have a constant amount of time to use to consume creative outputs and consumption time has already been saturated. Efficiency upgrades for entertainment are tied to technology advancement (think the invention of TV, electronic audio devices, VR, video games), not creative output.
  • antpls 8y ago
    True, but what if being creative, or the act of creation, even if not consumed, leads to more happiness and self-fulfillment? Edit : as an example, the explosion of lines of code accessible on the internet is a new form of expression for some people. They are not paid to do it, yet they do it anyway, because they enjoy it. Not all that code is consumed, however.
  • soared 8y ago
    The "creative" part of that sentence is purely from her (super biased) viewpoint. The idea is letting people pursue /a career of their choosing/ rather than being stuck at a low-paying job with no opportunity to change that. She wants people to choose arts, but many would choose a real-world job that interests them. (Ex. a housekeeper has a passion for political issues and wants to work in the government, but has no time/energy/money to pursue it).
  • rtkwe 8y ago
    I disagree heavily with this. There's been a lot of improvement in the quality and variety of entertainment too over the years not just the technology used to deliver them. If restricted to media from say mid century America post TV most people would be bored stiff by the material available. It's REALLY easy to wind up with a dismissive attitude towards the arts growing up and working in tech but never forget how much there's a feedback loop between artistic exploration and technological advances and how even a modern 'clean' design encodes a lot of artistic choice behind the scenes.
    • 8y ago
• ninju 8y ago
  Why so many reposts of the same article in such a short period of time https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=ejroller.com https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=ejroller.com
  • soared 8y ago
    Somebody semi-important in the tech industry probably tweeted about it recently.
• DoreenMichele 8y ago
  Plus, the parents apparently paid at least $250k in college tuition for her. So she has world class education, zero debt from it, and then this stipend on top of that. The stipend wouldn't go anywhere near as far if she were saddled with crushing student loans. I come from a more privileged background than I realized and that included better educational opportunities. I was in gifted programs as early as second grade and had several college-equivalent math classes through my high school by the time I graduated high school. I took more math in high school for free than a lot of people with (non STEM) bachelor's degrees take. As a homemaker in my twenties, I kept running tallies in my head for every single item that went into my shopping cart. I never bothered to carry a calculator. I could run the numbers in my head faster than other people could punch it into a calculator. So much knowledge and training makes sparse material resources stretch a lot further than people stumbling their way forward with limited finances and less education, fewer solid mental models to inform their decisions, etc. I mean, I appreciate that she wrote the article and she's not wrong, but I think the issue runs so much deeper than she's indicating. Just because I had smart parents who knew a lot, I had a leg up before I ever started school at age five. And the gulf between me and most of my age mates only grew the older I got.
  • merpnderp 8y ago
    And yet if you even dare to open up the argument that government should try to encourage the types of families and behavior that show the best results for this type of childhood, you'll immediately be drowned out in ad hominem attacks. Even Obama took a lot of heat for saying dad's should help raise their kids. Never mind more seriously statically relevant approaches like waiting until after high school and marriage to have kids.
    • deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    • sidlls 8y ago
      Most of the arguments you refer to are actually thinly veiled racism ("black dads don't care about their kids") and that is the source of antagonism against them. There is more than a little classism behind Obama's remarks, though: he wasn't exactly raised impoverished or by family who were constantly running afoul of a racist, classist "justice" system.
• subpixel 8y ago
  Small sample size, but I happen to know multiple people in their thirties and forties whose parents continue to fund their 'creative' lives. I can assure you they are not as happy as you think free money might make you.
  • xenihn 8y ago
    I know so many people who call into this in NYC and LA.
  • thex10 8y ago
    Wow. I'd love to hear a perspective from a parent funding their middle aged children's creative lives. Do they feel like they've failed to make their children self sufficient?
    • ido 8y ago
      Probably just an ideological difference to you. If you're rich enough to support them throughout your life (& after death), why is it important that your kids are self sufficient? Maybe they think being able to practice their creativity/art/passion would have a bigger effect on their kids' happiness than knowledge that they are self sufficient.
  • maxxxxx 8y ago
    It's not guaranteed happiness but getting 30k a year guaranteed would make my life much more secure.
  • deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  • pcurve 8y ago
    I know a few too, including one talented artist who decided to go to law school because she wanted financial independence from her wealthy parents who would've happily funded her artist life style in perpetuity. She is a lawyer at a financial firm doing just fine money wise, but she isn't happy. Another friend of mine in his 40s is a full time artist, with a very supportive wife backing him. He still beats himself up for not being the provider.
• soared 8y ago
  Does anyone have recommendations on how to overcome the resentment I feel against people like the author? I am jealous and frustrated by their advantage, but that opinion is purely negative and doesn't help me at all.
  • 0d311 8y ago
    Compare yourself to who you were yesterday, last month, a year ago. Stop comparing yourself to others, remap comparing yourself against others to comparing yourself against your past self.
    • dsfyu404ed 8y ago
      I'm not at all surprised that the only (at the time of this comment) response that isn't just "refocus your hate at something else" is the one that's down-voted
  • kethinov 8y ago
    Maybe the resentment (not at her personally, but at the aggregate exploitation her class exacts on those beneath) is a legitimate feeling you should not overcome but instead express at the ballot box.
    • module0000 8y ago
      Just my trollish 2 cents, but I'd rather someone express it from a book depository window. If you vote them out, they'll just find another place to attach their lamprey politician jaws to.
  • noonespecial 8y ago
    I have none of those advantages either but I am fantastically lucky to be basically perfectly healthy. I can only imagine what someone in chronic lifelong pain must feel about me. I can just jump up and run whenever, wherever I feel like and my prescription drug bill each month is zero. Talk about an unfair advantage in life!
• dumbfoundded 8y ago
  Relevant John Adams quote: I could fill volumes with descriptions of temples and palaces, paintings, sculptures, tapestry, porcelain, etc., etc., etc.—if I could have time. But I could not do this without neglecting my duty. The science of government it is my duty to study, more than all other sciences: the art of legislation and administration and negotiation, ought to take place, indeed to exclude in a manner all other arts. I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce, and agriculture, in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain.
  • zxcvvcxz 8y ago
    “Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men. And, weak men create hard times.” Why should we aim to have future generations of artists and leisure enthusiasts, only so the cycle can begin anew?
    • DoreenMichele 8y ago
      Yes, obviously, we should strive to not improve anything. Having the occasional bright spot punctuating the gloom of history is such a waste of time. /s
      • zxcvvcxz 8y ago
        How about maintaining some sense of balance, responsibility, and austerity in our societies, instead of forever marching towards a fictional leisure-filled utopia?
        • DoreenMichele 8y ago
          in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain. As far as I can tell, you are the only one inferring that studying architecture and similar civilized topics equates to leisure and irresponsibility. That doesn't make sense to my mind. Here's my context for such remarks: My dad grew up in the Great Depression. He fought in two wars. He was awarded a purple heart. My mother grew up in Germany during WW2 and its aftermath. They raised me well with values like eating well matters and petty conflicts aren't worth being grudging over. I spent nearly 6 years camping -- aka homeless -- to get myself healthier while the world heaped verbal abuse upon me for it and called me a liar and crazy. My dream job is in the urban planning and economic development sphere. Among other things, I would love to help artists and writers and others figure out how to monetize their work and live well, even if they don't make scads of money. I would like to help homeless people access an earned income. Before my life was derailed, I was a military wife and homeschooling parent. I would like to return to that kind of role, but on a larger scale. I would like to help raise up the region wherein I live. Perhaps I shall figure out how to pull that off. I don't imagine it will involve a lot of leisure, though it will be the antithesis of war, even the antidote to it. Though I assume you won't see what I see there. Peace is not merely the absence of conflict. Trying to put it into words tends to be elusive. I continue to be largely dismissed, not given support, have doors slammed in my face, etc. I also run multiple websites with useful info for people with big problems. Once in a while, someone kicks a few bucks my way and I get a smidgen of Patreon support. So perhaps it can be grown. Perhaps this small candle I've lit in the dark void of my life can become a bonfire for others less fortunate than I am whose parents didn't similarly arm them for the battle ahead in life.
• TonnyGaric 8y ago
  I am getting HTTP 500 when I try to open the link. Anyone else also?
• fmajid 8y ago
  In other words, parasite tries to bite the hand that fed her. Nice.
• maerF0x0 8y ago
  site is 500ing --> http://archive.is/gBd5I http://archive.is/gBd5I
• maerF0x0 8y ago
  > With the arts, a student may be accepted to an arts program without a scholarship and find herself $200,000 in debt before realizing she isn’t going to be able to get a real paycheck with her arts degree—at least in the next decade. We need the government to stop backing these bad loans. Any bank that makes enough bad loans will eventually fail, so they try and avoid it. I'd rather see someone say "Well, you can borrow $50k for an arts degree because that's all it's worth" ... Then we'll start to see the market fulfill college options at reasonable prices for artists.
  • nickthemagicman 8y ago
    Theoretically college is not supposed to be a purely business transaction.
    • monochromatic 8y ago
      College isn’t. Loans are.
    • mmirate 8y ago
      It's a service, just like any other; and, in the occasion that the customer is able to utilize that service to the full extent, it is also a creation of a valuable good (human capital).
  • ngngngng 8y ago
    Exactly, there are millions of dollars in the arts, but it's all in selling art degrees.
  • ric2b 8y ago
    > Any bank that makes enough bad loans will eventually fail, so they try and avoid it. I wouldn't be so sure, these days (post 2008). _Especially_ if it's a big bank.
• chermanowicz 8y ago
  https://archive.fo/gBd5I https://archive.fo/gBd5I
• darawk 8y ago
  I agree with a lot of this article, but the answer here is definitely not to enable more people to go into the arts on the public dime. If you want free college, let's have it be free for everything except the arts. If you want to get an MBA, or learn mechanical engineering, i'm happy to subsidize that. But I have no interest whatsoever in subsidizing your creative writing degree.
  • mpolichette 8y ago
    Serious question, I'm wondering, why you, personally, value other people getting MBA/Engineering degrees over arts? I really enjoy going to the theater and seeing performances of all kind, just as I like tech/business advances. I want people to enhance the arts as well as the sciences. I acknowledge the idea of focusing on marketability and "ROI" for someone choosing their own path... However, when providing "access" to education, why encourage someone who could write the next show I want to see to instead consider crunching hard maths that they don't care about?
    • darawk 8y ago
      > Serious question, I'm wondering, why you, personally, value other people getting MBA/Engineering degrees over arts? Because they increase GDP, and thereby pay back their education in the form of income taxes, and increase the available wealth for everyone.
      • InitialLastName 8y ago
        Alternatively, GDP Or no, I value their artistic output over your ability to target ads on a CRUD app.
        • darawk 8y ago
          I guess you don't care about the millions of people living in poverty, then?
      • GuiA 8y ago
• tomp 8y ago
  > while I agree that society is, often, skewed to favor those SWGs (bless their hearts), it’s amazing how little time we spend discussing the largest, most obvious barrier to new voices in the arts: money. This is IMO the most important achievement of feminism: convincing people that sex, sexuality or race are more important in life than class or money. As they say, first you divide, and then you conquer.
• mberning 8y ago
  First off - I really dislike it when people deal with blocks of people as if they are a monolith. As if all white people have some innate starting advantage, all black people have some disadvantage, etc. It’s a brutally racist mentality that is very common. Secondly, poverty is not a lack of money or material wealth. That is part of it and is definitely a symptom. But actual poverty is a culture and a set of habits that easily pass from one generation to the next. The idea that just injecting money at the lowest levels of society will fix this is absurd. This is a multi generational problem that will not be fixed with money. I don’t know a better answer, but I think about it a lot.
  • cup 8y ago
    All white people do have some innate starting advantage due to their whiteness. That isn't to say they don't also have disadvantages too, for instance poverty, disability etc. Having white skin though gives you an advantage in a system that prioritises whiteness over other colours. Its not racist to discuss this.
    • jimbobimbo 8y ago
      RE: "All white people": You are a white person living in Eastern Europe. How's your advantage now?
      • BugsJustFindMe 8y ago
        Compared to a black person living in the same place and going to the same school and having the same number of living parents with the same jobs and same dedication to success, probably very good. Please remember to keep other factors equal when comparing aspects of demography. Otherwise you've just strayed off into the wilderness of logical fallacyland.
        • refurb 8y ago
          Ok, you’re a white farmer living in South Africa. How’s you’re whiteness helping you now?
• forapurpose 8y ago
  Asking where the money will come from is buying into the way the GOP frames the issue: It assumes there is a shortage of money. The U.S. is the wealthiest, highest earning country in the history of the world, with no real peer. #2 is the U.S. last year. When the U.S. was much poorer, it provided quality, inexpensive college education. Other countries that are not as wealthy do it. There is no shortage of money.
• randyrand 8y ago
  The ability to get your children ahead in life is what gives many parents purpose in life. Don’t go so far that you take that away.
• endomatrix1 8y ago
  In all honesty, I would dislike this author much less if they received a single one-time lump sum of $500K rather than a lifetime stipend of $28k. As it stands, this entire piece feels like fingernails dragging down a chalkboard screeching “I’m So virtuous and privileged but I announce my privilege so that gives me the right to express my opinions and tell you how to run capitalism better!!!” There is something about the open-ended lifetime of life support that really turns me off. This is a weak person with low personal responsibility, childlike even. I personally would have declined this offer from my parents, I am not a child, I am an adult. It would insult me to be in this arrangement past the age of 20. I received around $120K from my parents when I was 23. Through investing, I have turned it into $500K and never spent any of it on myself (vacations, food, rent etc). I paid for all my base needs, including my wedding，out of my salary. From the time I received the money, I taught myself to be a software engineer and worked my way up from $55K to (now) $350K / year. It was very difficult to do that. I even tried to start several startups, which was a brutal amount of work and worked several jobs at once. I decided I would not spend the money that was left to me, I felt that would represent a weakness in my personal character to do that. I don’t intend to ever spend it, in fact my plan is to triple it in coming years trading stock options into the coming recession. Seeing this author go off on tangents about universal basic income and providing free money to struggling artists sets me off. This is someone who has no personal accountability to themselves or to society. I love art, but it isn’t valued in the marketplace. I wanted money so I learned a valuable skill. Don’t take free money from your parents as a grown adult and turn around and give us all a lecture on how to structure society!