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My blood pressure went way up when I found out how brutally he is being raped by the alimony system. He'd be better off in a technical field where skills matter

My blood pressure went way up when I found out how brutally he is being raped by the alimony system. He'd be better off in a technical field where skills matter more than reputation; he could change his identity. Assets earned during the marriage are earned by the couple and should be equitably split, but child support should be no more than 1/2 the minimum cost of raising a child (of course, if the father's not a prick, he'll contribute much more; but the govt. should not require him to) and alimony should not exist.

jibiki 17y ago
> child support should be no more than 1/2 the minimum cost of raising a child Am I a horrible sexist if I disagree with this?
- gaius 17y ago
  I'm afraid so. How often do the courts grant the father custody? If the mother can't support herself and them, then they should go to the father, end of. But for some mysterious reason that almost never happens...
- Notorious_PWN 17y ago
  Not sexist, but you're wrong. Child support should represent the minimum acceptable contribution of the non-custodial parent (father, in the vast majority of cases) to the child's welfare. Should he contribute a lot more, in cash, gifts, and college support? Absolutely. I would. However, the government shouldn't require him to do so, and the spending should be at his discretion. Right now, that freedom is completely taken away. The custodial parent should not be getting a huge check and the freedom to spend the money however she wants. If I end up having a kid with a wife who divorces me to live it up with an illiterate biker, those CS payments damn better be going to the kid's college, not her beau's lottery-ticket budget. It's a bizarre inconsistency. Parents can stay married and financially neglect their children. They can make $300k combined per year and still refuse to pay for their kids' college. Yet, if they divorce, the one parent who rarely sees the kids (usually father) is forced not to pay up merely to the minimum level of decency, but far beyond that if he's "rich" like the article's author.
  - mynameishere 17y ago
    The actual expense of raising children involves the time spent and associated opportunity cost.
    - krschultz 17y ago
      Which often the father wants to give but the court grants custody to the mother. And then he is forced to pay alimony as well. Note that if you have a child out of wedlock the same things do not apply. Moral hazard anyone?
      - sachinag 17y ago
        Wait, what? Of course you pay child support if you fathered the kid, regardless if you married the mother or not. It's the whole point of Maury Povich "You Are Not The Father" episodes.
        jibiki 17y ago
        > Of course you pay child support if you fathered the kid But not alimony?
        krschultz 17y ago
        Right, which are two different things
    - anamax 17y ago
      Yes there are time and opportunity costs paid by the custodial parent. However, a custodial parent also gets significant benefits that the non-custodial parent doesn't get. (Otherwise, why fight for custody?) Surely it's fair to take those into account as well.
  - jibiki 17y ago
    The counterargument says that a marriage is basically an agreement where the woman agrees to lend her womb to a man in exchange for him supporting her and her children. That's way too sexist for me (if that's what marriage is, then we should change it,) but I'm still not convinced that a man should be allowed to leave and only provide half the minimum support for his children. It seems like the woman is seriously getting screwed in that situation: she has to raise the kids on her own AND find > 1/2 the money to support them. Nobody gets married with that understanding, and nobody wants to.
cjbos 17y ago
I think $4k a month isn't overboard for 3 teenage boys, especially if you factor in school & health care. As for the Alimony, it depends, if the wife had stayed at home for the past 21 years to raise the children and has no skills/experience to fall back on to support them herself, then yeah, he needs to support her as well as pay the full cost of raising his sons.
- Notorious_PWN 17y ago
  I think $4k a month isn't overboard for 3 teenage boys, especially if you factor in school & health care. Health coverage should really be provided by the government, but that's a separate issue. Also, individual health insurance on teenage boys is going to be cheap: closer to $150 per month than $1000/month. School is provided by the government, for 12 years. College, on the other hand, is ridiculously expensive, but if the government isn't forcing married couples to pay for it (I know some $100-300k couples who paid nothing) it doesn't have a leg to stand on in forcing divorced parents to pay for it.
  - sp332 17y ago
    If the government provided health care, he'd still be paying for it, with his taxes.
    - SwellJoe 17y ago
      And so would you and I. I don't have any kids, but I'd be paying for the health care of everyone that does.
- earl 17y ago
  Yes -- but he should be left with $2777 per month to live on? You basically can't live on that sum of money on the east coast unless you want to live a collegiate existence.
  - cjbos 17y ago
    Well his wife and 3 teenage sons have only $4k a month to live on on the east coast ($1k per person). He has almost 3 times the disposable income as his wife in reality.
joeyo 17y ago
My understanding is that alimony is quite distinct from child support. Rather it is payments made directly to a former spouse and harks back to a time when women had no way to support themselves after a divorce (they could not work and probably had little chance of remarriage). So the idea was that the alimony would continue to support them as if they were still married. I have no idea why it still exists, however.
- krschultz 17y ago
  worse is when you are paying alimony to a remarried wife. (Note, I do not do this so I may be wrong, but I've heard horror stories).
  - Notorious_PWN 17y ago
    I guess that's allowed so that a certain class of spoiled American female can live the archetypal slut's dream of fucking an alpha male while a beta male provides for her. I think most states stop alimony when she remarries, though, which is why women who want to play that game will have live-in boyfriends but not remarry.
    - menloparkbum 17y ago
      oh god... not you again.
    - helveticaman 17y ago
      Slander aside, this is very much a reality.
    - helveticaman 17y ago
      Cursing aside, this is very much a reality.
      - Notorious_PWN 17y ago
        It's a reality for some women; not all, obviously. There are many men who are just as bad in intention and deed, but they don't get nearly as much support from the court system. The problem is that we have an unfair system (not just in the courts, but in all kinds of social affairs) that enables female misbehavior (under antiquated beliefs that women are weak and can't protect themselves) while holding men to a higher standard of accountability, which makes women a lot more likely to get away with being spoiled.
bokonist 17y ago
The injustice is when the court strips the father of custody and then forces him to pay child support. Child support should only be required if the father voluntarily renounces custody. Otherwise, custody should be split equally and no child support should be owed by either party. Also, everyone would be better off if these contingencies were all written into contract before marriage/child birth. It would save everyone a lot pain. Unfortunately, the judicial system has gradually replaced our great tradition of contract law with arbitrary rule by judges, much to the loss of everyone.
- ivankirigin 17y ago
  Nothing says "I love you" like a prenup. There is a very good reason why they aren't that common.
  - wheels 17y ago
    Nothing says "nice to have you on board" as "here's your vesting schedule and you've got a one year cliff", but it's still a good idea to do. I think a lot of the problems with prenups is a chicken and egg sort of thing. If they were a standard part of the process they'd be less offensive.
    - zmimon 17y ago
      I'd actually like to see pre-nups made into law. If you don't make one yourself, you get a pre-nup that says what already happens now when you divorce - but you have to sign it and acknowledge - "yes, I want to be raped in the ass if he/she leaves me". That might remove some of the emotion and distill a bit of clarity.
      - Notorious_PWN 17y ago
        I agree with this concept fully.
      - electromagnetic 17y ago
        The thing is pre-nups aren't always enforcible. The major reason is that no one makes provisions for hitting the jackpot (either literally or founding a business that makes you rich), or that if one person does the partner can contest it in court as an unforeseeable circumstance. This usually ends up falling under the 'unconscionable' clause in the law. Then there has to be full and/or fair disclosure (your spouse needs to know about that $50,000 you have put away). The other (possibly the easiest reason why prenups can fall apart) is that the agreement has to be entered upon voluntarily by both parties, so if your spouse only agreed to the pre-nup because you threatened a break up then the pre-nup is automatically void. The sad thing is that if pre-nups were made into law then they would never be enforceable, because everyone would have been forced into them under duress. How can you voluntarily sign an agreement when it could prevent you from being legally married.
asciilifeform 17y ago
> how brutally he is being raped by the alimony system What I don't understand is how we almost never hear of such people packing up and moving to some country which is hostile to US interests, or simply has weak record-keeping and is thus friendly to those who want to leave their past behind. Are all such countries mournful hellholes to live in? Surely not. Seriously, if I were ever sentenced to the perpetual confiscation of over half of my income, I would run off - doesn't matter much where to. Perhaps the Somalian pirates - or North Korea - are hiring? I also recall once reading that France will not extradite a French citizen - perhaps you can become one? (They might still allow American debt collectors to find you, however. Does anyone know?) Seriously, just about any life is better than being a part-time slave, which is what such extortion amounts to.
- seanc 17y ago
  A) You're thinking of the Foreign Legion. Go look it up. A few years of military service and you're in. B) When you get married you're making a very serious promise to share everything and build a life together. The state provided default contract for a marriage is very clear about the separation terms up front. If you don't like them, then negotiate a pre-nup with your spouse. Good luck.
  - asciilifeform 17y ago
    A) The Foreign Legion has much tighter regulations now, and is no longer suitable for its traditional purpose of providing new identities for those with something to run from. B) US courts routinely and capriciously invalidate pre-nups.
- tjic 17y ago
  > What I don't understand is how we almost never hear of such people packing up and moving to some country which is hostile to US interests http://roissy.wordpress.com/2009/05/15/hero/ http://roissy.wordpress.com/2009/05/15/hero/
  - asciilifeform 17y ago
zmimon 17y ago
> My blood pressure went way up when I found out how brutally he is being raped by the alimony system Agree. I was really impressed that he managed not to express any bitterness towards his ex-wife in the article. That says a lot about his character.
Tichy 17y ago
I must admit the attitude of his new spouse also made my blood pressure rise.

jibiki 17y ago

> child support should be no more than 1/2 the minimum cost of raising a child Am I a horrible sexist if I disagree with this?

gaius 17y ago
I'm afraid so. How often do the courts grant the father custody? If the mother can't support herself and them, then they should go to the father, end of. But for some mysterious reason that almost never happens...
Notorious_PWN 17y ago
Not sexist, but you're wrong. Child support should represent the minimum acceptable contribution of the non-custodial parent (father, in the vast majority of cases) to the child's welfare. Should he contribute a lot more, in cash, gifts, and college support? Absolutely. I would. However, the government shouldn't require him to do so, and the spending should be at his discretion. Right now, that freedom is completely taken away. The custodial parent should not be getting a huge check and the freedom to spend the money however she wants. If I end up having a kid with a wife who divorces me to live it up with an illiterate biker, those CS payments damn better be going to the kid's college, not her beau's lottery-ticket budget. It's a bizarre inconsistency. Parents can stay married and financially neglect their children. They can make $300k combined per year and still refuse to pay for their kids' college. Yet, if they divorce, the one parent who rarely sees the kids (usually father) is forced not to pay up merely to the minimum level of decency, but far beyond that if he's "rich" like the article's author.
- mynameishere 17y ago
  The actual expense of raising children involves the time spent and associated opportunity cost.
  - krschultz 17y ago
    Which often the father wants to give but the court grants custody to the mother. And then he is forced to pay alimony as well. Note that if you have a child out of wedlock the same things do not apply. Moral hazard anyone?
    - sachinag 17y ago
      Wait, what? Of course you pay child support if you fathered the kid, regardless if you married the mother or not. It's the whole point of Maury Povich "You Are Not The Father" episodes.
      - jibiki 17y ago
        > Of course you pay child support if you fathered the kid But not alimony?
        krschultz 17y ago
        Right, which are two different things
  - anamax 17y ago
    Yes there are time and opportunity costs paid by the custodial parent. However, a custodial parent also gets significant benefits that the non-custodial parent doesn't get. (Otherwise, why fight for custody?) Surely it's fair to take those into account as well.
- jibiki 17y ago
  The counterargument says that a marriage is basically an agreement where the woman agrees to lend her womb to a man in exchange for him supporting her and her children. That's way too sexist for me (if that's what marriage is, then we should change it,) but I'm still not convinced that a man should be allowed to leave and only provide half the minimum support for his children. It seems like the woman is seriously getting screwed in that situation: she has to raise the kids on her own AND find > 1/2 the money to support them. Nobody gets married with that understanding, and nobody wants to.

cjbos 17y ago

I think $4k a month isn't overboard for 3 teenage boys, especially if you factor in school & health care. As for the Alimony, it depends, if the wife had stayed at home for the past 21 years to raise the children and has no skills/experience to fall back on to support them herself, then yeah, he needs to support her as well as pay the full cost of raising his sons.

Notorious_PWN 17y ago
I think $4k a month isn't overboard for 3 teenage boys, especially if you factor in school & health care. Health coverage should really be provided by the government, but that's a separate issue. Also, individual health insurance on teenage boys is going to be cheap: closer to $150 per month than $1000/month. School is provided by the government, for 12 years. College, on the other hand, is ridiculously expensive, but if the government isn't forcing married couples to pay for it (I know some $100-300k couples who paid nothing) it doesn't have a leg to stand on in forcing divorced parents to pay for it.
- sp332 17y ago
  If the government provided health care, he'd still be paying for it, with his taxes.
  - SwellJoe 17y ago
    And so would you and I. I don't have any kids, but I'd be paying for the health care of everyone that does.
earl 17y ago
Yes -- but he should be left with $2777 per month to live on? You basically can't live on that sum of money on the east coast unless you want to live a collegiate existence.
- cjbos 17y ago
  Well his wife and 3 teenage sons have only $4k a month to live on on the east coast ($1k per person). He has almost 3 times the disposable income as his wife in reality.

joeyo 17y ago

My understanding is that alimony is quite distinct from child support. Rather it is payments made directly to a former spouse and harks back to a time when women had no way to support themselves after a divorce (they could not work and probably had little chance of remarriage). So the idea was that the alimony would continue to support them as if they were still married. I have no idea why it still exists, however.

krschultz 17y ago
worse is when you are paying alimony to a remarried wife. (Note, I do not do this so I may be wrong, but I've heard horror stories).
- Notorious_PWN 17y ago
  I guess that's allowed so that a certain class of spoiled American female can live the archetypal slut's dream of fucking an alpha male while a beta male provides for her. I think most states stop alimony when she remarries, though, which is why women who want to play that game will have live-in boyfriends but not remarry.
  - menloparkbum 17y ago
    oh god... not you again.
  - helveticaman 17y ago
    Slander aside, this is very much a reality.
  - helveticaman 17y ago
    Cursing aside, this is very much a reality.
    - Notorious_PWN 17y ago
      It's a reality for some women; not all, obviously. There are many men who are just as bad in intention and deed, but they don't get nearly as much support from the court system. The problem is that we have an unfair system (not just in the courts, but in all kinds of social affairs) that enables female misbehavior (under antiquated beliefs that women are weak and can't protect themselves) while holding men to a higher standard of accountability, which makes women a lot more likely to get away with being spoiled.

bokonist 17y ago

The injustice is when the court strips the father of custody and then forces him to pay child support. Child support should only be required if the father voluntarily renounces custody. Otherwise, custody should be split equally and no child support should be owed by either party. Also, everyone would be better off if these contingencies were all written into contract before marriage/child birth. It would save everyone a lot pain. Unfortunately, the judicial system has gradually replaced our great tradition of contract law with arbitrary rule by judges, much to the loss of everyone.

ivankirigin 17y ago
Nothing says "I love you" like a prenup. There is a very good reason why they aren't that common.
- wheels 17y ago
  Nothing says "nice to have you on board" as "here's your vesting schedule and you've got a one year cliff", but it's still a good idea to do. I think a lot of the problems with prenups is a chicken and egg sort of thing. If they were a standard part of the process they'd be less offensive.
  - zmimon 17y ago
    I'd actually like to see pre-nups made into law. If you don't make one yourself, you get a pre-nup that says what already happens now when you divorce - but you have to sign it and acknowledge - "yes, I want to be raped in the ass if he/she leaves me". That might remove some of the emotion and distill a bit of clarity.
    - Notorious_PWN 17y ago
      I agree with this concept fully.
    - electromagnetic 17y ago
      The thing is pre-nups aren't always enforcible. The major reason is that no one makes provisions for hitting the jackpot (either literally or founding a business that makes you rich), or that if one person does the partner can contest it in court as an unforeseeable circumstance. This usually ends up falling under the 'unconscionable' clause in the law. Then there has to be full and/or fair disclosure (your spouse needs to know about that $50,000 you have put away). The other (possibly the easiest reason why prenups can fall apart) is that the agreement has to be entered upon voluntarily by both parties, so if your spouse only agreed to the pre-nup because you threatened a break up then the pre-nup is automatically void. The sad thing is that if pre-nups were made into law then they would never be enforceable, because everyone would have been forced into them under duress. How can you voluntarily sign an agreement when it could prevent you from being legally married.

asciilifeform 17y ago

> how brutally he is being raped by the alimony system What I don't understand is how we almost never hear of such people packing up and moving to some country which is hostile to US interests, or simply has weak record-keeping and is thus friendly to those who want to leave their past behind. Are all such countries mournful hellholes to live in? Surely not. Seriously, if I were ever sentenced to the perpetual confiscation of over half of my income, I would run off - doesn't matter much where to. Perhaps the Somalian pirates - or North Korea - are hiring? I also recall once reading that France will not extradite a French citizen - perhaps you can become one? (They might still allow American debt collectors to find you, however. Does anyone know?) Seriously, just about any life is better than being a part-time slave, which is what such extortion amounts to.

seanc 17y ago
A) You're thinking of the Foreign Legion. Go look it up. A few years of military service and you're in. B) When you get married you're making a very serious promise to share everything and build a life together. The state provided default contract for a marriage is very clear about the separation terms up front. If you don't like them, then negotiate a pre-nup with your spouse. Good luck.
- asciilifeform 17y ago
  A) The Foreign Legion has much tighter regulations now, and is no longer suitable for its traditional purpose of providing new identities for those with something to run from. B) US courts routinely and capriciously invalidate pre-nups.
tjic 17y ago
> What I don't understand is how we almost never hear of such people packing up and moving to some country which is hostile to US interests http://roissy.wordpress.com/2009/05/15/hero/ http://roissy.wordpress.com/2009/05/15/hero/
- asciilifeform 17y ago

zmimon 17y ago

> My blood pressure went way up when I found out how brutally he is being raped by the alimony system Agree. I was really impressed that he managed not to express any bitterness towards his ex-wife in the article. That says a lot about his character.

Tichy 17y ago

I must admit the attitude of his new spouse also made my blood pressure rise.