Andre G wrote:
I think the problem is that most of the masses are on the bottom looking up, so to them they think that if you have $7.5M, or even $1M, you've got it made. You won't get any sympathy from them unless they get to experience it for themselves just how it is.
The worst part about it is how poor people just don't understand.
"Don't Envy the Super-rich, They Are Miserable"
Because of the punctuation?
I look at that and think real estate -- it's probably a purely urban issue (where urban means NYC, San Francisco, and similar cities), but there are all sorts of perfectly reasonable, not extravagantly luxurious, domiciles that I couldn't buy without wealth in the several million dollar range. I wonder if residential location showed up as a big difference between millionaires who feel wealthy and those who don't -- my guess is that's a major effect.
The article was saying that it's especially older, about-to-retire people who are whining the most about their pitiful pittance of a few million a year, because they're used to spending millions a year and are terrified that if they retire, they won't be able to buy that island or whatever.
I wonder if there is a sort of industry-wide plan to make rich people planning for retirement feel "poor" on purpose. There's some commercial for a financial planning company on TV quite often in which a guy complains about how other financial planners try to bully you into planning to buy a vineyard or whatever, and what if you just want to like live somewhere decent and see your grandkids?
When your annual *interest* income is likely to exceed the median household income in the richest nation on Earth, complaining about your financial status should earn you a swift kick in the nuts from everybody within earshot.
I think there is almost no amount of money you can have that will satisfy the feeling of relative deprivation. The one guy I know with a private jet doesn't feel "really rich" because his jet isn't nice enough, etc. This is also compounded by the fact that most people who are rich are also super greedy.
Can we not just reach comity on this particular strand of the ongoing discussion by agreeing that 42% of millionaires are cocks?
Something something "told me wealth was too plebeian".
I wonder if there is a sort of industry-wide plan to make rich people planning for retirement feel "poor" on purpose.
Loss Aversion and the hedonic treadmill are well documented psychological biases that don't depend on marketing.
5: Certainly anyone in that category complaining about their financial status should be very embarrassed.
7: Why only 42%?
IME, super-rich people spend a lot of time fantasizing that poor people live joyful lives, either of the romantic bohemian backpacking novelist variety or else spend their days shuckin' and jivin'. I have heard on a number of occasions various wealthy parents wistfully hoping that their children will one day "get to" experience something akin to the feeling of poverty.
Being poor is knowing exactly how much everything costs.
9: they are, however, quite explicitly exploited by marketers.
So what these poor babies are saying is that with only $7.5 million they'll watch their lives slide out of view, then dance and drink and screw because there's nothing else to do?
11 - The charitable reading of that is that they don't want their children to grow up to be privileged fuckheads. (Too late!)
I've heard elsewhere that ... there's a threshold of getting your basic needs met, below which more money makes you more happy, but above which it doesn't.
I've heard that happiness increases with income up to ~$75K/yr (sorry, no source), which would be significantly above, "basic needs" but not crazy rich either.
In my own life I've noticed that the biggest change in happiness when my income has gone up hasn't been the new things that I can now afford, but rather the old things that I no longer need to worry about -- that I just don't have to care if my shoes cost $40 or $80, for example. That frees up noticeable psychological resources.
That would match up with the $70K figure because, I imagine, at that point, the list of "day to day things I no longer have to worry about" doesn't get that much longer. That's just speculation, however.
I could see 75K as being a level of income of having a couple hundred flexible bucks each month, so that if the washer goes you can replace it, if the car is on the fritz you're able to pay the repair bill without anxiety, etc.
Actually, 75K is a weird amount, because I'd say it's plenty for a single person, but fairly frugal for a family of four, and those are the basic units that get thrown about.
I think there is almost no amount of money you can have that will satisfy the feeling of relative deprivation.
But anyone who experiences a feeling of relative deprivation because they don't have as much as the 0.001% of the population above them, instead of relative abundance because they have more than the 99.999% below them, is an ass. To put it mildly.
Based on 16 and 17, I guess it's 75K for an individual?
people who are whining the most about their pitiful pittance of a few million a year
I'm not defending the people the article is talking about, but this isn't what's being discussed. As per LB in 3, you can have $1M in total assets and not come close to this.
19: given the methodology, it's certainly a mistake to assume it applies to any given individual.
20: well, they're human. You can certainly claim that anybody with that much money is an ass, but if you had that much money, you'd presumably have to fight with the same feelings.
The important thing to realize is that teachers clearly don't work hard enough to deserve 54,000 a year. Clearly we don't contribute teven a hundredth of what these people contribute to society.
I've heard elsewhere that most people claim they need about 20% more than they have in order to be happy, and also that in actuality there's a threshold of getting your basic needs met, below which more money makes you more happy, but above which it doesn't.
I don't know about this. I'm way above getting basic needs met, but I'm also subject to constant financial stress in a way that definitely impacts my happiness. I've been on the other side of the threshold (which I think for me is about 50% more than I'm making right now) where additional money didn't do anything for happiness though. It didn't hurt happiness, for sure, but was basically completely irrelevant to it.
I've been fairly pleased that the hedonic treadmill hasn't caught up with me. Five years after getting a professional salary after years of grad school money, I still find berries or mushrooms from market to be quite a treat. I can afford berries! I hasn't gotten old. I suppose I've gotten blasé about almonds.
I'd say that making enough that I don't have to check my balance every few days to make sure I can buy groceries has impacted my happiness such that I no longer have so much financial stress that I have to repress all the other kinds of stress. Now that I regularly have a thousand-dollar buffer in the bank, I can be free to experience all the other kinds of anxiety without being able to blame it on money.
You can certainly claim that anybody with that much money is an ass, but if you had that much money, you'd presumably have to fight with the same feelings.
Well, presumably not, no, since I have a lot less than that now and yet I certainly am not stupid enough to think I'm suffering from relative deprivation, and I have in the past had enough (still a lot less than that!) that I definitely felt blessed by relative abundance.
It's not a matter of stupid. It's a matter of peer group expectation, among other things. But, you know, I'm sure you're not subject to the same cognitive biases as everybody else is.
But, you know, I'm sure you're not subject to the same cognitive biases as everybody else is.
I'm really not, though.
but if you had that much money, you'd presumably have to fight with the same feelings
I'm not a set of cognitive biases, I'm a human being! But, honestly, no way.
21: In the study it's definitely household income that's being used.
Slightly less facetiously, I find it hard to believe that everyone who makes $x p.a. feels that s/h is poor as a result of the hedonic treadmill or whatever and rather believe that some of them are perfectly capable of appreciating their good fortune even as they realize that it is possible to have yet better fortune. And, since I'm basically a moralist in many ways, I have no problem blaming those who succumb to a greater extent to such biases for their so succumbing.
No, you're right, it's not a matter of stupid, it's a matter of moral depravity.
I also am pretty sure I wouldn't feel deprived, since I don't feel deprived whatsoever at our current income.
34: I don't think "feeling poor" is an apt description; they feel (in terms of their daily emotional experience) relatively deprived compared to their peers, even though they may be perfectly cognizant, on an intellectual level, of their extraordinary good fortune.
s/poor/relatively deprived compared to their peers/ and I still stand behind 34.
even as they realize that it is possible to have yet better fortune
Right. Nowhere in the article does it say that the people think they are 'deprived'; that word comes from 6.
40: 20 was a response to 6; I haven't read the article.
This is a column written to sell ads for very expensive watches.
I'm not sure that I see a lot of use in grouping people's outlook by aggregate wealth, since it is insufficiently specific. A first-generation Chinese merchant from Alhambra with $5 million in loose wealth is not going to have much in common with say an equally wealthy succesful real estate agent in Atlanta who inherited some wealth and trades on local roots.
I would say that leisure is probably the next principal component to use for wealthy people-- distinguishing those who keep working (in the remunerative sense, there are people who take philanthropy or art seriously, but I think they are unusual).
Also, everyone that I know who is rich spends carefully-- I may disagree with their choices, but knowing what you're paying for is IME a distinguishing feature. The people who spend in a way that does not seem controlled whom I know are middle class (in the sense of depending on wages for a lifestyle rather than the proceeds from capital). Shows like housewives or Trump or Alec Baldwin's character on 30 Rock are not IME at all realistic.
I don't know how to reconcile this with hideous multimillion dollar real estate tumors, where competitive consumption is relevant and expensive.
41: Right. I'm just saying, we could discuss what is reported in the article, or we could discuss assertions about what assholes rich people are.
You know who are assholes? People who aren't me. Giant dickweeds, the lot of them.
And there's a real question of what 'wealthy' means to the people questioned. They may perfectly well think of themselves as very fortunate and not deprived at all, and still think of 'wealthy' as an economic notch above them
Relative deprivation people, relative. The dude with a private jet very definitely doesn't feel poor or even middle class -- but he doesn't feel quite like he's gotten "enough" to satisfy what he believes to be his wants or to feel like he's at the top of the heap. Or what 38 says.
I thought they just published these articles so we'd form Death Squads, but I guess the media is too saturated with rich people who are basically grumpy amoral infants you love to hate.
I take that back. Infants have better self-control.
From the Wikipedia entry for Hedonic Treadmill:
The hedonic treadmill theory is related to the Easterlin paradox, which claims that rich people describe themselves as happier than poor people within a given country, but (once basic biological needs are met) rich countries are not happier overall than poor ones. The theory supports the argument that happiness does not derive from money in itself, but from relative differences in wealth compared to other people in a society.
Given the massive wealth inequality in the US, shouldn't our millionaires be some of the happiest in the world?
38:Then the problem is apparently the "peers" and the truly richest person is she who has no friends (to compare and compete with.)
The dude with a private jet very definitely doesn't feel poor or even middle class -- but he doesn't feel quite like he's gotten "enough"... to feel like he's at the top of the heap
If there's stuff he'd like to buy but can't afford, he's correct that he's not 'at the top of the heap'. That doesn't mean he's reasonable to complain or anything, just that there's a class of people richer than he is who can buy what he can't.
50: you stand by your glib, unprovable assertion? Hot damn, you're a moral paragon along every axis.
whoops,
... distinguishing those who keep working ( ) from those who don't would help.
in the above second parargraph.
Ambition seems more interesting to me than wealth, in thinking about people for whom too much is never enough.
Well, I agree that the sentiment makes one an ass, but it is psychologically very real -- even among people who are aware that it makes them seem like assholes. The problem is really with a general culture of acquisitiveness and competition.
Right, I mean, you can feel that way and immediately feel bad for feeling that way, and never acknowledge that you feel that way because you know it's assholish. But that doesn't change feeling that way.
I'm basically with Urple in 20, except perhaps I'd swap out "experiences feelings of deprivation" for "pouts over feelings of deprivation". But basically, yes: as an adult, I expect you to be moderately self-aware.
Right, I mean, you can feel that way and immediately feel bad for feeling that way, and never acknowledge that you feel that way because you know it's assholish. But that doesn't change feeling that way.
And ... nothing about this makes it seem less plausible that it's not just the expression of the feeling but the mere having of it that makes one an ass.
Nor do I see how one would even begin to go about proving or disproving such an assertion or the assertion that it doesn't make one an ass, so I'm not sure why that aspect of urple's comment has you so hot and bothered.
Given the peak usage of the term "millionaire" is about 1920.
Adjusting for inflation, you would need to have about 10 million of 2010 dollars to be a "millionaire" in 1920 dollars. That is pretty close to 7.5 million dollars.
I dunno. If you've accumulated a lot of wealth but you know a lot of people who are more wealthy than you, and you are a competitive person, you will feel relatively deprived. That's pretty understandable, if not exactly symptathetic. And you can have that feeling even while being perfectly aware that you're better off than 99.99% of the world's population.
I see the big socio-cultural problem as changing that valuation of competition and wealth, but just waiving that a real and humanly understandable psychological problem and calling everyone who experiences the feeling an ass does seem pretty glib.
I mean, I appreciate that the phenomenon is probably fairly common and has comprehensible origins. And I doubt I'd be immune to it. I think that's compatible with moral disapprobation.
To the extent that one is expressing disapprobation toward people for basically not being total saints, one is being unreasonable, but I'm not at all convinced that's what's happening.
I'm not sure why that aspect of urple's comment has you so hot and bothered
I dunno. It seemed like a cheap, unverifiable high horse to get up on.
As to 58.1 I ran into parsing troubles with the various negations. You're saying that I failed to make the case that expressing the feeling as opposed to having the feeling is the definitive characteristic of assholishness?
61: oh, it's perfectly compatible with moral disapprobation. What I objected to was urple's implication that he would be immune to the psychological phenomenon.
43: Right. I'm just saying, we could discuss what is reported in the article
Of course, the devil is in the details here:
1. Fidelity Investments survey of more than 1,000 millionaires (households with at least $1 million in investible assets, excluding retirement accounts and real estate)
So, first of all, even the people at the bottom of this tranche probably have a net worth well in excess of $1 million. The barely-millionaires who have, say, a $500,000 house, a $350,000 IRA/401K and "only" $150,000 in more liquid assets are pikers compared to this bunch. Indeed, based on my financial industry experience, people with only $150K to play around with are not exactly the "whales" that brokers salivate over. To be a big wheel in the brokerage industry, you want at least $750K-$1M in annual production, which means you probably have at least $50M in assets under management, which means you don't get very far prospecting people who don't have more than a couple hundred thousand to invest. So yeah, certainly from the prospect of the people at Fidelity who commissioned this survey, encouraging folx with only a million or so all up to get cranking on building up a bigger kitty is going to be pretty important.
63: so you're saying it's perfectly compatible with moral disapprobation but also unavoidable? Or what?
||
I've always felt secure in using "approbation" and "opprobrium" as pretty much direct antonyms, but this disapprobation stuff is causing me to question my previously held beliefs.
||>
I don't mind taxing the well-off, defined as people making 10% less than I do or more, until their discretionary income drops to the US median -- in fact I'd favor something fairly close to that. And I think anyone in that category who complains about poverty should be smacked. But condemning them for drawing distinctions between themselves and people wealthier than than themselves seems wrong.
67: LB: Objectively anti-yacht salesman
But condemning them for drawing distinctions between themselves and people wealthier than than themselves seems wrong.
If this is to me: come on. "Drawing distinctions between themselves and people wealthier than than themselves" and "experiencing insatiable feelings of relative deprivation" are not even remotely synonymous phrases.
But who have we identified as 'experiencing insatiable feelings of relative deprivation', rather than, say, correctly identifying themselves as literally relatively deprived when considered relative to wealthier people? I'll condemn someone like that when I find them, and I'm certain that people like that exist. But there's nothing to say that Halford's guy who doesn't feel "really rich" is one.
And as Sifu's been saying, having negative feelings about not being as rich as other people you compare yourself to is fairly natural, and I don't think it makes you a bad person unless you indulge it as justified. (You're probably a bad person for actually being rich, but not for some mild wishing yourself richer.)
I have heard on a number of occasions various wealthy parents wistfully hoping that their children will one day "get to" experience something akin to the feeling of poverty.
And yet (IME) it so rarely translates into even creating the structures in which their children have a sense of having to make their own way in the world, never mind be poor.
I'm not immune to the temptation of wanting to ease the way for my loved ones, and make sure they are fed and clothed and properly sheltered, and have some fun little extras on the side. But I'm damned if I can understand the mentality of getting your child a job in your company, giving him a down payment for a house, and buying him a car. Seriously? Do you want him to have no self-respect whatsoever? You're not doing the guy any favors, here.
70: 20 was a response to 6. "I think there is almost no amount of money you can have that will satisfy the feeling of relative deprivation." Followed by ancedote about man with private jet. It sure reads to me as if Halford was identifying him as experiencing insatiable feelings of relative deprivation. ("Almost" insatiable, I suppose would be more correct.)
But I'm damned if I can understand the mentality of getting your child a music video. Seriously? Do you want her to have no self-respect whatsoever?
And as Sifu's been saying, having negative feelings about not being as rich as other people you compare yourself to is fairly natural, and I don't think it makes you a bad person unless you indulge it as justified.
What makes you a bad person is only comparing yourself to people richer than you. This is especially true if the people less rich than you vastly outnumber the people richer than you.
No no no. Giving me the down payment for a house was entirely the right thing to do. I went to four extra years of grad school to meet their expectations (unsuccessfully!). I came out with no steady income. But because of their down payment, I was able to buy a house before housing prices went crazy. For $20K, they set a floor on my quality of life for the rest of my life.
I have plenty of self-respect even having accepted a down-payment on a house from my folks. Thank god they did.
In my experience, the worst part about multi-millionaires is that they are very greedy and uptight, and they are paranoid that someone is going to take their money away. And I've spoken to quite a few multi-millionaires in my day.
Obviously, this question of "experiences relative deprivation" versus "does not feel rich enough" is kinda vexed. Virtually everyone besides the world's mega-billionaires experiences some kind of relative deprivation, even though to the vast mass of humanity that deprivation can only be manifested in absurd ways. The question then is whether to castigate the merely pretty wealthy when they feel some kind of significant negative emotion about the fact that they are relatively deprived. Frankly, I'd say anyone who has a million or so and continuous access to health care is being an asshole if they complain even a little bit. I mean, shit, I complain about being broke and unemployed, and yet I've got a small 401k account that I could liquidate for what amounts to several years, if not decades, of income for any one of the billions of people on this planet who are truly impoverished.
Also, surely Halford's friend must be worth more than $7.5M, right? Unless he's keeping the private jet as his one extravagance and otherwise lives a very frugal life, or he's just super extravagant and is going to wind up broke in a few years.
73: I guess "insatiable feeling of relative deprivation" seems like a badly chosen phrase to identify something that a person should be condemned for. I've got an "insatiable feeling of relative deprivation", despite thinking that I'm very fortunate and economically well-off, because I've accurately assessed that there are things I'd like that I can't afford that other people can. I am, in that sense, truly 'relatively deprived'. And the feeling's insatiable until I have enough money to run out of desires, which would take a while.
What would make that feeling condemnable is thinking of it as a justified grievance, or thinking that it means that I'm not, in fact, terribly fortunate. But its existence, insatiable or not, just means that I've truly identified my economic status next to other, richer, people.
75: What makes you a bad person is only comparing yourself to people richer than you.
Certainly, someone who does that -- a rich person who thinks of themselves as poorer than anyone worth comparing themselves to -- is a complete jerk.
What NickS and AWB and Megan said. When I moved here I was putting one paycheck a month toward rent and I think more than half of the other toward loans and bills and metrocards and various crap like that. Old habit from college, I express my discontent a lot through complaints/feelings about being broke, but the time I remember feeling I actually had to put smallish things back at the grocery store ($5 tub of parmesan e.g.) because they seemed like an extravagance, and thinking: I have maybe made some stupid choices.
Not worrying about small things like that has taken away a staticky kind of worry I'm glad to be rid of. But yeah, it's now my fantasy that another lunge toward that golden $75K would take away another level of constant misgiving--which is almost certainly not true since the main thing I want and can't afford is to live in a larger apartment closer to stuff, and I'd have to have a massive jump in income to do that.
78: If all we're talking about is mere awareness that even wealthier people exist in the world, then I would agree that's nothing morally condemnable. To me, that's a very odd use of the phrase "feeling of relative deprivation".
First line of 79 should be italicized.
I do think that this guy in particular, and most rich people in general, have an ongoing feeling that they are not "satisfied" with their wealth, since there are other people out there who are the really rich ones. This doesn't mean that they are not capable of other human emotions or recognizing their extraordinary good fortune, but it does mean that for a lot of people even being very, very rich won't be enough to create a feeling that one has "enough" money, because you still don't have enough as the other guy who can do a lot more than you.
I agree that this is a sentiment that should be morally condemned and not indulged. ANd I believe in steeply progressive taxation. But it's a product of some pretty basic psychological impulses, combined with a real cultural problem -- we live in an acquisitive and competitive society that values relative, not absolute, success.
It might be true to say that rich people who feel this way are assholes, but that's a pretty glib statement that doesn't really get to the heart of the issue.
76: It's not the down payment per se that I object to. It's the cascade of interventions that artifically smooth the path so much that the person is functionally not subject to the economic realities that most of the country faces.
(And in this specific case, I strongly suspect that his parents gave him so much money that he bought a bigger house than his income could support, therefore setting up all kinds of other problems.)
81: Can you stretch to an occasional belief (if true) that there are things you'd like and can't afford, but that other people have, and some negative emotion associated with that, without condemnation for feeling the negative emotion?
we could discuss what is reported in the article, or we could discuss assertions about what assholes rich people are.
I vote for the latter. The article doesn't contain much that's interesting.
85: I'd need more detail about the 'negative emotion'. It better be faint and fleeting.
In vague support of 83, I've certainly known* people who were very satisified with an upper-middle-class income. Obviously it's not as though they ceased to want things, but wanting bigger better things was a pretty minor and immaterial part of their daily existence, and they consistently prioritized other activities and quality of life over additional income generation.
So I'm at least halfway convinced that the endless wanting is seperable (sp?) from the actual level of income.
*Immodestly, I would argue that I am one myself
Another way of putting the point I actually want to make is that you're never going to "feel rich" in a psychologically satisfying way even if you in fact do get very rich, and that getting involved in that game is for suckers, since it's a race you can't win. The guy with the private jet doesn't feel like he's won the race, so you're not going to, either.
Which is why you're better off prioritizing other life activities over the generation of wealth once you've reached a level where you feel decently comfortable.
I agree that this is a sentiment that should be morally condemned and not indulged.... It might be true to say that rich people who feel this way are assholes, but that's a pretty glib statement that doesn't really get to the heart of the issue.
Oh, I am sorry. What word would better have expressed what you consider proper moral condemnation than my 'glib' decision to call them assholes? I admit the word was chosen in haste, and the nuances of that particular choice may not have been fully considered. I may be perfectly happy to accept a substitute expression of moral condemnation of your choosing. What is your suggestion?
'experiencing insatiable feelings of relative deprivation',
Y'all keep saying that and I'm gonna feel compelled to make a joke about all mine being dead
we could discuss what is reported in the article, or we could discuss assertions about what assholes rich people are.
How 'bout we discuss ways that people have changed their thinking about money? Because that's really what I'd like to see happen.
Some factors that may be at play:
- Factual learning (what is average income, where am I in relation to it)
- Emotional or lived experience (wow, I never knew how scary it was to live without health insurance until I lost mine)
- Secondhand observation (wow, my co-worker/neighbor/housekeeper really has to deal with some crap problems that I never knew existed)
- Political beliefs or philosophical convictions colliding with reality (if you work hard all your life, you should be able to retire and be safe and healthy)
All of those are speculative; I don't actually know enough of why people have changed their thinking about money to make any real deductions about the mechanisms at work in changing those beliefs.
Of course, there is that famously linked essay about how people come to break out of fundamentalist or authoritarian mindsets. That might offer some clues.
80: Oh sure, but don't you miss all the shuckin' and jivin'?
I was walking back from dinner last week with a couple people who are multi-millionaires- own significant portions of a couple small companies- and they had a discussion around this article. One of them (the wealthier one) asked whether the term millionaire had now been replaced by billionaire (a la 59) in terms of what it represented in relative wealth. I speculated it was more like 10-20 million, but he said that wasn't as easy a term to use as billionaire.
I will also note that despite my satisfactory financial situation I felt poor compared to them. I was going to take the subway home and one of them offered me a ride in his car (as in, hired car, not his personal vehicle.)
I felt poor compared to them
You're obviously a moral monster; no wonder you went presidential.
Really, it's just the smugness of the assertion that you, Urple, would never feel this way that's a little off-putting for me. Do you never have a feeling of relative deprivation even though you're in fact comfortable and better off than at least 95% of the world's population? In a sense, almost everyone here (not everyone, there are some folks here who are definitely not at the level of being comfortable) is an asshole in a somewhat similar way. Which may be true, but I blame America/capitalism/whatever and don't think it's super insightful to call anyone who's ever felt relatively deprived compared to their peers or those wealthier than them cunts.
In vague support of 83, I've certainly known* people who were very satisified with an upper-middle-class income. Obviously it's not as though they ceased to want things, but wanting bigger better things was a pretty minor and immaterial part of their daily existence, and they consistently prioritized other activities and quality of life over additional income generation.
Sure, I don't even think the attitude described is that uncommon. I think of my parents and the parents of many of my friends as fitting that description -- in some cases on incomes well below, "upper-middle-class."
I do think it's relevant, thinking of Tweety's comments, that they were all part of a peer group that had similar feelings/experiences (and, in the cases that I'm thinking of, living in a city in which there wasn't really a significant visible population of people making big money.
I think my salary feels very different than it would if I made the same amount of money that I do now living in a place where I was constantly around people who made a lot more than I do (even if the cost of living wasn't that different).
essay about how people come to break out of fundamentalist or authoritarian mindsets.
Link?
I didn't say feeling poorer made me unhappy- sure, the car was somewhat faster than the subway or even having my wife come pick me up, but wasn't that much more convenient- but certainly I couldn't afford $100+ for a ride home. Actually, that's a guess, I have no idea what it cost, it bills directly to his account and the car company has a no-tipping policy (I assume it's automatically added into the bill.) Thus I felt poorer than they.
97: See 25. I'm feeling relative deprivation right now! But I don't have a private jet, so I'm not actually sure that I am an asshole in a somewhat similar way. Unless I'm misunderstanding what you meant in saying the he doesn't think he's "really rich". If you just meant something along the lines of 81--he's aware that even wealthier people exist--perhaps with 87's faint and fleeting negative emotions about things he'd like to have but can't afford, but that other people have, then I'll retract the statement.
The linked article says that the ones who don't feel wealthy say they need 7.5 million to feel wealthy while the ones who do feel wealthy say they "only" need 1.75 million. I wonder what role mobility plays in this - if people hitting 1.75 remember that as when they got it made while people who already started above that feel like they need to go higher. Or if that's completely wrong.
Anyway, I don't really care all that much about how millionaires feel about their wealth in the abstract. I'm more interested in how they feel about the distribution of wealth, how their perceptions influence their politics, how they vote, contribute, lobby, etc.
Also, I tend to think of millionaire as someone with a gross income (whether investment or salary or whatever) of $1+ million/year, not the various asset measures that I guess are more standard, but harder for me to imagine, having little experience with that stuff so far. But I appear to be in the minority on that.
I do think it's relevant, thinking of Tweety's comments, that they were all part of a peer group that had similar feelings/experiences (and, in the cases that I'm thinking of, living in a city in which there wasn't really a significant visible population of people making big money.
I think it's about who you choose to view as your peers. I have a relative who has always lived far beyond his (fairly solid UMC) means, in large measure because he wanted to take frequent, elaborate ski vacations, own a boat, and do other hideously expensive things that a handful of other people in his city were doing. But most of the city -- including his family and the majority of his co-workers and neighbors -- were not doing those things. It's only in his imaginary world that they are not his peers, and that his selectively chosen set of luxury spenders are.
Look, if I wanted to, I could pretend that my "peer group" was the small slice of men and women who attended my university and went on to extremely lucrative careers on Wall Street or in the legal profession. And indeed, it is true that probably a couple thousand people are my "peers" in that highly selective definition of the word. But that's not even a remotely representative sample of my fellow alumni, much less my actual peer group.
94: Like the lilies of the field, I shuck not, neither do I jive. (Get me with the bible reference already!) So little, in fact, do I know of shuckery and jivery, that I had to google the phrase (though in one of those "you go your whole live without hearing a word and then you hear it thrice in one day" things, I did actually encounter this one earlier, in a comment thread regarding today's faith-in-humanity-destroying viral video, the one with the UCLA student ventilating her erudite notions about Asiatic peoples.)
99: Here you go. I haven't read it in about five years, but I remember it as making a lot of sense.
--he's aware that even wealthier people exist--perhaps with 87's faint and fleeting negative emotions about things he'd like to have but can't afford, but that other people have,
I'd say that's about it, but that those negative emotions about things he'd like to have are somewhat stronger than "faint and fleeting" even where he can recognize how incredibly lucky he's been to date. Does that make him an asshole? Probably, but I think within a recognizable universe for most of us.
I mean, personally I'll be satisfied when I can just have one Bugatti Veyron. Just one! Then I'm done.
I mean, here's the thing: I'd like to have a private jet. Honest to god, I would. But I really wouldn't say that I have even faint or fleeting negative emotions about my lack of a private jet. Not even when I'm stuck in a TSA line, or when my flight's just been cancelled. "If only I had a private jet! Like the fatcats! Then I wouldn't have to deal with this shit!" isn't something that's ever crossed my mind, except possibly as a lighthearted and unserious joke. So really, your friend who has his private jet and yet is still having something stronger than faint and fleeting negative emotions about all those damn things he doesn't have, that the fatcats have? Really, I'm not sympathetic.
Witt, I am loving that essay. Thank you for linking it; I hadn't seen it before.
103: I think it's about who you choose to view as your peers.
This gets it right. 103.2 provides a great example.
Hypothesis: our aspirational culture validates and champions the better-off, often as better people, and dismisses the less well-off as losers of one sort of another, so one wants to associate up! Succumbing to that pressure (driven in part by marketing), however, is ... unfortunate.
But he's relatively closer to the people with the other stuff, which is the point. It's more like you or me thinking "I wish I had just enough to fly business class on this trip" or "I wish I could replace my car every 5 years instead of every 10" or whatever. The point is that those kinds of feelings don't go away even at much higher levels of absolute wealth, which isn't sympathetic exactly but is understandable.
And I should say it's understandable precisely because, as Parsimon says, our aspirational culture validates and champions the better-off, often as better people, and dismisses the less well-off as losers of one sort of another, so one wants to associate up!
Which I agree is very unfortunate.
I used to get NetJets catalogues all the time at my former firm. (That's out of the price range of anyone but the very most senior lawyers, but the company was hoping we'd pass the information on to rich clients, I think.) And those things made me drool and fantasize, sure. But that really didn't impact my estimation of my relative well-offedness at all, or lower my overall level of satisfaction about the things I did have or about my relatively high degree of financial freedom.*
* I should probably be clear that I've never made anything that would even approach the sort of things that are being talked about here, lest anyone think I spent a few years getting wall street-style bonuses or anything. I'm talking about the low end of the 33% bracket.
I guess it's possible I'm just morally more pure than the rest of you. (Except heebie and, possibly, nosflow.)
75 to 103 and 110, which I agree with.
I haven't read Neiwert in a while and missed that essay. It really is fantastic, so far.
Hoo boy, I looked up the video Smearcase mentioned in 104, and it was much, much more difficult to watch all the way through than the Friday one.
I think 110.2 is right, and could go even further: there's a strong mythic undercurrent in U.S. culture that equates (legal) wealth with moral good, via the magical human-happiness-elevating effects of free market competition, and equates contentment with a livable wage with sloth and lack of ambition.
109, 116: Well, I'm glad Eggplant encouraged me to repost it, then, because it was in my memory so ubiquitous around the web for a while that I was kind of embarrassed to even mention it.
But I don't have a private jet house/car/health insurance, so I'm not actually sure that I am an asshole in a somewhat similar way.
It goes both directions.
112: And the desire to associate up, with its concomitant assessment of what counts as a satisfactory level of income/wealth and the privileges that come with that, can frequently lead to the endorsement of public policies that, sadly, appear to treat one's financial lessers as undeserving. See 102.2.
The move to saying that the sentiments of the aspirational are understandable nonetheless -- an insistence that seems to crop up whenever we have this discussion -- always seems like a non sequitur to me. So what? Yeah, people are encouraged to want more and to feel that they're deprived. No kidding. I don't see why they're helpless in the face of that encouragement.
I don't see why they're helpless in the face of that encouragement.
Yeah! It's a little thing called personal responsibility, ya know?
/channeling my inner conservative
No one is helpless, but it's a pretty outrageously naive view of capitalism and consumerism to think that you can solve the problem by just appealing to "personal responsibility."
Look, if I wanted to, I could pretend that my "peer group" was the small slice of men and women who attended my university and went on to extremely lucrative careers on Wall Street or in the legal profession.
Sure, but (almost) everybody engages in some status competition. I don't wish I could be a wall street banker, but there are people in my life that make me wish, "could I have achieved what they have if I'd just made different choices?"
It isn't usually money that tempts me, but there are definitely status signals that do get to me. Heck there are times when I'm jealous of people on unfogged, and I suspect most people have that feeling occasionally.
And not just capitalism or consumerism, but the general human desire to engage in competition with one's peers.
This Martin Luther King Jr. sermon is actually a great diagnosis of the problem, as well as offering a solution.
On preview, what NickS says.
113: And those things made me drool and fantasize, sure.
I was vaguely aware of NetJets, as I used to be in finance and also formerly lived in Omaha, so some small amount of Warren Buffet trivia reposes within my memory. But I hadn't looked at the website before. And I have to say: meh. Sure, it's nicer to fly first class than coach, and those seats look pretty comfortable, but on the whole, I'm really not willing to do the kinds of things you have to do to have access to a private jet, just to have access to a private jet. Or even to have access to a private jet as part of a larger basket of perquisites.
Does anyone else here remember the depiction of traveling by high-speed rail in Ernest Callenbach's Ecotopia? That always sounded like just about the ultimate form of travel to me (barring booking passage on a tramp steamer). Hang out on the bean bag chairs, listen to music, smoke a little herb, chat with people, maybe eat some gorp or an apple, and before you know it you're at your destination, with no turbulence or security checkpoints or any of that nonsense. Sigh.
Don't get me wrong -- I think it's really important to have social groups that make it clear, through words and actions, that it's possible to have a satisfying life without prioritizing wealth/status competition.
That matters. In most contexts that's the group I would try to put myself into.
But in this case I just want to push back against too much back-patting.
I don't understand 121.
I'm also trying to read the piece linked in 105, so my attention may be divided.
Sign I am not rich- I'm really pissed off at BoA for just slapping me with a $3 fee to print images of my checks on the statements they mail me- which I still make them mail me because they only keep 6 months online without charging another fee which makes online statements pretty fucking useless when doing a tax return that covers 12 months. (Yeah, I could save pdfs every month, but who the hell does that?) $3 not to send the original check, but to print a 4" by 2" image on a piece of paper that they'll send me for free if I don't ask for this image to be printed. And the fact that I'm sure they told me they would start doing this on page 17 of some term of service change they sent months. I'm seriously considering closing my accounts there if they don't refund it.
If 122 was directed at me, I feel compelled to point out that my 121 was at least 50% self-deprecating humor.
The other 50% was meant to imply that personal responsibility is indeed IMO one element of the larger struggle to push back against inappropriate peer comparisons and acquisitivism.
You guys are all rich. In spirit!
125 - One of the appeals of private jets is that you don't have to go through security checkpoints. (Also, I'm sure your private jet staff doesn't care if you want to smoke up. Fly enough hours and they probably provide special G-20 Thai stick.)
128: Since I complained about Bank of America in that thread, I have made numerous calls to them to get them to stop with the blank checks already. The first time they took down all my info and promised to stop sending them.
Then they postal-mailed me a form claiming that I had failed to give them sufficient information to be able to enact my request. I filled out the entire form, complete with cell phone and e-mail address that they had never had before, and the next month I got yet another crop of checks.
Next, they called me at work to try to sell me some financial product or other, and I firmly told the woman I didn't want the product and that my blank check request had been disregarded. She promised to enter it into the system immediately Following that, I got two more batches of checks.
Last week I read in my local newspaper that a number of my neighbors had their recycling mysteriously picked up before the recycling truck came, and then experienced credit card fraud. This has only reaffirmed my commitment to ripping up their blasted blank checks in shreds and burying them in the dirty, smelly kitchen garbage. Since apparently I can't get them to stop sending the checks. I am very close to canceling the credit card, which I barely use anyway.
Heck there are times when I'm jealous of people on unfogged, and I suspect most people have that feeling occasionally.
Luckily, through both selection and treatment effects, it tends to be disproportionately overeducated fuckups* here at the Mineshaft. Still, perhaps there needs to be a more aggressive policy of voting the successful off the island.
*I kid! I love you guys, you know that.
128: Huh. I still seem to be getting those images of checks in my paper statements, and I don't see a sign of a $3 charge. I think I have some kind of Checking Plus, or Advantage Checking, or Checking Advantage Plus (whatever) account ... seem to recall that this meant agreeing to keep a $5000 minimum balance in there. But it was a while ago that I switched to that, so I don't recall the details.
You know what I really hate? When I meet someone who is very rich, and smart and articulate and gracious and well-grounded. I mean, fuck that shit!
Check Image Service
Check Image Service Fee $3.00 each statement cycle
Fee to return images of your cancelled checks with your statement. Applies to each statement cycle during which we return one or more images of your checks.
Bank of America Premium accounts and Platinum Privileges customers qualify for a waiver of this fee.
I have some legacy account that they don't even offer any more- used to be Fleet bank, and my brother had an account with Shawmut bank before that. No monthly fee if I keep something like $750 or $1000, but I'm not keeping $5k in there. I don't care as long as I have a chance to avoid the fees without deciphering every piece of documentation they send every month.
I'm really pissed off at BoA for just slapping me with a $3 fee to print images of my checks
I'm so glad I served in Korea, because as a result I qualify for an account with USAA, the bestest, lowest-bullshit bank ever.
136: Well, huh. I guess I'll keep my eye out for that. It's not a problem for me to keep $5k in there, since I suspect I don't know how to maximize the (little, frankly) money I have, and it didn't seem to me that not making however much I could with that $5k would make much of a difference.
Some day you guys should explain all that to me, since I'm not getting any younger. I notice that I made $0.08 interest on the balance in my checking account last month! What else could/should I do that that money, or with, say $10k?
137: Oh! I'm told I should look into USAA; if my dad served for 25 years in the US Air Force, maybe I'm qualified for membership?
125.last: Huh. I feel like my Acela-taking experience has been suboptimal, then. Though I suspect remaining on a bean-bag chair on a train would be no small feat.
110.2 is right. And 102.2, Anyway, I don't really care all that much about how millionaires feel about their wealth in the abstract. I'm more interested in how they feel about the distribution of wealth, how their perceptions influence their politics, how they vote, contribute, lobby, etc. is pretty close to how I feel. However, in my practical experience (almost always with much less wealthy folks) those who are well-off but feel aggrieved are much more likely to have rotten politics or support obnoxious "winners take all" (winners being their current position and above) policies in their workplace.
I had a great time on Acela, but no gorp or weed was in evidence.
I've happily banked with the NC State Employees' Credit Union since I was 11 years old, because my mother was a schoolteacher. I'm glad I didn't have to serve in Korea to get free checking.
139: I don't think you even have to have the military family qualifying thing to get an account with them anymore. I have one, though I think I might qualify via grandfather. Still, though, I think for the bank they've loosened the requirement.
They really are the best.
Another bit of anecdata that I find myself compelled to share: Some recent fairly personal experience of a person with significant inherited wealth makes me suspect that the flesh is generally too weak. In this case the person really does not have much besides millions of dollars, the knowledge that they lack the ability to have earned it themselves, and the fear that they will lose it. It has made them miserable and twisted*, but given the power that comes with the money, they can generally find a way to take that misery out on others around them.
*Granted they might have become that way under any circumstance.
||
I forget in which thread we were talking about the NPR/O'Keefe "sting", but this is an absolutely essential piece by Jamison Foser at Media Matters on how NPR through their own shoddy reporting on his prior exploits helped to enable the little ratfucker.
In short, NPR repeatedly covered O'Keefe, and adopted his (false) claims about what his videos showed. But only a single NPR report available on Nexis contained so much as an allegation that he'd ever been less than honest. NPR's coverage of O'Keefe helped enhance his stature and credibility. And then he peddled a misleading videotape of an NPR executive, and the media ran with it, badly damaging NPR.Just, fuck.
146: They were so ridiculously credulous that I have to wonder if they didn't use it as a pretext.
But maybe I shouldn't discount stupidity.
Another (deeply upsetting) article about the workers.
Did someone already link the Times piece about how the happiest person in America is a tall Jewish Asian guy? Apparently it also helps to make more than 12K/yr, which shocking piece of news is why I am posting it here.
I don't think you even have to have the military family qualifying thing to get an account with them anymore.
No, but I think you do have to be military-connected to use some of their programs, like the one where you can deposit a check by taking a photo of it with your phone.
Because members of the military can be trusted never to do foolish things with digital cameras. Yep.
When my parents were in their peak earning years they were solidly in the top five percent, though not top one percent, and they repeatedly said at the time that they'd reached the point where money had simply stopped being an issue. Not that they could buy private planes or yachts, but all the necessities plus a bunch of pretty nice luxuries, all while being able to treat a thousands of dollars emergency expense as a 'oh well, shit happens' type of thing. Savings was less a conscious effort than just unspent money. And while I don't think they would have described themselves as rich, they were certainly very conscious of being quite fortunate and very, very happy about it, especially my dad who had childhood memories of extreme deprivation, e.g. not having food for days.
There is competition that is not status competition. If you want to do something (build high density housing, right some social ill, run a company or a research group at a university), you need resources. That other people want also.
There are at least some driven people who are more interested in doing something than in winning. But that mindset is hard to maintain, it's easy to become more interested in keeping score or in winning. I think that healthy ambition is more interesting to consider or to characterize than wealth.
Basically, of the wealthy people I know well enough to assess, they don't have much interest in conspicuous consumption. There are insecure or compulsive people who are rich and who are poor; I don't see strong correlation.
It's good thing I don't have a large pool of disposable income, because Mmmm, tempting.
105 (Witt): Thanks for that link, I was just thinking about looking for an article about breaking out of authoritarian mindsets yesterday.
American culture's emphasis on competition and acquisition also produces a different kind of subjectivity however (I can only speak for myself, but I can't imagine there aren't others who have felt the same): in late childhood / early adolescence I remember having a severe reaction against competition and status. I realized that, paradoxically and seemingly without rational explanation, I was actually happier as a loser than as a winner because of the guilt that accompanies winning (which stems from knowing how bad losers can feel and that winners are at least partially responsible for their so feeling). I would rather hang out with non-envious, unambitious losers who explicitly reject the worth of relative status in toto and would rather turn away from ranking and to the supposedly-ranked thing itself (activity, goal, whatever). I guess it's a sort of winners' ressentiment: "Really? I won, I'm the best, and I still don't feel any good, hmmm..." "I struggled, finally ate the grapes, and wow, they actually were sour, wtf?"
I doubt all competition is unhealthy, but as a consequentialist and an unapologetic moralist and scold, even, I think it's probably right to act like it is. Direct action here includes explicitly and constantly devaluing status-supporting standards by means of injecting doubt and anxiety, asking and probing like a gadfly whose small questions stick, worm, and gnaw in their object on their own (well, that's the fantasy; also: inception!).
Of course the real direct action appropriate for millionaires in back alleys is a "what's your PIN, mate?", a quick knifing, and a deposit at Oxfam followed by a round for all at the local pub.
Apparently there have not been lasting societies organized around the guiding principle of economic equality or the prevention of oligarchy at all costs (maybe in pre-agricultural civs? my ignorance of history, let me show it to you). In this respect I wonder if we shouldn't push the pedal to the floor towards anomie or some status-preventing postmodern nihilism ala Project Mayhem; "in all likelihood you are a worthless bag of meat-and-water, as are your and all children, and all possible children; no, really; so, care to justify owning two houses when the family down the dirt road has none?"
What word would better have expressed what you consider proper moral condemnation than my 'glib' decision to call them assholes?
Well, I called them cocks back in 7, but I think I got away with it.
I think by definition the unemployed are the greediest of all, wanting infinitely more.
"Given the massive wealth inequality in the US, shouldn't our millionaires be some of the happiest in the world?"
Well no, the reverse: the greater inequality, the greater the inequality in the subgroups (picture the slope of a lorenz curve ie gini coefficient curve).
The solution is greater redistribution (of any mechanism), and the evilness is only considering one's own goals, not that of the other people in the system.
Personally, the main reason i notice money problems is health insurance access, self-sufficiency and social group access. Two examples 1. not being able to afford to pay for my own meal at the sort of pricey restaurant when i visit my family, when my younger cousin and his wife can afford it. 2. not being able to go on a ski vacation with people who have moved on from grad school poverty. I probably would enjoy some of that well educated but poor lower upper class british literature.
The other solution, which seems bad but would probably be good, is people knowing their place (or a more narrow income range for one's associations). Its the htinking i'm too good for people who like TGIFs and Gap jeans that really makes money not stretch.
I may be immune to the sense of being impoverished because i'm pretty sure there are many things i wouldn't be able to afford if i had 10 billion dollars. Being rich would be living 100 years from now, and poor 1000 years ago.
I've arrived at the point where I have pretty much everything material I want; Mrs y would like a slightly newer car (not bigger, she's nervous about parallel parking). We'll get that. So why do I still buy lottery tickets?
i. Security. At any moment the people who believe (with government support) that it's their god given right to take my savings and play roulette with them may pull another stunt like they did five years ago. I'd like to be widely enough spread that I don't lose the lot, and I need to put more away to ensure that.
ii. Security. I'm old and sick. I want to stop working soon. My current income is generous, but I'm used to it and I'd prefer it didn't drop too far.
iii. Security. I'd like to be able to afford something more than basic warehousing in my last years.
By the way, at what point in history was it decided that being a compulsive gambler was a moral good? I missed the memo.
at what point in history was it decided that being a compulsive gambler was a moral good
In the US, it was during the Reagan administration. Thatcher probably did it for you lot.
Look, if I wanted to, I could pretend that my "peer group" was the small slice of men and women who attended my university and went on to extremely lucrative careers on Wall Street or in the legal profession.
Tears: streaming. Gun: in mouth.
Huh, that was easy- apparently if you don't regularly get charged fees they're happy to refund one here and there:
After reviewing your account, we have applied a courtesy refund in the amount of $3.00 to your account. The funds will be credited to your account within two business days.
I'm really quite amazed how just about every social indicator has the inflection point at 1980. Occasionally, it will stop improving in the early 70s before begining the decline in 1980.
Morning in America! Ask any beltway pundit.
1980 is the year AC/DC's Back in Black came out. Coincidence? I think not.
And the following year, Diary of a Madman.
Diary of a Madman was one of the very few good things about the 1980s.
167: And the year after that, me! It all went downhill from there. Sorry, guys.
they're happy to refund one here and there
Bastards! I got charged a fee recently for mailing in a check instead of depositing it at an ATM, which I did because the ATM wouldn't read the damned thing. They refused my request for a refund.
I'm so glad I served in Korea, because as a result I qualify for an account with USAA, the bestest, lowest-bullshit bank ever.
This claim inspired (inspired!) me to check out the USAA ATM situation, and lo and behold: "USAA does not charge a fee for the first 10 ATM withdrawals and refunds up to $15 in other banks' ATM usage fees each month."
171: And you know from withdrawals.
ATM.
171: And you know from withdrawals.
And overnight deposits.
If I had a fee for each successful withdrawal, I'd have . . . the same net worth that I have presently.
There has to be a joke in "FDIC," right?
Like, "she backs more deposits than FDIC?" Or more of the eff-dick variety?
170- Clearly you aren't wealthy enough to get your fees refunded. Banking is like the Eddie Murphy Mr. White sketch- as soon as all the poor people leave the room, they break out the free checking and high interest savings and hedge fund investment opportunities.
Like I said, there has to be one, text. Those were credible efforts.
177 is right.
SP, out of curiosity, did you tell them you were thinking of closing your accounts with them? (I'm trying to decide what 163's "after reviewing your account" means.)
The FDIC doesn't really like people to joke, ever since the savings and moan crisis.
The MLK sermon Halford linked in 124 is good stuff.
Implied it:
I'd like to ask for a refund of a $3 check image fee that appeared for the first time this month. I do not recall receiving a notice that this fee would be charged starting this month- I have switched my statements to paperless as a result. I average one check per month and have been a customer for many years, often maintaining balances well over the monthly minimum. Despite recent publicity about bank fees, I've been happy with BoA and the limited fees I've had to pay and I hope I won't have to reconsider that assessment. Thank you.
Response:
Thank you for your inquiry dated 3/16/2011 regarding the fee. We will be happy to assist you.
We would like to take this opportunity to thank you for being a Bank of America customer. We really appreciate your business and we want to ensure you are delighted with your experiences at Bank of America.
We certainly understand your concern.
Kindly be informed the fee assessed to your account is the fee to return images of your cancelled checks with your statement. Please note that this fee applies to each statement cycle during which we return one or more images of your checks.
Please note that the pricing changes were communicated to you in your September, 2010 statement cycle. You should have received statement inserts outlining pricing changes to value added services. The inserts will be location and language specific.
Please note that in order to avoid this fee the account should be enrolled for the paperless statements.
On our further review we see that your account ending in - xxxx is enrolled for the paperless statements; therefore, the fee will not be charged in future.
After reviewing your account, we have applied a courtesy refund in the amount of $3.00 to your account. The funds will be credited to your account within two business days.
We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused. If we may be of further assistance, please contact us again by e-mail. We value you as a customer and appreciate your business. Thank you for choosing Bank of America.
139: I had a USAA account (before they started advertising to all and sundry) on the basis of my grandfather having served in WWII only, so if there are still perks for the military-based members, I think you'll get them.
I was admittedly a bit ticked off by this episode.
181 -- thanks, Parsi. That's one of my favorite things ever.
182: Heh. I see the people behind the scenes at BofA saying to themselves or each other, "Oh, for cripe's sake. Whatever. Give the guy his stupid 3 bucks back so he'll shut up and cut it out. Tell him the 3 bucks is still a policy if he wants paper statements. Do we have a pre-written blurb for that?"
It makes me chuckle a bit.
Exactly, they don't give a shit about the $3, they count on the fact that 99% of people won't ask for the $3 back.
184: I'm not down with the Jesus part so much myself, but it's not essential to the message at all.
Speaking of the Goldman finance industry, capitAL one won't let me put my bank account number/routing no in on their website for automTic bill pay. You must send in a paper voided check. My online checking account means I can't autopay it. Also, i can't use public domain NASA pictures on the 'create your own image' card.
Haha, spellcheck changed goddamn to Goldman.
the people behind the scenes at BofA saying to themselves or each other, "Oh, for cripe's sake. Whatever. Give the guy his stupid 3 bucks back I have a headache and don't feel like giving that woman her $3 back. Not our problem that our ATMs don't read her checks."
Mailing in a check for deposit is pretty old-skool, you have to admit, Blume.
I Internet bank, so I mail checks to Utah all the time for modern reasons, although taking pictures of them would be lots cooler.
I would have been the most judgmental person in this thread if I had got here in time -- I'm the kind of person who can live on $20,000 a year, save money, and feel like the air conditioning, running water, own apartment, and computer games are more than I really would have a right to expect from behind a veil of ignorance. All you have to do is be intelligent enough to understand the phrase "first world problems" and you won't be complaining about not having a private jet, even if you wish you had one.
I have a Bank of America account that I keep for the ATMs and the personal checks I need to send. ING Direct is okay. By far the best Banking experience I've had is with Nordstrom's bank. (It's not well advertised; it only exists so that they can avoid paying fees when they offer a credit card.)
I always talk to a real person, and when it looked like nordstrom online might have been charging me inappropriately, someone called. I'm planning to apply for their credit card in a bit, but they're fairly selective so I want to establish a relationship with them as a banking customer first.
I've been looking into some credit unions for clients. Even Citizens charges like $5/month versus $15 for Bank of America without Direct Deposit. That's a lot if your income is $723/month.
The other thing that Bank of America is about to do is charge for checks that don't clear. Like, if I deposit someone's check, and it bounces, *I* have to pay a fee. I had this happen to me once (before their policy) when I tried to deposit checks from the Commonwealth that were almost at the "Void if not cashed by" date.
In mental health care for people with serious mental illness you are talking about (1.) the public system--shitty in many ways or (2.) private insurance, also crap, and in some ways worse than some public programs in my state or (3.) no hassle private pay. And there are some expensive programs. Therapeutic communities for people in the early throes of illnesses like Gould Farm cost over $200/day, and people spend a year or so there.
Speaking of money, I filed my taxes today. That's right, Ken Cuccinelli: you can't spend that extra $30 on your foolish endeavors. You gots to give it back!