I’ll admit to my share of arrogance but IMO the ultimate arrogance is someone trying to dictate how others should live their lives. I am not advocating based upon occupation but rather income plain and simple. Current income, expected stability of income and realistic potential of future income growth.

You gave a laundry list of what-if-s and the answer could and more likely is not relevant to each and every one of them in most cases. Many of these people I know were not born with silver spoons in their mouths. One of my friend’s father was a barber. Under your opinions you would have sent him to trade school. He went to community college, transferred to a state school, got into an Ivy League medical school, then residencies/fellowships at the top instuations in the country and to this day lives relatively modestly. He has had to buy into a partnership, pay off several hundred K in debt on his education and raise a young family. He’s about 40 now and under your model still would be unable to buy a home despite earning about $500K per year. He has none of the issues you listed and has busted his butt to get where he is which is at the top of his highly specialized medical specialty. He deserves a good quality of life, no make that a great quality of life and no one will convince me otherwise. Just to be clear, I know plenty of folks on the other end of the scale also and they deserve to live their lives on their own terms also. I just dont beleive someone like you should be dictating the terms for them.

As for the comment that ..I cant help it if my week beats your year (BTW, its one of my favorite Lou Reed quotes)… well I wasnt talking about income.