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an
Participant[quote=flu]The thing is though my w2 income didn’t really change *that* much this year from last from the previous year…. Why now? Or was I just randomly selected by my employer? Lol[/quote]It didn’t change *that* much, but it did. Maybe you were on the edge before and now you’ve crossed over that edge.
Participant[quote=all]I don’t get it. If that is a side project he should not be working on it (i.e. contacting you) during business hours. And if it is not a side project someone likely made a mistake assigning the task to your coworker.[/quote]
Why would it be a mistake? There’s nothing wrong with learning new stuff and expanding your horizon and area of expertise. In an engineering profession, you would want to be given these type of opportunities vs being put in a corner doing the same stuff over and over and over again. This youngster is just lazy and not RTFM.Participant[quote=flu]…and the dude keeps emailing me and emailing me today…..
I think I’m going to change my voicemail for today…
”
Hello, I’m not here today. But if you need assistance with Java programming questions,
push 1 for Bangalore
push 2 for China
push 3 for Taiwan
push 4 for Korea“[/quote]
LOLParticipant[quote=flu]I learned a new acronym today from a colleague when I told him about this…
RTFM….
I would have never known….[/quote]Hehe, I’m surprised you never heard of RTFM. Although, my last company’s slogan was “Life’s too short for user manual” :-).
ParticipantThis is yet another reason not to strive to make too much with W-2. For me, it seems like the best way to get the most after tax money is to work at a relaxing job with great benefits that pays well but stay below these magical cap $, then make the rest of your $ in 1099.
The competitive part of me wants to get that title and pay bump in my W-2 job. But the # crunching part of me periodically say that, it’s better to work hard doing 1099 or RE investment stuff than work hard to get that W-2 promotion. Learn to ride the gravy train. First, there’s the $150k income limit for applying passive loss in RE to active income (unless you’re a RE professional). Now, there’s this $115k income limit for DCA. I’m glad I don’t make enough to hit these caps. When all of my kids are in school and my wife go back to work full time, I’m definitely going to push her to try and get a 1099 job or open her own biz.
ParticipantI just stumbled upon this video:
It really make me rethink what it means to be green.
Participant[quote=zk][quote=Blogstar]The guy had a complete lack of desire, skill and training in using his will constructively. Nobody talks about the guys will and direction. He is no different than the people who beat Reginald Denny or Loot and Riot and burn their own neighborhoods. His class/life experience just puts a different spin on it. We just can’t admit that it is us too.
Part of raising children is teaching them the correct use of their will. It’s hard and you have extreme cases of lack of training or abuse to the point of confusing people about even using the will properly or having one to use at all. People may be stronger and weaker and that makes it even more dangerous, but still in all cases you have to look at this aspect and we don’t. Our culture is trash in a lot of ways life is fricken hard whether you have money or not and just having money doesn’t mean kids should not be taught mental health through training their wills. Kids are exposed to so much soul pollution now the have to be stronger and we want them weaker evidently, No different than the physical, use it or loose it and this guy never used it and there is a lot of that going around.
He wasn’t especially mentally ill he was especially weak and untrained for whatever reason.
Yes fix some of this and it will help with the gun problem, The suicide problem, the depression problem and the drug problem.[/quote]
Ok, but “fix some of this” how? If we could legislate good parenting, we could fix all kinds of problems. But we wouldn’t be a free country anymore. Education programs for parents? They’d have to be optional, and only those who want to put effort into their parenting would take them, so that wouldn’t solve much, as those parents aren’t the problem. Stop blaming mental illness? Wouldn’t change a thing, IMHO. Parents who don’t have the time/attitude/aptitude/concern/work ethic to be good parents will find something besides themselves to blame.
Bad parents will always exist, and they’ll be especially numerous, if you ask me, in a culture that glamorizes violence and personal gain, minimizes the importance of personal responsibility and work ethic, and focuses on the shallow.
The only way to fix the problem you’re talking about is, in my opinion, to change our culture. And good luck with that.
I’m not sure how you can claim “he wasn’t especially mentally ill.” There are lots of actual mentally ill people in this country, and that’s not going to change anytime soon. As I’ve said repeatedly before on this forum, our country fails to do anywhere near enough for them. This is just one more manifestation of that failure.[/quote]
+1Participant[quote=CDMA ENG]They were desirable because of the 3 Ls… so that comparison is not really valid either… You think Mira Mesa is nice?!? Hell no… its a dump…[/quote]I guess it boils down to, either you live where the 1% live or you live in the booney or the dump or the ghetto.
I totally agree that CA in general are not a great place for low income. It’s purely supply/demand. If you want cheap housing, just increase supply over demand and you have falling prices. Either that or make it to undesirable that people will leave. But giving people more $ will only increase housing cost even more. Just look at the bay area. Even engineers are being priced out up there too.
Participant[quote=ltsdd]
It’s not better because there are many other parameters that are left out. House payment is not the only thing that measures the cost of living. Let’s not forget that in this simple scenario we’re ignoring one important thing – today’s interest rate is an anomaly.If you truly feel that the folks making minimum wage today are having a higher living standards than those in 1980 (then what the fvck are we doing complaining about where our country is heading?) then let’s just say we agree to disagree. It’s not necessary to cherry-pick some numbers to prove your point.[/quote]Dude, if you need to resort to cursing, then we’ll just stop right here. I was trying to bring some number to the discussion, just like everyone else who brought anecdotal rent evidence. But obviously, you can’t handle data that contradicts your POV.
Participant[quote=spdrun]How do food, fuel, utility, HOA prices compare now to 1985?
BTW – good luck buying that place on $8/hr or $16k/yr.
Mortgage: $783/mo
Taxes: $200/mo
HOA: $115/mo
Insurance: $25/mo(?)That’s $13,476/yr excluding any unexpected repairs. Probably won’t even work at $13/hr or $26k/yr since the debt-to-income ratio would be a bit out of whack.[/quote]The only reason I brought up housing is because that’s the best source I can find with some historical data of how much it cost to put shelter over your head. My assumption is that rent vs PITI should be similar through the years, obviously excluding the bubble years.
I’m not trying to say people on minimum wage should be able to buy a place easily or at all. But unless you can provide a better source for historical rent for each type of housing unit, this is the best I got.
Also keep in mind that 50+% of minimum wage earner are younger than 25 years old. Most college educated people barely start to buy their first place @ 25-30 years old, so why would you expect people on minimum wage to do so. FYI, that example I gave, you’d qualify for FHA if there are dual income making minimum wage. Do you think in 1985, a dual income person making $3.35 ($6.70/hr combined or $13k year) be able to buy a $78k place?
Participant[quote=ltsdd][quote=AN]Minimum wage earners are not middle class.
Regardless, let’s play with your example and use that to calculate what it would take to come up with the 20% down payment:
20% down payment for $96,500 is $19,300. That takes roughly 5761 man hours to earn at $3.35.
20% down payment for $465000 is $93,000. That takes roughly 11625 man hours to earn at $8.
How is that better?[/quote]I understand minimum wage is not middle class. I don’t expect a minimum wage person to be able to buy a place like this. But they might be able to buy a place like this: http://www.sdlookup.com/MLS-140009602-5281_Caminito_Cachorro_San_Diego_CA_92105
Sold for $78k in 1985 and selling for $199k today.
The payment in 1985 would be $547/month, assuming 20% down and 10% interest rate.
The payment today would be $783/month, assuming 20% down and 4.25% interest rate.
It would take 4975 hours worked @ $8 today and would take 4656 hours worked @ $3.35.
How’s that not better? You’re getting paid 2.3x more, yet your cost of living per month is ~36% higher than when it was in 1985.
ParticipantBut don’t you think Old Town/Mission Hills is an anomaly (along with other Uptown areas) when it comes to cost of living? Here’s an example of Mira Mesa.
http://www.sdlookup.com/MLS-140023149-92126
This house was sold in 1983 for $96,500. Mortgage rates back then was ~12%. So, monthly payment back then was $794/month. Today, that house just went pending @ $465k and current mortgage rate is ~4.25%. Which puts the monthly payment @ $1830/month. You’re looking at an increase of 2.3x in housing cost for your average middle class family. That doesn’t seem to outrageous to me.
Participant401k – 2%
529 – 3.3%
IRA – 16.2%
Brokerage 47.25%I had a little lucky streak between February and April. Lets just hope I can manage to at least end the year with those gains. Still have a long 7 months to go.
ParticipantCan’t find my source anymore. I remember seeing something like ~30% of minimum wage earners have house hold income between $100-200k. But I don’t remember what the other distributions are. Since I can’t find my source anymore, I’m concede the point, unless I can find it again. Regardless of this point, I still stand by my main point, which is raising minimum wage to $13 or higher will only kick automation into high gear. If anything, this will create a job boom for people like me. Also, wage inflation usually follow by rent/housing inflation as well. So, definitely, bring it on.
Some more demographic data of minimum wage worker, the largest minimum wage workers are kids <25 years old, 31% are between 16-19, 53% works <29 hours, 38.9% works <14 hours, 36% doesn't even have a HS diploma, etc.
http://www.bls.gov/cps/minwage2012tbls.htm#4You should also ask yourself, what about all the other people who are making more than minimum wage but <$13? would they also start making more than $13? Would they also get a 60% raise as well? Then how about all the other workers? Wouldn't/shouldn't this trigger a massive wage inflation for everyone? Just to be clear, I'm not against this at all. I stand to hopefully benefit from this, so I'm all for it. I'm just trying to point out what might be the side effect of it.
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