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I think you need to go to the Economics forum with your economic assumptions. Also, as you will see in another post I expressed that you do not know how you sound to people with even 30 hours of Economics let alone the people with advanced degrees.
If you are super interested you live right there near some universities and you can pick up a few classes. Being an MD does not make you an expert in everything.
I do enjoy most of your posts; but, not these (at all). So, I am just not going to respond to your posts that veer into macro economics or heavy finance related topics.
I am NOT interested in a degree in economics :-). Again, I did not bring any of that into this thread - I only responded to other people (and btw my views expressed here are the same as those of many people who have not only advanced degrees in economics, but also created whole successful business enterprises).
I can only offer advice on how to live fairly normally if you are very poor in the US (since I have a through personal experience with that :-). Take it or leave it, but you won't convert me to socialism :-). I have seen it in action when I was growing up, and have no desire to see it again, thanks.
I am NOT interested in a degree in economics :-). Again, I did not bring any of that into this thread - I only responded to other people (and btw my views expressed here are the same as those of many people who have not only advanced degrees in economics, but also created whole successful business enterprises).
Incidentally, my post to which you wrote the above comment did not mention any economic assumptions, but economic reality of new extreme property tax in a certain city which I didn't bring up either, but responded to somebody else who brought it up.
I can only offer advice on how to live fairly normally if you are very poor in the US (since I have a through personal experience with that :-). Take it or leave it, but you won't convert me to socialism :-).
Stop saying I am a socialist. I am not a socialist. I happen to have paid my way my entire life without asking for any assistance. I will leave excess when I am gone. Your comments on the poor come across as criticism and I doubt anyone would have a takeaway that you are trying to help. So, you may want to make those statements explicit in your replies/posts.
Just because you do not recognize your statements or replies to be related to macroeconomics does not mean that they aren't.
I've said this before, but my mom didn't save close to half a million.
She was late to the 401k party too, but did manage to have some savings.
She largely used SS as her everyday income.
The bulk of her wealth came from two prudent decisions -
1. to save her pennies and buy a house when the market was very low in New York City (she paid less than 100k for her townhouse, imagine that), and 2) she was VERY smart with what money she had.
She lived in the townhouse for twenty plus years, so she had a lot of equity when she sold.
She squirreled away half of the money she made, and kept the rest in a variety of savings vehicles.
She moved to a much lower cost of living state (at least at the time - Texas) to be near me and the grandkids, where she purchased a roomier 3/2 in a golf course neighborhood for the same price as the NYC condo.
She wisely chose to only put a third down and kept the rest of the money for whatever.
She wasn't particularly an investor, but she did invest 1,000 a long time ago and watched increase and decrease in value over the years.
She only tapped her 401k to take RMDs.
Her needs were simple, she didn't need to travel all over the world and the country (she did that while she was working), she was very content with her life.
Everything except for her house was paid off and even the house had a low enough payment to not be much of an issue. She had exemptions to reduce property taxes.
Healthcare wasn't an issue because she was in perfect health....until she wasn't, and when Death came for her, it was sadly short and sweet. Cancer sucks, and not all cancers have decent outcomes.
She had actually a surplus of money when she passed.
She was 75.
I've said it many times, but she's my inspiration. I can only hope to be as savvy as her. It's not how much you have, but the decisions you make with what you have. I make more money than she did, but I feel she was far more strategic. I am the one however who encouraged her not to rent (I bought my first piece of real estate at 21, and she purchased her home at the same time in her 40s), so apple maybe didn't fall too far from the tree.
I always encouraged her to spend every last cent and not to worry about passing anything on...but she remembered the days when she was single with a mortgage, and how she didn't have the luxury of being spendy. And so she was never all that spendy, but she wasn't hurting either. She had enough money to do renovations and enjoy her life, and she was in great physical health because she believed in the whole healthy lifestyle thing so she didn't have to pay for healthcare except for the meds that naturally came with aging. No hospitalizations, no surgeries...
Which is why when she died of pancreatic cancer this year, it surprised me and I'm still in disbelief.
Yes, of course. I would call him a homeless veteran if he lived on the streets. A U.S. veteran is someone who served in the U.S. military, voluntarily or not. They must receive an honorable, or nothing less than general, discharge to be eligible for benefits. Your DH is a war-time veteran. Homeless vets are those who served in the military and now live in a car, tent, tarp, sidewalk, whatever, disabled or not. elnrgby is convinced that your DH couldn't possibly live on the streets because of all the wonderful benefits for veterans. War-time vets are entitled to a few more benefits, but they don't get a military pension unless disabled due to their service, or served 20 years or more in the military, or are have a below poverty level income. The maximum veteran pension for a low-income veteran without disability and no dependents is $16,037 annually. Any income that vet receives from other sources, like SS, SSI, SSDI, or income from working, or any other government income assistance, is subtracted from that $16,037 amount and they would receive the difference from the VA. So that same veteran, with no disability and no spouse, receiving the average SS of something like $1450 a month ($17,400 annually) would get exactly zero from the VA. There's also a maximum asset limit that could also disqualify a vet from receiving any pension. Many veterans have no idea what they're entitled to, and the VA has no idea that a veteran is on the street, so unless someone in the know connects those dots for them, and they apply to the VA, and then actually follow through, they don't get anything. Since many homeless people don't have a mailing address, or a bank account, I don't see how they would get a monthly check anyway.
Good for you to point this out. It is simply irresponsible to make statements that are inaccurate and pose them as fact.
Stop saying I am a socialist. I am not a socialist. I happen to have paid my way my entire life without asking for any assistance. I will leave excess when I am gone. Your comments on the poor come across as criticism and I doubt anyone would have a takeaway that you are trying to help. So, you may want to make those statements explicit in your replies/posts.
Just because you do not recognize your statements or replies to be related to macroeconomics does not mean that they aren't.
My comments about budgeting on a shoestring are always pretty explicit. I don't know how many times I said that, in the days of poverty, I lived in a very low-cost area, with many roommates, perused Greyhound when I wanted to go to The City (where I'd stay at the Martha Washington Hotel for Women that was a semi-shelter which charged $12 per night, that would be the whole huge $36 in today's money :-), practically never bought anything except food, borrowed all "entertainment" from the public library. When I finally had to buy a car because I had to move to a semi-rural area for further training, I bought a third-hand Toyota Corolla which had 100,000 miles on it. I never had kids because that was something totally out of the financial galaxy in which I lived when I was young. It never occured to me to "self-medicate" with drugs which every 10 year old kid knows are not a solution for anything. All of that is known about me in this forum. What else do you want me to tell you explicitly? :-)
One more thing - when I lived on that sub-minimal-wage graduate research stipend/ student visa, there was a young American woman who flunked out of the graduate program, and immediately took a job at McDonald's as a bridge to her future educational and work projects. It was paid about twice as much as my graduate stipend, came with some kind of health insurance, and of course counted towards social security credits. That is what to me seemed like a "solid middle class income" at that time :-))).
Btw, thanks to several people for the kind words in comments they wrote with quick-reputation (is there a way to respond to such a comment? I never could figure that out).
I've said this before, but my mom didn't save close to half a million.
She was late to the 401k party too, but did manage to have some savings.
She largely used SS as her everyday income.
The bulk of her wealth came from two prudent decisions -
1. to save her pennies and buy a house when the market was very low in New York City (she paid less than 100k for her townhouse, imagine that), and 2) she was VERY smart with what money she had.
She lived in the townhouse for twenty plus years, so she had a lot of equity when she sold.
She squirreled away half of the money she made, and kept the rest in a variety of savings vehicles.
She moved to a much lower cost of living state (at least at the time - Texas) to be near me and the grandkids, where she purchased a roomier 3/2 in a golf course neighborhood for the same price as the NYC condo.
She wisely chose to only put a third down and kept the rest of the money for whatever.
She wasn't particularly an investor, but she did invest 1,000 a long time ago and watched increase and decrease in value over the years.
She only tapped her 401k to take RMDs.
Her needs were simple, she didn't need to travel all over the world and the country (she did that while she was working), she was very content with her life.
Everything except for her house was paid off and even the house had a low enough payment to not be much of an issue. She had exemptions to reduce property taxes.
Healthcare wasn't an issue because she was in perfect health....until she wasn't, and when Death came for her, it was sadly short and sweet. Cancer sucks, and not all cancers have decent outcomes.
She had actually a surplus of money when she passed.
She was 75.
I've said it many times, but she's my inspiration. I can only hope to be as savvy as her. It's not how much you have, but the decisions you make with what you have. I make more money than she did, but I feel she was far more strategic. I am the one however who encouraged her not to rent (I bought my first piece of real estate at 21, and she purchased her home at the same time in her 40s), so apple maybe didn't fall too far from the tree.
I always encouraged her to spend every last cent and not to worry about passing anything on...but she remembered the days when she was single with a mortgage, and how she didn't have the luxury of being spendy. And so she was never all that spendy, but she wasn't hurting either. She had enough money to do renovations and enjoy her life, and she was in great physical health because she believed in the whole healthy lifestyle thing so she didn't have to pay for healthcare except for the meds that naturally came with aging. No hospitalizations, no surgeries...
Which is why when she died of pancreatic cancer this year, it surprised me and I'm still in disbelief.
I am sorry for your loss! You mother was a remarkable woman and there is much to learn from her.
Stop saying I am a socialist. I am not a socialist. I happen to have paid my way my entire life without asking for any assistance. I will leave excess when I am gone. Your comments on the poor come across as criticism and I doubt anyone would have a takeaway that you are trying to help. So, you may want to make those statements explicit in your replies/posts.
Just because you do not recognize your statements or replies to be related to macroeconomics does not mean that they aren't.
One has to ignore what elnrgby writes. It’s simply uninformed and made up to support her one-sided beliefs. When you believe, no proof is necessary.
My comments about budgeting on a shoestring are always pretty explicit. I don't know how many times I said that, in the days of poverty, I lived in a very low-cost area, with many roommates, perused Greyhound when I wanted to go to The City (where I'd stay at the Martha Washington Hotel for Women that was a semi-shelter which charged $12 per night, that would be the whole huge $36 in today's money :-), practically never bought anything except food, borrowed all "entertainment" from the public library. When I finally had to buy a car because I had to move to a semi-rural area for further training, I bought a third-hand Toyota Corolla which had 100,000 miles on it. I never had kids because that was something totally out of the financial galaxy in which I lived when I was young. It never occured to me to "self-medicate" with drugs which every 10 year old kid knows are not a solution for anything. All of that is known about me in this forum. What else do you want me to tell you explicitly? :-)
Everyone in the forum has this information? I had the leaving a war torn area with nothing part.
You think that people who are American born did not grow up with utter hardship and somehow being an immigrant makes it so different? But, they do not whine about it incessantly.
The fact is that you are a very privileged person and your a lot of your comments come across as ill-informed and offensive in nature. So, yes, I think you should preface what you are saying by saying you are attempting to be helpful by saying "x."
I stand by the "get over yourself" statement in an earlier post.
I get why I notice a lot of forum members just never respond to your posts. I guess I better follow their lead on that.
Stop saying I am a socialist. I am not a socialist. I happen to have paid my way my entire life without asking for any assistance. I will leave excess when I am gone. Your comments on the poor come across as criticism and I doubt anyone would have a takeaway that you are trying to help. So, you may want to make those statements explicit in your replies/posts.
Just because you do not recognize your statements or replies to be related to macroeconomics does not mean that they aren't.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Wile E. Coyote
Good for you to point this out. It is simply irresponsible to make statements that are inaccurate and pose them as fact.
I didn't make a statement, but posted a link to the info. Let me find it and re-post it (I mean the link).
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