Make $200,000/yr FOX says you're rich

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spidey07

No Lifer
Aug 4, 2000
65,469
5
76
200k a year means you're probably clearing 9-10k a month after taxes. The loan payment with zero down and 4.9% financing for 5 years on 61k loan is about $1150 a month...I am pretty sure 10-15% of your net income on a car payment isn't going to kill anyone.

Not that I would buy a Volt if I was going to pay 60k for a car.

It's a pretty dumb idea to do so though. That's the point.
 

Throckmorton

Lifer
Aug 23, 2007
16,829
3
0
He's absolutely right, $200k is rich if that puts you in the 95th percentile. The bunko Americans keep feeding ourselves that everyone is middle class needs to end. My $37k salary is middle class, and someone making 5x that is rich. End of story.

I'm glad Fox finally admitted that.
 

hal2kilo

Lifer
Feb 24, 2009
26,364
12,503
136
He's absolutely right, $200k is rich if that puts you in the 95th percentile. The bunko Americans keep feeding ourselves that everyone is middle class needs to end. My $37k salary is middle class, and someone making 5x that is rich. End of story.

I'm glad Fox finally admitted that.

They must have misinterpreted the RNC talking points memo today. Except that would be wierd for them to interpret it as it's usually verbatim.
 

Fern

Elite Member
Sep 30, 2003
26,907
174
106
Aside form the usual political spin here in P&N, there is a real point to this story:

Why are people making $200K a year getting a federal subsidy to buy their personal car?

If they do, there is some merit in the claim that this is a federal subsidy in reverse, where average people are helping to pay for richer peoples' cars.

If you're making $200K a year, you don't help buying your car.

Fern
 

dmcowen674

No Lifer
Oct 13, 1999
54,889
47
91
www.alienbabeltech.com
http://finance.yahoo.com/focus-reti...ldingwealth&cat=fidelity_2010_building_wealth

9-9-2010
How Rich Is Rich?

Experts peg the figure to be somewhere around $2 million to $12 million in savings.

On the high end of that range, a single person living in an expensive part of the country (say, New York City), wanting to retire at 35 would need at least $300,000 a year to feel rich

A yearly income of $300,000 would allow for taxes, a $3,800-a-month apartment (the average price in Manhattan), and a monthly spending allowance of around twelve grand

To generate $300,000 a year beginning at age 35, you'd need a nest egg of just under $12 million. That assumes a conservative investment portfolio generating a return of 5% a year, an inflation rate of 2.5% a year and Social Security benefits of $25,000 a year starting at age 62.
Over time, the shape of your nest egg would resemble a bell curve, growing in the early years, and then declining as inflation required you to withdraw more money to maintain a lifestyle equivalent to $300,000 in 2010. The $12 million would finally dwindle to $934 when you turned 100.

If you live in a low cost part of the country, $100,000 a year should be enough

The Obama administration wants to extend tax cuts for all but the wealthiest Americans, which it defines to be those families making more than $250,000.But that only includes about 2% of the population, according to the Census Bureau.
Kaye cautions not to confuse wealth with income. Some people can make a million a year, but be spending a million and a half. They are not rich, said Kaye.
b
"Income relates to lifestyle," he said. "Wealth relates to balance sheets."
 

MJinZ

Diamond Member
Nov 4, 2009
8,192
0
0
200K a year is like a million in the savings bank in just 10 years of work.

That's pretty rich.
 

spidey07

No Lifer
Aug 4, 2000
65,469
5
76
200K a year is like a million in the savings bank in just 10 years of work.

That's pretty rich.

Nope. You'd barely clear 100k take home after taxes. To save 1 million you'd have to save 100% of your paycheck.
 

Throckmorton

Lifer
Aug 23, 2007
16,829
3
0
Aside form the usual political spin here in P&N, there is a real point to this story:

Why are people making $200K a year getting a federal subsidy to buy their personal car?

If they do, there is some merit in the claim that this is a federal subsidy in reverse, where average people are helping to pay for richer peoples' cars.

If you're making $200K a year, you don't help buying your car.

Fern

Anybody who buys one of those cars gets the subsidy. Those rich people are also getting subsidies on their food through the Farm Bill but I don't see anybody complaining about that.
 

Throckmorton

Lifer
Aug 23, 2007
16,829
3
0
Nope. You'd barely clear 100k take home after taxes. To save 1 million you'd have to save 100% of your paycheck.

Right, because people making $200k pay 50% in taxes?


Of course, even $100k take home doesn't sound too bad. My salary is $37k but my yearly take home after taxes, insurance, pension, etc is $23,640.
 
Dec 10, 2005
29,317
14,771
136
So top 5% of income makes you what, exactly?

Why is the focus on the top 5%? Yes, professionals do well for themselves, but they aren't CEO rich or anything like that and they tend to get hammered by things like the AMT. They still need to work to earn a living. The truly rich are in the top .1%, able to live off massive amounts of passive income.
 

classy

Lifer
Oct 12, 1999
15,219
1
81
200K is a lot of money. I know here on ATOT where everyone makes 500K its not a lot. But people go to medical school for 12 years to make that kind of money. Its not million dollar athlete type money, but if you make 200K a year for just 15 years, you are talking about 3.5 Million dollars. Thats a lot of damn money.
 

classy

Lifer
Oct 12, 1999
15,219
1
81
Aside form the usual political spin here in P&N, there is a real point to this story:

Why are people making $200K a year getting a federal subsidy to buy their personal car?

If they do, there is some merit in the claim that this is a federal subsidy in reverse, where average people are helping to pay for richer peoples' cars.

If you're making $200K a year, you don't help buying your car.

Fern

Fern Rock I agree. If you are making that kind of money, you don't need a child tax credit and school loan write offs. I believe no matter what house mortage should always be allowed, no cap.
 

Fern

Elite Member
Sep 30, 2003
26,907
174
106
Anybody who buys one of those cars gets the subsidy. Those rich people are also getting subsidies on their food through the Farm Bill but I don't see anybody complaining about that.

Each poor person eats the same amount of food as each wealthy person.

Each poor person has exactly zero chance of getting a gov subsidized Volt, so i think it's a poor comparison.

However, I will take this opportunity you provide to complain about farm subsidies. In the vast majority of cases I strongly oppose them. You're a struggling full-time family-owned farm? OK, I can support some subsidies. You're a huge corporate owned farm? H3ll NO!

Fern
 

darkewaffle

Diamond Member
Oct 7, 2005
8,152
1
81
I think people are too focused on the absolute richest of the rich when trying to reconcile whether $200k / yr is rich or not. I mean if you really want to stretch it you could say that anybody worth less than a billion isn't rich just because men like Buffet and Gates exist. Just because someone isn't 'that' rich doesn't mean they're not still rich.

I don't think richness should be measured relative to the crest, that's kind of silly. "Texas isn't big because Alaska is bigger!"

With that said I think someone making $200k could become rich over time through intelligent investing and saving, but the income alone wouldn't necessarily make one rich 'instantly'.
 

Fern

Elite Member
Sep 30, 2003
26,907
174
106
Fern Rock I agree. If you are making that kind of money, you don't need a child tax credit and school loan write offs. I believe no matter what house mortage should always be allowed, no cap.

Yeah.

The Child Tax Credit etc are phased out for higher earners. (something like $100K in income and you don't get it)

I think the Volt subsidy should too, but I don't think they will because of the way it's administered.

Fern
 
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Darwin333

Lifer
Dec 11, 2006
19,946
2,330
126
Aside form the usual political spin here in P&N, there is a real point to this story:

Why are people making $200K a year getting a federal subsidy to buy their personal car?

If they do, there is some merit in the claim that this is a federal subsidy in reverse, where average people are helping to pay for richer peoples' cars.

If you're making $200K a year, you don't help buying your car.

Fern

Completely agree with this one.

Although I disagree with a lot of other peoples definition of "rich". We make close to $100K (granted, our taxable income is much much lower I think the term is AGI but I may be wrong. I pay someone to do my taxes) and if that magically doubled tomorrow I would be happy as hell and much better off than now but rich? Hardly. I damn sure wouldn't be able to hang out at the country club with the people I consider "rich" or anything like that. Maybe if I kept my current lifestyle, properly invested the additional money and let it grow I would eventually be able to have a lifestyle I consider "rich".

Rich people have big ass fancy houses, two nice ass cars (never older than 3 or 4 years of course), maybe a fancy boat or a $100K+ weekend car, send their kids to $20K/year schools, members of the prestigious country club, etc... I know quite a few "rich" folk and they would jump out of a window if they had to live off of $200K a year (not literally... probably not at least).
 

JockoJohnson

Golden Member
May 20, 2009
1,417
60
91
200k/yr is rich. Just don't be a dumbass about what is purchased with that money. 200k/yr gets you in a better home than most middle class, it gets you in better cars...it doesn't mean you get to buy a mansion or ferrari but you are way better off than most middle class.

How can anyone even think that 200k/yr doesn't make you rich? It doesn't make anyone smarter because their dumbass could turn around and put themselves in so much debt that they can't handle it. But that is their own fault for being stupid with all of the extra money they have over middle class people.
 
May 16, 2000
13,522
0
0
I would largely agree. If being in the top 1-2percent of income earners in the world doesn't make you rich, NOTHING does. Some people want to argue that they're not rich at those levels, but it's ENTIRELY because they're comparing themselves to the .01percent at the very top. Yes, someone who makes $2,500,000 a year lives richer than someone who makes $250,000...but that person lives JUST as differently as someone who makes $25,000/yr.

The only other caveat is to separate income from wealth. If you give me a billion dollars, but then the next year I don't work, obviously my income is $0, but my wealth makes me rich.
 
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MovingTarget

Diamond Member
Jun 22, 2003
9,002
115
106
You have to define "rich" based on some metric. Not everyone is middle class. Why not just take a normalized distribution and declare anything at or above the third quartile and let that be the threshold? The results would be surprising.

Of course, regional differences do affect the perception of being rich. You may not believe that you are rich on the national scale depending on the locality, but it does not change the fact that you are. When considering national policy, you need to use national statistics.
 

hal2kilo

Lifer
Feb 24, 2009
26,364
12,503
136
Nope. You'd barely clear 100k take home after taxes. To save 1 million you'd have to save 100% of your paycheck.

Why do you guys always lie. It's 37 percent on the MARGINAL amount.! So your math is wrong.