Do you think you're rich?

[conflictgirl]

The other thread about the tax rates inspired this.

Everyone I've ever known, personally or online, with high incomes several times higher than the median household income, said they weren't that rich.

Of course some will want to answer "I'm not rich in money, but I'm rich in love". In a perfect world we would all be able to answer that we were rich in love, regardless of our incomes. I'm talking strictly about money here.

Do you consider your income to be "rich"? (You don't need to give specific numbers if you don't want, especially because income is so relative to where you live.)

Have you ever been rich?

If not, how much more would you have to make to consider yourself rich?

[Solo_in_MD]

1. On a pragmatic level, rich (to me) means not having to work for living

Which means I am not even close, though as a family we are doing much better than we were some years ago.

[davekriss]

26. Ditto

Being rich means being able to live off one's investments, and to live comfortably. The rest of the so called "rich" are conspicuosuly consuming working class, one outsourced job away from disaster.

The barometer for "rich", therefore, is net wealth, not income. The top 1% of the U.S. population (in 2001) possess 68% of the net wealth in this country, which is more than the bottom 80% combined. The bottom 40%, where the word "struggle" is lived daily, own 0.4%. The top 5% own more than the bottom 90%. This from an old www.inequality.org page no longer up (still a good site, but they changed their pages and dropped the table from which this is from).

Think of it: Approximately 3,000,000 men, women, and children own more than the bottom 240,000,000 people combined. Add the numbers from the next 4% and it becomes 15,000,000 who own more than the bottom 270,000,000. That's quite a small bunch who would devise all kinds of propaganda meant to fool enough of the rest to keep things as they are. Look, Gay Marriage over there (and they reach in your pocket), and "we need to fight them over there so we don't have to fight them here" (as they remove, not only a greater piece of the value your labor created, they take your sons and daughters too)!

I find it laughingly obvious that the Republicans, who control the White House, Senate, House, SCOTUS, press, and military have neither "solved" abortion nor found Osama Bin Forgotten. Both, instead, are maintained as problems because they serve as rallying cards around which they can fool the pilfered masses and thereby maintain power. While in power they stealthingly remove the democratic brakes that would keep advantage from increasingly rolling into the pockets of the already advantaged. It is a viscious, negative spiral for we the rascal multitude, and I see no end to it.

On edit, added quotes:

Paul Samuelson: "If we made an income pyramid out of a child's blocks, with each layer portraying $1,000 of income, the peak would be far higher than the Eiffel Tower, but almost all of us would be within a yard of the ground."

James K. Galbraith (in Created Unequal: The Crisis in American Pay, 1998): "The haves are on the march. With growing inequality, so grows their power. And so also diminish the voices of solidarity and mutual reinforcement, the voices of civil society, the voices of a democratic and egalitarian middle class."

Holly Sklar (1999): "Together the 400 richest Americans are worth more than $1 trillion. Just 400 people -- they could all stay at New York's Plaza Hotel at the same time -- are worth nearly one-eighth of the total gross domestic product of the United States, the world's richest economy."

Isaiah Berlin: "The liberty of the strong, whether their strength is physical or economic, must be restrained."

Franklin D. Roosevelt (second inaugural address, 1937): "The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little."

Jim Wallis (1999): "There's no more central theme in the Bible than the immorality of inequality. Jesus speaks more about the gap between rich and poor than he does about heaven and hell."

[sendero]

34. I agree with you...

... and as such rich I'm not. It looks to me like one would need $3-$5 million in investable capital to be rich nowadays, that is - to live off of the proceeds and live pretty well.

That said, my house and Sendero compound are paid for and I think I'll be able to send 2 sons to college, so I'm not complaining. :)

[survivor999]

36. So, disabled people on welfare are rich?

They don't work for living... :)

[Solo_in_MD]

39. To clarify...

Have enough assets producing income so that working for living (W-2) income is not required to maintain their lifestyle.

This obviously refers to people in the working phase of their lives and capable of working.

[survivor999]

45. Just kidding...

I agree with your characterization of being rich.

[Lorien]

60. Bill Gates was never rich? I consider a life without work a poor one

Work-at least work one enjoys- can be a key component to happiness. I've watched my father retire three times; each time he enjoys his "freedom" for a year or so, then finds that he's watching TV all day, puttering around the house without purpose, and growing more and more isolated and miserable. When he goes back to work he sounds 100% better; he's alert and engaged in the world. He has stories to tell. He meets new people and leads a more active life. To me, retirement=death.

I consider "being rich" having far more money than you need to cover all your living expenses, no debt, and having a fat nest egg tucked away. I was wealthy by my own standards in the clinton years, when I made a six figure income and would take two months off a year to travel abroad. Now, under Bush, I've had an 80% pay reduction and I'm in debt due to medical bills. I'm certainly no longer in that category by anyone's standards.

[fishwax]

61. not having to work and not working are two different things, though

Not everybody who "works" has to do so to get by. I had a family member who was building a spec house, and they hired a retired banker in his fifties. That guy didn't have to work--he was rich--but he had always wanted to learn a trade, so he spent a couple of months working construction. (He was apparently a pain in the butt, though, and didn't last as a construction worker--among other things, he apparently couldn't break the habit of bankers' hours :rofl:)

[readmoreoften]

2. No. I am below the poverty line. /nt

[conflictgirl]

3. Ha, me too.

Gee, it's fun down here, isn't it?
:sarcasm:

I have hope that things will change in the future though, because I'm about to finish my BA degree and am going on to grad school, and my husband has gone back to school. So things might look up.

We made pretty close to the median income one year, and that felt very comfortable to us.

[readmoreoften]

9. Careful with grad school.

Depending on what you are going for, it very well may not help you in the job market. If you are going for a professional degree it could help you earn more money. If you are going for an arts & science degree, it can actually hurt. I know many people who thought that an M.A. from a great school in an interesting subject would help them on the job market. It only put them $90K in debt.

Schools know that people are desperate for a real career these days and there are a lot of programs that suck your money and give you a window to study something interesting under the pretense that there is a little bit of gold at the end of the rainbow. There is nothing but debt.

See the job placement of graduates. If they say they have 100% placement be suspicious. Ask where. Ask what kind of job.

[conflictgirl]

13. I am worried about that

I'm tentatively thinking of majoring in library science. I know there is a lot of debate about whether or not the future job market will be good for librarians, but at least in my area it's still a fairly decent job. I've maintained a very high GPA in undergrad so I am hoping to get funding for grad school.

I've been driving myself crazy about the employability of my grad school options. I've changed my mind three or four times about different programs, and keep talking myself out of them because of things I've heard about the job market for that field. My undergrad degree will be in sociology and to be honest, I am regretting that a little bit because I know how worthless the degree is. My student loan debt is already scaring me.

[readmoreoften]

15. I think library science is a good choice.

Especially if you major in electronic collections. Just don't get an MA in the humanities or social sciences. These programs are largely fundraisers for the Ph.D. students. (Not an MSW or any other professional program. I mean the MA)

[Nederland]

41. Agreed

Going to grad school to earn more money is almost always a dumb idea. You should go to grad school because you love a subject and want to learn more about. The knowledge gained should be its own reward. If it's not, your motivations are probably wrong.

[TomInTib]

4. I have a personal peeve regarding the word 'rich' in this context.

To me, heavy cream is 'rich'.

'Wealthy' is a far better word to define financial security.

That having been said, I have been wealthy and I have also experienced the depths and despair of absolute bankruptcy.

But I am doing quite fine at the moment.

It is all relative.

[itzamirakul]

10. Difference in being "rich" vs being "wealthy"

I heard something like this from some comedian...maybe Chris Rock?

Oprah is rich. The person who writes Oprah's pay check is wealthy.

[Behind the Aegis]

11. It was indeed Chris Rock...

also wealthy..."the motherfuker who owns the color blue!" :rofl:

[AllNamesHaveBeenUsed]

24. Michael Jordan... not Oprah.

Oprah is wealthy.

[conflictgirl]

51. Oprah's fortune is actually larger than Michael Jordan's.

Anyone who is a billionaire is, by default, rich. There's no way you can spin that to make me think they are merely wealthy.

[AllNamesHaveBeenUsed]

55. Actually, that is what I was saying.

The Chris Rock joke made the distinction between "rich" and "wealthy." He said Michael Jordan was rich (works for and paid by somebody else). The person writing MJ's check was wealthy (the one with the real money). The previous poster replaced MJ with Oprah. Oprah owns the company which produces her show (Harpo). Oprah is the one who writes the checks. Oprah is a very smart business woman. Oprah knows where you live.

[AllNamesHaveBeenUsed]

56. Crap...

My 100th post was wasted on Oprah.

[conflictgirl]

57. LOL...you'll just have to post more!

[Greyhound]

5. Nah, but I was well on my way when Clinton & the 'R's' pulled the rug out.

BTW I'd define rich as having assets that would generate $100K or more annually, enough for a family to live comfortably.

[nealmhughes]

6. Not right now: I have been upper middle class twice in my life:

income in the upper 50s in the mid 80s thru the mid 90s. Then I went back to school and suffered honorable grad student poverty for five years. Then on to an academic career, where I get honorary upper middle class status, even though the $ don't match the status. I left that job for health reasons and am now dirt poor.

To be honest, I've been wealthy (in my eyes and those of my friends and family) in the sense that I was able to fly anywhere I wanted whenever I wanted, eat at top shelf restaurants, party in NYC and summer on Fire Island and East Hampton. I was very, very happy then and very very young (25-33). It was the go-go 80s and 90s. I rode the crest.

I was also very happy in grad school due to the respect I got from my own students and the overall academic community. I could still take a yearly vacation or two...

I was barely making ends meet with my student loans and the pathetic salaries that admin thinks beginning faculty make, yet was expected to live in a certain neighborhood, dress a certain way, etc. etc. I didn't last long there as they ran me off as soon as I began to act "strangely." It turns out that I had basicly no immune system and was nearly dead with advanced HIV.

SSDI is acting as if I "don't deserve" a cent from them, not even Medicare, even though I have paid over $25K before annually in taxes. Were it not for my family I would live under a bridge and have only free meds for my disease. I get discouraged, definitely, but I am getting healthier by the week and my mental symptoms are gone. I have an immune system again. I hate the government so much that I fantasize about raising the red flag and making a guillotine list.

You can be miserable and wealthy, and you can be miserable and poor and unemployable, and believe me, it is better to be miserable and have money in this country.

[spacelady]

12. I have nothing but contempt for a health care system that is so corrupt,

& treating people so callously right here in the good ol' United System of Assholes. We can do better.

[sandnsea]

7. hehehehehahahahahehehlolololol

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

Er, that's a no. :)

[spacelady]

8. We would have been comfortable (not rich except in peace of mind

that the world had not gone crazy) if W* had not been declared. Ask me why if you care, I have a theory.

[conflictgirl]

14. What's your theory? nt

[spacelady]

16. Well, I was born in '62 & husband was born in '59, so we were the last of

the baby boomer era. Our parents taught us to save money & not get in debt. I went to college & got a degree & spouse got a graduate degree. We got careers, started saving money, bought a house. We grew up in the mid 70's & the Old Boomers keep hoarding money & will not retire & get out of our way. We did not catch the wave of computer technology & have been squeezed on the other end by the dot-com generation, who have taken (and rightfully so) the jobs of the future. While our parents enjoyed a 15% return on their savings, we might as well have stuck our money under a mattress. The moment * took office, my husband was downsized.

Oh by the way, yes I am bitter, call the wahmbulance & yes we are rich in our happiness & our hope for better days.

[sandnsea]

22. Oh I hear you

Me and my DH were both born in '57. We walk into the biggest labor glut in history, Carter has the 2nd fastest job growth but just can't make jobs fast enough to keep up with the boomers. Then the first housing boom hits, but we haven't bought yet and end up having to deal with high prices and high interest rates. Then Reagan starts union busting and cutting our wages and benefits and they go along because they already have the income and taxes unions brought them. We get a bit of breathing room in the 90's, then bam, along comes Bush and screws it all up. And yes, still waiting for them to retire and free up some jobs and money. But by the time we get money, they will have already pushed the market and we'll be at the tail-end again. And the generation immediately behind us, they had it even worse.

[NMMNG]

17. Me? Rich?

[B Calm]

18. I tell my right-wing co-workers managing the family fortune is

my full time job and I only work here to meet people. If only it were true, ha..

[datasuspect]

19. i been down so goddamn long

that it looks like up to me.

i have a degree from a decent school too. but, sorry thing is, i decided to be a philosophy major.

[Vidar]

20. below poverty line as well.

[phylny]

21. I don't think we're rich, but other people think we are.

I don't know what the reality is.

The difficult thing is that people assume we are elitists or snobs or look down on other people if, say, they have a small house or work a blue collar job, or have an old car. Nothing could be further from the truth, but when they drive up to our house and come to the door, they say things that make me feel really bad, such as, "Oh, when you drop (daughter) off at our house, you're probably going to think that we're destitute!"

I wouldn't think anything. I've lived in huge houses and tiny houses, we've owned new cars and cars we've driven into the ground, and we just don't judge people like that.

The reason I don't think we're rich is that we work our asses off at our jobs, do all of our own "labor" (yardwork, cleaning, home and car repairs, etc.), and fret over bills. In addition, we see what we think is TRUE wealth when we go to the shore and see marinas chock full of yachts, or drive past certain neighborhoods, or realize how many people own two homes - their regular one and the "summer" home or "winter" home. THAT'S RICH, to me.

Anyway, that's our deal.

[flordehinojos]

23. the newspaper happened to be lying around the breakfast table this a.m.

and i happened to pull out the real estate section. the first house on the first page of that section listed for $2,847,887.00 my eyes nearly fell to the floor while my heart and mind wondered, what ever happened to (and whatever will become of) ordinary people just like me!!!!!! and then i thought there was a time when being able to sit down with a cup of coffee and a toast and maybe an egg or two for breakfast was considered being "rich"... these days, only the bushes and their skull and bones secret society friends can be considered rich.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

25. I was once rich

in that I had everything I wanted to buy and saved quite a bit of money. I was making about $20K at the time, back in the '80s. Right now, I'd say I'm fairly well off at around $16K per year, because I can pay all my bills, but I'm not saving as much as I did back then.

By my definition, "rich" means having enough money to pay your bills and being able to put aside a little bit every paycheck.

[pitohui]

67. i can say a word means whatever i want but it doesn't make it true

by my own definition i can sprout wings and fly because i drank a martini and i flapped my arms and wheeeeee

i don't want a sugar coated reality where we lie to ourselves

i don't want to lie and say i'm rich when i'm a serious illness or a car accident away from destroying myself and my entire family financially

$16K a year is not rich, it is not even middle class, it is not enough to take care of yourself in serious emergency

pretty much my first rule of thumb is that i am poor if i cannot even afford to take care of myself in such routine life events as job loss or serious illness which are going to happen to ALL of us

it makes me sad that good people are happy w. so little, people who are content w. the dregs of life make it harder for the rest of us to fight for anything, how can we ever succeed in the fight for decent wages when people are willing to accept so little from life?

please, my friend, i would urge you to aim higher, your lack of divine discontent harms not only you (which is your perfect right) but it harms everyone struggling for better wages

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

78. You don't understand

First of all, I believe you made some assumptions about wages, etc, based upon where you live. Where I live the wages are quite low, but then the living costs are low, too.


I am making high wages for my area-don't think I haven't argued and fought to reach the princely sum of $8 an hour. Most people around here, especially women, make minimum wage. I have made sure that the people in our company are given overtime wages when they earn it, something that wasn't done before I came on board. When I was a union member, I helped make sure our wages/benefits were good.

I find it intersting that your concept of "accepting little from life" is based solely upon wages. In my life concept, there are far more important things than a salary, but I do my bit to make it so that people are paid fairly for their work.

[foreigncorrespondent]

27. Not me!

I used to live a comfortable life in my twenties, but my thirties have been a living nightmare. Every time I land a decent job with an okay wage within six months I am either leaving (for a better job) or losing the job due to contract loss or unfair dismissal.

Right now I find myself in pretty heavy debt. Bills are mounting up and I haven't worked since the 2nd of June and not having any money coming in. My final pay packet (a month ago) was just over $1000.00, and now I have around a dime of that left.

Now I find myself about to start yet another job and this time I plan to put the majority of my money into the debt and not bloody well worry about savings until I know this job will last.

If I have no debt then I know at least no matter what else Sapphocrat and I will at least see each other at some point this year, otherwise I doubt very much that will happen.

[Fox Mulder]

28. I'm well above the poverty level, but I'm far from rich.

[ScreamingMeemie]

29. I am not rich because I owe money on a mortgage. If I owned my

house outright, and I had the ability to make major purchases using cash, not credit (i.e. cars) I would consider myself rich. We don't have credit card debt, but we're not debtfree...therefore we are not rich. And getting less so by the day.

[Tracer]

30. Heh. When I was a kid ...

... I used to think my family was "rich" because we lived in an upscale town in a nice house. My dad owned his own engineering firm, drove his Caddies, and paid for everything without a complaint.

Then I went to a private women's college (paid for by Dad).

One of my friends at school had a BALLROOM in her "house". Good Lord. A ballroom with those little gilt chairs lining the walls and chandeliers hanging down from the incredibly high ceiling. Another girl was the heiress to a MAJOR brewing fortune. (I never examined her house for ballroominess).

It was a major eye-opener. I had to revise my family's "richness" waaaaaaaay down the scale.

[Thirtieschild]

48. Opposite experience re ballroominess

I was sure I'd grown up poor, used our unheated bedrooms as an example of our poverty. And then I interviewed a group of maids for a radio show. They were all older, all retired, all black and all had a lot to say about growing up in the segregated South. I was stunned when I asked them about their living conditions.

Me: And did you have unheated bedrooms?
Them: Who had bedrooms?

It's all relative.

[conflictgirl]

49. There's a lot of truth to the relativity aspect

We own a house in a very low-crime small town on the outskirts of the nearby bigger towns where the poverty is much worse. One of my son's friends lives "in the city" and considers us to be rich, simply because of where we live. My husband has been unemployed since February and we were barely above poverty level even when he was, but simply by virtue of not living in one of the worst neighborhoods, some people who do live in those neighborhoods think we're rich.

[Coyote_Bandit]

31. It's Been Nearly Three and a Half Years

since I had a job and an income. I've collected well over 1,000 rejection letters during that time. I am well educated with my most recent degree being earned in 2001. I have a responsible work history. But I am a 40 something, politically liberal, single professional female living in fundie red state employment at will hell. And I have family obligations that place some limitations on my ability to relocate.

Rich? Hardly. I would be homeless and living under a bridge somewhere but for the fact that I have savings and retirement funds that I am able to liquidate.

[Arkansas Granny]

32. I am not rich now, have never been rich and don't ever expect

to be rich. Such is life.

[anarch]

33. I'd have to raise about $70 just to be broke...but yes, I do

I still have adequate food and shelter, even if I have to beg for money and food sometimes. At least there's food to be had. Compared to a whole lot of people, I live like a king:

[Conan_The_Barbarian]

35. Not yet but I plan on being on that top 1%

Money is a hobby of mine, I'm only 18 and have 12grand that I've earned through work/investments so I think I'm off to a good start. Double majoring Political science and economics and will likely get my masters in business, if all goes well maybe at Stern, Tux, or Wharton.

[soothsayer]

38. That's a good hobby!

[ComerPerro]

47. Sounds like you'd make a great Republican

[pitohui]

70. it just sounds like he has no experience of life

all of us were going to invest and make millions when we were 18, don't you remember?

reality will get around to him soon enough, let him dream

[lumberjack_jeff]

76. If "success" is top 1% you'll inevitably crash and burn.

Worse, you'll suffer as a result of having confused "standard of living" with "quality of life".

Remain frugal and pay yourself first, and you'll have "enough". Enough is good, but it has little to do with what others make.

Kudos to you for your savings discipline.

[Catherine Vincent]

37. I'm broke, disgusted and can't be trusted.

:)

[knitter4democracy]

40. We are, but money's still tight.

We owe a lot on my hubby's med school loans (more than we owe for our house), and we're still paying our cars and new house. *sigh* We're still not very far ahead each paycheck, what with residency debt to pay off and all, too.

We've been poor, though, and in comparison, we are extremely rich. We can afford to get dental work done now and to replace things that break. We're doing much better.

[lumberjack_jeff]

77. imho "high income" and "rich" are not the same thing.

If you have car loans, a mortgage "on a new house" and school loans, I suspect your net worth would not qualify you as rich.

This misconception does the progressive cause a disservice, because when we gripe about taxes being cut for the rich, the merely high income think that we're talking about them.

Tax cuts for the rich and tax cuts for high income people are different. Cutting the tax on dividends, capital gains and mega-estates is the former.

[knitter4democracy]

79. Net worth definitely isn't there.

When I tried to get a business loan, it was really sad. Here my hubby has worked his butt off but we had so little to show for it.

I hadn't thought of it being two different things, though. I consider us rich because we can mostly afford what we need to. Of course, now that some things in the house are breaking, that's not necessarily true. For the most part, though, we can get anything we need, even medical care. I think that makes us rich. We sure don't have much in stocks or estates, though.

[Nederland]

42. Some of my friends think I am

but I don't feel like I am...

[bleedingheart]

43. middle class...not rich

to be rich...you have to have enough money to cover all your needs for most of your life...and not have to worry about healthcare costs...mortgages..etc

[politicat]

44. I believe so....

I don't have to worry that there won't be water when I get home. I don't have to cook everything because vegetables are grown in night soil. I can afford to buy a cup of coffee or a bottle of water when I'm out and not worry that doing so will break the budget.

I don't have to scavenge for cooking fuel, walking 20 to 40 km a day just to ensure that I can cook the day's grain ration.

I don't have to watch my children die of preventable disease, malnutrition and dysentery.

I don't have to worry that our power lines will be stolen because the metals are very valuable on the black market.

I don't have to choose between feeding my girl child and feeding my boy child. I have social security so I don't have to rely on my children to support me in my old age.

My public transportation is relatively safe, and when I get on a ferry, I'm not taking a risk that the ferry operator is ignoring safety rules that will result in overcrowding and a deadly capsize.

No one's ever asked me for a bribe so that I can keep my business or my house. No one has ever expected me to pay a dowry to ensure that my daughter won't die in a cooking gas "accident".

Compared to the other 3 billion women on the planet, I consider myself uncountably wealthy.

[pitohui]

68. yes but that's intellectually dishonest, isn't it?

being content just to be allowed to survive is not being rich

i'm w. mona simpson, "i'm tired of being grateful for what everybody else already has"

it is pathetic we have to be grateful for being allowed to feed our own children, that is not rich, that is actually UNIMAGINABLE poverty that has gotten deep into our brain and filled it so deeply w fear that we can't even picture what being rich really is

to equate being just barely middle class or working class with being rich is just plain not honest, we need to stop identifying w. the rich man and face our situation honestly

you are not rich and to be pitifully grateful for so little when others have billions just makes me sad, it is proof that we have given up hope of any sort of equality in this world

"uncountably wealthy" because your wires haven't (yet) been stolen for copper by crackheads, please, when it does happen -- and it will or it did around here in the 80s -- then will you suddenly consider yourself plunged into poverty?

[politicat]

71. Obviously, you've not traveled much.

Look, I've been to other countries where being born is not a free ticket to happiness. There is no way that the world can support the whole 6 billion of us living like Americans. It's just not possible.

Just by being born here, we are unimaginably better off than someone born into much of Southeast Asia, most of Africa, and a good deal of South and Central America.

I absolutely appreciate everything I have because I know that true poverty - not just American style poverty - is just a flicker away. The oil supply breaks down and we're utterly fucked. 180 million of us live in urban and suburban areas and depend on oil to get our food and power to us. 180 million of us will hurt like you can't even imagine when the oil in our veins gets cut off.

I've had my power lines stolen for the copper. Kiev in 1997. I've washed clothes by hand, studied by candle light, and cooked over an alcohol burner. I have a business associate in Western India who takes paying bribes to stay in business as a normal cost because her country doesn't have a policing agency that enforces the laws. I've seen mothers have to choose which child to feed.

I am rich because it can get so much worse for me that I can barely imagine it. I've been poor by American standards, but never by world standards. I'm incredibly fortunate to be a citizen of the US and by failing to recognize that, I would be doing a disservice to both my country and the world. Since I do recognize it, it makes me all the more willing to fight to defend and spread a reasonable standard of living throughout the world. But I'm a realist, too. There are not enough resources on the planet for all 6 billion of us to live like I do.

edit for spelling

[pitohui]

72. i've traveled to 4 continents

my travel or lack thereof doesn't mean i get to write the dictionaries

i think it is sad that people don't know what rich means, it is a sad comment on our society

being better off than the very poorest of the poor does not make you rich, and fantasizing that it does just seems sad to me

there are 80,000 plus words in the english language, so to use the word "rich" when you mean that you are not quite dead in the street yet is imprecise and, yes, intellectually dishonest \

nowhere is it required that i must lie to myself in order to appreciate what i have and i won't accept that i have to lie to myself

i can appreciate what i have and accept the reality that i am not anywhere near rich, it seems a bit self-hating to call myself rich when i'm not, it just means i can't accept my true position in the world, i have to "inflate" my own status

people who say they are rich, when they are not rich, just seem so pathetic

if they were really happy, if they really felt so "rich in love" or whatever, they would not have to puff themselves up, they could be accurate in their use of language

[lectrobyte]

46. By rich, I always took that to mean "don't have to work for a living".

I consider myself comfortably upper middle class, but I'm still just a "sorry we outsourced your job" and 3 missed house payments away from something different.

[Maestro]

50. Well I am in debt,

my cost of living is far exceeding any upward movement in my salary but I can still make ends meet so I would say that precariously comfortable although we live paycheck to paycheck. However, if energy costs and healthcare keep going like they are, I am going to be in trouble.

[Blue-Jay]

52. We "get by". We're not rich.

My lovely wife & I are better off than a lot of people, but "rich"? Nah. We're happy and not totally buried under debt. That's enough for me.

[Sammy Pepys]

53. I'm comfortable

My wife and I still have to work (and will have to work for many years), but we have a good amount of disposable income every month which we save religiously and we do have enough for to eat out a couple of times a month and every once in a while buy a nice shirt or expensive "toy." Compared to some folks, we're certainly "rich."

Our lifestyle is mostly borne out of keeping our credit debt low to non-existent and clipping coupons rather than raw income, though.

[slackmaster]

54. To use a term coined by the Firesign Theatre during the Carter admin...

I am a proud member of the Chronically Sub-Rich.

[MrSlayer]

58. No, not even close.

I have less than $2500 in the bank. No where near rich.

[pitohui]

59. if you have to work , you are not rich

sappy slogans abt "rich in love" are for losers, i don't want reality sugar coated

rich people work not from choice but because they feel like it

if you must work, you are not rich, even if you like your job, if you depend on it to put bread in your mouth, you are not rich

by definition being rich is abt abundance -- abt having MORE than enough to survive

most of us posting here are quite poor except in our fantasies, i'm afraid

being a pay check or a car accident away from welfare is not being rich, it is being poor -- and by that definition even most "middle class" peopl are poor and just kidding themselves

[Marr]

62. I make between $90k and $130k per year, and I don't feel rich.

I was raised below the poverty line but, thanks to student loans, a string of very crappy jobs, and my dad loaning me his truck for the commute to college, I'm not there anymore. As a single guy in Los Angeles (life's pretty expensive out here) I'm comfortable, and I'm certainly not complaining- but I'm also not rich.

At the same time, I know a Bush fan who makes $60k a year and thinks he's in the top tier. Haha.

[UncleSepp]

63. Yes.

With a home that's owned (ok, the bank owns it), a private car that's paid for, and a few month's savings put away, I feel very rich. Sometimes, it feels obscene: I don't work any harder than anyone else, and not as long or hard as most. It's perspective, I guess.

[blues90]

64. not me

If I can make enough to keep afloat and make it ok until i die with a roof over my head that is not cardboard and have food then i made it , but rich , not unless I win the lottery . I don't expect much or need much and I don't have alot of years to go unless i make it to 70 and with my luck I will live until 100 .

Rich means nothing to me , rich is greed and rich is thinking you're position in life is worth more than anyone who works hard , no one is worth the sort of money they make when they get into the 6 figure a year bracket . Most people who are well off made it of the backs of others and most never repay their work force with either recognition or fair wage .

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

65. That's like "is the Sun big?"

Depends whether you're going to talk about planets or galaxies next.

[natrat]

66. yes-but there are motherfuckers allaround the bayarea who are rich rich nt

[proud patriot]

69. nope

[lumberjack_jeff]

73. Are you talking about wealth or income?

They are two different animals.

My pet peeve is confusion over the two concepts. High income people (say $100k and up) get taxed highly, while high net worth (rich) people (say $1.5m and up) don't necessarily get taxed at all.

My family is definitely NOT high income, but I suspect our net worth is in the 80th percentile or so.

[pitohui]

75. they don't seem to know what they're talking abt

some people seem to think they're rich if they flip the switch and the crackheads haven't made off with the copper in the a/c unit or the telephone wires this week

:eyes:

if people could stop w. the sanctimony for a few, we might actually have an interesting discussion abt wealth vs. income -- why is it that it is acceptable to tax money from work so highly when gifts are not taxed to the giver at all, might be one example?

my mother struggled her whole life, but a lifetime of work left her as poor as ever, only a recent inheritance put her in the category of comfortable where she doesn't have to be endlessly worried abt borrowing money or getting a co-signor when she needs major surgery or health care

it really makes you stop and think

[LSK]

74. no way

I define rich as being able to live my current lifestyle without every having to rely on seeking employment from anyone else ever again.