[pageald]

This is ridiculous. It's one thing to claim that 100k is "not enough" if you live in a high cost of living (which is still dubious, considering the median income in NYC is half of that.) If that's not enough for you in Kansas, the fact is that you're living far beyond your means.

I think it's telling that one family cited credit card debt like it's an act of nature instead of a conscious choice. And just because you qualify for a million dollar mortgage doesn't mean you should get one. Spend that big salary on a home near your workplace and sell the $40,000 SUV.

The sooner we wake up from the "dream" of being deep underwater in debt to fund an ecologically and economically unsustainable lifestyle, all the while just a paycheck or two away from complete ruin, the better off we'll be.

[emerged]

There's an irritatingly prevalent attitude that once you've moved to a high cost of living area (or were born there), you're forever entitled to stay there. That if you can't afford it, it's the fault of society and needs to be corrected.

[abalashov]

I don't know if it's the fault of society, but it's fairly natural. Humans get attached to familiar places in which they grew up, in which they have lived in a long time, etc. They plant social roots.

I'm not saying that means people who can't afford to live in places like NYC or SF shouldn't move, just that there's a complex tension between economic theory and "messy" human reality.

The ideal rationally self-interested agent described in economics texts would just move from place to place in search of profit-maximising opportunities, but that's not what actually existing humans do much of the time. They have relatives, friends, aesthetic preferences, social obligations, religious beliefs, and other things that "do not compute" in mathematical models.

[rpmcmurphy]

This ^^^^. I have lived in San Francisco for 25 years now. While I could reduce my cost of living dramatically by moving, I have spent my entire post-college life here. Nearly all of my friends and professional network are here, so I have approximately zero interest in moving, even if it would be cheaper, it would not be worth it.

[abalashov]

And arguably wouldn't make financial sense. There's a benefit to being within driving distance of 900 of the world's top 1000 tech companies, or whatever it is.

You might be able to afford a better lifestyle on a modest paycheck in Sioux City, Iowa, but what happens when that company, the approximately ~1 serious tech employer in town, lays you off? In the Bay Area, you just go across the street.

Lest anyone think I'm a cheerleader, I live in northeast Georgia and have no intention of moving to the Bay Area. :-)

[scarface74]

Well if you live in northeast GA (as do I) you know that a software developer with 5-10 years of experience can easily make $110-140K and that easily affords you to live in some of the nicest part of Atlanta.

True. We aren't around "900 of the world's top 1000" companies, but in the 20 years I've lived here, I've never found there to be a lack of development jobs.

As a single person, you could easily live comfortably in parts of metro Atlanta making 70K.

[abalashov]

My impression of the top end of typical developer salaries in Atlanta doesn't quite go that high, but it's possible they're crept up since I last took a look.

I agree that metro Atlanta is not an especially high-cost area, though parts of it certainly are; ITP in general is getting overheated. I lived in Midtown for the better part of ten years and by the end of that, rents seemed on par with Brooklyn and Chicago, though I did have to upgrade from single-person housing on account of a short-lived marriage.

Nowadays, I've moved back to Athens. Where are you?

[nunez]

Not everyone wants to work for a huge corporation, where most of those jobs with the salaries that you cite are located.

[SomeStupidPoint]

> They have relatives, friends, aesthetic preferences, social obligations, religious beliefs, and other things that "do not compute" in mathematical models.

They compute fine -- most models are just "lying with math" by excluding the value of those things from their calculations.

It's not different than a friend who ignores those things when using words -- of course it doesn't make sense why you don't move if you don't account for the full value of where you are at present.

I think if we accounted for the destroyed social value that most of these economic models have inflicted, it would be the obvious massive negative that most people anecdotally tell. I think it's very telling how rarely you see these kinds of things modeled in economic theory despite how obviously part of the way humans value things they are.

Economics is merely institutionalized fixation on money, and produces precisely the psychopathic models you'd expect from that.

[abalashov]

Well, fair enough. Either way, the effect is the same — those variables are excluded from discussions in an almost sociopathic way.

[SomeStupidPoint]

I agree, but poking holes in why they're excluded is important, because it let's you have this exchange --

"You can't argue with the math!"

"Well, hold on now, I think you left a whole bunch of things out!"

If you don't know where the problem in the math is, despite there being an extremely obvious problem, many people will ignore your objections. That's why they use math, to paper over their obviously poor behavior.

Being able to strip that bare is useful.

[abalashov]

Aye.

It seems to me we'd do better taking an empirical approach and pricing in widespread psychological realities.

For instance, it's clear that one of the things people don't do very well with, especially as they head into middle age and beyond, is big downward adjustments in lifestyle. It just doesn't accord with the expectation of upward mobility and progression through life anywhere, least of all in the land of the American Dream.

So, even when economic circumstances get worse, their spending tends to remain stubbornly high relative to the quantitative reality. It seems to me sanctimoniously chiding people for that is not a constructive response. It's clearly what most people do, in some measure. The question is how to best deal with that systemically, if in any way at all.

[pishpash]

Would you say the same for indigenous people around the world? That when they're "priced out" they should just get the hell out?

[thesmallestcat]

What does "indigenous" mean here? Are we talking about nations, as in the Navajo or First Nations? Because that's an entirely different discussion. For everybody else I'd say yes, with mobility comes displacement. The ethics of fluid global and national labor markets are also a separate discussion, and I'm assuming we're discussing the current state of affairs.

[dajohnson89]

>Spend that big salary on a home near your workplace and sell the $40,000 SUV.

lol a home in downtown DC, where the MD guy likely works, is gonna set you back 2 million at least. you're not gonna find a 1br apartment downtown for less than 2k/mo.

[rayiner]

I work in D.C., and there are tons of 3 bedroom houses around mine (in a good school district) for $300,000.

[dajohnson89]

The median house price is $533,800. Not sure where you work, but that sounds like a pretty sweet deal.