[JoeOfTexas]

Internet + Natural Gas + Light + Water + Home Insurance + Auto Insurance + Property Tax + Phone + Home Security + Car Gas + Credit Cards

A $350k mortgage with bills, is expensive. Will eat up a whole check if you don't make more than $140k/year.

[michaelt]

[1] tells me a $350k mortgage with a 10% deposit, paid off over 15 years, costs $2,585 per month. That's $31k a year.

That kind of income with that kind of house price should be pretty comfortable, given you don't mention supporting a family. If your non-housing bills are costing $109k a year, there's a good chance you could reign in your lifestyle choices.

[1] https://www.bankofamerica.com/mortgage/mortgage-rates/

[xhkkffbf]

When many people talk about a salary of $140k, they're using pre-tax numbers. $140k can easily shrink to $90k, $80k or even $70k after tax.

[vel0city]

Where in the US would $140k become $70k after tax? Or do you mean after all other pre-tax adjustments such as insurance, 401ks, in addition to taxes?

[xhkkffbf]

Don't forget real estate tax and sales tax. In some places, real estate tax is about 20-30% of the rental cost. Sales tax is as high as 10% in some places.

[Rietty]

According to a friend I know who lives in the tri-state area that is what happens to them, but they max out 401K, have insurance etc.

[vel0city]

But that's not $140->$70 after tax, that's $140k->$70k after tossing $24k into retirement investment savings, another $5k into healthcare savings, possibly another $1,500 towards healthcare premiums (huge amount of variability there), and then finally taxes.

[esseph]

"lives in the tri-state area"

Do you know how many of those are in the US?

[lesuorac]

Well there's 50 states so 504948 is just 117,600.

[vel0city]

I bet it's just outside of Springfield.

[solumunus]

> but they max out 401K

So then it’s not what happens to them is it?

[charlie0]

Credit cards aren't a fixed cost. Spend less.

[tenacious_tuna]

What a helpful take in a CoL crisis.

[bpt3]

Everything is a crisis if you can't control your impulses.

[jimnotgym]

Some people just can't resist the urge to feed their families.

[ponector]

To feed with burrito paid on four installments.

[pengaru]

Some people also can't resist the urge to create large families they can't afford.

[jimbokun]

That’s becoming a very small part of the population, as birth rates fall across the board.

[jimnotgym]

Is hardly the childrens fault. It is also hard to go back on if your circumstances change

[CursedSilicon]

I suppose it's easier to blame ones self than to critique capitalism

[bpt3]

Easier or not, it's certainly more productive to focus on what you can control.

Also I'm open to critiques of capitalism, but the post I replied to didn't contain one.

[ponector]

I guess more people died of starvation under socialism than under capitalism.

[nh23423fefe]

blaming capitalism is extremely useless

[AngryData]

Until it isn't because enough people realize it is inherently flawed and will never result in stability and they would rather die than relegate themselves, their children, and all their later generations, to indefinite servitude of an outdated economic system. Provided we don't kill our world first in our pursuit of endless profit growth.

[tenacious_tuna]

it is if that's all people do, but I think it is a necessary step to realize that we do live under a system that encourages an amoral allocation of resources. If people only ever shrug that off or treat it as intractable it will never change. Some would argue that it cannot be changed, but I think that just means they haven't read history.

[darth_avocado]

Brother lately I’ve only been putting groceries on credit cards and you’re right, they’re not a fixed cost. They’re a variable cost that just keeps going up.

[klipklop]

I wonder if in classic HN fashion somebody will suggest to stop eating...

[htrp]

Anyone remember Soylent?

[fragmede]

I prefer Huel.

[dzhiurgis]

Ozempic is expensive unless you make your own from overseas imports

[browningstreet]

The addition of credit cards to that line does little to spoil the point they were making.

[motbus3]

You'll own nothing. And you will be happy (using pills and medicines)

They were quite serious about destroying society as-is. Nobody took them serious

[klipklop]

You are getting down voted, but it's true. They (WEF-types during their meetings you can watch on youtube) telegraphed it during/soon after the entire Covid lock downs that they intended to make large structural changes to society and the concept of ownership. They didn't make this secret or anything. Heck some sold books on the subject.

Most of what the WEF discusses is how to gain more technocratic control over democracy. You know, for the benefit of everyone...

[motbus3]

I guess people think that there is the need for an centralised evil being responsible to coordinate an attack on society and they feel that the comment is a paranoia attack.

It is nothing like that. We can see how equity firms risen again buying certain types of businesses and change the structure of prices. The incentives to do it wrong are all out.

People still think that Microsoft layouts were an unfortunate unpredictable movement given market circumstances when every regulatory organisation pointed that it would be exactly what they would do.

People also think that putting their money in such companies because they have money back is an endless loop of free money and that money is an infinite resource.

Not one or two only have discussed how they should start licensing their products as a new business model. What people thought that would mean? How selling the product does not give the buyer the ownership? How is that not taxed differently?

[Etheryte]

Who is "they" in this context?

[matthewrobertso]

The World Economic Forum is famous for saying people will own nothing by 2030 and be happy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You%27ll_own_nothing_and_be_ha...

[Nursie]

The essay was a thought experiment based around the popularity of the so-called "sharing economy" at the time, not a WEF strategy document and certainly no government's policy.

Even the author of the piece said it was not a description of her vision of the future, but intended to start a discussion about technology.

But it's been picked up by wackaloons around the world as part of some overarching conspiracy theory.

[chii]

> overarching conspiracy theory.

it's because it's so easy to simply blame the ills of society on some illusory few pulling the strings behind the scenes. It used to be the migrants, or blacks, or the chinese (still is apparently) or the japanese...and now, it's the rich/shadowy figures etc.

The actual truth is that the collective actions of everybody leads to certain outcomes - today's outcomes. It can't really have happened any other way.

[torginus]

But it's literally true?

Please don't dilute the argument by comparing racial groups with the ultra-rich.

The (ultra-)rich form a class in the classical Marxist sense - a group whose interests naturally align, and they work together to further their interests.

There is deliberate government policy behind what's going on with housing - free money for the rich, which they can in turn invest into speculative assets to make yet even more free money.

Then they ensure that their money has weight by putting said money into housing, pricing out common folk, and building new units to serve as price control to preserve the value of their assets.

[ryandrake]

Then it's a good thing that the World Economic Forum are not government and do not have lawmaking powers. It's essentially a lobbying firm. I wouldn't worry too much about random slop they publish.

[sph]

That phrase was an essay from a Danish Social Democrat, the exact same party that has been pushing very hard for Chat Control in Europe.

It’s not a lobbying firm, it’s the same people that make our laws and decide our future.

By the way, the full title of that essay is “Welcome to 2030. I own nothing, have no privacy, and life has never been better”

[motbus3]

https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/1981i3j/ubisoft_get...

The strategy is everywhere now. You buy but buy doesnt mean you own. How did that happen?

[motbus3]

There is the WEF thing as other have mentioned but company representatives have said that

One recent case https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/1981i3j/ubisoft_get...

But you see that everywhere. You buy the hardware but the company may block your property totally or partially.

You buy a car but pays to use heated seat? Who eats this thing that you haven't paid extra for the seats. The costs are just sunk in other parts.

You buy a movie but it can be revoked. You buy an smart tv that can have features revoked. You barely can pay your rent because now everyone needs to rent because no one has money to buy except equity firms.

There is no need for "they" to be a centralised being. It is just happening. Doesn't matter who or if there are a "they".

We live in a world where people think that the homeless man is the enemy because people are to simple minded to not understand why there are incentives to keep make it worse and worse.

[epsilonic]

They are the proponents of The Great Reset. Here’s an excerpt from a book I read:

‘As Hitler declared in 1934, “The German revolution will be concluded only when the entire German Volk has been totally created anew, reorganized and reconstructed” (cited in Koonz, 2003, p. 87). The “Great Reset,” announced by World Economic Forum (WEF) director Klaus Schwab, son of Nazi industrialist Eugen Schwab, attempts the same thing on a global scale, promising to “revamp all aspects of our societies and economies, from education to social contracts and working conditions. Every country [ . . . ] must participate, and every industry [ . . . ] must be transformed” (Schwab, 2020).’

The book is: Wall Street, the Nazis, and the Crimes of the Deep State

By David A. Hughes

[phendrenad2]

It's a big club and you ain't in it.

[sans_souse]

them.