I hear your point about detaching, and I agree that these are cases where it has gone too far. It's a balancing act, and when we bump up against the edges we're more than happy to hear from the community and adjust. We don't always make the right calls, but when we don't we need the feedback to be constructive. Obviously we can't have this kind of commenting here on Hacker News.
It's not just that they threw in a token retired AA couple and token hardworking Asian businesswoman. It's that they think those people will be making, respectively, $180k per year (that's three times the income of a well-off middle/working class person!) and $230k/year (that's maybe 98th percentile). Oh, the poor girl, she has to pay another $2k (1% of her income) in taxes! Call the Red Cross!
It's unimaginable that we're supposed to pity the family which rakes in more than half a mil per year, and almost as much after taxes. $650k is more than plenty of C-suite executives make in a year, and places that dude and his poor wife and four kids in the 99.5th percentile for income.
We're supposed to feel bad for these obscenely wealthy fake people?
I have seen same thing in Indian newspapers where concerns of of many 0.1% of nation's richest are frequently discussed as the biggest issues of populace.
Well, that convenient omission sure changes the context enormously. People can have different opinions on the definition of "upper" but that is certainly worlds away from the point HuffPo was trying to make.
Irresponsible from HuffPo, but, what do I expect from people trying to get clicks?
Upper class is when you no longer have a salary, just investments. Upper middle is when you have a high salary and some investments, but your main source of income is still leveraging time and skill for money.
I guess it depends on what kind of retired you are. If you're living off of $1000 of dividends per month, or a $600 pension, then you're probably not upper class. At $4000/month like the couple in the picture ... borderline?
Maybe once you retire you just stay the class you were before you retired?
If said salary is their main/only source of income, why not? Afaik as long as you need a salary to maintain your lifestyle, you're middle class.
Grey areas abound of course. Whichever definitionwe write down, someone can find an example that doesn't feel right.
Like, what if your 7 figure CEO is 8 figures in debt and all their assets are leveraged to the brim and if they lose their job it's all getting foreclosed by the bank and they're homeless in a month?
What if a 5-figure small business director/owner lives a comfy life well within their means and has 10 years of fuck you money?
I don't think you can consider someone "upper class" if they aren't at the point where they can comfortably work for their own enjoyment without needing to draw a wage from someone else.
The original article was talking about specifically how this tax increase would affect higher earner families. It was not the intent of the story to describe these as typical of the general population.
Not sure I understand what you are trying to imply? I think the artists intent was to show distress at having to pay large fines. I think that regardless of income people can(and usually do) feel distressed at having to pay thousands of dollars in fines. I personally wince at 20 dollar parking tickets, and probably always will despite my level of income.
If I feel like what I am obtaining from an exchange of money for some thing, is less valuable to me than the amount of my lifetime/mental and physical energies I spent to acquire that money originally, I am probably not going to feel good about the exchange. This seems like common sense to me?
It makes me feel even worse on general principle when the exchange is coercive, using my example, I parked in a place that was designated by "random person with authority" at "random point in time" as not to be parked in, so if I don't pay my locally sanctioned protection racket I will be penalized. I will never see this as a positive thing.
EDIT: Also, it should be said that with things like taxes there is a distinct psychological effect/cognitive bias where people see less value in things where the effect or value of the transaction cannot be easily seen.
You are on the verge of straw-manning me, I am absolutely not some anti-tax advocate. I willingly pay fees based reasonably on a fraction of my overall income to pay for those services, and I see nothing wrong with that. But wanting these services for other people in the use-pool, and my personal use-level of the communal service-pool are two different things.
The 'wince' from paying taxes comes from the psychological disconnect between my actual use-level of the services, it isn't logical, but it is definitely there. This psychological disconnect is where libertarian positions come in, people want to pay for what they make use of, and no more. I don't personally believe that individualistic positions make much sense, but I experience why people would advocate for them in a visceral way when I pay for services that I don't use.
I have never once broken a bone or been a patient in a hospital for any reason, I have still paid for it.
I have never once used a fire service, nor can I think of a single person I know that has off the top of my head, yet I still pay for it.
The roads in my city are a great example because in my city the money has been mismanaged and they have not patched any pot-holes for over five years now. My morning commute to work across my city is as bumpy as rural country roads. And yet I am still paying for something?
These things add up to that wince when I pay money, but that isn't to say that we shouldn't pay for the upkeep of these services and I would never advocate for people not acting collectively. I think the 'wince' is more of a symptom of how disconnected we are from the other people in our community.
When we don't see the fruits of our monetary subsidies because we are disconnected from all the people around us we lack the positive stimulation our brains require to tell us we made a good purchase with our taxes.
http://i.huffpost.com/gen/944732/original.jpg