The Stupid Thread 2 (Part 1)

A guy I grew up with, brilliant be every measure, set out about a year ago to do the whole '“citizen of the world” thing.

It has been amazing to watch him, his wife and daughter travel the world. Two big swaths of the planet they have avoided- Northern Africa (boko haram) and the Fucktardistan regions of Eurasia.

Cuz like I said, brilliant by every measure.

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Eh… this is click bait stuff. I won’t speak ill of the dead and traveling on a bike through Tajikistan is something I would never do under any circumstances, but biking through the so-called Pamir highway in Tajikistan is an well established rite-of-passage for guided tours of adventure travelers - majestic mountain ranges are supposedly breathtaking. I know some people who biked through it and as I understand guided tours are very common.

It’s a bit of a stretch to call Tajikistan “ISIS territory”, it was a terrorist attack by two lone wolves it seems, although Tajikistan is seeing an increased Wahabbi presence.

Times they’re a-changing. Honestly, I felt much safer in Kazakhstan that in Paris on my last trip.

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Incidentally, if you guys have affluent socialist millennial who love graphic novels, I strongly suggest giving them as a present (yay, free stuff), the novel “Arab of the Future”, a scathing autobiography by the French-Syrian author Riad Sattouf about his childhod in the 70s and 80s in two socialist utopias - Libya and Syria.

Could make for an uncomfortable reading when what you supposedly strive for actually comes true…

Stupid thread? The previous president of South Africa had this to say

Makes sense - I know based on CDC stats the prevalence of obesity in the US was around 40% in 2015-16 and “The estimated annual medical cost of obesity in the U.S. was $147 billion in 2008 U.S. dollars; the medical cost for people who have obesity was $1,429 higher than those of normal weight

Anecdote - my wife is a mid-level practitioner (NP) whose professional experience thus far has largely been under the neurological umbrella, primarily dealing with strokes.

At the hospital where she was previous to her current gig, they had/are having a terrible time finding adequate MD coverage … they’ve been searching to fill roles for the last 3 years. I.e. they can’t fill roles of doctors they’ve lost to retirement/resignation for the past 3 years. Moral of the story, stroke patients get bypassed from that hospital to go to one with adequate coverage (where she’s at now, coincidentally) which is a half hour ambulance ride away.

For real. I see my wife’s insurance bill. And she’s at a diminished risk of a lawsuit compared to an MD/upper level practitioner. It’s not cheap for her, I can only imagine what a physician pays…on the flip side, I’ve been to some of their houses — swank as fuck.

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Wouldn’t surprise me. I saw it on FB and just scanned through it.

It’s actually my understanding that total medical care is cheaper for fat people. Most medical expense comes at the end of life in old age. Fat people tend to not live to deeply into old age which offsets their increased cost in younger life. Though I’d assume there was some difference in productivity and contribution too. I’m not sure where I’d heard that either. Some expert on a podcast I think.

Are they adding disability payments to medical costs?

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I don’t know and I’d be curious about the real net cost if anyone does. Like I said I would assume some disparity in contribution.

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Debt is a powerful thing, even doctors aren’t smart enough to avoid it. If you’re making $300k living in a $1.5M home then you’re just as house poor as a guy making $50k living in a $250k home.

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“Optics”
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Nah man, these dudes are making more than $300k

This is a big bag of nope, and not at all how expendable income would work lol

I think he’s exaggerating to make a point.

All things being equal:
At $300k, your net pay is going to be about $210K and the mortgage on a $1.5M house is about $7K/month so $85K. $125K: 42% of your income left.

At 50K your net pay is going to be about $40K and the mortgage on a $250k house is about $1.2k/month so $14k a year: $26K: 52% of your income left.



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*obviously you can buy much more with $125k v. $26k.

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I was JUST running those numbers, stole my point.

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Which would make the doctor 1/5th as house poor, acklowedging that it’s probably like 1/4th after adjusting for scaling utilities

Lol, great minds. Must be those hamster stem cells…

I wouldn’t be so quick to say that. You can take this several more steps. Person 1’s property taxes will be higher, they’ll almost certainly drive a more expensive car, groceries probably cost more (Harris Teeter v Super Walmart), so on and so forth.

Yes, person 1 has a lot more disposable income and if they weren’t stupid they could leverage that to make even more (or retire sooner), but almost everyone has to keep up with the Jones’.

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Property taxes assumably would be in the mortgage, I just noticed the calculator you used doesn’t include pmi and prop taxes, so I’m willing to adjust my statement to 1/3rd as house poor.

All of which is completely optional right? When I think of “house poor” I’m not generally thinking of overall QoL expenses, but what expenses can you even take on which your remaining income.

Also, I have never seen anything that rich people pay more than I do for milk. Hell most of the wealthy people I know shop at Costco, which is a cost savings over Walmart if you can contain yourself.

Depends on the specialty. Cardiologist make some serious bank. Family practice maybe 125-150K. Throw in professorships and whatnot, and some do great. Others, not so great as one might think.

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Most of it, sure. I think the point, from my perspective anyway, is just to say that the mentality that allows you to buy a house that’s 5x your income leads you down the same financial path whether you make $300k or $50k.

I think of house poor as something like: Can I afford to furnish the house? Can I afford to do activities/vactions/etc… or does my mortgage preclude this? Etc…

If you look purely at the dollars then, yes, obviously the $300k doctor can buy a lot more stuff. I don’t disagree with you at all. I was just trying to work @Basement_Gainz logic out, which I also agree with. Person A is spending more of their income on their mortgage than person B. I wouldn’t call person A “house poor” but I get what he’s saying.

I agree with you to a point. I wouldn’t consider us “wealthy”, but we’re doing a lot better than most and we shop at BJs and, occasionally, Super Walmart.

However, who generally buys super organic volcanically filtrated water, the person making $50k or the person making $300K?

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