Stanford UG and Harvard Med., Emory UG and MSW from UT.
I agree, but if you have $500,000 to give someone else clearly your net wroth is much greater than that.
Thanks, NJ.
For financial aid, the schools look at adjusted gross income? Taxable income?
How many years do schools look at?
And the schools expect you to spend how much of your income?
I know aid can vary depending on the schools. I just want ballpark numbers.
I guess where I am going is why did Gabler’s daughter not receive financial aid at Stanford? Aren’t mortgage payments suntracted from income when calculating income?
@BunsenBurner, He seems to have revised the story.
http://easthamptonstar.com/Archive/1/Neal-Gabler-Triumph-Entertainment
"I lost my television job because, I was told, I wasn’t frivolous enough for the medium, which was probably true. (Or at least I felt better thinking it was true.) "
This is what he said in 1998 about his TV Job.
“…working on his book in the meantime. He was not happy, however.”
“I didn’t like television and the things I was required to do. I thought I was a lot smarter than I was allowed to be on the program.”
He quit when he realized he could end up “50 years old and still giving 30-second film reviews. That was not how I saw myself.”
http://easthamptonstar.com/Archive/1/Neal-Gabler-Triumph-Entertainment
@BunsenBurner RE 357
This is where he is twisting the truth. The truth is that he had a movie review show back in the 80’s on PBS. He QUIT his job in 1985. He is quoted as saying: “I didn’t like television and the things I was required to do. I thought I was a lot smarter than I was allowed to be on the program.”
There is a difference. First of all that’s 31 years ago and a job loss is not the same as walking out. No victim here
cross posted with above
“net worth of $500,000 is not wealthy in the United States.”
Remind me again what percent of Americans couldn’t scare up $400 in a pinch, dstark?
^^^ Well, in 1885, who could have predicted a future in TV? 
We are going to judge people based on their jobs or what they said 31 years ago?
That is freaking ridiculous.
Or compare these two:
- A non-colleged-educated couple: husband is a housepainter; wife is an administrative assistant. Combined income is $160,000/year. They live in a neighborhood of modest, inexpensive homes where most people earn a living by using their hands. The local high school sends 50% of graduates to four-year colleges.
- A highly educated couple: Husband has a law degree and is an assistant district attorney in a city; wife has a PhD in psychology and has a part-time clinical practice. Combined income is $160,000—same as the housepainter/hairdresser couple. They live in an established, inner-ring suburb of modest—but expensive—homes full of doctors, lawyers, and bankers. The school district is known for its excellence and sends 98% of HS grads to four-year colleges.
Are these two couples in the same socioeconomic class?
@Youdon’tsay But doesn’t 1985 seem like 130 years ago? It does to me. 
I should have waited so you couldn’t edit that!!!
@dstark We are commenting on this because Gabler argues that his predicament is due to “job loss”. Many of us see a difference between quitting a job 31 years ago and being recently laid off from a job.
This guy is sounding more annoying all the time. Too smart for TV? Spare me.
This is personally frustrating to me bc it’s the story of my parents. They came from modest poor to working class backgrounds and my dad hit it big time. They spent, spent, spent. They then divorced; my dad worked for a few years so he could build up his nest egg, but my mom basically gutted a seven figure sum, got herself in financial trouble and now I’m on the hook for both her and my grandmother for the next 20 years, which is doable only because we have been conservative and lived beneath our means. It has been a nightmare situation for all of us and it has taken substantial therapy (still ongoing) to help my mom get to the root of why she deliberately made poor financial decisions, ignored financial planners’ advice, why she reacts so vehemently to having to budget and make trade offs, how love does not equal her daughter’s writing her blank checks and how she can finally turn it around. This could all have been avoided. There was no health issue, no tragedy like a fire. It would almost have been better if Madoff had taken her money because then it wouldn’t have been her fault. So no, I don’t have sympathy for Gabler.
Here’s the On Point interview, if you want to listen … I missed the last 15 minutes because I got to work.
http://onpoint.wbur.org/2016/04/27/middle-class-and-cash-poor
There are multiple socio-economic classes. Clearly, in your example, the two couples are in some different socio-economic classes. Looks like they are in a similar income class.
@notelling @dstark and others discussing the timing of income vs tax bill. Maybe this will help. Individuals are cash basis taxpayers. When an individual receives cash (book advance) and or has control over the timing of receipt of cash (LLC dustributions) it is taxable income. The fact that the services to be rendered to earn that cash (writing a book) can be provided after the cash is received is unusual. Most of us must provide the services before we are paid (salary or wages). Deciding to leave cash in a business rather than making distributions to the owners means they have income but no cash. Income and cash flow are not the same thing.
“We are going to judge people based on their jobs or what they said 31 years ago?
That is freaking ridiculous.”
No, we are judging him based on his ACTIONS. He was entitled and had a mental problem with living a lifestyle “below” what he felt he deserved. So he didn’t.
When you don’t have $400 for heating oil, this is the kind of wedding you put on: you go to city hall, wearing clothes you already own, and you have cake and punch in the living room.
Dstark, I don’t think you have a clue what real middle class life is like. You know who is middle class? The guy who rents you your car at Hertz and his wife is a part time receptionist. Not this highly educated guy and not your seat-owning buddies.
“We are going to judge people based on their jobs or what they said 31 years ago?
That is freaking ridiculous.”
@dstark I agree with you entirely, in principle. But in this case it is Gabler himself who keeps resurrecting this from 31 years ago. It is indeed ridiculous. We can’t not comment on it when he keeps pointing to it as a source of his financial problems.