“I agree, but if you have $500,000 to give someone else clearly your net wroth is much greater than that.”
His parents may have been well off, but he said that he drained their savings so much that there would not be any inheritance coming. So maybe their net worth was not much greater than that.
“there is a difference between not feeling sorry for somebody and attacking somebody.”
He should have thought about that before he put out his “poor me” article and tried to argue it is because of the systemic problems in our economy that are hurting real middle and lower class families.
IMO the most duplicitous statement in his interview yesterday was that he cited, early on, a statistic or study that indicated that an annual household income of $130,000 is required to live what is generally considered to be a comfortable middle-class life.
It is abundantly clear that he and his wife could have achieved that. But–obviously–it would have meant living in Levittown (median household income $150,900), and sending his kids to SUNY Stony Brook (in-state tuition, R&B and fees $21,300).
So, the author’s daughter got to go to Stanford then Harvard Med School, probably thanks to the private schools they sent them to and the fact the author’s wife quit her job and stayed home with the kids during the school years. And they took money from their parents to help pay for college; money that their parents had presumably saved because they themselves, from a greater generation, lived within their means. I hope their parents did not give up their own retirement in exchange for funding their grandkids’ educations, although it is their choice to do so.
How many CC’ers would like to be able to send their kids to private school, Stanford, and the Harvard grad school but choose a state school that’s more affordable? How many moms would like to stay at home when their kids are young, but don’t because they need the income to pay the bills? How many adults would like to work at a job they love instead of the one they have because it provides a more stable income?
IMO, the author is selfish and very lucky. He may be in debt and drive an old car, but he still chose to fulfill his larger selfish desires of living an uncompromised life while mooching off others in order to give his kids a start in life that would be the envy of any CC’er. Is this what America is now - to trade off personal responsibility in exchange for living life on your own terms no matter what? Are ideas like self sacrifice and planning for the future dead?
What are we to take away from this article? The lesson here seems to be: go as deep into debt as possible to get into an Ivy; the finances will figure themselves out later. I’ve read a lot of CC threads and I don’t recall that being a common theme.
How was that for righteous indignation? I hope I didn’t hurt anyone’s feelings.
“It is abundantly clear that he and his wife could have achieved that. But–obviously–it would have meant living in Levittown (median household income $150,900), and sending his kids to SUNY Stony Brook (in-state tuition, R&B and fees $21,300”
Or they could do what people used to do, back in the good old days. Or what many do now, to save money. Community college, then four year university, while living at home. The horrors!
I do not read this article as “poor me” or, as some suggested, a pre-emptive move before a divorce. I read it as a cautionary tale for others: an account of “financial impotence,” the subject of so much public taboo - much more so than sexual impotence. If this article makes a few folks think hard about their financial choices - good.
^But he doesn’t take that next step to say what underappreciated writers living in the Hamptons who get substantial book advances should do to improve their situation. He only complains.
“I do not read this article as “poor me” or, as some suggested, a pre-emptive move before a divorce. I read it as a cautionary tale for others: an account of “financial impotence,” the subject of so much public taboo - much more so than sexual impotence. If this article makes a few folks think hard about their financial choices - good.”
Definitely good if it makes people think. The problem is, it just sounds like he still hasn’t learned what he needs to do. Then again, maybe he has…and he’s writing this so people will read whatever new book he puts out, and he makes $$. Making money is what will certainly help him (as long as he manages to control the spending).
“^But he doesn’t take that next step to say what underappreciated writers living in the Hamptons who get substantial book advances should do to improve their situation. He only complains.”
That is a very narrow reading of his piece.
I don’t have a problem with Gabler leaving TV. This was a man who had significant things to say about the movie business, and he wasn’t saying it in 30 second movie reviews. (His “En Empire of their Own: How Jews Invented Hollywood” is an illuminating work.) In the academic world, it’s the equivalent of someone saying, I want to go deeper into my field, and an undergraduate degree isn’t going to cut it: I need to devote time to a Master’s or PhD."
It’s the subsequent decisions Gabler made I have a problem with. But I would say his decision to go into writing books from what was likely a poorly paying PBS gig was probably spot-on.
“That is a very narrow reading of his piece.” BB, examples of suggestions that he makes?
Does he even dare to suggest that children might consider going to a public college, where the people in the business office aren’t “extortionists?” (The inflammatory language is his, not mine.)
Why does every piece has to end with “and here are the solutions I propose”? 
I don’t think every piece has to end that way, but surely many would agree that NG has opened himself up to criticism by framing the article in the way that he did, and then using examples of a $700,000 home, and Stanford/Harvard & Emory/UT educations.
And that is precisely why he calls this “financial impotence” - people will rather not talk about it, because anyone who got themselves into a financial corner for a variety of reasons will be heavily criticized and blasted. The folks of CC are financially savvier than the population in general, and that is why his situation looks ridiculous to us. WE never make stupid financial decisions… 
If Gabler came on CC as an anonymous poster and posed the questions of sending daughters to pricey private colleges under his circumstances would there be one person who would think it’s a good idea? Hell no. Even posters who say the grandparents will pay are pretty much told not to count on that.
Everyone makes some stupid financial decisions because we are all human. But most of learn from our mistakes. Gabler apparently has not and it sounds like he still doesn’t get it, either.
There are mistakes, then there are mistakes.
Buying the Hamptons house before selling his co-op was a mistake, and a financially disastrous one, but one I can understand. Sending one’s child to Stanford instead of SUNY is another.
Deciding not to pay ones taxes or not telling a spouse they can’t afford for her to be a SAHM is something I just don’t get.
I live in a high income area and half my friends are former SAHM’s who now have post-kid job. They’re jobs, not careers in most case, despite the high number of JD’s, MBA’s and PhD’s among these women. I’m not sure why NG’s wife could’t have found one of these bookshop/preschool/farmer’s/market clothing boutique type of jobs. They don’t pay a ton but they would certainly have kept the family in heating oil.
I think that’s part of what bothers me about what NG writes. He lumps himself in with the struggling families who really have been hit by unforeseeable expenses or who have made all the adjustments they can but still can’t keep up with the cost of the basics. Gabler doesn’t seem to have learned from his mistakes. I find it insulting to the real struggling middle class family.
I know I’m piling on here, but I just have to describe why this article bothered me so much, especially when people I really respect ( looking at you, @dstark ) think the reactions are overblown. There are two things I don’t like: the first is, as has been said over and over, that he’s erroneously conflating his own bad judgment and privileged position–with all its choices, with the real struggling middle class, as the title and the interspersed statistics illustrate. There’s a real story, one that needs to be told, and he undermines it with his own story, which is not theirs. It subtly makes the very real plight of the middle class sound trivial.
And second, as a writer myself, I am appalled by his rhetorical slipperiness. Posters keep pointing to him seeming to admit to his own responsibility, but over and over, he immediately erases it. The constant drumbeat of “It’s totally my fault (no it isn’t)” is, really, to me, bad writing. He’d get a C in my freshman comp class. Maybe.
Yes, I don’t recall a time when I’ve been on the opposite side of posters I admire so much. I’m really trying to reconsider my position, and then @garland snaps me back into reality. Oh well, I tried.
Me too, MidwestDad!
dstark agrees with you intellectually, midwestdadof3. But he’s a big softie and his heart is full of empathy for NG. He’s thinking with his heart on this one. And that’s OK. It’s not like our sympathy – or lack of it – will change NG’s situation.