Gavi is appellation in Italy that produces a light white wine. Not sweet, not dry. Not overly complex or expensive. It should go well with white fish or a non-red pasta dish. I have not had one in years.
I don’t think that those who send their kids to private schools, liberal or not, need to or should me made to feel morally compromised. I don’t get the author’s line of reasoning there. Also think his logic on 529’s is misguided. A family making $200k- sure they are in the top 20%, but they are not getting financial aid, so a well stocked 529, is a smart way to provide for college.
I have never heard about Gavi di Gavi but I always liked sweet Martini. I came to this country with $100 in my pocket and now in the top 20%. I personally know thousands of people who accomplished the same. If they did not - their children will get there. My doctor’s receptionist son just graduated from Princeton and my bank teller’s daughter got a BS from Olin, Ph.D. from Berkley and now doing postdoc at the university in Nice. In my community I hear these stories all the time. Please tell us how there is no economic mobility in America and we will laugh.
My daughter honestly wrote in her “Why X” essay that her pedigree sucks and she needs help in that department. X agreed to help. (Do not try this at home as she had a hook).
We have never felt guilty, but we have raised our son to deeply understand that “to him whom much has been given, much is expected.”
Yes–some do give back in big ways, others not so much.
With great power…comes great responsibility. >:)
No guilt here. My father hunted in the Hill Country of TX for food during the Depression and mother grew up in a tiny house in South GA. Neither went to college. Father joined the USAF during the Korean War (had holes in his plane from potshots during Vietnam and lost friends there). My sisters and I were the first in our family tree to go to college. When I was camped in the excellent UT-Austin libraries at night reading the EE/physics journals all I saw were some fellow Asian engineering students. Also worked long shifts on the weekend in wafer test at the Motorola plant in SE Austin. DW maintained a 3x5 box full of coupons for triple-discounts at HEB while I plowed the money we made back into computer equipment to have a better life (better than our ugly apartment in SE Austin where police helicopters routinely appeared – Pleasant Valley Estates). We’d eat out once a month on our “anniversary” day. Other friends were constantly blowing their money on instant gratification items (booze, eating out, fancy houses, clothes, etc.), even the people at the high-tech company where I eventually worked.
I don’t have much sympathy for people who don’t take advantage of the opportunities out there.
If I needed to support myself and my family, I wouldn’t be able to spend so much of my time and energy on public health issues and lung health education, including educating our policy-makers. Public health issues are vitally important but sadly pay tends to be poor or non-existent.
The article is sloppy on income thresholds. 200k puts you in the top 5% not just the top 20%. Yes, quite a few of the UMC do spend $60k/year to put two kids through private school. In the end, it’s unclear how much that private school experience matters for college admissions or income later in life.
Wow, Reaction on this thread is more eye opening than the artivle itself. It actually validates what the article is saying. Sorry guys.
Hubby and I now do quite well, despite being completely uneducated and working jobs most people in our income level wouldn’t dream of. Same with many others in our jobs - people working two and three jobs to educate the kids. I’ve noticed that in our cohort, there are quite a few kids going to really excellent schools and moving up from lower middle class backgrounds to colleges and professions indistinguishable from families with a long history of education and professional success. There actually is upward mobility for some people.
Just read the article. The author surely paints with a broad brush. $200k for a family isn’t really that outrageous these days. People with that income do not feel wealthy and have to shop in Walmart and Costco to make ends meet, and do not usually drive luxury cars if they want to save for their retirement and pay for their kids’ college bills. Everyone has different circumstances and this is such an generalization it is useless unless the purpose was to spark a conversation.
Oh, quite true. People here don’t have the “decency” that they do in England to feel guilty about their income. You know, the working two jobs, two parents working, years of education and/or training, making career decisions that earn a middle class income along the way. Whatever is wrong with you people! Feel guiltier. 
There is a difference between recognizing that having a comfortable income makes us privileged, and being made to feel that all of the problems of income inequality and poverty in this country are somehow our fault and that we are rigging the system. There are many families who have made it into the the upper quintile by the time they have college-aged kids through both partners working jobs considered to be solidly middle class - teachers, nurses, police officers, government employee, plumber or electrician. Not in finance or even engineering. And those who have lower incomes, but have retirement benefits, are better off in many cases than those who earn a bit more, but have to fund their own retirements. All of these jobs, however, require some degree of training or a college education. Most people in that income bracket do not send their kids to pricey private schools or use legacy advantage. Many, however, own homes in nice areas (often purchased before they made it to the upper quintile).
That is not to dismiss the valid points in the article. The system of local schools funded by property taxes in my state has led to a very inequitable school systems. Having districts that combine poor and wealthy communities might make a difference, but in the towns where this has occurred there is still segregation in the classroom where the wealthy (and often white) students end up in honors/AP classes that have very few poor kids or kids of color. Affordable housing is a very difficult in the NE and in other cities and minimum wage jobs are set up so that workers need more than one to pay the bills and the jobs offer no benefits. Yet because so much of our GDP is consumer-driven, the economy needs UMC people to spend money and if taxes rise too high, the amount of income available to spend goes down which impacts lower-waged jobs, which impacts poverty. Not sure anyone has the answer to this.
It is sloppy. Top 20 percent is maybe 90-100K or higher, not 200K. He’s averaging all the income from the top 20 percent, so adding all the people who made billions and millions of dollars to the incomes of those who made just over the threshold. A lot more people are closer to the 100K mark than the 100 billion one.
And NY state just started offering free tuition to families making up to $125,000 and families making that much money would be eligible for financial aid at many pricey private colleges.
I’m definitely not in the elite category, probably more like hanging on to middle class status but frankly I don’t care what other people make. You can only do so many things with your money, you spend it which creates jobs and helps the economy and improves tax revenue, you invest it which essentially does the same, you give it away which helps either the population in general or those most in need or you go out of your way to hide your money for tax purposes which is the least productive of your choices. I think our biggest problem is we seem to care too much about what other people do, make, or how they live rather than their character. I know some awesome wealthy people and I’ve known some I have little respect for. The same goes with people of all income brackets.
$200k is a lot of money, and most people make do with far less. It’s absurd to say that “$200k for a family isn’t all that outrageous” when most families don’t earn nearly that much.
A family income of $200k puts a household into the top 5% of earners in the US. Even in expensive areas like those around NYC, LA, or Seattle, a $200k income puts a household into the top 10%. That’s rich. I grew up in that income bracket in an expensive area so I know that it might not “feel” rich, but it objectively is.
That doesn’t make people who make $200k responsible for all of America’s problems, not at all, but it doesn’t help anyone to insist that an income so far from the median is “normal” or “not actually that much.” It’s not a bad thing to recognize our own advantages and privileges.
@apresski I like your point. I totally agree and that’s the point of the article. It will be interesting to see why people feel the way they do. Have we become all poorer than used to that we feel poor with top 5% income? Is top 5% equivalent to top 30% in “old” days? Do we expect too much of what top 5% should bring, possible only in fanasy? What is it that makes us not feel rich with top 5 or even 1% income? We see this all the time in Financial aids forum, “With $250K, you get by just barely and they refuse FA, etc”
post #34 and the quote in it. $200K quoted in the article is the AVERAGE income of top 20% not threshold. The number sounds reasonable to me.