I think you are right that the middle class earners (as defined by the 75-125% rule you exposited) cannot afford the middle class american dream. Luckily, with at least some work, and a reasonable amount of hard work, it is possible to beat the 125% mark. Also, if you are willing to live without some of the luxuries which most of the middle class (and many in the lower class) have for five or six years, you can set aside enough to boost yourself above the middle class later.
Since the lower range on salary is zero, nd the upper raneg is infinite, I would prefer to see the top range of the 75%-125% of median be higher. Like maybe 75% to 150% or even 200%.
By the 75-125% rule, as you say, $55,000 is the top side of middle class. This makes me upper class, though I don't feel upper class. According to salary.com, the take home pay of an intermediate level programmer in my area is just over $55k, meaning that after only a few years of work experience, a programmer would be upper class. As I mentioned, I live in an area where the median household income is well below the national average (about $8k lower in 2003). Interestingly, an intermediate level programmer in Chicago only takes home an average of $57k, while the cost of living is much higher.
So, young folks, keep going to college and getting those engineering degrees. A few years out and you will be upper class!
20,000 is definitely low, but well over 15% of the people in our country seem to survive on that. To be honest, I don't see how. But they do.
I know in many areas of the country it would be impossible to get housing with that income. However, I just bought a small three bedroom house with appliances for $30,000, and there are others around here cheaper than that. It's not a mansion, but it's not falling down either.
20,000 is well above 2 standard deviations from mean, is probably even above one standard deviation.
200,000 on the other hand, is close to the 2 standard deviation mark. If we went to one standard deviation, that falls somewhere between 75,000 and 100,000. I find it hard to consider that to be rich. If it is, than according to salary.com the average technical person is rich.
Wow, that's just unreal. I guess they appeal to the same people tha buy rolex's and the like.
As for me, even if become as rich as Bill Gates, I still wouldn't own a rolex, or a $6900 cell phone. If the company hadn't paid for my cell phone, I wouldn't have one.
Baubles and bangles have never been my thing. I'd rather have a fast car and a nice house.
Paul
I suspect that if I were to take a job in Chicago, I might get perhaps 10% to 20% more salary. This would result in cutting the size of my house at least in half, and the size of my property in 1/8th. And I would still have to cut back on fancy luxuries like food in order to make the house payment. And I would have to drive 1.5 hours each way to get to work (or drive a half hour to the train station and take a one hour train ride).
For your second point, I would say that the definition of "significanty more" needs to be set. I would argue that you could make 3 times the "average household income" and still be middle class. But then, that is because I consider the average household income to be near the bottom bounds of middle class, although mathematically that doesn't make any kind of sense. I would consider people who make $200,000 or more in my area to be upper class. Anything from $200,000 down to perhaps $20,000 would be lower class, and below that would be lower class. I know that is a wide band for middle class, but that is in fact where most of the people should fall.
I can afford a larger house because I don't choose to indulge in some of the things that other middle or even lower class people in my area choose to indulge in, such as boats, RVs, motorbikes, personal watercraft, multiple game consoles and the like. Add a boat payment, and I wouldn't be able to afford my house. I have all but wiped out my credit card debt and will never take on credit card debt again. I had no car payment until last month, and will pay that off as quickly as possible. The only monthly I want to have is the house payment, and that allows the house payment to be pretty large. And yet, mine isn't that large of a payment. My house, though large, was not expensive, because of where I choose to live.
Do your "lower-class" neighbors have retirement plans?
I doubt it. Are you so certain that their income is less than yours?
I'm pretty sure, yes. Are you certain that their income is not above the median income for your area/state?
Some yes, some no. I think annual household income in my state is about 29,000. I am reasonably certain that many in my neighborhood make less than that.
I consider myself middle-class... but I cannot afford a house in a neighborhood I wouldn't be scared in (and I'm a big dude).
I consider myself middle class, and I have a 5,000 square foot house on an acre of land 6 miles from the middle of downtown of the capital of my state. It all depends where you want to live. If I attempted to live in Chicago, NY, Boston or L.A., I would not be able to afford a middle class home on my salary.
I think it important to point out that Earth and the Solar System are a "Sweet Spot" only for life as we know it, and not necessarily for life in general.
While no longer wealthy myself, I am aware of the tax "loopholes" that you speak of. The fact is, that most of these "loopholes" are not magical holes in the tax code for the wealthy. They are, in fact, designed into the tax code on purpose in order to increase future overall tax revenues. By giving tax writeoffs for mileage, office supplies, for example, the IRS makes it more attractive for a person to start a business, which generally hires employees and creates more tax revenue, as well as more jobs.
Lower class people generally have LESS money to take advantage of various deductions, but the potential is still there. For example if you work in the Church kitchen, play in the band or otherwise help out your Church for no renumeration, mileage is generally deductible (insert standard I am not an accountant spiel).
Starting a business doesn't have to be expensive. You don't have to open up Chez Paul and hire 100 employees. You can start small as a side business. I personally have a full time job that requires a fair amount of travel, and I have two small businesses as well.
Most of my neighborhood is decidedly lower class. I consider myself middle class. I find little difference between my lifestlye and the lower class neighbors. I drive a used Lexus. They drive used Lexus', BMWs, Hummers (probably new), and other cars worth at least what mine is.
They all have cell phones, just like me.
They all have computers, X-box, PS2 or other game system, cable and so forth, just like me.
Unlike me, they have boats, dirtbikes, waverunners, and stuff like that.
I have a house that is bigger than most of theirs, and I also have a phone that doesn't get cut off every month because I actually pay the bill.
I contend that the person who take the components and make them into something useful AND knows, if not how to make the component, at least how it was made, will be able to make something useful more efficiently than someone who does not know how to make the component or how it was made.
Re:Nope- no companies hiring that can afford to ca
on
Pay vs. Happiness
·
· Score: 1
in 20-30 years, the average Indian will be able to afford the same luxuries and as the average American
And vice versa, I hope? My wife would love to have someone to cook and clean for us, as my H1-B friends from India say that most everyone has back at home.
Plus it would be nice to be able to buy a house and other goods for 1/20th the cost and have higher speed internet.
What you say is true because when your colleague burns out, he/she either quits or becomes horribly inefficient. Either way, management won't replace him/her and you'll have to pick up the slack.
I think that the wire may in fact act to prevent lightning strikes in a localized area. As a grounded wire, even if only a semi conductor, it may act to dissipate charged particles to prevent lightning from being necessary.
Short of using glass to cover the screen, it's going to scratch no matter what.
So why not use glass? It's even cheaper than plastic, and stronger for a given thickness.
Does Apple test their products...
Absolutely, they have a team of hardcore fans who are willing to pay for the privilege of QAing their products for them.
That is because there are not enough little Darwin fishes with randomly generated legs to have a sustainable population, and thus it fails as a species.
I hear you. My experience with Siebel thus far has been that it was quite obviously built by about 10 developers an a long weekend, and nobody has touched the code since.
Nonintuitive user interface, scrollbars that don't resize according to the number of list items in the window, and that don't allow you to drag down to the last item.
Oracle can have them. I wouldn't pay for their whole company what some companies have had to pay for a site license.
Actually, MS is upset about competition on the demand side, ie the employees, rather than the supply side, which would be products. Any business which has employees with skillsets that MS might find attractive is a competitor.
I would think a design similar to the ka-50 would be able to operate at MU-1 without unbalancing the lift. However, they haven't done it, which is the point of the article, I think.
Also, I could not find any reference to the blades of the KA-50 operating at supersonic speeds.
Probably because this article had nothing to do with speed other than the ability to break a theoretical barrier which could lead eventually to breaking a speed record.
I guess that is possible, providing that your propeller starts at a significant distance from the hub. In a typical proper stup, the hub is onlay maybe a foot or so wide, and the prop about 3 feet long, so to get the whole prop above supersonic speed, the outer tip would have to be going at mach 4 for the innermost peice of the prop to hit mach 1. Plus, there's no reason (and some research has been done on this) to assume you can't give your blade what would be a negative pitch if it were moving in the forward direction, so that a blade that was moving backwards could still generate lift as it was "dragged backwards" through the airflow.
Maybe so, but you would only want to flip it above MU-1, because below that, the retreating blade (part of it anyway) is still moving forward through the relative air and still generating lift.
Ideally, based on airspeed and rotation speed, you would want to flip part of your blade over at any speed greater than 0.
They did crash the thing at some point, it impacted the ground at about 70 MPH, the gear absorbed most of the impact, and the only part of the thing that survived was the cockpit, which was relatively unharmed.
I wonder if two counter rotating blades mounted on small winglets on either side of the fuselage would allow a mu of greater than 1 without unbalancing the lift?
Helicopters don't flip the blade. Instead, they just don't travel faster than about 0.75 (depending on model) of the blade speed (aka 0.75 mu). They do have ability to modify the angle of attack of the blade, but not to flip it entirely. If they flipped it entirely, the fact that they are travelling slower than the blade speed (which they always do) would cause the retreating blade to always provide negative lift.
Slashdot Mirror
I think you are right that the middle class earners (as defined by the 75-125% rule you exposited) cannot afford the middle class american dream. Luckily, with at least some work, and a reasonable amount of hard work, it is possible to beat the 125% mark. Also, if you are willing to live without some of the luxuries which most of the middle class (and many in the lower class) have for five or six years, you can set aside enough to boost yourself above the middle class later.
Since the lower range on salary is zero, nd the upper raneg is infinite, I would prefer to see the top range of the 75%-125% of median be higher. Like maybe 75% to 150% or even 200%.
By the 75-125% rule, as you say, $55,000 is the top side of middle class. This makes me upper class, though I don't feel upper class. According to salary.com, the take home pay of an intermediate level programmer in my area is just over $55k, meaning that after only a few years of work experience, a programmer would be upper class. As I mentioned, I live in an area where the median household income is well below the national average (about $8k lower in 2003). Interestingly, an intermediate level programmer in Chicago only takes home an average of $57k, while the cost of living is much higher.
So, young folks, keep going to college and getting those engineering degrees. A few years out and you will be upper class!
20,000 is definitely low, but well over 15% of the people in our country seem to survive on that. To be honest, I don't see how. But they do.
I know in many areas of the country it would be impossible to get housing with that income. However, I just bought a small three bedroom house with appliances for $30,000, and there are others around here cheaper than that. It's not a mansion, but it's not falling down either.
20,000 is well above 2 standard deviations from mean, is probably even above one standard deviation.
200,000 on the other hand, is close to the 2 standard deviation mark. If we went to one standard deviation, that falls somewhere between 75,000 and 100,000. I find it hard to consider that to be rich. If it is, than according to salary.com the average technical person is rich.
Wow, that's just unreal. I guess they appeal to the same people tha buy rolex's and the like.
As for me, even if become as rich as Bill Gates, I still wouldn't own a rolex, or a $6900 cell phone. If the company hadn't paid for my cell phone, I wouldn't have one.
Baubles and bangles have never been my thing. I'd rather have a fast car and a nice house.
Paul
I suspect that if I were to take a job in Chicago, I might get perhaps 10% to 20% more salary. This would result in cutting the size of my house at least in half, and the size of my property in 1/8th. And I would still have to cut back on fancy luxuries like food in order to make the house payment. And I would have to drive 1.5 hours each way to get to work (or drive a half hour to the train station and take a one hour train ride).
For your second point, I would say that the definition of "significanty more" needs to be set. I would argue that you could make 3 times the "average household income" and still be middle class. But then, that is because I consider the average household income to be near the bottom bounds of middle class, although mathematically that doesn't make any kind of sense. I would consider people who make $200,000 or more in my area to be upper class. Anything from $200,000 down to perhaps $20,000 would be lower class, and below that would be lower class. I know that is a wide band for middle class, but that is in fact where most of the people should fall.
I can afford a larger house because I don't choose to indulge in some of the things that other middle or even lower class people in my area choose to indulge in, such as boats, RVs, motorbikes, personal watercraft, multiple game consoles and the like. Add a boat payment, and I wouldn't be able to afford my house. I have all but wiped out my credit card debt and will never take on credit card debt again. I had no car payment until last month, and will pay that off as quickly as possible. The only monthly I want to have is the house payment, and that allows the house payment to be pretty large. And yet, mine isn't that large of a payment. My house, though large, was not expensive, because of where I choose to live.
Okay, I give up. I can't find anything in Google about a law making an earnings cap for independent contractors. Can you help me with a link?
Do your "lower-class" neighbors have retirement plans?
I doubt it.
Are you so certain that their income is less than yours?
I'm pretty sure, yes.
Are you certain that their income is not above the median income for your area/state?
Some yes, some no. I think annual household income in my state is about 29,000. I am reasonably certain that many in my neighborhood make less than that.
I consider myself middle-class... but I cannot afford a house in a neighborhood I wouldn't be scared in (and I'm a big dude).
I consider myself middle class, and I have a 5,000 square foot house on an acre of land 6 miles from the middle of downtown of the capital of my state. It all depends where you want to live. If I attempted to live in Chicago, NY, Boston or L.A., I would not be able to afford a middle class home on my salary.
I think it important to point out that Earth and the Solar System are a "Sweet Spot" only for life as we know it, and not necessarily for life in general.
While no longer wealthy myself, I am aware of the tax "loopholes" that you speak of. The fact is, that most of these "loopholes" are not magical holes in the tax code for the wealthy. They are, in fact, designed into the tax code on purpose in order to increase future overall tax revenues. By giving tax writeoffs for mileage, office supplies, for example, the IRS makes it more attractive for a person to start a business, which generally hires employees and creates more tax revenue, as well as more jobs.
Lower class people generally have LESS money to take advantage of various deductions, but the potential is still there. For example if you work in the Church kitchen, play in the band or otherwise help out your Church for no renumeration, mileage is generally deductible (insert standard I am not an accountant spiel).
Starting a business doesn't have to be expensive. You don't have to open up Chez Paul and hire 100 employees. You can start small as a side business. I personally have a full time job that requires a fair amount of travel, and I have two small businesses as well.
Where do you get a cell phone that costs $3000?
Most of my neighborhood is decidedly lower class. I consider myself middle class. I find little difference between my lifestlye and the lower class neighbors. I drive a used Lexus. They drive used Lexus', BMWs, Hummers (probably new), and other cars worth at least what mine is.
They all have cell phones, just like me.
They all have computers, X-box, PS2 or other game system, cable and so forth, just like me.
Unlike me, they have boats, dirtbikes, waverunners, and stuff like that.
I have a house that is bigger than most of theirs, and I also have a phone that doesn't get cut off every month because I actually pay the bill.
I contend that the person who take the components and make them into something useful AND knows, if not how to make the component, at least how it was made, will be able to make something useful more efficiently than someone who does not know how to make the component or how it was made.
in 20-30 years, the average Indian will be able to afford the same luxuries and as the average American
And vice versa, I hope? My wife would love to have someone to cook and clean for us, as my H1-B friends from India say that most everyone has back at home.
Plus it would be nice to be able to buy a house and other goods for 1/20th the cost and have higher speed internet.
What you say is true because when your colleague burns out, he/she either quits or becomes horribly inefficient. Either way, management won't replace him/her and you'll have to pick up the slack.
I think that the wire may in fact act to prevent lightning strikes in a localized area. As a grounded wire, even if only a semi conductor, it may act to dissipate charged particles to prevent lightning from being necessary.
Short of using glass to cover the screen, it's going to scratch no matter what.
So why not use glass? It's even cheaper than plastic, and stronger for a given thickness.
Does Apple test their products...
Absolutely, they have a team of hardcore fans who are willing to pay for the privilege of QAing their products for them.
That is a security flaw in Windows,Linux and BSD. Switch to Mac, it doesn't work there
But it will in revision 2...
That is because there are not enough little Darwin fishes with randomly generated legs to have a sustainable population, and thus it fails as a species.
I hear you. My experience with Siebel thus far has been that it was quite obviously built by about 10 developers an a long weekend, and nobody has touched the code since.
Nonintuitive user interface, scrollbars that don't resize according to the number of list items in the window, and that don't allow you to drag down to the last item.
Oracle can have them. I wouldn't pay for their whole company what some companies have had to pay for a site license.
Actually, MS is upset about competition on the demand side, ie the employees, rather than the supply side, which would be products. Any business which has employees with skillsets that MS might find attractive is a competitor.
I would think a design similar to the ka-50 would be able to operate at MU-1 without unbalancing the lift. However, they haven't done it, which is the point of the article, I think.
Also, I could not find any reference to the blades of the KA-50 operating at supersonic speeds.
Probably because this article had nothing to do with speed other than the ability to break a theoretical barrier which could lead eventually to breaking a speed record.
I guess that is possible, providing that your propeller starts at a significant distance from the hub. In a typical proper stup, the hub is onlay maybe a foot or so wide, and the prop about 3 feet long, so to get the whole prop above supersonic speed, the outer tip would have to be going at mach 4 for the innermost peice of the prop to hit mach 1.
Plus, there's no reason (and some research has been done on this) to assume you can't give your blade what would be a negative pitch if it were moving in the forward direction, so that a blade that was moving backwards could still generate lift as it was "dragged backwards" through the airflow.
Maybe so, but you would only want to flip it above MU-1, because below that, the retreating blade (part of it anyway) is still moving forward through the relative air and still generating lift.
Ideally, based on airspeed and rotation speed, you would want to flip part of your blade over at any speed greater than 0.
They did crash the thing at some point, it impacted the ground at about 70 MPH, the gear absorbed most of the impact, and the only part of the thing that survived was the cockpit, which was relatively unharmed.
I wonder if two counter rotating blades mounted on small winglets on either side of the fuselage would allow a mu of greater than 1 without unbalancing the lift?
Helicopters don't flip the blade. Instead, they just don't travel faster than about 0.75 (depending on model) of the blade speed (aka 0.75 mu). They do have ability to modify the angle of attack of the blade, but not to flip it entirely. If they flipped it entirely, the fact that they are travelling slower than the blade speed (which they always do) would cause the retreating blade to always provide negative lift.