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A reminder (discuss.online)
submitted 2 months ago by to c/workreform@lemmy.world
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[–] 9 points 2 months ago* (8 children)

Agreed. I'm actually pretty close to being a millionaire "on paper," since my house is worth $600k and I've got about $100k in retirement. But the house is mortgaged, and I can't touch the retirement for another 25 years. If I had three very good months, I could probably just barely become a millionaire. But if I had three moderately bad months, I would likely default on my mortgage.

Replace the "m"s with "b"s in the OP, and this is spot on.

Edit: no, not "bonths." Y'all know what I mean.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 months ago (3 children)

    Being hobeless?

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  • [–] 2 points 2 months ago (1 child)

    If your $600k house isn't paid off yet, you don't get to count its full value towards your net worth, so you might not be as close to $1m as you say. If it is fully paid off, then you shouldn't have a mortgage to worry about.

    But, 3 really bad months could mean a tree fell on your fully paid-off house. It could mean a family member without good health insurance has a medical emergency and you feel like you have to help pay.

    It just seems to me that something like $10m makes John Rogers' point much better. If this is a class war, $1 million dollar millionaires really are in the same class as anybody else who works. I don't know quite where the dividing line is. Clearly billionaires are in a whole different class. Same with $100m-aires. $10m is almost certainly set for life. What about $3m? $2m? Maybe age comes into it. How long do you have to make it last, and can you still find a job if you need one? $1m net worth at 25 is different from $1m at 65. $1m at 90 probably puts you back in the "set for life" camp, just because "life" is not likely to last much longer.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 months ago

    Yeah, we poor folks would have to do that, but rich people live on fractional reserve income and stuff, and they never subtract their liabilities from their assets when reporting their wealth. I'm okay with fudging the numbers for the point.

    Definitely agree that $10m is the new bar for this.

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