I think of wealthy referring to assets and rich referring to some combo of assets and income. Whether 'wealthy' or 'rich' is a stronger word depends on context and so forth; typically wealthy is stronger imo. Either way, I don't think of someone having to decide between 90 minutes of daily commuting and owning a four bedroom house as satisfying either of those standards. They are certainly well-to-do, and suggesting they have anything approaching a "plight" borders on absurdity (horrid work situations and job requirements aside). But not rich, in some situations at least (such as mosdef's...sorry bro).

Another point: I recall someone saying alleviating an hour of commuting might be worth $1,500/yr to someone. No way: try $20k, using anything approaching a rational valuation of time and opportunity cost.

Earning $250k a year does not automatically make one RICH, it's ridiculous to even assert this. If some one is making $250k on unearned income, okay they are rich. The rich, think and behave differently, ask F. Scott Fitzgerald, because they do not have to work. Work makes you act and think like a slave, at least subtly. Doctors and Lawyers for the most part have to work. So they have many of the same slave issues that the $50k earners have.

Having said this, if someone is earning $250k per year and is not burdened with student loans, that person should not be living paycheck to paycheck, not in any neighborhood in the country, it's that simple. Crying that you don't have extra spending money because of the mortgage is LOL imo. Seriously, I could buy a house for triple the price of what I have now.

Btw, the U Chicago professor is ******ed posting how bad he has it earning over $250k when close to 20% of this country is in the U-6 unemployment category. Obviously, common sense is not prerequisite for teaching law at that school.

T50,

I allotted $1400/mo (of take home income) per hour of commuting per day. We're on close to the same page.

This would be easily understood by someone who has to commute everyday in high price market for high pressure job. Try to explain this to someone who is making 25K a year in Utica...

But this discussion is about rich people, not poor people. A rich person's time might be worth seventy bucks an hour while a poor person's time might be worth seven.

Sorry about that, read it as per year.

I thought the people we were talking about weren't rich though. Now they are?

They might be rich. If their commuting time is worth seventy dollars per hour it is more likely that they are rich.

Deronsec, you're off the hook for "sincerely writing something I would've written as a strawman" with this one.

$70\h is about 140k a year...sure they rich...didn't you know that anyone above 50k a year is well off?

I think it's pretty wild that we've gone ~250 posts past this without anyone challenging the bolded. I'm too dumb to do it, but maybe someone else can step up

What's controversial?

the bolded part, specifically the 'vast majority' line

How about this?

The vast majority of people that are unsuccessful are people that have made incorrect decisions in their lives

Have things really gotten to the point where it's bad to associate correct decisions with success? Merely stating that the vast majority of successful people have made correct decisions is controversial?

Hey liberals, why don't you make up a word for this one? Let's see. How about failurephobic? Failurephobe : person who thinks, says or implies that failure is related to poor decision making. Thought I'd follow the homophobe/transphobe/etc trend since I can't think of a way to make "successist" sound good.

Who said anything was wrong with being rich? I mean I thought we were saying that you were in fact successful yet your opposing viewpoint is that you can barely make ends meet. Must have been the incorrect decisions. Are you really bitching that you aren't rich yet attacking people because they can't deal with your success at the same time? Amazing.

There is a lot of lol ITT, but this is pretty good.

Most people who have done well for themselves, made it high up the ranks of their business, opened their own successful business, etc etc probably have made some good decisions in their life. Don't see the issue.

Major LOL @ thinking rich people got there mostly by good decisions and not from birth into rich families, overpaid education, or being at the right jobs or the right economies.

I'm not denying a good deal of people are rich or poor based on their decisions, but claiming "vast majority" shows how much you really know.

if only those kids growing up in inner city Detroit would make good decisions - they would then achieve success. they're just holding themselves back through their own free will.

well he said vast majority of people that are successful so...

I disagree with your understanding of the word successful. The poster didn't merely choose it to vary his vocabulary. The more fair and reasonable assumption is that he meant just what he typed : successful. Not rich. Replace successful by rich and clearly the sentence would be incorrect. Anyone can see that it would be absurd to call a person successful based on them having been born rich.

Being successful at anything is necessarily based at least in small part on the decisions you've made. Life's hard; you're unlikely to be successful at anything without making at least a few good decisions.

Successful, rich, potayto, potahto

So you consider spoiled kids who have never accomplished anything on their own to be successful? Most people don't.

Even if you're parents are millionaires I would say avoiding doing things that get you cut out of the will qualify as making "correct decisions"

Paying for college is of course only what rich people do. Following logic of a lot of people ITT, you didn't spend money on education and bought yourself 150k worth of future payments but you only made yourself richer...and right jobs obviously didn't have anything to do with overpaid education...got to love it.