I hope that I am able to pass a sizable estate to my children and grandchildren, so that they will not be dependent on banks, universities, and employers that will charge them outrageous fees in time and money just so that they may have a hope at a normal middle-class lifestyle. True independence for ourselves and our posterity should be the goal for all of us. For most of human history, it has been; these days, we are confused and pretend that being enslaved to usurers is the ideal.
No. Having an in-demand skill is a tool to obtain and keep independence. It's not independence itself. There are many people out there with high-demand skills who still find themselves unhappily slaving away in a job where they must do someone else's bidding for 40%+ of their waking day. Once they have the property and assets to make that an optional activity that they can leave at any time, they are independent. Having the ability to go find a new master if you get fed up enough with your current one is good, but it's not really independence. Independence is the freedom to control how you spend your days, and unless you're debt-free, own your living space outright, and have a consistent, sustainable source of food, you don't have the option to not work.
> If they don't have skills that contribute to society, they are irrelevant.
Define "contribute to society". I think you're being way too exclusive here. There are ways to contribute to society without being part of the industrial workforce. Just ask the big bosses, who, incidentally, are the ones pushing this narrative that life is meaningless without their patronage. You don't have to be a professional to make a meaningful contribution. In fact, I would argue that being a good parent has a far greater positive social effect than being a good professional.
>And guess what, if your children decide not to use those banks and universities, and don't get jobs then they may be "independent, but they are also dead weights.
A bank provides people with very little actual value, so I'm not sure why you included it. I will be immensely pleased if my children can go their whole adult lives without having to pay a cent of usury. It's a massive hidden tax on the middle class, making every major purchase cost about 2-3x its sticker price.
If you think about it, you'll see that much of our industrial culture is based on guaranteeing this effortless income to usurers, and I want to break that cycle for my children. This is also a large part of why the media wants to promote negative images of independent wealth; they're trying to protect their dirty income streams and reinforce their position as a hidden cost that people just accept as an implicit requirement.
Of course the children of independent people should be taught to do something useful with their time and lives. I think that by and large, they are. You don't hear about that because it doesn't please the massive indentured population to hear about it on TV, but if you look around, you'll see that it's generally true.
And in the age of welfare, you don't have to be independently wealthy to be a layabout or a loiterer. It's no longer an exclusive privilege, so providing a decent estate that will allow your posterity to have its freedom and control its own destiny is not really any more dangerous to individual productivity than not doing so.
>I agree that people should have access to enough money to realize their potential, but not more than that.
I absolutely do agree that too much money in the wrong hands is a recipe for disaster.
To respond to your point about contributing to society, I totally agree that parenting is among the most important contributions you can make to society. But I don't think that you can be a very effective parent without the wold view provided by interaction with both people and knowledge. And this interaction is very difficult to find outside of the university and workplace setting. As a parent you should absorb as much knowledge and experience as possible so that you can pass that on, and your children can build on that rather than wasting time re-learning it.
Finally, you are right that welfare allows people without money to live while making basically no contributions to anything. But is not a comfortable life. Anyway my point was less that you shouldn't give your children money because it will make them Deadbeats, and more that you should try to get as much value from each dollar as possible and I don't personally believe that giving all of your money to your children is likely to be the best way to achieve that.
I apologize for my formatting. Writing this on a phone.
True autonomy is its own discipline.
The problem with gaining power is that you now have to steer into the maelstrom of human foibles for a living. "The Turks pay me a golden treasure, yet I am poor! Because I am a river to my people! " - Auda abu Tayi in "Lawrence of Arabia".
No, people pursue power for status, not for autonomy.
Big money is a different ballpark and I don't think that's what most people want. I think they just want to be comfortable in doing what they want to do.
The advantage of big money isn't just charities and companies - it's having your time back, since you're not tied to getting an income from it.
Between rent, student loan payments, health insurance, bills, and car loans, and food, I think we maybe have $500 left to throw around each month. If we were paying against a mortgage, that would basically be zero.
The most financially effective way to be a programmer is to work remotely for someone who pays SF or NYC salaries and live in a moderate COL area.
I've always seen the rental income requirement you stated phrased as "monthly income must be at least 3x monthly rent", in case the 40x thing threw anyone else off (40/12=3.33).
I've recently seen 45x monthly in Manhattan and LIC (Queens).
And, as a sibling comment stated, it depends on location. I think $80k is right for most areas of the country. If you live in NYC, SF, LA, or another place with really high cost of living, adjust accordingly (which is probably like 2.3x).
You may not be able to afford a house in the area you want, but you can certainly afford a home. Here's one with a mortgage for $89/mo.
http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/207-1st-Ave-W-Gackle-ND-58...
Two people can easily live on $40-50k in most areas. Eliminate all the unnecessary expenses like $150+/m in phone payments, $50+/m for cable, etc.
for the $80k number.
In case you haven't seen it, there's another paper that argues the opposite: more money does make you happier (but only if you know how to use it). http://scholar.harvard.edu/files/danielgilbert/files/if-mone...
I make more than $80k and I can certainly say that I was less stressed before I took a huge pay cut. On the other hand, I like my job more so I guess I might actually still be happier. All else being equal though, if I made more I imagine I would be much less stressed..
I think the OP wanted control over building/shipping/creating products. Not life comforts, house, food on the table, free time. His goals would not be helped by a middle-class income, but more control over the products he was building.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11340137