I would argue that having $3MM net worth is more than enough to "buy" one or more (local) politicians for an election cycle or two in many parts of the USA.

https://ballotpedia.org/School_board_elections,_2016 https://ballotpedia.org/Money_in_local_elections_(2016)

$300k per year income is pretty common for 5 years experience in silicon valley including stock grants these days.

It is common for a very small portion at the very top of a job that already pays more than most jobs. The BLS, which uses reliable statistical methods to estimate wage information for occupations, found that only 10% of software developers make more than $157,590[1].

[1] https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes151132.htm

There's a lot more to America than Silicon Valley. Whatever the average SV wages are, they're outliers when compared to average wages across the county.

And everyone here complains about it being hard to pay housing instead of bragging how great everyone is. If th norm in SV would be so great, I would expect them to.complain less.

My point is that SV is atypical, so statements about 'how it is in SV' aren't really relevant when talking about the US as a whole.

Which is just about enough to pay for a standard of living comparable to what you can afford on $85k/year in nearly the entire rest of the country.