> only in the US could a new $60K car be described as "a low cost model")

Not even in the US is that description remotely reasonable; $60K is above the average new car price...not just overall, but even in the “Luxury Car” segment.

https://mediaroom.kbb.com/2018-10-02-Average-New-Car-Prices-...

Buying a $60k car seems like a completely insane concept to me, even with a Silicon Valley tech industry salary. Even $16k (used) was higher than I wanted to pay for my current car.

You have a good mindset. A lot of people view a car as a status symbol and derive its utility from a social point of view, which I think is financially unhealthy. To me all I care about is 1: How safe is it?. 2: How much will it cost me over its lifetime? And 3: Does it get me and my stuff where I want to? Everything else comes far behind these three things.

People really shouldn't be borrowing money to buy a car. It's pretty crazy how many people do this.

Depends, borrowing money to buy a car and needing to borrow money to buy a car are 2 distinct things. I recently got financing for a new car because they gave me thousands of dollars discount for doing so. Over the course of the loan, if I pay it according to the full 5 year schedule they'll obviously get more in interest back but I plan to pay it off very quickly (and yes, I did make sure the financing contract allows to do that without having to pay off the entire schedule interest, only the interest accumulated until the time of the payoff).

As for the general idea what people should do with their money, I try to avoid those discussions because it's just a matter of priorities. To you it's more important to use your money to do other things, to others it's important that they drive a nice car. Life is too short and we should spend it pursuing that which makes us happy.

Respectfully disagree. Recently leased a $60k car and I enjoy every single minute I'm driving it. I'm not paying for a transportation vehicle, I'm paying for joy and pleasure. What else should I spend money on? Burgers and coke?

I won’t tell you what to do with your money, but there are a lot of cheap fun cars to drive out there. If you want fun to drive combined with new features like automatic lane keeping, dynamic cruise control, etc. you may need to shell out a little more for it.

I encourage high-earning tech workers to save more money in general - these are boom times. $60k pays rent on a room in the bay for a long time if you’re unemployed. I’m gonna buy the house before I lease the Tesla. But don’t know about your personal financial situation.

/s Well - u could save up for cancer treatment /s

Seriously though. Enjoy it. I had a cool sport car as a young-ish engineer and it gave joy after every long dreary day at the office.

It's super awesome to drive your expensive sports car at 5mph in stop and go traffic on the 101 or 405. s/ Just the best. /s

I was totally going to buy and enjoy a sports car when moving back to the states after 11 years abroad with no car at all. Then we got pregnant and...the dream has to wait ~5-10 years as I'm now into fancy strollers. :).

> What else should I spend money on?

Vacation. Early retirement. House. Airplane. Charity. Cleaning services. Boat.

Or a really nice car.

I can empathize. I've never paid even as much as $3k for a car. The idea seems absolutely ridiculous to me, yet I still hear about people not much better off than myself who spend as much on a new car as I would on a modest house.

I agree with low safety net, but an average income is taxed about as heavily as the UK or Germany.

Source?

The highest bracket kicks in a much lower salary in the UK and Germany than it does in the US.

My income taxes were much lower in the US coming from Canada.

If your gross income is $80,000, overall federal income tax is 17%. There's also the 12.4% social security tax and the 2.4% Medicare tax, so the overall rate is 32%. State income tax varies (in CA it's 6% on the $80000, in TX it's 0%).

The equivalent UK income is 61200 GBP. Income tax is is 21%, and National Insurance is 8% for 29%. This doesn't include the 20% VAT on most goods and services, but that also doesn't apply to all your income (doesn't apply to savings, housing, utilities).

Sources: https://www.irs.com/articles/2018-federal-tax-rates-personal... https://www.fidelity.com/viewpoints/personal-finance/new-med... https://www.gov.uk/vat-rates https://www.gov.uk/national-insurance/how-much-you-pay https://www.gov.uk/income-tax-rates

If you calculated the equivalent income by converting dollars to pounds, that isn't a good measure of equivalence. £61k is a huge salary, especially outside London. It's even high for a programmer 5 years in. Whereas there are plenty of roles that pay $80k, and it would be insulting for most programmers out of uni.

You're right, using the PPP to GDP ratio says the pound has 1.11x the purchasing power of an equivalent amount of dollars. (equivalent meaning by foreign exchange rates)

Plus many European countries have _lots_ of taxes that aren't income tax, that don't apply to the US to the same degree. Not sure how this works out for the UK or Germany, but a high-income earner in Norway who uses a lot of their disposable income might pay 75% of their pre-tax salary in taxes and fees. This is in spite of an income tax that is 43% at the top marginal bracket, of which ~8 percentage points is in effect forced pension savings.

> only in the US could a new $60K car be described as "a low cost model"

You're almost right, just one country too many :)

That's not considered a low-cost car in the United States. If you think it is, then you've been spending too much time around the type of people who hang out on Hacker News.

Regarding A: I think it is important to note, that cancer is usually survivable, if caught early. This might make the "all in" phenomenon not inherent to the disease, because affordable, frequent checkups and education, might prevent many late stage cancer cases. Especially for colon and skin cancers.

Regarding C: Sure, everything is fine in healthy years, but 20% of the population is going to die from cancer alone. So it's not like only a tiny fraction is going to experience this dread.

>only in the US could a new $60K car be described as "a low cost model"

Only wealthy people consider 60k a low cost vehicle.

In the US here. 60K is by no means consider a low cost car anywhere, however yes, that could be considered a low cost model if you are talking about a high end sports luxury brand, but even in that case doesn't make much sense since BMW, Mercedes and all have low cost entry models that are far below 60k, and for the the even more premium brands there lowest price cars are probably over 100K. So not sure which brand you are referring to where 60k is the entry model?

But yes if someone has money and little to no family they will spend it all trying to save themselves. Where is if they have a family they are more likely to try to live while also knowing its unlikely and thinking to the future for their families.

Also the US Congress has made the decision about low-tax low safety net. The majority of American's accordingly to the popular vote in the last election voted for democrats that would have been higher tax and higher safety net. So majority of Americans do not support the current Congress in power's approach. Hoping our health care system is fixed some day but with the power those lobbyist hold that is highly unlikely even with different leadership in charge.

> a. Cancer for many is a terminal disease.

True, for about 50% of people it is terminal. I doubt the overlap is perfect.

> c. No one mentions the non terminally ill 95% who presumably enjoy...

True, however, about 50% of people will get cancer at some point in their life.

So I guess for a lot of people it's more like you live well, until you get sick. And almost everybody gets serious illness at some point (such is life -- it ends).

But (b) is certainly a fair point.

Except that net US personal taxation isn't far off that found across the EU.

Not only is it not far off, the practical personal tax rate is actually higher in the US than in several European countries. It's not as simple as "the US has lower taxes, and therefore fewer public benefits".

Yeah, the US spends more on socialized medicine than anyone. Most of it goes through Medicare.

The EU varies a lot in personal tax rates.

The higher end of the EU is much higher than the US.