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A comment on If You’re So Smart, Why Aren’t You Rich?. Parent comment

Re:If You’re So Smart, Why Aren’t You Rich? by stunt on Friday November 19, 2021 @04:43AM (#29275448)
Agree! A lot of smart people aren't trying to get rich. I bet many nobel prize winners aren't rich, while many of them are smart.
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Re:If You’re So Smart, Why Aren’t You Rich? by rawoke083600 on Friday November 19, 2021 @04:55AM (#29275517)
Lol actually they are rich.

"The winners of the 2021 Nobel Prizes will receive a gold medal and 10 million Swedish kronor ($1.14 million). The prize money comes from an endowment left behind by the prize’s creator, Swedish inventor Alfred Nobel, who died in 1895."

Source https://www.forbes.com/sites/siladityaray/2021/10/08/2021-no...

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Re:If You’re So Smart, Why Aren’t You Rich? by chriskanan on Friday November 19, 2021 @05:53AM (#29275916)
This isn't much money in the USA. The rule of thumb is to save 10 times your income if you want to retire by age 67. Given that an academic is at perhaps $100K salary a year, that would mean it would not even be enough to cover retirement since after taxes it would probably be less than $700K. In many parts to the USA, e.g., parts of California, that's not even enough to buy a modest home. It depends on where you live to assume that's enough to be considered even close to rich. About 10% of Americans have a net worth of over $1M.

https://spendmenot.com/blog/what-percentage-of-americans-are...

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Re:If You’re So Smart, Why Aren’t You Rich? by SirGoldplate on Friday November 19, 2021 @07:17AM (#29276430)
10% @ 1mil sounds extremely high being that the median income is 31,133 USD(2019). Not sure I buy it, especially since the article claims this excludes home equity.
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Re:If You’re So Smart, Why Aren’t You Rich? by AussieWog93 on Friday November 19, 2021 @08:31AM (#29276930)
A quick Google suggests that the top 10% of (individual) earners in 2019 took home at least 116k (almost 4x the median!).

Seems totally believable to me.

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Re:If You’re So Smart, Why Aren’t You Rich? by emschlr on Friday November 19, 2021 @04:59AM (#29275536)
Earning $1.14 million for a whole life's work is peanuts when you compare it to bay area salaries where someone working for FANG can earn that much in half a year or less just by writing microservices.

So, no, Nobel prize winners are not necessarily rich when you compare them with lawyers, doctors, and software engineers of California.

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Re:If You’re So Smart, Why Aren’t You Rich? by rawoke083600 on Friday November 19, 2021 @05:30AM (#29275748)
Compared to most people in academia they are stinking-rich !

"whole life's work"

Yea sorry they don't always "win" it at the END of their careers !

"compare it to bay area salaries where someone working for FANG can earn that much in half a year or less just by writing microservices."

Guess you can say that about many careers just depends which you industry you compare it to ! Gardening,R&B Popstar,Maid,Teacher,Hollywood Actor,Tutor.

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