And yet, when I graduated from college, that was worth 3 months’ rent on a studio. Minimum wage on my waitressing job was the same as it is now. And even then, I could only stay on budget by 1) not having a car, 2) sleeping on the floor and searching alleys for cast-off furniture rather than buying new, and 3) not paying for health insurance.
Now, it’s amazing any of the younger generation are able to afford to live month-by-month, at all.
Not going to deny that it’s a nice bump to get an envelope of cash from a random stranger upon graduation, hell if he wanted to throw a grand my way now I absolutely wouldn’t turn it down. I just hate this being treated like it’s some grand gesture of generosity. I don’t expect Robert Hale to impoverish himself in an act like this, but that $2.5 million is 0.005% of his net worth.
Just for fun: After some number crunching with my nesting partner, if we really stretch some estimates on our assets (so if our house was completely paid off, etc.) we might have $500K. This means we’d spend about $2,500 ($1 / grad.) on this, assuming all things equal, which of course they aren’t.
Hmmm. Now I just need to clear this much 125 times over to pay off the student loans. Shoot! Forgot to add the interest.
If anyone has so much money that they can give away $2.5M without even feeling it, they are not taxed enough.
The result is rich douchbags deciding how wealth should be redistributed. If it had gone to taxes, then we as a democratic society would be deciding who most needs that money.
The “who decides” part is crucial and doesn’t get enough press when people talk about how much rich people should be taxed. It’s not a choice between high taxes or low taxes, as it is always framed. It’s a choice of who decides what to do with society’s excess wealth- all of us together, or one rich douchenozzle who has never held a shovel.
Crunch again: I got $250 (or $0.10 / grad)
Yes, I was about to say the same thing because I calculated this as being the equivalent of someone with a net worth of $1M giving away a total of $500. This was not an especially generous or in any way remarkable gift for someone with that kind of net worth. Just a way for the guy to make him feel better about himself and get some good PR. Many, many people routinely give proportionally more generous gifts on a regular basis.
Right: perhaps a gift of $25M (or $10K to each student) may have raised some approving eyebrows. For a back-of-the-envelope apples-to-apples comparison, I give that amount corresponding to my net worth (it ain’t much) each year in charitable contributions.
And this is all linear scale stuff. Mr. Big Shot could impress me by giving $250M.
Yep. You’re absolutely right. I left my multiple value as a percentage display (0.005) instead of the proper calculation value of 0.00005! Crap. That’s even worse than I thought!
Edit: And I still didn’t list it out correctly just now. That’s so stupidly cheap that it just didn’t seem right.
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