Can you be a liberal if you live in a McMansion?

[opebo]

Yes, I suppose opebo would be a good example of one.

he hates them.

Well given his description of his personal life, I expect that he lives in one or at least something very similar to one.

He loathes suburbs because they require lots of driving.

Yes, I hate it but I must admit I do often live in a non-urban house, BRTD.  I try to get a summer sublet every year down in the walkable/university part of the City, but I end up living out at the farmhouse a lot.  It isn't a McMansion though, just a rather ordinary sized house with a lot of decks on it.  The parents and brother live in big houses, but both were built in several stages from the 1930's through the present, so they're not really McMansions, though they are located in the boring, useless Ex-urbs.

Anyway, I'm looking for a sublet right now on Craigslist.

[opebo]

since when did owning a house become 'uncool'?

kids today.  i just dont get them

Don't worry, worker.  At the rate you're going, you'll probably stay cool.

[opebo]

i just made a move in my life.  to be an 'owner', you seem to have an odd inability to move away from mommy and daddy.  i thought you were rolling in the dough.

No, they are.  I have a bit that comes to me regardless, and a bit that is directly mooched, if you see what I mean.  In any case, WalterMitty, no one is really an owner until they inherit, are they?

I don't think he's making that much. He probably lives on about the same level I do in the US.

I find I consume about $2,000/month in Thailand and about $2,500/month in the US.  The difference is when I'm here the parents will pretty much foot the bill.

[opebo]

ok, and you think 'workers' are beneath you?

if we took a random survey of 100 people and told them your lifestyle, 99 would think you were a pathetic human being.

i laugh everytime you try to put someone down.

I never put anyone down, WalterMitty, nor do I consider anyone beneath me.  I merely take an honest look at the social heirarchy and the worker's position in it.

yeah, d-man, i have doubts too.  ive lived long enough to know that most people who brag about having money usually never have as much as they claim.

I have never bragged, fellows.  I have only noted that I do not have to suffer the indignity of toil. 

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Nor have I ever suggested so - in fact I believe I have specified very much the opposite in several posts.  The point is, of course, that we are enormously better off that those who must toil, though we remain completely without influence.

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Yes, but that is per child, per parent.  So each parent can give you the above mentioned amount.  Also I have another small source of income that comes from some properties that were held in a company of which I was made ostensible owner years ago (many things were put in and out of my and my brother's names, and various uncles and aunt's names at different times.. for various reasons from lawsuits to union troubles).

As to taxes, their accountant takes care of that, and I can't say I know the details.. but as Sam Spade notes none of it seems to be subject to social security type taxes.

[opebo]

People who go around putting others down are just covering for their own inadequacies.

And to answer the original question, yes, you can be a liberal and live in a McMansion.  It happens all the time.

very true.

i still find it funny that an 'owner' cant gather up enough resources to move his ass out of 'the bad place'.

there is a lot about opebo that doesnt add up.

That's because he's not an owner.  He's no different than a welfare recipient, except that his source of welfare is private rather than public.

He can't wait for his parents to die, so he can inherit their supposedly vast fortune, since now they have him on a very limited income, so limited that he can't even live all year in a 3rd world country without coming home to mooch for several months a year.

My guess is that they don't have half the money he says they do.  And when they die, they'll probably have it tied up, so he's not any better off than he is now.  Or if they're smart, they'll leave it to the Cat Foundation.

SamSpade is a much better example of a person from a wealthy family who has done something constructive with it, and doesn't put down other people who weren't born into that situation.

So, Dazzleman and WalterMitty, you guys ready to support inheritance taxes now and make Opebo work for a living?

We already have inheritance taxes, but they can be successfully evaded by the very rich who set up irrevocable trusts for their heirs while they are still alive.

It is then the upper middle class -- who cannot run the risk of giving up control effectively of large chunks of their money while they are still alive, or who have their wealth tied up in a business -- that end up paying inheritance taxes.

Of course, if anybody could make me support inheritance taxes, it would be opebo.  But rest assured that if his parents are really as rich as he says they are (doubtful), they have already put in place a mechanism that will keep them from paying it.

Good lord man, the exemptions are huge - something like several millions at this point I believe.  I know they were one million per parent before Bush's tax cuts began to be implemented.  In any case the old creatures do have hundreds of thousands in life insurance to meet tax bills when they go.

Btw, how does life insurance work? 

[opebo]

Btw, how does life insurance work? 

It depends on whom the beneficary is.

No I meant does it pay out when you die, regardless of how old you are?  In other words, do you inevitably get the payout?

[opebo]

Only a Republican could think that somebody who dies with a couple million dollars of assets is "upper middle class."

Heh, true.  But he is making a useful distinction between the very small time rich people like my family, Sam Spade's family and probably dazzleman himself, and the truly rich, who of course one never meets.

[opebo]

My mom has a thing for shopping a thrift stores.  I really don't know why.

So does mine!  But she got it from me.  I love thrift shops.  New things are such garbage compared to old things, and one can actually find something closer to unique.
 

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What happened to Joe Republic?

Anyway, of course future inheritance does count, because that is the primary way that upper-class status is transferred.