Scoreboards

I've written before about the onset of depression that financial burden brings, and its an obvious in this world.

In a society based around a financial competitive economy, the strongest survive and the weakest live off the taxation scraps.  Some days I wish I were the one living off those scraps.

Working 7 days being an 100k pluser feels like hard work.  But what if thats wasted energy with too much friction and backforce to gain any positive momentum forward?

I'm an avid football fan, college and NFL, as many are, so I cant say I'm much different from any college graduated middle class male, but in seeing the sport, there is a lot of "hard work" put into getting to those levels, whether it be the player or the coaching and support staff.  But that hard work appears to pay off.

But what is the distinction?

On HBO's series Hard Knocks, theyre currently covering the Texans, and more so the NFL celebrity that is JJ Watt.  He appears to put more hard work in than anybody.  It appears hes working hard after practice, hes very disciplined, speaking of a 10 hour sleep schedule, whcih according to him rejuvenates the body and allows for more physical and mental awareness.  I cant imagine the sacrifice that takes, trying to live on a 14 hour day.  I wouldnt have a kid, ill tell you that.

But the fact remains, I do, and I am trying to support and start and raise a family, with good values, and trying to center life around that, when the definition of hard work is sacrifice, or at least a large component.

So I sacrifice a lot of my time to work, work inefficiently apparently as my hard work only drives me backward.

Where does a 100k pluser attempt to break the mold and beat the overwhelming financial odds?

Well, I cant say i have that answer but I can send out the siren song, which in the end appears to be me only bitching and maybe fruitless for any other struggling 100k pluser.

Just there I realized that this sole bitching wasnt going to help.

Perhaps a support group.

I know noone with 100k plus in student debt.  At least noone as vocal in complaining about it.

Twos sites i quickly found were Student Loan Sherpa and Ready for Zero.

Both appear to have started as blogs and gained momentum, which i quote have not.

But more research is always needed.

The support group sounds like a good idea, but how does something like that start, where do you meet, will there be truth or just unwanted nonsense, is it possible?

Maybe a possible ad pitch for a blog and then a proposal.  Or maybe just do it, paper, online, where?

These are spit ball ideas in a blog entry that was meant to define myself as a lifetime loser, as a failure.

But these ideas could make us all get something we desperately need, hope.

Hope for zero, hope to not call ourselves 100k plusers.

I dont know the severity of this problem, I know I lay at the bottom but I know I can't be the only one.

This is my plea to myself for a true siren song and the courage to sing it.

A word of warning

As much as my blog entries are too subjective, this one just might take the cake for subjectivity.

I'm about to get all touchy feely right here.

100k plus is a very economic state, one this country has cultivated and grown.  Lawyers, doctors, PhD's.

But that has bleed into the normal spectrum of society.

My hope and dreams of being an accountant; at 18 it was hopes and dreams of being an accountant to the stars.  The end state I believed I may have been capable of was all but out of the question when 2 crushing realities were realized.

The first being the realization of what 100k plus means for the regular layman.  Of which I will elaborate on,  and the other being that I'm stuck in this place, for good and bad.

This is home.  Pittsburgh.

An average in the city of average.

They call it the City of Champions, but its more the city of the middle class and more so lower class.  I guess that all American society as the income gap grows to a much greater extent than the American dream was outlined to be.

So back to my touchy feely story.

The feeling of being so debt ridden almost outweighs the feeling of being poor.  See the poor are free to live as their income allows, with assistance from social systems if them utilize them to their fullest extent or even at all, while debt just sits there, crushing hopes and hard work and totally devolving any future reality of having an American dream.

The Life Equation seems to be squashed by the American Dream.  In a sense of where I head in my writing, more so my rambling, it is a positive step towards a more universally marketed product.  In the path to my eventually happiness or content state of being, its a crushing blow, but one that was realized during the accumulation of that 100k plus.

See, as I make the average wage, actually my dreams, more so goals, before 30 goals to be exact were meager.

Make 50k. Modest current economic state goals in a rising middle class worker world.

I, at 31, lay just under that so just behind that meager, considering a family to support, goal.

How can I complain about that?

Well, first off (well more first off, as evidenced by this blog, I'm a complainer), the only goal that was accomplished was solving the Rubix Cube, a goal I've backslid on and cannot longer complete.

I kid, and I digress.

I found a wife, a house, and a masters.

All good things, but not all easy things.

And most certainly not without a constant looming 100k plus with a 50k minus job.

And the constant realization of the death of ones dream, the seath of the American dream, and sure fire failure.

Hey, its depressing, but its 100k plus life.

Variables

In preparation and thought for the formulation of a life equation, it would be beneficial to learn a bit more about regression and linear models.  I can, and will, throw out ramblings with the backing of little to no statistics, only when I'm feeling extra productive, but it is finally necessary.

The life equation could easily consist of wealth = assets - liabilities, as is taught in any accounting class, beginner or advanced, but there's a lifetime of assets, and more so of liabilities, depending on the side of the track you started and end up on.

Education, food, clothing, housing.  These are necessary expeditures throughout our first world, or any world for that matter journey.  Education maybe being the divide, but that is the divide that seperates the modern world as well, in a much different way as access may be the significant issue in the 3rd world but accessibility is also a dividing factor in the 1rst world.  Education of all levels is available to all, the standard being the difference throughout, while many economic factors litter the mix as well.

And that economic mix is the one I'd like to determine in the life equation, at least the average, and maybe a floor and ceiling.  A floor being already established at 0, 0 dollars, 0 hopes, 0 dreams; but a floor is actually determined by American society, whether there is any effort put into rising from that floor or not, ie our own American version of socialism.  While middle class socialism is given to the fates of our capitalistic natures, to throw any form of social empathy to the wayside and live in an over inflated world of darwinism.  A bit dramatic, I'd say, but with a bit of truth.

The ceiling essentially being infinite within reason, and most likely forgoing other variables (he said the name of the movie!) not quantified by the life equation or any equation.

Onwards from my rhetoric.

Regression and linear models are needed for this to weed out the bullshit, and, well, rhetoric.  To establish a trajectory including such constants as cost of education, cost of housing, cost of financing, need for financing, living expense, and to fish out any other variables, any other quantifiable items.

I'm on my journey to get back the book written by one of the only professors i felt i ever got anything from, and we skipped every project and paper: James Rodgers.
His book Smart Data is necessary in a world with so many quantifiable factors and so many more theories, and guesses.

I can reasonably make an assumption on an average life equation with the assistance of statics of many varying items, but using stats for my own good isn't helping anyone.  That's why math created these models, to better understand the misunderstood, to put fact to words, to make a case for the jumbled mess I consistenly serve.

Idealism is for the Entitled

A lot of people say a lot of things.

And I am no exception.

Recently there was a New York Times op ed piece about advocating former students to forgo paying their student loans.

As I was pointed to it by my main source of news and information, Yahoo, on the surface, it was a very selfish act that I was intrigued to participate in.

But it was based on an ideal.

If students stopped paying their student loans, the system, univerity and bank, would be forced to change, to reevaluate.

Now, I'm much more selfish than to think about community, and even more so, much more realistic to think such an ideal is plausible.  Selfishness and realism, not a great way to spend a life.

But, in my selfishness, and my 100k plus lifestyle, i desire to write to him to gain some knowledge of his lifestyle where one can forget about debts, or attempt to, and move on to giving back to this world in the area one was meant to if it weren't for the financial burden of being slightly lower middle class and having aggregious student loans.

Mr. Lee Siegred,

To think that you received backlash of the extent that you did for your New York Times Op Ed piece is unfortunate.  I may have chosen a better, more powerful word there, especially to pen to an author, but I guess the understanding of what it takes to be successful and the barriers of entry are not commonplace in this American society.  The "American Dream" as it is, just may be dead, or at least, dying.

Perhaps the backlash is due for our country's populous take on socialism, even though the system appears to embrace it at the lowest income levels, but either way, the backlash received is undeserving, as there is no empathy in media and society, and most certainly not with the advent of the internet.

I, myself, am very empathetic to your situation, but also fringing on a jealousy as I took the road more traveled, the windy, dirty path that is paying my debts monthly, even if they are much greater a percentage of my pay than would be garnished had I chose your approach.

But as much as I will tell my story here, if you make it to that point, a thank you is in order as I, myself, and I would assume anyone with such outrageous debts as ours, am very appreciative of your article.  Not that I can be that person, as I have begrudgingly paid the unnecessarily large minimum monthly payments for going on 10 years, but that you have brought hope to hopeless situations.  A world where the system is questioned, a world where you are free to pursue your dreams.  The American dream. Maybe its heart is still beating somewhere.

The American dream is dead for nonbelievers like myself, but dreamers and doers like you give us hope, hope that is questionable, but hope nonetheless.

I bother you, or I write to you, in the hope of your empathy, but more so, for hopeful guidance for questions that can't be answered by a system, that can't be proposed to my fellow man as us 100k plusers (my wording and phrasing) are few and far between.  At least is my feeling that we are few, and I hope for my fellow man that is true, because a crippling debt and a job, more like 2 or 3, that is/are worse is not something I would wish upon my worst enemies.

Enough introductions, I'm not trying to present you a book but a story, a story i pray you may hear, just as your siren song, of which I'm sure as a writer you have many.  I do appologize because as you are famous, in your realm, and I am an average, I am not familiar with your works but hope to change that in the future.  Anyone advocating for students and common economic decency and not the system is someone I admire greatly.  So excuse me, and maybe, possibly, thank you for one more thing, reading to this point.

I myself write and have a passion for it, one I did not fully discover until I was deep enough into my college journey to become an accountant that I couldn't turn my back to as that was the point where the financial crisis I put myself in was becoming more and more a reality.  I have a passion maybe, but a passion to debate and fight may not be there, one I'm sure you as a doer and fighter have honed throughout years of writing and fighting the school loans that allowed you to do so.

Anyhow, my story is similar in the fact that I grew up lower middle class; I ended up making more money a year in my first job than my father did a year in any of his positions despite 3 college degrees which most likely connects itself well to this story but I was never aware of the extent of the cost of his education.  He was on disability for the last 15 years of his life, while my mother earned a descent living as a nurse, but just the right amount to allow them to earn more than the minimum amount where I would receive much, if any, student aid, and less than would allow them to assist me in the any of the cost to attend a 4 year school.

With that said, I only had a desire to attend one school, Penn State, and that was all I applied for, disregarding any need for scholarships as I was a top 10% of my class kid but not anything other than average.  Not being a cheap school was not an issue, or at least I was unaware of that fact, but that decision was made.  I was always told by my father, we'd work it out.  His intentions were good, but put to play, I was always going to be stuck with a mortgage for a student loan bill.  I still, in such an obvious understatement, hold a great deal of animosity about that decision that was made for me, without any research or knowledge of my own.  I just knew I was college material, and my father wanted to give me what I wanted, and he thought best.  He died several years after I graduated college, several tough years, where just as I am here, put much of the pressure that was on me back on him, mostly in anger.  So, suffice to say, it did not work out.  I work to support this debt while struggle to support a growing family.  Maybe the only true American Dream left.

Back to reality; I knew about 2 years in my debt would surmount to a lot of money, but what was I to do other than treck on.  And I have been doing that now for over 10 years, with an acceptance of the fact that I made the incorrect decision with my life and was not from the income bracket that would let me attend such a school, or any school in general as it was all on credit.

That remains my complaint, but I can't do anything about it now.

Until I read your article.

I have about 100k in private loans, which are indespersable, but little government loan assistance due to that long drawn out story of my parents.

I've paid on them for almost 10 years and still have 86k in debt, with minimum payments ranging from $530 to over $900 a month throughout, which I would assume in the 10 years I've paid would have amounted to more than 15k give or take.

But thats not the case.

I now have a masters which I paid about 25k for, a worthless MBA.

My student loan debts, along with my wives, amount to minimum payments that are equal to about 1/5 to 1/6 of our combined monthly income. So at the current moment, with my masters debts in forbearance, I pay an estimated 20% of our monthly net income, when the garnishment of my wages, and I assume just my wages, for the first job, would be the wages targeted.

I don't know if you can confirm or guide me here; my time may be best soent in researching than penning random complaints to a complaining author, but this is more enjoyable and much like therapy.

So, does such an opportunity exist for someone like myself, do the benefits of fighting rather than fighting to get by outweigh the negatives, which in my fear driven and corralled mind, are many?

As I start a family, life, and finances, only get more difficult, as I have a wife, a son, and a house, are there truely benefits to fight the system that will fight me back tenfold?

More options

So, my last post about trying to find other options was a success.

I got a job, I got away, I 'moved on'....to the department right next to mine.

I got the new job, as was apparent from the last sentence fragments, but where does that leave me?

Where does that leave any of us?

You get to a 'goal' (of sorts) and where do you go next?

When the goal is money, there is never an endstate, and in my case, I didnt get any more of that with this move so i essentially have the same issues, plus more issues I am not yet aware of since with moving comes change.

At least constant shit, is constant.

Change is constant, but the consistency of change is not constant.

But back to money.

There has to be a better goal or you will never reach that goal.  Those are words to live and die by.

I've,  along with many other 100ker or the less of us, have, but its not until one chases love that contentness is found.

Its been said and its certainly overused and cliche, but thats because its true.

You MUST love what you do.

Or you will fail, continually, without change.

There must be an element of love in your work that keeps you striving for any work to be successful or its all for not, and for the most part, unproductive.

A paycheck is a good thing.  A paycheck isnt a bad thing.

But it isnt the only thing.

I can't imagine the percentage of those who love, or love aspects even, of their work to those who do not, but that percentage is one I must research because its pertinent to the life equation,  and must be very low.

And one would assume if you are to spend 100k plus, and going, on an education that there must be some love.

But education is difficult, not because learning is difficult, but because its never ending and attempting to learn one area in a matter of several years is not possible, but it is possible to determine an estimation of the level of love for a job.  But thats an expensive experiment.

Specializing is the society we now live in, so to think a general formal education, no matter how specific, can lead to endless opportunities or, more so, avenues.  Obviously it is up to any individual, whether weighed down by 100k plus debts or not, which is with no exception, emotionally draining at times, to determine to what extent they utilize that opportunity.

Just like 'love winning', Love must win over Money.

Options

I try to formulate goals every year, month, or really as I have the motivation and time.

When those stars align, which isn't as often as I'd like or need, I put my future's goals on pen and paper and more importantly, in my busy, and forgetful, head.

Goals are good to have but only get one so far.  The more realistic gameplan would be to formulate and act on options!

I include way to many and's in my ramblings.  As a disclaimer.

But as an 100ker, options are limited.

I currently have 3 bills over 5hundy a month, work 7 days a week(although I promise myself I wouldnt bring that up again as I do at every turn), and am trying to raise a family, albeit only one child.

But options fo exist.

Everyone with any job, had the same set of options I have there.

1) Deal with it.  Which most do and will continue to do based on their given set of circumstances, 100ker or not.

2) Quit.  Well, thats a limited and desperate option with too many negative consequences to list. But nonetheless, an option.  One my wife puts out there for me often, but i bitch often so its tit for tat.

3) Get a new job.  I'm working on that but anyone in that circumstance knows the difficulty and hard work that option requires. 

4) Flee.  How that option came up so quick may be the severity of my situation, only magnified by my own thought process, but also an option.  With the most and numerous negative consequences.

5) Quit having goals and plans and options.  Which to myself doesn't seem plausible.

6) Have faith.  Have some sort of stitched together form of hope and faith in one of the above, more positive, options.

So there are options,  vague as they may be; we all have them, but wheres the line drawn in order to pick the correct one.  Not relying on myself is whats necessary, in a sense, and for another blog that I'm not capable or faithful enough to compose.

Selah with options.

Transfer Costs and You

Transfer costs are a given in business, economics, and life.  Well, the idea is a given, the meaning and what and how, and definitely  why, well those are whole other subjects.

The first definition  from the end all be all source, Wikipedia, states for the concept I'm trying to convey that ' Transfer pricing is the setting of the price for goods and services sold between controlled (or related) legal entities within an enterprise.'

Transfer pricing is the concept, transfer cost is more of what I'm trying to refer to, defined as the 'Total opportunity cost of moving an item from one place to another, including transport costs, loading and unloading costs, and administrative costs.'

So, why are 'moving' costs all around us?

I'm  not trying to point out moving costs as in the cost of moving but the actual  moving of costs.

I.E. moving costs from one party to the next.

Making some other poor sap pay for what may or may not, or should or should not be paid for by the actual paying party.

This occurs all the time within companies and corporations.  One department  defers costs to the other, and really it depends on what manager is willing, or not strong or brave enough to fight off that willingness, to pay for another departments necessities, or even errors.  Now interdepartmenally these costs are fought and passed around but as a company as a whole, the cost remains.  And in fact, the fighting and time wasted transferring the costs may have worsened the initial cost so the company as a whole takes a larger cost, just so one department 'wins' and 'transfers(!)' the cost.

Transfer costs, and additional costs associated with the transferring of costs, occur naturally in large companies due to size and complexity of costs, and the, lets not forget or be ignorant of, the incentives in place to reduce cost.  So, one department  managers thought process and logic of why a cost is not theirs is challenged by another department's managers views that a cost is that initial  departments. 

I'm not here to avoid those costs, because  frankly a corporation is already well ahead of myself as an individual, and all of us individuals, especially us100k plusers, even the average student with their measly 30k debts.

But, I am here to attempt to identify the ignorance in transfer pricing and transfer costs in our everyday life and most certainly  personal economies.

As students in secondary education, the cost, unlike primary education, has been transferred from the  state (in most cases, whereas, generous states like Georgia do not apply) to the individual.  As secondary  education is not currently a right, but a choice for embettetment, at least the guise of it, the cost should lay on the individual.  But the student loan industry, institutions included, has allowed the cost of education to be inflated so much that the cost of the industry and infrastructure of that industry has been transferred to the individual.

This transfer cost also includes the salaries of over inflated individuals, not the student loan paying individual(while at one point they may have been, ever increasing the life cycle or natural circle of life we as consumers have introduced into the modern civilized society), but the individuals at the top of these institutions, this time not referring to just the schools.  The CEO's and high level managers with inflated salaries as compared to the rest of the company, of whom are most likely debt-ridden student loan payers(another contribution to the cycle).  Even the teachers of these institutions, with their inflated knowledge, receive a top tier wage.

The separation of the top of society even in our modern day continues and pushes in both directions.  The rich get richer, and the debt ladled get more of what feeds them.

I wonder if these are all feelings, and not cold hard facts, if this is all bitching and not necessary talk, if I'm dead wrong and society's better than my random accusations.

But from a glance at the lay of the land, it appears to be even worse than my ramblings.

And the transfer costs continue to stack up while we ignorantly continue to pay.

Health care comes to mind.

So, one day my, and I assume, out  of anger and quick assessment, your 100k plus will be 200k plus, or 400k plus, or 1m
plus.

Transfer costs.

And education, not ramblication.

Small Business, Large World

According to an article on Smallbusiness.chron.com, small business make up 99 percent of the business in America (sounds like a very biased source so maybe the figure is skewed, by a half percent. Ok, so no skewing here, just harsh reality.)

Now, my current, and college degree earned, employment is with a large corporation of over 50k. 

So, all my 100k plus earned me is a low level lackey spot with a large company's 50k plus. 

Not something im overly proud of but with unemployment rates high, and underemployment rates much higher than even those, a man with a job is something to appreciate.

But appreciation is really not what were looking for.

Its an answer.

Its education. And not the education that put myself in this 100k plus predicament, and the rest of the college educated crowd in a 30k plus position.  Education to actually achieve something of value, something that can actually be appreciated on a personal level. Not simply money, but that is nice at times.  But an education that moves ourselves and our society further.

A doctor at my 2nd job, giving myself a grand total of 7 work days a week, but that's another discussion (one I have very often with the people around me).  But this doctor, a research only PhD told me that doctors have a more pointed mind than the average person, that they are essentially more motivated to find this end means.

Well, I cant say I agree, and I certainly cant say I disagree.

But us averages still need an answer.

So, is a small business the answer.  For some yes, I assume, and many others, no, I also assume.

In searching for 'The lifespan of a sm' for small business, there are two things more important, or at least to technology and society, so since we've agreed we're trying to move society forward, these two things must be mentioned.

Smokers and Small dogs.

So, its good to know we care about us and our pets.

But what about the lives we chose, and must chose, to lead.

I, as previously noted, am following the crowd.  The crowd to college and the crowd to large business.

But as small business makes up 99 percent of the companies in this country, is large business really the crowd, and what crowd should be followed.

There is steady income, benefits, and overall stability with large business.

According to the Bureau of Labor statistics, according the Business Appraisal blog, more than half of all small businesses dont make it to 4 years.

So if I'm assumed to have to work a 35 year career, which is expanding exponentially due to lack of company and government backing (that's being sent to the uber rich to be more rich, and the low income to facilitate a life of low income, high rewards), one will need 9 small business ideas to stay above water, or at least make a hopeful wage.

I can't think of one idea, so I'll make a 35 year career doing what I hate.

Not much can be learned here but there's truth in numbers, but also questions.

A nightmare, the nightmare

Student loans are in fact a nightmare. And thats a fact.

Again, I hate to use this forum to complain, I have a personal blog for that if I so well please.  But whether this is a complaint or actually beneficial words and thoughts will remain a question until the end.

My current position of 100k plus is accompanied by other major debts, but that can be expected due to the root cause and only I can be blamed for those; a under-paid job, but many workers are under-paid so a change in society there starts at many other places than my mind, this blog, or even myself; a father that passed on too early leaving a 'struggling' mother, only by her own financial abilities, stunted by the one who ran the checking account who is no longer with us, but also not economically ready for retirement although numerically ready; and a brother of similar age who is taking all of our 'life equations' down, a good guy, yes, but one with no acuem for finances, perhaps due to what was mentioned before, or desire to make anything of his time here.

So, I ask you, where is the life there, 3 people 'jailed' to live a life of 'servitude' to the 'American dream' of wasted lives and failing systems. 

It feels as if I'm watching a movie, such as Hunger Games, where an aristocratic society holds a majority of the wealth while the majority of the population lives to struggle through everyday.

This is the nightmare, this is the movie that we watch over and over.

And there are no twists of fortune, just struggle, a struggle to pay the bills, a struggle to feel happiness, a struggle to get through the day, a struggle to find any answer.

This sounds about as depressing as it can get.  And it feels that way too.

I secede.  This isn't a blog worthy blog, this is pure complaining.