In defense of the sanctimonious women's studies set || First feminist blog on the internet

20 thoughts on I want to work for the Wall Street Journal.

  1. But look how sad all of them are! Clearly, seeing a slight tax increase on your six-figure income is just as bad as living through the Great Depression.

    1. I know. You’d think, from the expression on the single mother’s face, that she was facing having to sell her children off for medical experimentation, and not just do the ski vacation in Aspen and not Bonne that year, or whatever.

  2. It kind of blows my mind that some of the deductions and exemptions in that article are bigger than some of my friend’s yearly income.

    The people on Wall Street do know that there is more United States beyond Wall Street, right?

    1. Yes they are aware of all the Saudis and Industrialists whom are even richer than they are, which makes them feel underpaid. Not even a Yacht they can afford.

  3. Things like this make me want to vomit, together with things like realizing that the average annual income of my law school classmates is probably 5 times what I make. Even though I’ve been a lawyer in New York for more than 30 years now — at law firms, not for a public-interest organization — I don’t make anything close to that sum. But then I remind myself that I wouldn’t trade my life for any of theirs, even with all my problems, and that making a huge amount of money has never been very important to me, given what I would have had to give up to have any chance of doing so (even if my health had permitted me to do what was necessary it in the first place).

    1. But Donna, all us attorneys are just rolling in the dough, at least that’s what my neighbors all assume!

      When I used to complain about my crappy lawyering job I would often hear, “but at least attorneys make tons of money” type refrains from other people. And then I would assure them that it wasn’t the case, and they would always look at me suspiciously, as though my skewed view perceived lots of money as not lots of money. As opposed to the peanuts I was actually earning.

      Yep, so no regretting my decision to walk away from the whole industry.

      1. having trouble not giving you the side-eye here without knowing how much you consider peanuts to be, despite that being exactly what you were complaining about. :/

      2. Mid 5 figures for 3 years of law school, resulting in far more than my annual salary in student loan debt, and a 70 hour workweek in exchange for the priviledge of having that high stress,associate position.

        How’s that side eye working for you now?

  4. Not to defend their article, because writing about taxes is almost always poorly done and provides an incomplete picture, but I think they chose their examples based on (i) nothing terribly interesting happening for taxpayers below the $250K mark and (ii) the PEP and PEASE limitations requiring fairly specific fact patterns to operate against you.

    Also, they didn’t even address the new 3.8% medicare surtax (introduced as a pay-for with Obamacare and which oddly isn’t, in fact, a dedicated medicare levy) which hits investment income for anyone over $250K.

    Also, it’s a News Corp. subsidiary. Don’t work there!

  5. I want to find those people bemoaning $3,000 and explain to them that’s a quarter of my ANNUAL. INCOME.

    1. Right? “Oh, you’re going to have to live on $165K net instead of $168K net? That’s a real tragedy, sad single woman. Cry me a river.”

    2. Word. I always read these ridiculous articles hoping they will for once detail exactly how 3-10K affects their investments significantly at that income bracket, but they are always long on the alarmism and scanty with the specifics.

      Whereas for most of us down here, that amount means the difference between living in a shoebox with a slumlord, or a building with heat. That’s a car payment, or several years’ toward a student loan, or even being able to take one of those “vacations” people talk about.

  6. But, but, but the couple earning $650,000 has FOUR children to support! Don’t you know children are the future? How can think of depriving these little darlings even one penny of their parents’ hard inherited, errrr, earned money? Cruel, cruel women, all of you.

  7. 3-10K is the actual annual income of: the unemployed, withbor without UEC, the physically or mentally ill on SSI who have had little or no work in their lives, injury survivors who could not complete Social Security disability requirements, single mothers with no child support and only part-time work. The Wall Street scum would rather throw these people out into the woods to starve, than give up a small taxpayer- subsidized perk. They know America is outside the gates of their community, and they don’t give a hot damn. We who have lived the John Steinbeck lifestyle exist only to pay their bills, and they will force-breed others to replace us when we fall out of the producing economy.

    1. I think the truth is they can’t honestly believe we exist, except outside movies and college students. They’ve never really been poor, interacted with anyone poor, see the way it affects your outlook on life.

      It’s right up there with the people who bitch about poor people having nice phones. Guess what? I’m poor and I have one of the nicest cell phones on the market, because it doesn’t matter/ That $90 a month in cell phone bills isn’t going to make a dent in my credit card bills, car payment, or student loan bills–not size and interest rate I have. Why pour money down a well that is bottomless instead of having SOMETHING nice and normal that I want? Something that makes my 9 hour workday-with-no-breaks easier?

      But, that makes me lazy and stupid and poor. Whatever. It’s not the high-debt low-pay trap of the working poor, it’s not my poor health, or the shitty economy, it’s my fucking phone keeping me from making $30,000 a year. Yuuuuup.

      1. $90 a month in cell phone bills and you consider yourself poor? I guess we must move in different circles.

        1. Yes. I’m also broke as fuck and I pay 85/mo to have an iPhone with data service. Why? Because that also represents television, music, entertainment, and Internet access as well as my phone, and that’s a perfectly reasonable choice to make on working poor wages, especially when we have jobs that require email contact and Internet access and don’t want to give fucking Cox/Comcast any of our money. And you know what? I’d still be poor if I spent that money on something else because I’m not getting magically out of debt or into a higher paying industry with an extra 85/month.

          But there’s nothing more satisfying than pointing out the perceived shortcomings of others, is there? WTF is up with this comment thread and the poverty policing?

  8. Its an article about high earning incomes and taxation. So they are going to put forwards examples of people with an high income.

    1. Not really. The topic sentence is:

      While the top 1% of taxpayers will bear the biggest burden, many other families, affluent and poor, will pay more as well.

      1. Which is a lie in and of itself because while the top 1% may provide the largest dollar amount, they are certainly NOT bearing the biggest burden.

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