Yeah, still not getting it. So it's a bad thing to work hard to become rich now?

Did I say that? (No, I didn't!) Pound yourself into the ground to become richer all you want. Just don't come crying to me if becoming richer makes you paranoid about not being rich enough. Guy being rich does not making him an asshole. Guy being rich and complaining about it is what makes him an asshole.

He *doesn't* complain. He says he is working harder to get richer, and that he is not as rich as the other people in Silicon Valley. You are inferring that the two are causally related.

ION, Fred Phelps Is Coming

The Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kan., plans to stage protests at funerals of victims of the 35W bridge collapse to state that God made the bridge fall because he hates America, and especially Minnesota, because of its tolerance of homosexuality.

The church and its pastor, the Rev. Fred Phelps, have become notorious over recent years for their claim that the attack of 9/11 was an act of God's vengeance and their determination to make that case at the funerals of U.S. soldiers who died in Iraq.

In a press release issued the day after the bridge collapse, the church called for protests at the funerals and outlined its feelings about the relationship between God's plan and the sins of Minneapolis and Minnesota, which it calls the "land of the Sodomite damned."

Reached at the church, Shirley Phelps Roper, who is both the daughter of the pastor and one of the attorneys for the church, said that America, and Minnesota especially, have alienated God by its tolerance for homosexuality, and that the bridge collapse was an act of God's vengeance.

At this point this is just too goofy for me to get angry. Of course, if he was protesting at a funeral of a loved one, I might feel differently.

Yeah, it's a question about Grace's continuity of care. If I move insurances, then what happens to her? Will they cover her still? Even though it's the same company?

One part is making sure that the coverage isn't interrupted, but another issue is looking at the level of coverage. Insurance companies have different plans with different employers, so even though it's the same insurance company, the coverage could vary between the two workplace plans. For example, some employers decrease their portion of the cost by coming to agreements with insurance companies that call for higher co-pays for participants or by creating plans that simply don't include certain coverage like durable medical equipment.

meara-ing (and now probably very late, because I couldn't remember the hotel name for bloody ever)

I think people feel like he has chosen that lifestyle for himself (work location, home location, job, hours, pay scale) but is complaining about it. Either it's miserable enough that he should (and clearly could) leave, or it's something he can choose to live with and he should (and clearly could) stay. I think it's the complaining part that's making people react to him.

This. This exactly. There's nothing assholeish about wanting to work hard and become rich; but when you're there by your own choice, and you're educated enough to know damn well that you're in the top 0.5% of this country, it is at the very least impolitic to gripe to a reporter writing for a newspaper read by many of the other 99.5% about how hard it is and how you're still not as absurdly insanely rich as the cracktastically rich guy in the next marble-lined crystal-chandeliered cubicle.

I can't talk about money, personally; it's too damn depressing.

But hotels? Stayed in one of the ritziest hotels in Las Vegas, and it was lovely but not quite all that and a bag of words. I had just as lovely a time nearly twenty years ago at a $15/night student pension in Florence, with three small but scrupulously clean single beds to a (20-foot-ceilinged) room (with a view of a lovely piazza and a magnificent church across the way) with free continental breakfast consisting of fresh crusty bread and butter and all the coffee we could drink.

However, I did once attend a party (well, more of a mellow gathering with cheese and wine, but still - fun!) at the Luisa Tetrazzini suite at this hotel, and I'd happily pay just about any amount to actually stay there for a weekend if I could afford to. Even though it is only a 5-minute drive from my front door. This particular place is just that much made of awesome.

Gas: in some places in the Bay Area, down below $3/gallon for the first time in ever, ever, ever.

Y'all might not be comparing youselves to the third world, but I am.

If I stood up in the third world and said x amount of money means I'm nobody we can look at it two ways--am I comparing myself to the rest of country, or to the rest of the rich people in that country? If I' am comparing myself to the rest of the rich people, I absolutely see how the average worker would be pissed.

He's not in a separate country. He's in the same damned country, and that makes the borders a lot more fuzzy, and a lot more likely to raise ire.

Do you see him as dissatisfied, bon? Are you similarly dissatisfied? What I get from him on that front isn't anything I've ever gotten from you.

And no, I don't just mean dissatisfied. It's about how you are dissatisfied.

God, I had a complete thought somewhere there. Interrupted by a blood draw and a subcutaneous Imitrex injection.

I have spent a good part of the summer feeling very much down with seeing people living better than me and feeling so tight with money. But the reality is I make good money and have chosen to live at the edge of what I can afford. I could be saving more in a smaller place or a less desirable neighborhood (although I'd be hard-pressed to own much cheaper than I do in NYC). I have cut down expenses this year by almost cutting all clothing purchases for myself and going for weeks where I take my own morning coffee. I also try to take my lunch at least twice a week. But then there is the ease of ordering pizza once a week with mac, or having weekend lunches out. I know I could be better at budgeting, but to make a big difference in my life I'd need to change where I live or get a partner.

plans to stage protests at funerals of victims of the 35W bridge collapse to state that God made the bridge fall because he hates America, and especially Minnesota, because of its tolerance of homosexuality.

I *wish* I was in MN right now, because I'd join right up with the Patriot Guard and make sure that jackass didn't get anywhere near anything. GAH.

Really it's calling everybody who doesn't make $10 mil in his area a "nobody" is what makes him come off as an asshole. He could have just said it makes him feel like a nobody to not make that much without implying that everyone who doesn't make that much is somehow less than a person. (not that I think that's probably what he meant but that's what it sounds like)

I, uh, don't know what gas prices are here now. I don't pay that much attention usually because bad with money, but now that I only fill up once a week or less I pay even less.

The NYT article made me break out the world's tiniest violin, but the different ways people are interpreting it here reminds me of a discussion I had with the roommate. I was telling her that spent the entire time watching Sideways shouting, "Shut up shut up SHUT UP you pretentious pieces of shit!" She didn't feel that way about the movie at all. She comes from a wealthy East coast background; I'm midwestern working lower middle class.

I don't know. Maybe growing up a little poor made me less tolerant of existential wangst.

it doesn't mean he doesn't know that that's a lot of money anywhere else. It's just not a lot where he lives.

Sure. But that's not the quote. The quote is "You’re nobody here at $10 million." Of course the reporter pulled that out of everything else this guy said, so it's hard to know whether he's got as little perspective as he seems to.

It just doesn't bother me the way it seems to bother other people, because I could see myself saying the same thing to the same reaction. At a different number. But there's a millionaire sitting ten feet away from me right now and he's a nobody. Because there are a half dozen richer people on this office floor. It's not a secret.