

F. Scott Fitzgerald and living on $500,000 a year - splat
http://www.theamericanscholar.org/living-on-500000-a-year/

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percept
Snippets:

"To him saving meant freedom to work on his novels without interruptions
caused by the economic necessity of writing short stories. The short stories
were his main source of revenue."

"Fitzgerald’s income was almost tax free (5.5 percent effective rate), while
today’s taxpayer making $500,000 would probably pay 40 percent in income and
Social Security taxes."

"As he put it, “So the only lesson I learned from it was that my money usually
turns up somewhere in time of need, and that at the worst you can always
borrow—a lesson that would make Benjamin Franklin turn over in his grave.”"

"Fitzgerald did not agree with Chicago School market theory, which is to say,
he did not believe that more sellers means more competition, which means lower
prices. Fitzgerald thought that if you had more sellers they simply raised
prices to whatever they needed to survive. He wrote that Great Neck “became
the most expensive [town] in the world” because the gold rush had lured “too
many food purveyors for the population.”"

"The wolf was at the door. For the next five weeks he went to a large bare
room over the garage and worked 12 hours a day “to rise from abject poverty
back into the middle class.”"

"He wrote to Edmund Wilson, “I really worked hard as hell last winter—but it
was all trash and it nearly broke my heart as well as my iron constitution.”
He wrote that he was “far from satisfied with the whole affair.” A young man
“can work at excessive speed with no ill effect but youth is unfortunately not
a permanent condition of life.”"

"During the 1920s and 1930s, the tax system relied almost entirely on the
honesty of taxpayers. Fitzgerald reported every dollar he had entered in his
ledger. He was impeccably honest in his reporting."

"a friend wrote from France to suggest that Fitz­gerald join the many
Americans living well in Europe on the strong American dollar. The friend
wrote that it cost one-tenth as much to live in Europe: he had just finished
“a meal fit for a king, washed down with champagne, for the absurd sum of
sixty-one cents.”"

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wallflower
Tom Wolfe's "Bonfire of the Vanities" (Going broke on a million a year), p.137

"One breath of scandal, and not only would the Giscard scheme collapse but his
very career would be finished! And what would he do then? I’m already going
broke on a million a year!

The appalling figures came popping up into his brain. Last year his income had
been $980,000. But he had to pay out $21,000 a month for the $1.8 million loan
he had to take out to buy the apartment...

Of the $560,000 remaining of his income last year, $44,400 was required for
the apartment’s monthly maintenance fee… $18,000 for heat, utilities,
insurance and repairs, $6,000 for lawn and hedge cutting, $8,000 for taxes.
Entertaining at home and in restaurants had come to $37,000. This was a modest
sum compared to what other people spent."

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far33d
A young man “can work at excessive speed with no ill effect but youth is
unfortunately not a permanent condition of life.”. - F. Scott Fitzgerald

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10ren
24,000 in 1920 dollars = $ 253,532.93
[http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=24%2C000+in+1920+dollar...](http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=24%2C000+in+1920+dollars+%3D+)

24,000 in 1940 dollars = $ 362,138.28
[http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=24%2C000+in+1940+dollar...](http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=24%2C000+in+1940+dollars+%3D+)

(yes, deflation. the dollar was worth more in 1940 than in 1920 - see the
graph in the first link)

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dcurtis
I find it fascinating that Wolfram Alpha provides absolutely no references for
any of its information.

The author of the article makes comparisons of the costs of tangible goods to
arrive at the 500k number.

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dreish
And bizarre comparisons at that, since the luxury car market can hardly be
expected to be consistent in any meaningful way from 1920 to 2009.

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eru
Technologically, not. Remember that a luxury car is more like a status symbol.

~~~
dreish
Yes, and since 1920 there have been changes in pretty much all the inputs to
the luxury car price function, wealth distribution, production costs of pretty
much everything, and what the Joneses that you're trying to keep ahead of can
be expected to have being the ones that immediately come to mind.

