The Economy

[sivartrenrag]

Wild. Within a few hours was convinced she was talking to a "CIA agent" and that her identity had been linked to cartel/terrorist activities, and that the *only* way to protect her money was to give it in a shoebox to some guy in the back of a tinted SUV without telling her husband or police or lawyer.

I wonder, do most married couples have only joint finances, mostly joint, or mostly separate? We only deposit enough our joint to pay for monthly mortgage+bills, but our savings and investments are separate. Just can't get comfortable with the idea that someone who isn't me could withdraw tens of thousands at once, and can't even think of a scenario where i'd want/need to, let alone have someone do it in my stead.

Imagine doing Super Secret Spy Stuff, where the Super Spy ordered to protect your assets gives you a case number for your records, and then googling the case number and expecting it to turn up some kind of public result.

 

[DurhamSon]

Astounding stupidity. Holy shit.

Yeah, a lot of the subtext around this seems to be of the nature I'm a smart white collar, young, educated journalist and even I was conned with how sophisticated these scams can be! and it's like, no, you're actually pretty stupid for falling for this once you hear the details

 

[physicsfactor]

If you were stupid enough to fall for something like that, don’t be even stupider and tell everyone!

 

[Topher]

The last thing I'd ever do if I got scammed is tell a soul, much less all of the internet.

 

[SeanMayTriedToEatMe]

Will never do joint account. I handle all bills minus a few, and track the monthly amount I’m owed to cover half.

 

[physicsfactor]

We have joint banking. In our state anything we earn is split 50% by law anyway. There is certainly the risk of her taking out a giant amount without my prior knowledge, but I have fraud alerts set to notify me of such transactions anyway.

 

[rhfarmer]

Joint. My wife can take it all out and I'll just start over.

 

[rhfarmer]

ETA, not that I want her to, I clearly outkicked my coverage.

 

[rhfarmer]

*They read the boardz*

 

[aiw]

This almost exact thing happened to my 74 year old uncle last year. He lives in Vegas and got an email that his computer was hacked and to call a number before his accounts were accessed and drained. There was a number to call and he called it and spoke to someone that then connected him with the "FBI". He took all of his money out of the bank and even cashed in almost all of his portfolio. He then wired the money to a "safe account". He lost $700K. He is moving to Charlotte to live near my mom and brother because he can't be out there alone anymore.

The most astounding thing is that his financial guy didn't even try to put on the brakes on him cashing in 100s of 1000s of dollars from his 401K.

 

[SeanMayTriedToEatMe]

Now that I think about it, I guess if you have separate brokerage accounts, having a joint cash account that contains only 1-5% of your net worth isn’t insane. That’s probably fine to be robbed of randomly one day.

 

[DurhamSon]

This is crazy, right? Alums, are you encouraging your children to apply? I can't imagine the differential in career earnings for attending Duke vs. Public-U is ever going to come close to surpassing the tuition differential invested in a custodial account long term at this rate.

What's the argument, anyways? Is Duke even considered on the level of feeder schools for finance/banking that HPYSC is? I didn't think it was, so then the argument has to come down to better admission % into the professional/graduate program of choice, which again i'm skeptical of.

 

[Topher]

No college is worth it at that cost.

 

[bfactor]

Does anyone actually pay full sticker price that isn't already coming from a family that would donate multiples of that amount anyway? These cost of attendance numbers always seem so arbitrary and meaningless.

 

[bdotling]

This is crazy, right? Alums, are you encouraging your children to apply? I can't imagine the differential in career earnings for attending Duke vs. Public-U is ever going to come close to surpassing the tuition differential invested in a custodial account long term at this rate.

What's the argument, anyways? Is Duke even considered on the level of feeder schools for finance/banking that HPYSC is? I didn't think it was, so then the argument has to come down to better admission % into the professional/graduate program of choice, which again i'm skeptical of.

All the banks recruited at Duke when I was there

 

[SeanMayTriedToEatMe]

If you have a half decent flagship state school (basically anyone who lives outside the Bible Belt, Deep South and Frontier West), there’s no way any sane person with not-unlimited resources could advise going to Duke at full tuition over those schools. I’d rather my kids end up at basically ANY in-state public over any full tuition school.

Freakanomics had a podcast recently about how college on average was on the fringe of being no longer worth attending at all.

 

[surfpenguin]

At this point it's all about maintaining the network right? Go to Harvard to stay in the wealthy people network to give each other jobs? Where does Duke land in the wealthy people network?

 

[SeanMayTriedToEatMe]

 

[Devilsforlife]

$35,800 on wedding/engagement ring is absolute madness to me.

 

[DurhamSon]

I’d love to see the math on the car purchases, unless this is projecting forward and a RAV4 or w/e is supposed to cost 75,000 dollars in ten years I guess?

Also 15,000 per year per child seems wrong unless you’re enrolled in private school that whole time? If so you shouldn’t have an 800,000 dollar house.