Author Topic: Hasselhoff is broke despite earning $112k/month... because he spends it all  (Read 12395 times)

shelivesthedream

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http://www.mirror.co.uk/3am/celebrity-news/david-hasselhoff-claims-hes-completely-8012340

http://www.tmz.com/2016/05/20/david-hasselhoff-broke-pamela-bach-divorce/

http://www.people.com/article/david-hasselhoff-less-than-liquid-assets

He wants to stop paying spousal support because he only has $4k in his bank account. From various articles:

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While he makes around $112k a month, he claims he spends over half of that and then his ex gets the rest.

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According to court documents obtained by TMZ, Hasselhoff has $1.79 million in real estate, retirement savings, cars and other items.

Bach, who currently gets $252,000 a year from her ex reportedly claims the actor is worth more than $120 million and is still working.

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"I currently have less than $4,000 in liquid assets and have recently had to withdraw additional funds from my retirement plan in order to pay for my living expenses," the actor explains in legal docs obtained by PEOPLE.

Cry me a river.

VaCPA

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I think a lot of wealthy people become so accustomed to their lavish lifestyles they are incapable of adapting when their income streams dry up. Seems to happen to athletes a lot. No sympathy obviously but it's kind of sad to see these people who are so horrible at managing their money. Although he's just a moron because his income hasn't dried up yet.

JAYSLOL

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I just came here to see if someone already posted this or not.  Absolutely no sympathy from me for him or his wife, and it kind of feels awesome to realize i have more in just my checking account than he has total liquid assets, and i've never made close to $112k a year, much less a month.  LOL.

former player

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He's doing everything he can to minimise the payments he needs to make to the ex so that he can make hay with his new honey.

In other words, I don't believe a word of it.

retiringearly

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Please, please, please, do not hassle the Hoff


forummm

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He's doing everything he can to minimise the payments he needs to make to the ex so that he can make hay with his new honey.

In other words, I don't believe a word of it.

+1

MgoSam

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He's doing everything he can to minimise the payments he needs to make to the ex so that he can make hay with his new honey.

In other words, I don't believe a word of it.

+1

Yup! Just like 50 cent, who's trying to claim poverty to avoid paying a women that he lost a case to.

KodeBlue

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I still don't understand why a woman should be paid a salary for having once been married to someone.

K-ice

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They have now been divorced for over 10y.

The children are grown.

And I believe they already split their assets & his Bay Watch pension.

http://okmagazine.com/uncategorized/david-hasselhoff-ex-wife-settle-divorce-terms/

I do not think you should have to pay Spousal support forever.


 

protostache

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I still don't understand why a woman should be paid a salary for having once been married to someone.

Here's an 83 page treatise on that very subject. The abstract:

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Although alimony has long been a feature of divorce law, there is no
theory explaining why either spouse should have a financial obligation to
the other that survives their marriage. Explanations based on gender roles,
or assessments of blame for the marriage's failure, are inconsistent with
modern attitudes. More recently, commentators and courts have suggested
that contract orpartnership concepts explain alimony obligations. In Part
I of this Article, Professor Ellman demonstrates the inadequacy of theories
that use analogies to contract or partnership to explain orjustify the imposition
of alimony obligations. In Part II he offers a new theory of alimony
based on a societal policy of encouraging sharing behavior in marriage by
requiring compensation, at divorce, for the loss in earning capacity arising
from such sharing behavior. Employing three basic principles, subsidiary
rules, and numerous examples, Part 11 develops this general policy into a
comprehensive theory.

forummm

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I still don't understand why a woman should be paid a salary for having once been married to someone.

It made more sense back when we didn't let women have jobs. Now, it's really a case-by-case thing as to whether it makes sense or not. But laws are slow to update.

BlueHouse

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I still don't understand why a woman should be paid a salary for having once been married to someone.
Sometimes when people pair up to become a team, they divide responsibilities in a way that is efficient or fits some other need of them as "the team" but that wouldn't be ideal for both of them if they were still singles.  Often, one of them makes more of a sacrifice in one area of their life in order to make the team stronger.  This could mean staying home to raise a family or simply reducing work to support the other's career.   

In an industry where earning potential is so greatly affected by youth and looks you might argue that giving up those few years could justify a salary for life.   

woopwoop

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I still don't understand why a woman should be paid a salary for having once been married to someone.
It's not just a woman, the high earner is supposed to be paying the low earner. It's because a lot of the time, the low earner gave up their salary in order to support the family in other ways (rearing a child being the main one). After years of being a SAHP, the low earner has a permanent setback - they don't have as much experience as the breadwinner, and gave up those years of working and getting raises, so that even if they DO manage to get a job, it will be at a much lower salary than if they had continued working.

I don't agree with it being applied with a wide brush to any and all cases, but as a general rule it makes sense. Don't like it? Get a prenup.

TheAnonOne

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I still don't understand why a woman should be paid a salary for having once been married to someone.
It's not just a woman, the high earner is supposed to be paying the low earner. It's because a lot of the time, the low earner gave up their salary in order to support the family in other ways (rearing a child being the main one). After years of being a SAHP, the low earner has a permanent setback - they don't have as much experience as the breadwinner, and gave up those years of working and getting raises, so that even if they DO manage to get a job, it will be at a much lower salary than if they had continued working.

I don't agree with it being applied with a wide brush to any and all cases, but as a general rule it makes sense. Don't like it? Get a prenup.

For a time maybe... 10+ years after the kids are raised?

mm1970

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I still don't understand why a woman should be paid a salary for having once been married to someone.
It's not just a woman, the high earner is supposed to be paying the low earner. It's because a lot of the time, the low earner gave up their salary in order to support the family in other ways (rearing a child being the main one). After years of being a SAHP, the low earner has a permanent setback - they don't have as much experience as the breadwinner, and gave up those years of working and getting raises, so that even if they DO manage to get a job, it will be at a much lower salary than if they had continued working.

I don't agree with it being applied with a wide brush to any and all cases, but as a general rule it makes sense. Don't like it? Get a prenup.

For a time maybe... 10+ years after the kids are raised?
I can't speak for every relationship or state, but...I have a friend who divorced many years ago after being married for 10 years.  We are in California.  Her husband made a lot more money than she did, and of course, she made sacrifices in her career for him.

She was granted alimony, for a length of time equal to the marriage (or half the time?  My memory is fuzzy).  So that makes a bit of sense to me - basing the alimony length on the marriage length.

joleran

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For a time maybe... 10+ years after the kids are raised?

I think it's something that has to be taken case-by-case.  Consider a couple that has someone who's stayed at home for 30 years and is therefore more or less unemployable as anything other than laborer or lowest level office staff.  If the couple has no assets to split, how are they supposed to live on their own without alimony?  But if they have $10mm of assets that can be split, maybe alimony is more gratuitous than not.

woopwoop

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For a time maybe... 10+ years after the kids are raised?
Like someone else said, case by case. I'd think that it would make sense to have a decreasing amount of alimony over time so that it's phased out but of course it depends. If the low earner dropped out of law school to raise children, for example, it would be nearly impossible to ever get back on the track they were on before they sacrificed their job ambitions for different priorities. On the other side, if the breakup is the low earner's fault (adultery or the like), I wouldn't want them to get a damn penny.

TheGrimSqueaker

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For a time maybe... 10+ years after the kids are raised?
Like someone else said, case by case. I'd think that it would make sense to have a decreasing amount of alimony over time so that it's phased out but of course it depends. If the low earner dropped out of law school to raise children, for example, it would be nearly impossible to ever get back on the track they were on before they sacrificed their job ambitions for different priorities. On the other side, if the breakup is the low earner's fault (adultery or the like), I wouldn't want them to get a damn penny.

Then of course it's important to consider whether the high earner would have been able to *be* a high earner without access to another adult's full-time unpaid labor. Anyone who has to travel a lot for work, for example, is simply not going to be able to raise children effectively, and hiring someone else to do the work takes a lot away from the 'stash as we all know. That advantage put the high earner on a higher career track early on, and that high earner will continue to benefit from the low earning partner's time and resource investment for the rest of his or her life. The benefit doesn't stop just because the marriage does.

Also, if the marriage happened prior to a major educational push such as medical school, where one partner works a low-end job in order to put the other partner into a high-earning position, then I really wouldn't consider the low-earning partner as having abrogated his or her rights to a share of the goodies even if the low earner was the one to sabotage the marriage. We've all seen and heard of the stereotypical medical couple: two young undergraduates commit matrimony, one finds work as a nurse, nurse works nights and weekends putting the other through medical school to cover living expenses and a portion of the book and lab fees, medical student completes surgical internship, surgeon makes bank, surgeon is never home, nurse finds other interests, marriage breaks up, surgeon marries another doctor.

mm1970

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For a time maybe... 10+ years after the kids are raised?
Like someone else said, case by case. I'd think that it would make sense to have a decreasing amount of alimony over time so that it's phased out but of course it depends. If the low earner dropped out of law school to raise children, for example, it would be nearly impossible to ever get back on the track they were on before they sacrificed their job ambitions for different priorities. On the other side, if the breakup is the low earner's fault (adultery or the like), I wouldn't want them to get a damn penny.

Then of course it's important to consider whether the high earner would have been able to *be* a high earner without access to another adult's full-time unpaid labor. Anyone who has to travel a lot for work, for example, is simply not going to be able to raise children effectively, and hiring someone else to do the work takes a lot away from the 'stash as we all know. That advantage put the high earner on a higher career track early on, and that high earner will continue to benefit from the low earning partner's time and resource investment for the rest of his or her life. The benefit doesn't stop just because the marriage does.

Also, if the marriage happened prior to a major educational push such as medical school, where one partner works a low-end job in order to put the other partner into a high-earning position, then I really wouldn't consider the low-earning partner as having abrogated his or her rights to a share of the goodies even if the low earner was the one to sabotage the marriage. We've all seen and heard of the stereotypical medical couple: two young undergraduates commit matrimony, one finds work as a nurse, nurse works nights and weekends putting the other through medical school to cover living expenses and a portion of the book and lab fees, medical student completes surgical internship, surgeon makes bank, surgeon is never home, nurse finds other interests, marriage breaks up, surgeon marries another doctor.
My inlaws divorced after 43+ years of marriage.  Pretty much everything got split, but MIL got a bit more.

She worked and put him through law school. Then she worked as his unpaid legal secretary for decades.  She earned the house for sure.

zolotiyeruki

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$115k/month!?  Yeesh, that's enough to buy an airplane.

LadyStache in Baja

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Just posting to agree with the pro-alimony posters above, and to add that's its not even all about raising children.  It's about supporting the earner, taking a lot of stress off the earner, so the earner can excel.  So that means having dinner ready when E (earner) gets home, doing E's laundry, maybe even ironing.  Clothes shopping for E, doing all vacation planning, etc.  Packing lunches, likely making appointments, maybe doing household bill paying, etc.  All of that frees up brain power for E to kick ass at work and make higher pay, get promoted while young, etc.  And even if you're just arm-candy and don't do any of that, being arm candy takes a lot of time and money!  And it adds to the prestige and therefore earning power of E.  So yeah, that needs to be compensated even if things don't work out.  SAHpartner will never make up that lost time.  And we all know how compound interest works.  Hopefully E is also contributing to SAHP's ira!

MLKnits

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And in many jurisdictions the law is at least trying to be gender neutral--I've gotten spousal support for a husband from a wife when the wife was primarily caring for the parties' child, even, because of the larger circumstances of the case.

It's not there yet, for sure, but it's supposed to be.

I wouldn't even move in with someone without a clear domestic contract waiving all spousal support in both directions, but that's personal to me; I'm glad the laws exist. I've seen too many "I got mine, I'm out" situations where the spouse who made bank because the other was at home taking care of everything else suddenly decides those decades of contribution didn't really mean anything. Imagine you and your partner agreed it made the most sense for them to leap forward in their career and you to drop everything to support that ... and then they hit FI and say "never mind, this is all mine, you start from scratch. At 50, with a 20-year hole in your CV. Good luck!"

Cassie

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Often that alimony allows a former spouse to get an education so they can get a decent job but either way they are behind the 8 ball by being out of the job market for so long and their age.

Villanelle

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Husband and I are good, but if we ever weren't, heck yeah I'd feel like I deserved alimony.  I gave up my career to move overseas for his, where there has been essentially zero chance of me finding professional-level work.  I went from a career where I could have easily supported myself in a simple lifestyle, to zero income, and what will be a 10 year resume gap (minus volunteer work and some private English lessons here and there).  We made those decisions as a team, and as long as we are still a team, it's perfectly fine.  But if we split, I'd be somewhat screwed as far as earnings, while he would have benefitted from my sacrifices.  Hell, I just attended a week of official training, put on by his employer, for my (unpaid) role in the next step in his career, so it's damn hard to argue that I didn't contribute and that those contributions didn't have value.  He's been more successful because of the sacrifices we made together and the choices that the sacrifices allowed him to make  There's no way I should bear the burden of those sacrifices if our marriage ends, while he gets to walk away with the benefits.  Would I deserve alimony for life?  Perhaps not, though certainly that 10 years of not working will almost certainly mean that I'd never get back to a salary I would have had if I'd stayed in the workforce for that decade.  But some alimony for some time?  Yup.

Also, I've known men who got alimony.  Most states seem to have a formula and it's all pretty regulated, making it difficult for gender bias to enter the picture, unless the man himself declines alimony based on his own gender notions.  You plug in the salaries and the time married, and that's it, regardless of gender. 

Reasonable people can certainly disagree, and those people should get a pre-nup. 

Cassie

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The only times i have seen situations with alimony for life is when a vocational expert is hired and examines the job market, skills and ability to learn a new career by the non-working spouse. so if the non-working person does not have the ability to obtain the training to earn a decent living and the other spouse makes lots of $ they may get it for life.  People need to be compensated for their sacrifices. It is only fair.

blue mutant

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In Canada, there are both compensatory and needs based justifications for spousal support. The compensatory model is somewhat analogous to tort settlement; it tries to put the person back in the position they would have enjoyed had they not : stayed out of workforce, moved to support spouse, etc.. Needs based is what it sounds like. Ultimately, courts are trying to meet the objectives set out in the Divorce Act: alleviate disadvantages arising from marriage or separation, alleviate disadvantages from continuing childcare obligations, alleviate economic hardship and lastly encourage self sufficiency within a reasonable period. The last tends to limit indefinite awards but they are still possible after very long marriages.

robartsd

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Simple formula based on salaries and length of marriage are inadequate. I've heard of cases where one spouse (typically male) is supported by annother through school (law or medical). After many years of sacrifice for the career of the other, the marriage breaks up before the spouse who was supported through school launches their lucrative career and the formulas say the supporting spouse (typcially femaie) owes support because they had had been the earner durring the years of marraige.

randymarsh

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So that means having dinner ready when E (earner) gets home, doing E's laundry, maybe even ironing.  Clothes shopping for E, doing all vacation planning, etc.  Packing lunches, likely making appointments, maybe doing household bill paying, etc.  All of that frees up brain power for E to kick ass at work and make higher pay, get promoted while young, etc.  And even if you're just arm-candy and don't do any of that, being arm candy takes a lot of time and money!  And it adds to the prestige and therefore earning power of E.  So yeah, that needs to be compensated even if things don't work out.

Then shouldn't the spouse receiving alimony have to continue doing those things (practicality aside)? Or if we're going to argue that the stay at home spouse allows the working spouse to make more money, then alimony should be based on a reduced amount now that the working spouse has lost this advantage.

I'm not 100% against alimony but I don't like that it can effectively turn people into indentured servants. Child support too technically. If you're the one paying, you *have* to keep making a similar amount of money and have lost considerable flexibility. On the CS side, the government has the ability to force a parent to pay for a child's college. Yet there's no such requirement on married parents.

MgoSam

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Simple formula based on salaries and length of marriage are inadequate. I've heard of cases where one spouse (typically male) is supported by annother through school (law or medical). After many years of sacrifice for the career of the other, the marriage breaks up before the spouse who was supported through school launches their lucrative career and the formulas say the supporting spouse (typcially femaie) owes support because they had had been the earner durring the years of marraige.

There's also situations where the one paying alimony was making a ton of money and now isn't making nearly that much, but are legally obligated to pay the same amount in. The examples that pop into my head are former athletes, but I'm sure there are other cases of this happening.

I completely agree that if a spouse supports another when they are going through school (law/medical/ect), then that should be taken into account.

K-ice

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On the CS side, the government has the ability to force a parent to pay for a child's college. Yet there's no such requirement on married parents.

Yes I find this odd. It must depend on the financial ability of the parents to support the children.

Perhaps, like MMM, some parents believe their kids should be self-sufficient in paying for there college.

However, the courts could force you to go against your beliefs and pay child support and tuition.

I wonder if children of married parents could take take their parents to court to force for tuition to be paid.  Perhaps in some odd 1/2 sibbling case. 

ie. Dad pays for college of first child because he was forced to pay due to a divorce.  The second child, with the same father but happily married, then takes that parent to court for the same level of college funding.

Goldielocks

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Well, two things are clear to me.

Never divorce a non working spouse.
Watch for the 10 year rule.  Don't split at 9 years if you are the disadvantaged spouse. Don't wait to split at 10 years if you are the higher net worth spouse.

But most of all, the wedding vow is a commitment to help support each other all your lives, but you are not absolved morally, even if you divorce.   You need to ensure the best you can that your spouse is able to support themselves.

K-ice

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Never divorce a non working spouse.

I was talking divorce with some colleagues last week. We all know of someone having issues. One colleague, who is kind of a father figure mentor, said his financial adviser gave him 3 pieces of advice.

1) Never divorce your wife
2) Never divorce your wife
3) Never divorce your wife

Luckily, as far as I can tell, he is very happily married, kids, grand children ...




robartsd

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I still don't understand why a woman should be paid a salary for having once been married to someone.

Here's an 83 page treatise on that very subject.

Thanks for sharing. (Note the completed PDF is 83 pages. The 79 pages of the actuall text includes extensive footnotes.) Much of the reasoning in the article make sense to me. Basically it concludes that alimony should be based on the lost earning potential of the spouse that sacrificed professionally for the benefit of the marriage (other spouse's career and/or raising children). The alimony would not be based on the paying spouse's income. Using this reasoning, a divorcee should be entitled to alimony to the extent that they are (seeking to be) employed full-time or are caring for children from the failed marriage (regardless of current marital status).

K-ice

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I still don't understand why a woman should be paid a salary for having once been married to someone.

Here's an 83 page treatise on that very subject.

Interesting, of course many sections should be changed to spouse not just husband and wife.

I had to skip to page 76 to read this section:

"Shouldn't Wives Without Talent Get More Support Than Those With Talent?"

Cringe! Just the thought of judging talent makes me shudder.

One could argue that wives with talent should get more because they gave up more earning potential.

Not a fight, or argument, I would ever want to be a part of.


One could argue that every stay at home parent, regardless of marriage or divorce, should one day be compensated by someone because they sacrificed their career in order to raise children.


robartsd

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Interesting, of course many sections should be changed to spouse not just husband and wife.
Although all the examples were husband/wife with the husband taking the traditional breadwinner role and wife sacrificing career for family; the actual sugested rationale was not gender oriented.

I had to skip to page 76 to read this section:

"Shouldn't Wives Without Talent Get More Support Than Those With Talent?"

Cringe! Just the thought of judging talent makes me shudder.

One could argue that wives with talent should get more because they gave up more earning potential.

Not a fight, or argument, I would ever want to be a part of.
The suggested rational for alimony was NOT need based - the suggestion was that the talented spouse who invested in family instead of career should be compensated more than the less-talented spouse who had less career opportunity to sacrifice.

One could argue that every stay at home parent, regardless of marriage or divorce, should one day be compensated by someone because they sacrificed their career in order to raise children.
I think that most often compesation comes from the direct beneficiaries - their children.

Guses

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Just posting to agree with the pro-alimony posters above, and to add that's its not even all about raising children.  It's about supporting the earner, taking a lot of stress off the earner, so the earner can excel.  So that means having dinner ready when E (earner) gets home, doing E's laundry, maybe even ironing.  Clothes shopping for E, doing all vacation planning, etc.  Packing lunches, likely making appointments, maybe doing household bill paying, etc.  All of that frees up brain power for E to kick ass at work and make higher pay, get promoted while young, etc.  And even if you're just arm-candy and don't do any of that, being arm candy takes a lot of time and money!  And it adds to the prestige and therefore earning power of E.  So yeah, that needs to be compensated even if things don't work out.  SAHpartner will never make up that lost time.  And we all know how compound interest works.  Hopefully E is also contributing to SAHP's ira!

So... who will clothes shop for E, do the vacation planning, pack lunches, make appointments, do the bill paying from now on?

If alimony is a thing, mandatory lunch packing, clothes shopping and dinner making should also be a thing that non E needs to do in order to receive said alimony.

Alimony should only cover basic needs and should max out to what welfare pays at.

K-ice

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One could argue that every stay at home parent, regardless of marriage or divorce, should one day be compensated by someone because they sacrificed their career in order to raise children.
How would you do that exactly?

I was just trying to stir the shit. In practice this would be hard. There is talk of a living wage being provided to everyone. Maybe some Scandinavian countries have this. I am quite left mined in my political views, but this just does not seam to be feasible to me. 

Quote
This of course is effectively the root of the problem. There is no way to value the economic worth of someone being a stay at home and all of the measures that we use are synthetic based upon a list of assumptions. Most people don't have an ideal career and it's not unusual for people to change careers so given opperunity outside of their field that they make the switch for. I'm sure you can see the path that is going down at this point already.

Something we don't account for is that a lot of people would rather be at home with the children as opposed to sitting in a cube all day. A good argument could also be made that the high earner is being deprived of what might be their preferred activity so that they can support the family. This might result in a higher standard of living for the family as a whole at the expense of one party. If such as situation exists then couldn't an argument be made that they stay at home parent has already been intangibly compensated by being able to spend time more time with the children than the other party? If so couldn't that be used as an argument for less compensation in the even of a divorce?

True. Not that staying at home is not "work". But an enviable bond can be created with your children. Something that almost every parent would want if they could. Hence, a lot of us are on this MMM forum ;)

I know a couple where they both had very similar jobs and minimal educations. One made about 10% more; $40K vs $45K. Lets call one Low-earner-looser (LEL).  Baby was born both took some leave for 1y (possible in Canada) then baby 2 was born.  After the leaves were over, the original plan was for full time child care. The higher earner would have loved to stay home. Last second the LEL said they would only work part time, and thanks to shifting schedules and the higher earner's parents free help 4h/day, no child care was needed. One of the reason's for the LEL to earn less was to "pay less tax" and "pay less child support" to ex-spouse. Higher earner naively agreed. 

Although LEL was with the kids from about 1:00-5:00 weekdays. Higher earner was still in charge of morning routine, dinner, bedtime, appointments etc. 

3y later the LEL wants their second divorce. They may now be entitled to child support from higher-earner spouse #2. I know LEL intentionally kept their income lower to pay the first ex less. It wasn't a big secret and I thought they were an a$$ for doing so, & bragging about it.

Both people were on the same trajectory when they met. Same education, same company, LEL even had 2 more year's experience. But even before kids LEL would not take more hours or promotions and high-earner took every chance to move up. I have very strong suspicions LEL knew exactly what they were doing when they dropped down from a manager's job, to hourly, to part time, to "no problem I will watch the kids in the afternoon", while I nap & watch TV. LEL has gamed the system so they may get support from the second higher earner ex.  Their incomes are now about $45K $75K.

High-earner is definitely pissed that they didn't get to spend more time with the kids, and may have to financially pay LEL going forward.

Maybe LEL just doesn't want to work that hard or earn that much. That's fine, but don't expect to get support from high-earner.









   

robartsd

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Something we don't account for is that a lot of people would rather be at home with the children as opposed to sitting in a cube all day. A good argument could also be made that the high earner is being deprived of what might be their preferred activity so that they can support the family. This might result in a higher standard of living for the family as a whole at the expense of one party. If such as situation exists then couldn't an argument be made that they stay at home parent has already been intangibly compensated by being able to spend time more time with the children than the other party? If so couldn't that be used as an argument for less compensation in the even of a divorce?
This is a good argument against the SAHP alimony.

The article above limited the SAHP portion of alimony to 1/2 the lost earning potential due to sacrificing career (reasoning that each partner should share in this loss) while awarding full losses for sacrifices to benefit the other spouse's career (the parner whose career was favored gets to keep the portion of their increased earning power that is greater than the other partner's loss). In addition to continuing alimony compensating the partner who sacrificed career for the marrige, the article opined that child support should be paid to compensate the parent who continues to provide primary care for the children (in addition to child support paid for their share of other expenses).

gimp

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He's a dumbass, but I'd probably let him fuck me for $252k/year for the rest of my life.

Cassie

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In some states you must support kids until age 21. Usually both parents in divorce agreements  agree to pay for college. Occasionally people are forced but I don't think it is very often.  There was a situation where the mom made almost double the dad but dad still had to pay a big child support. Then dad got laid off and could only find a low paying job and the judge still made him pay big CS. In fact it equaled both his low paying jobs. He took home literally zero. The judge's reasoning was that he should move to a state that had a need for his education. Then he would not see his kids. This was 20 years ago in a medium COL town and Mom was making 100k/year. judges can be very unreasonable. Finally after 2 years and refusing to move he found a job locally in his field but the salary was not very high but at that point he had fulfilled what the judge ordered him to do. In the meantime because for 2 years all his income was taken a grown man had to live with his Mom who was not making much $ either.

JLee

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Just posting to agree with the pro-alimony posters above, and to add that's its not even all about raising children.  It's about supporting the earner, taking a lot of stress off the earner, so the earner can excel.  So that means having dinner ready when E (earner) gets home, doing E's laundry, maybe even ironing.  Clothes shopping for E, doing all vacation planning, etc.  Packing lunches, likely making appointments, maybe doing household bill paying, etc.  All of that frees up brain power for E to kick ass at work and make higher pay, get promoted while young, etc.  And even if you're just arm-candy and don't do any of that, being arm candy takes a lot of time and money!  And it adds to the prestige and therefore earning power of E.  So yeah, that needs to be compensated even if things don't work out.  SAHpartner will never make up that lost time.  And we all know how compound interest works.  Hopefully E is also contributing to SAHP's ira!

I have a hard time believing that someone on this income level has a stay at home spouse doing laundry.

eyePod

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He's 63 years old. Taking money out of his retirement funds is exactly what he should be doing at that point...

Papa Mustache

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In some states you must support kids until age 21. Usually both parents in divorce agreements  agree to pay for college. Occasionally people are forced but I don't think it is very often.  There was a situation where the mom made almost double the dad but dad still had to pay a big child support. Then dad got laid off and could only find a low paying job and the judge still made him pay big CS. In fact it equaled both his low paying jobs. He took home literally zero. The judge's reasoning was that he should move to a state that had a need for his education. Then he would not see his kids. This was 20 years ago in a medium COL town and Mom was making 100k/year. judges can be very unreasonable. Finally after 2 years and refusing to move he found a job locally in his field but the salary was not very high but at that point he had fulfilled what the judge ordered him to do. In the meantime because for 2 years all his income was taken a grown man had to live with his Mom who was not making much $ either.

We used to have a character in our town who supposedly was an educated man who divorced a woman. The judge said he owed her a percentage of his income to her as alimony. So he quit his job and "dropped out" and became a junk man who lived in his truck - or so the local story said...

 

Wow, a phone plan for fifteen bucks!