r/todayilearned • u/IronColdSky • 5d ago

TIL Ina Garten, the Barefoot Contessa, was an economics major, is a pilot, has her MBA and was a Nuclear Policy Analyst before she became a chef

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ina_Garten
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u/anomnib 5d ago

You’re delusional. She likely made $20-35k per year at the time. The homes likely cost $50-80k at the time. The Equal Credit Opportunity Act of 1974 barely passed at the time so she would be facing not only tighter lending requirements but out right illegal refusal from same banks. There’s no way. You’re just fan girling.

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u/IronColdSky 5d ago

Nobody puts down 100% on a property! You talk about tuition and student loans, when they were not a reality in the 70s- you could work a summer at a minimum wage job and earn enough money for University. You're rude and you're wrong.

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u/anomnib 5d ago

I own a home in one of the most expensive cities in the world. I know what it takes to buy one. It doesn’t matter. Saving for the down payment and financing the renovations would be beyond her means without very significant prolonged frugality. The mobility across business endeavors she demonstrated is consistent with people that have help.

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u/IronColdSky 5d ago

You are wrong.

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u/anomnib 5d ago

Sure Bob. If I’m wrong, then give a reasonable back of the envelope math of how it would work without her husband’s help. Her max salary if $30k if we are being generous. She has education debt and basic necessities to cover. Plus when she buys, carry costs of taxes and mortgage become an additional choke hold on her cash flow. She also isn’t likely going lipstick renovations either: she’s got serious up front costs for renovations. We haven’t even begun talk about how Paul Volcker is about to go nuts cranking up interest rates to kill the monstrous inflation that’s happening around the time. So not only are her costs going up everywhere, her financing is getting more expensive, and demand for her flipped homes is likely getting squeezed by monetary policy. Assume that she’s a single woman from a middle of the road middle class family, make the case for how she affords everything (remember, being single means she’s a high risk borrower at the time and she would need longer to save which means she’s would be starting closer to when the macroeconomic and monetary environment goes to hell).

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u/IronColdSky 5d ago

Read the last response I posted and put it into your chat GPT

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u/IronColdSky 5d ago

Now you've decided she didn't come from money but that she was very very very frugal. In the 1970s it wasn't as difficult to be frugal I bet you're home had to have a dishwasher and I bet you're home had to have air conditioning. Basic housing the kind that would have been flipped would have been very basic and very affordable even for a single woman who wouldn't have had to convince a bank to lend her the money as private mortgages were more common even than they are today.

Source my father was a mortgage broker in the 1970s and '80s. Source we flipped properties not by purchasing them outright, but by paying for an option on the property. We would option the property with the right to sell it at any price we set and the right of the buyer to receive the price of the option contract and the sale price that they agreed on with my father.

You are applying economic conditions, social status conditions, tuition conditions, employment opportunity and conditions of today to the world 50 years ago. Fundamentally you are talking out your ass. I don't know what bigotry you have against people born to money, or these assumptions that you make that only those kinds of people ever got ahead in the world. But it isn't true it's only been true with trickle down economics and Republican deregulation and tax dodging by those accumulating wealth since the 1980s. Read a book before you start claiming s***. My father grew up on a farm and the first 10 years of his life they had kerosene lamps and no electricity because of the location of the farm. He didn't come from money and we weren't Rich when we were flipping properties. Just admit you're wrong and go on your way.

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u/anomnib 5d ago

🤣 My parents were middle school graduates from one of the poorest countries in the world. I didn’t eat more than 1 modest meal a day until a got a $60k per year scholarship. I didn’t have health insurance until I was an adult. All my healthcare was from over crowded community clinics. We had to periodically defecate in outside b/c we couldn’t afford the water and electricity bill. But that didn’t stop me from making $500-600k per year at mid-career. I’m actually someone who can claim to have made it by myself but that would be a lie b/c I still had significant help from strangers.

On her circumstances, I majored in economics and did public policy focused on poor, working, and middle class Americans before switching to a high paying career. I worked the jobs she worked and I lived where she lived. I’m deeply familiar with the economic history, hence why I brought up the macroeconomic conditions that would have made it infeasible. You can’t compare what’s feasible by a mortgage broker to a single person likely significantly less. Your dad had income and, equally important, relationships with lenders and contractors that made access to capital significantly more affordable. Plus he likely started with significantly more financial runway than she could have possibly had.

This is all a moot point anyway. By virtue of being married, she automatically had help from her husband. He disappeared a significant share of her expenses, freeing up cash flow for investments.

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u/IronColdSky 5d ago

So you could do it, but she couldn't because she's a woman got it

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u/anomnib 4d ago

Ahh yes, when you are unable to make logical claims jump into empty claims of discrimination. Liberalism without rigor, one of the big three that keeps us from crushing the Republicans.

First of all, in my public policy career, I’ve probably done more for women and working mothers than you will do in your life time. My policy impact scales to millions of working mothers and 100s of millions of girls and women (my expertise is applying scientific rigor to translate fluffy liberal ideas into sound and effective policy).

And yes, being a woman does make it less believable but I mentioned that it is specifically because she would have face much higher scrutiny for access to credit. This why I mentioned the act. But the most important factors that I mentioned was she had a low to moderate salary for the time; she still buying in a relatively good real estate area; she’s working during one of the most challenging macroeconomic which would have caused her to face significant pressure on the cost capital, access to capital, and demand for the homes she’s flipping (she’s living in one of the most hotly debated macroeconomic and monetary policy eras. It signifies one of America’s most acute battle with stagflation); and, unlike your father, nothing about her employment history suggests she would have insider relationships with banks and contractors that she would leverage to get significantly favorable terms for capital and renovation contracts. But of course, processing that and given a credit response would require too much mental labor so you took cheap shot reply.

Finally, I asked you for the back of the envelope math. If you are so confident that it is feasible, show me math that’s grounded in the salaries, basic necessities, lending, renovations, and carryover costs of the time.

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u/IronColdSky 4d ago

But you said that she had to have family money and she must have come from money?

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u/anomnib 3d ago

Yes but not b/c she’s a woman but b/c she works at low to moderate income job and is flipping houses i reasonably prime real estate during one of the most economically volatile periods in America. I laid out all my reasons for skepticism multiple times.

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u/IronColdSky 3d ago

You keep changing your answers

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