Just a short note on the “in your face” displays of wealth and unbridled consumerism I’ve been aware of on our travels in California.
I really want to do an in depth survey of people and where they get their money. In contrast to the farm workers, so many others appear to have no limits on their appetite for high end consumer goods.
Especially here in the land of multi-million dollar homes, some of which are mere cottages. I really want to know what these folks do for a living. Are they so far in debt that it no longer matters?
(I can not recall ever having a clue about or any
aspirations for wealth. I was totally in the dark and considered myself lucky to have a job.)
Some of the “campers” here cost well over $100,000 and this RV park is NOT “top of the line” as RV parks go around here. Where DO people get their money?
3 comments:
I think an awful lot of people are in debt up to their eyeballs just to "keep up with the Joneses."
I have wondered that too, Frank. For white people, at least, it seems like there's a cash fountain somewhere that you and I never got clued into. I spent my adult life as one kind or another low-level government worker, and for most of that time it seemed I could never get ahead of the bills. When I finally did get my head above water, I had to retire early, so it was back to poverty row.
Maybe one thing is that a lot of baby boomers inherited their parents' houses, which by the turn of the century had appreciated way high in value. I remember being amazed 30 years ago to overhear people my age talking about having to get a "financial advisor," which seemed ridiculous to me.
I also knew people the same age who were getting married and buying great big new houses at that time, on the same barely-making-it salary I was getting, and wondered how the hell they did it. I finally deduced that those lucky dogs were getting loans and down payments from the Bank of Mom and Dad. Which was the opposite of my situation, an only child supporting a widowed mother.
I also have Saturn in the 2nd House (money) - which is as good an explanation as any, I guess. Ha. But at least I have learned to be happy with what I do have from day to day - so maybe it's been good for my character, at least.
I spent the first half of my Corporate Life representing Banks and running their Collections, Foreclosures and Bankruptcy Departments. Trust and Believe most of these Consumer Addicts are up past their Eyeballs in Debt Load. I never Foreclosed on a Low Income Homeowner in all the Years in the Industry, those who truly recognize Priorities and have to work harder to Qualify for anything that is part of the "American Dream" will not be as cavalier about what could happen when you overextend yourself. Most of them have probably endured Hardship so when they have something of Value they cherish it. These hard core Privileged Consumers could lose it all and just assume that they can do it all over again given the chance to. That said, a lot of people have means and like to flaunt it obscenely. The gap between the Haves and Haves Not in this Country is widening and the result of that isn't going to be Pretty, it already isn't.
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