I'm sure people here have seen Cribs on Mtv, right? Anyways, all it is a updated version of Lifestyles of the Rich & Famous and its more geared to the younger generation. It's like this decade is the 80s all over again, the new 'Me Generation.' They gotta have their fancy clothes & shoes from the mall, pink IPods, and fancy cars.
So... does this mean next decade we'll have a new grunge, thrift shop generation???
I'll start with an obvious example: My Super Sweet Sixteen. For those of you who haven't seen this (terrifying) show, it's on MTV, and about sixteen-year-old girls who are from ridiculously wealthy families who throw birthday parties that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. The single episode I watched involved renting out a nightclub, flying to France to go dress shopping (and buying a $5k dress that she'll no doubt only wear once), and a $40k car as a birthday present.
As someone with a great respect for property rights and a strong confidence in the power of the market, "My Super Sweet Sixteen" makes me want to gather the people together and put the aristocracy to the guillotine.
I don't think the Government should step in and do anything about it but I would not mind (and even covertly support) vigilante action.
(I'll supply the shifting black-and-white mask, trench coat and grappling gun. You'll have to bring your own post-traumatic stress and sexual repression.)
Mithrandir86 on
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tuxkamenreally took this picture.Registered Userregular
This type of thing isn't restricted just to celebrities, either; my parents make in the neighborhood of $250k a year, and while we live within our means, we have vastly more than any reasonable person could need. We have a 3.5k square foot house, for example, for four people. We eat out all the time. I would hope that, were I in that position, I'd be living modestly and giving a shit-ton of money away, rather than buying opal earrings for my teenage daughter."Poor" people spend stupid amounts of money on stupid displays of wealth that they really don't have. Television coverage is almost as bad as watching movies, constantly bombarding us with horrific half-truths before they know anything other than that something horrible has happened; as Tool put it, it's no fun 'till someone dies.
I'm not going to comment on the po' folk, and I don't know where your family lives to comment on their housing costs, but: If your family is making a lot of money and is able to purchase that size of house without unduly stretching themselves, you really shouldn't complain about it.
- It's better to have the extra space and not need it rather than get 'just' enough and find that you don't have the space you need for guests, more kids, expansion, so on. Yeah, 3.5K is pretty darn big, but it's there if you need it or want it. (Or want to start a bed and breakfast.)
- Your parents have their own personal reasons for purchasing that place. Maybe they were in smaller places growing up, maybe they wanted the best possible house for their children, et cetera.
- Considering their income, even if they did give a lot of money away, it wouldn't exactly be altruistic--it would provide a significant tax benefit to do so.
Basically, if you're in that position, sure, do what you want with your personal income--but by all means, take care of your own first. You don't work up to that impressive of a joint income for the sole purpose of spraying it indiscriminately amongst the poor; you do it to take care of your family. If that manifests in a big house and a lot of dinners, so be it. Not everybody works hard primarily to give it all away.
And you believe that after another 50 years of this kind of class division and economic entrenchment that we won't be seeing scenes reminiscent of pyramid-building in ancient Egypt? Because that's basically what it will amount to.
The pyramids of Egypt--most likely produced by slave labor under working conditions that would make Auschwitz seem like a holiday in Belize--are a wonder of the world.
You are aware of the fact that we know very little about the construction of the pyramids let alone the treatment of the slaves who constructed it. Even the number and ratio of slaves to farmers after the crop was collected is unknown.
That's why I put in "most likely" but you are right, we don't really know and I know less than "we". My point was more that not everyone agrees that class division, economic entrenchment or pyramid building are necessarily bad things--I do but lots of people like pyramid building.
themightypuck on
“Reject your sense of injury and the injury itself disappears.”
― Marcus Aurelius
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So... does this mean next decade we'll have a new grunge, thrift shop generation???
As someone with a great respect for property rights and a strong confidence in the power of the market, "My Super Sweet Sixteen" makes me want to gather the people together and put the aristocracy to the guillotine.
I don't think the Government should step in and do anything about it but I would not mind (and even covertly support) vigilante action.
(I'll supply the shifting black-and-white mask, trench coat and grappling gun. You'll have to bring your own post-traumatic stress and sexual repression.)
I'm not going to comment on the po' folk, and I don't know where your family lives to comment on their housing costs, but: If your family is making a lot of money and is able to purchase that size of house without unduly stretching themselves, you really shouldn't complain about it.
- It's better to have the extra space and not need it rather than get 'just' enough and find that you don't have the space you need for guests, more kids, expansion, so on. Yeah, 3.5K is pretty darn big, but it's there if you need it or want it. (Or want to start a bed and breakfast.)
- Your parents have their own personal reasons for purchasing that place. Maybe they were in smaller places growing up, maybe they wanted the best possible house for their children, et cetera.
- Considering their income, even if they did give a lot of money away, it wouldn't exactly be altruistic--it would provide a significant tax benefit to do so.
Basically, if you're in that position, sure, do what you want with your personal income--but by all means, take care of your own first. You don't work up to that impressive of a joint income for the sole purpose of spraying it indiscriminately amongst the poor; you do it to take care of your family. If that manifests in a big house and a lot of dinners, so be it. Not everybody works hard primarily to give it all away.
Games: Ad Astra Per Phalla | Choose Your Own Phalla
That's why I put in "most likely" but you are right, we don't really know and I know less than "we". My point was more that not everyone agrees that class division, economic entrenchment or pyramid building are necessarily bad things--I do but lots of people like pyramid building.
― Marcus Aurelius
Path of Exile: themightypuck