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Originally Posted by SmokeyJ
Wil I agree with your general criticism of the book (haven't read it, just looked up a quick blurb and lol'd), but I think melk is mainly objecting to your definition of rich. TBH a few seconds of thought should pretty easily tell you that acting rich is not being rich, someone can have tonnes of money and live modestly for a whole lot of reasons.
I think I'm being misinterpreted here. When I say "acting rich" I don't mean living in your mother's basement and buying Rolexes. I mean not caring about price. I think we can all relate to this in terms of something like fast food. If you go to Wendy's, you probably don't really look at the bill, but the reason you don't look at the bill or care about the bill is because it doesn't matter. If the bill is 7 dollars, or 15 dollars, it really doesn't matter. We can scale this up to other things in life, such as clothes, cars, etc. There are people who don't care about the price because it simply doesn't mean anything to them.
I live pretty modestly. I like my electronic gadgets and I like drinking premium alcohol, that's about all I splurge on. I don't live like a miser, but I feel somewhat guilty about spending large amounts of money when I could be saving it for my wife, or my kid's education fund. I think that's what annoys me about the people who view the income level as rich. If I was actually rich I'd buy whatever the hell I wanted because it simply wouldn't matter. That's just not the case.
I know in the end it doesn't matter, I'm just trying to offer a different perspective. I used to think exactly like many of the people in this thread do. I don't do that anymore, and I think if and when many of the younger people hit their mid 30s, they will be surprised how differently they feel about this very topic.
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Originally Posted by Nichlemn
Why can't someone living in a gated community apply similar logic? "We have private schools, housekeepers and nannies. To compare myself to an inner-city single mom simply isn't a comparison". I also like the implicit assumption behind "similar station", like if someone becomes sufficiently poor relative to you, you're allowed to assume they don't exist for the purpose of rating how well off you are.
I just think your example is extreme. We don't have to go out and catch our own food, Nichlemn. I understand your point, but it's so far removed from us that it's unfathomable.
I could actually imagine being absolutely broke, living in government housing and buying food with food stamps. It'd be a stretch, but I could imagine it. Digging a hole in the sand to take a dump in, or collecting rain water so we could have something to drink, I couldn't imagine.