I would have to say that, up until yesterday when I watched Capitalism: A Love Story, the sum total of my formal education in the study of economics came from Ump’s Fwat – an odd little publication distributed by The Collegiate School that is intended to introduce children to the ideas of supply and demand, marketable ideas, and profit. In re-reading it as an adult, it clearly has its fair share of innuendo, as well, and I am a bit puzzled as to why I didn’t notice it in 7th grade. Just to give you an idea, here’s a little snippet:
Anyway, so I watched C:ALS, and it pissed me off so badly because it once again forced me to think outside my little bubble of reality and consider the ongoing plight between the haves and the have-nots. I suppose if money is the ultimate denominator, then I would be considered a have-not in this equation. I live paycheck to paycheck, I thrift everything, I flip stuff on ebay from time to time. I get my bills paid. I don’t rinse out baggies, though. That’s kind of gross. I do a fine job of getting by, of course with the occasional rough patch. That’s life. I do pride myself on one very important decision that I made when I bought my house. I took the 30-year fixed at the higher interest rate. I could have taken the ARM and gotten a lower payment and a bigger house, but I didn’t. I had enough sense to know that it would be better to have a consistent, albeit higher, house payment and not worry that it would start to escalate when the rate adjusted. I did NOT allow myself to fall into that trap.
I’m not even really sure where to jump into this discussion, because it is cyclical and there are clear sides to be chosen. The basic premise of this movie is that it documents the predatory lending tactics that led to current housing free-for-all. Banks offered sub-prime loans to people so that they could have everything they wanted immediately, and then when they came to collect on their loan-sharkery, they ended up having to break everyone’s kneecaps, and now these banks have more foreclosures on their hands than Carter has liver pills. The haves would argue that people should not try to live beyond their means and if they aren’t paying their bills they deserve to have their homes taken away. The have-nots would argue that they were led to believe that the payments would remain affordable even after the rate adjusted. At least that’s what they WOULD say if they weren’t otherwise engaged in trying to mitigate the abject mastication of the entirety of their existence. Meanwhile, the haves are buying up these foreclosed homes for pennies on the dollar, often still filled with the belongings of the previous occupants.
Banks have lost bunches and bunches of money, but that’s okay because we magically minted billions of dollars to bail them out so they wouldn’t have to miss out on their learjets and annual bonuses (there is plenty of money to bail these predatory pederasts out of their self-imposed financial fisting, but I may have to give blowjobs in order to raise money for my son’s marching band, so it’s clear where the nation’s priorities are, but I digress)
We, as a country, have become so obsessed with having things, that we have lost sight of the importance of the process of being alive. Instead of being rich in experience, we would rather be rich in things. I submit to you the ultimate in useless indulgences…granite countertops.
Granite countertops come from HUGE chunks of igneous rock that are harvested tons at a time and shipped to places that slice the rock and make it shiny. People pay tens of thousands of dollars to have a shiny rock as a countertop. Granite countertops provide no significant improvement to the quality of our lives that would justify the exorbitant cost, so the benefit is strictly cosmetic. People are willing to piss their money away to buy a big, shiny, pretty, flat rock so that people will know that they are able to afford a big, shiny, pretty, flat rock.
A much nicer FWAT, if you will (although, I could at least hit people with a FWAT, thereby significantly improving the quality of my life).
I was once told by a have, “my remodel cost more than your house.” I wasn’t really sure how to respond to that. It’s true, but certainly not anything she should be proud of. I suppose it was intended to remind me that I have less money than she does, but the reality is that I am not missing anything in my life that matters. I have a ridiculously abundant life that ISN’T coin-operated and I own it free and clear. Mine is a wealth that is a sustainable resource and it won’t end up in a landfill someday, and I don’t have to tap into my equity to make it better than it already is. It is an interesting dichotomy that the person that insists on spending large sums of money to get many, many things, can’t and won’t ever be able to GET the things that are most valuable.
Life should not be taken for granite.
I guess what it boils down to is this: Do what makes you happy and live within your means. If you can’t afford it, don’t buy it. Don’t borrow money that you don’t need, and you won’t have trouble that you don’t want.
