Yosemitebabe makes sense. It doesn’t behoove any of us with electricity and computers to be doing too much heavy criticizing and judging. I wonder if the money I spent on Earthlink this month or even SDMB could have saved a life - literally saved a life. But if I let that reality get too close to me, I’ll go beserk.
Like Lamar Mundane*, I am extremely skeptical about the $12,000 figure. I think the OP’s friend is unfamilar with what fine clothes actually cost and what the rich actually spend on clothing. They didn’t get rich that way.
My cousin was a pauper by some standards I suppose, but he left behind assets of about $25,000,000. Yet he had his shoes resoled. They were expensive shoes and he was no fool.
I just visited Brooks Brothers’ website, distributors of quality manufactured suits, made in 1st World countries like Italy. http://www.brooksbrothers.com/suits/landing_suits.tem
The prices range from $500 (“tailored in Italy”) to $900.
Question for the OP: How old is your friend? Are you certain he wasn’t pulling your leg or using hyperbole? This story is a little strange.
Apropos nothing, here’s a quick calcuation: US GDP per capita US, 1995 (1987): about $21,000 or .57 “suits”.
Madagascar GDP per capita: about $380.
$380* .57 =about= $220.
Value of M4M’s weekend outfit < $220 < Value of M4M’s suit.
Sure, but a huge chunk of the population in 1st world countries could be criticized in the same way. But Lib singles out the OP. By criticizing the OP, isn’t Lib himself being obnoxious, and opening himself up to criticism?
Also, Lib’s posts seemed unecessarily mean-spirited. Then again, this is the Pit…
You’ll notice that my first post was conciliatory and retrospective in tone. I was hoping to share with him the benefit of my half-century of life experience. He responded basically by telling me to go screw myself and still blamed his friend for his own fucked up worldview. Given the circumstances, wouldn’t you agree that I have been more than patient?
I don’t think his worldview is that fucked up. Furthermore, I don’t think anyone who was treated in such a rude way by a friend really has any incentive to be patient with anyone.
Lib, that wasn’t what I meant, and you know it. This guy is financially in a bad way, and his friend proceeded to wave his wealth in the guy’s face. That merits a pitting alone. Walking in and immediately starting to pick apart his worldview without any aknowledgement of his friend’s rudeness is just a little cold, wouldn’t you say?
No, I don’t see you as being patient with caphis at all. You seem more like you have an axe to grind on this issue, and s/he turned up as a good target for you.
More importantly, back to the OP. What you might consider, caphis, is telling your friend that it’s important to earn your degree on your own, but any contacts he could supply you with to get a good job after college would be much appreciated. I’m with you on not taking the money - it would complicate a friendship too much for me. I could take money from my parents, but not from friends. There is a difference.
He is NOT financially in a bad way. He has a place to live, a car, and clothes. He works and goes to school (if I recall correctly). He is better off than a billion other people. And his friend was not rude. His friend offered to give him money. Not loan. GIVE. But Caphis took that as an insult and came here to pit his unfortunate friend. Being jealous of his friend’s good fortune is bad enough, but damning him if he doesn’t and damning him if he doesn’t is crazy. Caphis will not even acknowledge he is no different from his friend when compared to people who really are poor. He thinks its okay for him to have a living standard above others, but not okay for others to have a living standard above him. And that’s what riles my ass.
When you crawl up a woman’s dress, it is inaccurate to say that she waived it in your face. See, that’s why I said early on that the whole story is fishy. You cannot have an actual friend who is rich beyond avarice while you don’t know about it. An acquaintance, perhaps. A pen pal, maybe. But not someone you know.
Yes, it’s none of your business. Just because you’re eating scraps and that other guy is throwing steaks away because he doesn’t like their shape, it’s none of your business. Paying attention to people who have plenty when you have little or nothing just makes for bad feelings. (Makng Jedi hand wave) Pay no attention. This is not the rich guy you are looking for. Ignore him. Not ignoring him is class warfare … or something.
I keep thinking that caphis and his friend had a factual misunderstanding of some sort.
His friend meant to say $1200, (could be more!) for a suit. Not $12,000. Hey, what’s an extra digit among friends?
Oh and I agree with Evil Captor, assuming that I understand him correctly. Our purchases have a moral dimension, insofar as morality is based upon the consequences of our actions. Alternatively, one could take note of Mark 10:23-26:
“…How difficult it is for those who have money to enter God’s domain!.. Children, how difficult it is to enter God’s domain! It’s easier for a camel to squeeze through a needle’s eye than for a wealthy person to get into God’s domain!”
(Luckily, “…everything’s possible with God”. PC users, rejoice.)
Frankly, I don’t give a shit what “riles your ass”. Your arrogant tone in your replies has far overshadowed any point you tried to make with me, and you left nothing but a bad taste in my mouth from your first reply.
You took any quick shot you could at me, for absolutely no reason, you made assumptions about my life and about how I think, and accused me of lying (which merited a collective “wtf?” from the readers) for no reason. That makes you an ass.
My point was that some people seem to think that wealth can and should make no difference among friends, or among people, and that it’s wrong to take note of that fact in one’s daily life and one’s personal life. Sorry. We live in a world where some people starve to death for want of moey and some people can afford to buy their own personal jet aircraft. That’s really fucked up. We can all try to behave as if relative wealth makes no difference – after all, people would really be on your case if you were complaining about how your poor friend is always whining about not getting enough to eat – but in the real world, money matters. As George Bernard Shaw once said, “Of course the rich are different from the rest of us – they have more money.”
Lib singled out the OP because the OP felt entitled to single out his rich friend. The OP figured that he could criticize how someone else spent his own money, and Lib was pointing out that if you want to dish it out (criticism), you’d better be able to take it.
For a rich to do literally do that (throw away perfectly good food while someone right in front of him is starving), is indeed heartless and clueless. But that’s not all that is happening here, and that’s not what I’m talking about.
For a rich guy to be callous and devil-may-care in front of a grindingly poor friend, to literally “rub his nose in it” is really crappy. I think that the OP’s friend did a touch of that, just a touch of it, and for that he (the OP’s friend) is oblivious and clueless. And that part of the OP’s rant is not out of line.
But the rest of it is NOT THE OP’s BUSINESS. To start bitching about how this guy spends his money on this and not that, (and how the rich guy’s spending is not “justified”) is out of line. If this rich guy wants to spend money on clothes, he can do so. Because it’s his money and he doesn’t have to answer to anyone else about how he spends it. Just like my dad’s book collection is not anyone else’s business.
Or, do you think that everyone and their sister is entitled to chime in and tell my family how much money we can spend on books? Or tell us that the money we’ve spent on books could be better spent on something else? Is this what you think?
Yeah, for the most part, yeah. Their good fortune takes nothing away from you, as long as they:
didn’t steal from you.
don’t owe you money that they are refusing to pay pack (instead buying fancy suits or books, as the case may be).
Aren’t literally crushing starving orphans under their boots as they throw away steaks.
Feeling outraged at how other people spend money or begrudging other people their good fortune makes you a bitter, ungracious person. And, as mentioned above, makes you open to the same sort of scrutiny. So, tell me. What have you spent money on lately? I’m sure some of it is not “justified.” So let’s all pore over your spending habits and pick them apart, shall we?
And while we’re at it, you’ve made some money selling artwork, so you tell us—the people who spent that money to buy your goods—I’m sure they could have spent their money much more wisely, right? They could have given that money to the poor and needy instead of spending it on something completely non-essential, non-life-sustaining. I’m sure there are people who have told your clients (or potential clients) that they could spend their money in a far more “justifiable” way, rather than buy something from you. So I guess we should begrudge you getting that money for your work. It could have been spent on something far more worthwhile and “justifiable.”
When my dad was in college, he got in a frat to try and network (seeing as how he was an orphan with two pairs of pants to his name and wanted to be a doctor). One of the guys there was the kid of someone who owned a chain of retail stores. He got a box of new, clean, very expensive clothes every week from his parents. The reason for this being that he didn’t “believe” in doing laundry. So instead of cleaning his clothes, or even taking them home to have them cleaned for his sorry lazy ass, he just threw them away. My dad suggested giving them to charity once, and the guy took offense because poor people shouldn’t be able to dress that well. He washed out of school, and a few years later out of life, owing to myriad addictions his parents financed for him.
Never heard of dumpster diving, had he? (Boy do I wish I were at that guy’s college back then and could wear his clothes. Hello dumpster diving indeed!)
Hmmm… I don’t see “screw yourself” in there anywhere. Of course in your response to this you call him an idiot, presumptuous turd, you accuse him of wanting his own debts forgiven while calling in everyone who owes him (WTF is THAT all about?) AND you accuse him of making up the OP in the first place.
I guess that’s what one gets for ‘disagreeing’ with how someone else spends their money. :rolleyes:
C’mon, if I call a guy who’s stealing stuff a thief, I’m dishing out criticism, but that HARDLY forms the basis for an assault on my character.
Actually my analogy was pretty durned close. It’s all about the waste. The rich guy is pointing out that he’s wearing 12,000 suits when the othre guy is scraping to get by – maybe his annual income is $12,000. So he’s mocking the poor guy’s struggles, just as a wealthy guy tossing away steaks might be mocking a poor guy’s hunger. Exact same thing.
I think he did a lot of it.
C’mon, Yosemitebabe. $12,000 suits? What, were $1,000 suits just NOT GOOD ENOUGH for him? Jeebus, I have no idea what a $12,000 suit must entail … lotta taffeta I’d imagine. Maybe a tiara. I think it’s fair enough to look at crap like that and say … “Jeebus, get a clue.” And for the record, I also mock collectors of, well, records, baseball, comics, books, and other such stuff for buying crap at ridiculous prices, but you know what? They’re STILL much better than this rich guy, because the things they buy may well appreciate in value and thus be a way of building wealth, which I’m not against. Whereas I think a $12,000 suit drops in value the minute it walks out of the store, and especially if you go commando in it a couple of times.
I think I answered that in my post above. I might well be mocking your asses big time.
Oh, but it does. In anything but a growing economy, when someone else grabs a bigger piece of the pie, everybody has to make do with a smaller piece. That’s what’s wrong with the U.S. economy right now… the rich people are grabbing too much of the pie.
Feeling personally outraged, maybe, but feeling outraged on behalf of society makes you a fine, upstanding person, a beacon of fairness and justice. We’ve got too many folks who are willing to ignore social injustice and inequality 'round here.
Like most poor and middle class people, I blow all my money on food, shelter and clothing every fucking month. It’s disgustamating.
Hardly. My art is likely to appreciate in value, thus enriching those who buy it. Plus, at $15 or $20 a pop, I’m not breaking anybody’s bank account.
Plus, at $15 or $20 a pop, I’m not breaking anybody’s bank account.