Conspicuous Consumption

I live in a state where an Oil boom came right on the coat tails of a land run and statehood.
This created a large number of OIL BARONS at a time when the industrial age was changing us from a agrarian nation to one of industries, factories, and Laissez-faire capitalism.   We had steel barons and mining barons and cotton and cattle and lumber barons.  And in each place that a single man or family dominated that industry in a place, we ended up with a monstrous, castle-like home and a group of larger and more ornate homes that belonged to any others profiting well from parts of that particular area's natural resources and a whole bunch of worker homes--houses both smaller and plainer and and more cheaply made.  
The neighborhood in the city where this oil boom centered (oil capital of the world for years) was a absolutely beautiful area of well-made homes, that between 1912 and 1932 was the home of the richest of the oil and banking world that grew up from the oil boom.

It contained 700 homes.

Today, they are protected as an historical area and range from 1,000 square feet for a couple of hundred thousand dollars to 10,000 square feet for several million dollars.  Not bad in the USA, but, a house in this area that is the the same age is closer to $50 to $150 thousand if in a  traditional worker neighborhood about 5 miles away--depending on size ranging from 1000 to 2000 square foot and how badly it is falling apart. 

One thing has always been true---people buy the best house they can, but if they don't stay healthy and working, they can't pay to maintain it.

The old Barons of industry have now become Wall Street warlords and Bankers and retail magnates and Tech billionaires and in my state at least , still quite a few oil men.  (don't scoff--it's keeping Saudi Arabian royals richer than god.

The newer neighborhoods they have created are even more opulent than the old.

The people working for them that are making better money have enough for cookie cutter McMansions on postage stamp lots.  Their homes costing a quarter of million to get a lot and put up a house (in about a month) that has a lot of covenants and a mandatory home owners association to prevent the rapid decline of the area---or not.  These neighborhoods, planned and thrown up tend to start looking dated and deteriorating in less than 20 years.
The less well paid get to go buy or rent the worker homes constructed over the last hundred years and either live in it till it falls down or spend their spare time trying to maintain it.  Workers are people too.

So why does a family of four need to get a 3 bedroom home unless they are rich, in which case they need multiple homes with enough rooms that they might never make it into some of those rooms during a week, or a month, or a year.  Why do some people have to have a car that cost $100,000 dollars or more when most people drive everywhere they need to go in a car that cost less than $30,000.  Why are there $10 t-shirts and $1,000 dollar t-shirts, $20 dollar shoes and $10,000 dollar shoes, and diamond rings from a few hundred to millions.

Why?

We know that the value of a thing is determined by how much someone is willing to pay for it. 

I prefer an economical car to an economy car, well made jeans to badly made jeans, shoes with good support more than shoes so flimsy they fall apart.

But truly, explain conspicuous consumption.  Explain buying something because everyone knows its higher than it should be just be, so most can't afford it. 

How tragically superficially can we be.

Nimiety!!!😭😭😭

If you don't know this word, neither did I.  I've been saving cool words on pinterest for multiple reasons, and this one means excess: overabundance.

SYNONYMS FOR nimiety

• plethora
• glut
• overflow
• overkill
• overmuch
• oversupply
• profusion
• superabundance
• superfluity
• surfeit
• surplus
• surplusage

I immediately thought of billionaires.

I also thought of income inequality.

https://www.bloomberg.com/billionaires/  is a good site to peruse for who is and isn't a billionaire.  If you aren't on it, well, welcome to the world most of us live in.

Right now, you have to have at least 4.72 billion to be on the Fortune 400 list.

Donald Trump is now about 700 down on the list, so not even in the top 500 which you need over 3 billion to be on.  He is worth about 2 billion now.

A billion is 1,000,000,000.  Just 9 little zeros.  A billion doesn't even get you one the lists.

Our current deficit is over 984,000,000,000.  9 little zeros again, but so much bigger a number. 

1.426 trillion is our current budget for the year.

327.17 million is our current population.

  That is $435,859.03 per man, woman, and child in this country.

The average male annual salary is over 90,000/year.  The average female  annual salary is under 70,000/year.  That is average.  Average being you take all the salaries in the USA, add them together and divide by the total number of salaries paid out.  

The median US salary is under $65,000/year.  The median is the number in which 50% make more and 50% make less.  

The difference between those two has to do with how much a very few people make while a whole lot of people make very little.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/203183/percentage-distribution-of-household-income-in-the-us/

While less than 12% of the population lives under the poverty level, only 8% makes over $200,000/year.  

For many couples making $100,000 to $200,000 a year, they know how far from unlimited wealth they have.  

But, if you are a couple where both have minimum wage jobs, that couple with $150,000/year seems rich.  

That minimum wage couple is making less than $32,000/year.  Hopefully, they have no kids or other dependents or are living in a place with very low cost of living.

Neither of these couples' lifestyles have anything in common with the people with billions.  They don't even have anything in common with people making $435,859 dollars a year, yet that is what we have budgeted for our country.

So, back to NIMIETY.

What do billionaires do with all that?

Buy a plethora of houses?

Eat like gluttons?

Have overflowing savings accounts?  Overflowing closets of designer clothes?

Is there lifestyle overkill?

Do they waste overmuch?

Do they oversupply their children with every toy, trinket and vacation?

You get the drift.

My biggest question is---why is so much in the hands of the few.  Why isn't every employee they have at least well off?

NIMEITY.  

If this word describes you, you might be a selfish, greedy, ungrateful, unsharing twit.  No one has ever made that kind of money alone.  NO ONE.

Dreaming during Covid-19

I don't know about anyone else, but my dream life has gotten bigger and weirder lately.

It might be the increased sleeping, as I really have nothing to make me get up earlier. 

It might be the insidious anxiety that I completely pretend not to have because there is a 97% chance I'll be fine and even better that my children and grandchildren will also be fine.  But.....

It might be the paranoia about Trump/GOP hiding the things they are doing behind a smoke screen of COVID-19 media blitzes.

It might be the butternut soup or spinach enchiladas or german chocolate cake I ate before bed--shades of Scrooge.

Both my granddaughter and sister have complained of weird dreams lately.

So---Is it just us?  Is anyone else out there having a more vivid dream life than real life?

I spent hours wandering around a mall-like hospital, only to finally find my way back to my own office and discover my cats were under the desk, and though still alive, starting to shrivel like little kitten mummies while meowing at me.  I was with my favorite coworker.

I've been retired for 2 years.

My cats are grown, fat, and never went to work either as kittens or grown cats.

I have never worked in a Mall-like hospital.

I woke up early and spent an hour hunting them down and hugging them.  Cats hate being hugged.

I dreamed of the two people that were my big romances, the dream had no romantic parts and was very scary.  I woke up at 3:30 AM and spent two hours playing a candy game online to clear my head.

Dreams, if not written down or told to someone else, fade, fall apart like smoke.
I have awakened with them crumbling at the back of my mind 6 out of 7 mornings for a month now.

All that is left by the next night, is either a relaxed, hope I dream tonight, feeling, or a dread that postpones lights out and causes frequent trips to check doors, closets, or if it was a roaring nightmare the night before, under beds and futons.

These last two months, I've seen people I haven't thought about in years.  I've gone on strange trips with people long dead and done routine housekeeping chores with childhood friends that are still just like the last time I saw them.

This pandemic has killed people.

It has lost people jobs and may be causing homelessness as I write.

It has become the only thing in the news, and has removed from public consciousness such horrors as the lost immigrant children in cages, the homeless, the opiate-addicted, the border wall, income inequality, government corruption (unless it is related to medicine and PPE), the uninsured, the destruction of the environment, and the rights of poor, brown, female, LGBQT, and unreligious.

But, I am fine.  Not F.I.N.E., but fine.  I'm in a safe home, with food and utilities paid and money unchanged from my usual.  I have an occasional cough or sneeze, stopped by allergy meds. (Oklahoma pollen is tough in the spring) 

It's raining a lot, a really wet spring, but not like last year, so the flood that took out my house should not repeat this year---hopefully.

My kids are all still working and getting paid.

My grandkids are doing distance learning--and having homeschooled my  own kids for a bit, I realize that depending on their own parents, might be learning more than usual or not.

Yet, my dreamland is churning out weirdness.  It's disconcerting.

I'm fine.

Stay well, and pleasant dreams.

Dear Teenager

When I ask you what you learned in school today, do not say "nothing".  AND, definitely, don't say "school is boring" "why do I need _____ (fill in the blank with language arts or science, or social studies or history or math or whatever thing you think you should never have to learn about).  AND ABSOLUTELY DON'T SAY,  "I don't need to learn that crap because I'm going to be rich and famous (or a professional athlete, a famous entertainer, or a internet  sensation).

Yes, you learned to use a Smart Phone before you were potty trained, but you couldn't read and were possibly still being breastfed.  You could take a selfie and add filters by kindergarten, but couldn't spell kindergarten. You can find a how-to on any subject on YouTube and have been making cupcakes, houses, cities, worlds and avatars for years now.

BUT.

Can you do anything without an app for that?

You are almost grown.
Smart Cars are not yet here, almost, but not completely.
Cooking food can be learned from a video, but watching a farming video will not provide the ingredients.  Simulated building tools do not let you know how to build a square corner to make a table or a box or a house.  Sometimes you have to fasten things together with more than a click of a mouse or the tap of a screen.

So.  If the world is unplugged.  If the civilization you were born in to, with its amazing gadgets and apps and instantly available entertainment were to suddenly disappear---what would you do?

Would you complain about "nothing to do", "I'm bored", "it's not fair?"

To use tools that you do not understand; not how they are made, not how their parts work, not their history, just how to push the on button and use it, means that when it breaks, you are dependent on someone left that understands all those things.

If there are only books, you need to be able to read and read well.  If you would rebuild the unplugged world well enough and quickly enough to survive, you must know how to follow directions from a book as those videos you love are not working.
So.
Could you eat?  Could you eat after everyone has eaten everything out of the stores?  Could you stay warm without burning down your own shelter?  Could you repair the place you have to live, or do you just go hunt a cave.

And, NO, the internet would not help if you had a solar battery charger.  The internet is not eternal.  You want that decidedly embarrassing photo you posted to go away, no power grid would do it.  Without those people that actually understand how the systems work, it will disintegrate.

I'm old.  I bought my first computer at 32, my first smartphone at 50.  I have never taken a selfie.  I don't know how to edit a YouTube video.  But I can read a blueprint.  I know how to use a square in carpentry and can hand a hammer, screwdriver, and saw.  I know how to fix a leaking pipe or reseal a toilet.  I can grow, preserve, and cook fresh fruit and vegetables starting with nothing but a hoe, dirt, and seed.  I know why you don't make rows going down the side of a slope.  I know not to get water from lower than the septic system.  I know to boil water, and how to distill water.  I know first aid.  Most of that stuff is boring---but it isn't "nothing".

"Nothing" is an app with no power.

Your smart phone should not be the smartest thing about you.  Right now, the world is pretty easy for a lot of people. But there are still people without smart phones and tablets and laptops.  Some of them still have a flip phone.  Some of them have a land line.  Some of them don't have any phone or even a bed to sleep in.

Life isn't fair.

You are not guaranteed a lifelong WiFi connection or a smartphone or even a bed in this country.

Right now, you are guaranteed an opportunity to get an education, and while it doesn't contain some stuff it should, like first aid, cooking, cleaning, clothing care, basic life skills, personal finance, and even a little home repair, it does have the basics, reading, writing, (no longer cursive, but at least writing with both a keyboard and a pencil.)  It covers social studies, both maps and graphs, history, at least some of it, political science, basic sciences, and all the math you can take in.  And yes, you need math.  Life may give you a calculator, but it doesn't tell you how to find out how big a rug you need or how to double a recipe or whether you are going to run out of gas before you reach your destination unless you actually understand what you need to do to those numbers to answer the question.

Your education may not be entertaining.  Your teacher, a real human, may not be fun or or even nice.  I guarantee, if I heard nothing but "I'm bored, this is boring, I don't need to know this--I'm going to be a rock star, (or worse) if I ever need to know this, I'll google it" at least 6 times a day, I would be cranky, too.  And you guys are no  joy to be around, eye rolling, shoulder shrugging, sarcastic, or worse, obviously fake respect then giggling with your buddies.

Right now, a lot of you guys are upset about a shelter in place order.
You have your phones. But now, no hanging out, no hating your classes, teachers, getting up in the morning.

It could be worse.
It can always be worse.
Stay well, go learn something that isn't on a smartphone.

Now, I just need someone to turn this into a YouTube video so you can actually hear me.