Comments
Blacks and the money they spent on lottery tickets!(You’d think their lives depended on it.) It doesn’t matter that they rolled out of the ‘projects’ in an expensive car that is black-detailed. (They secretly hate the white man; but deep down they must want the control, conscience, and common sense of decent white men.)
I’ve heard blacks talking about getting money for their bastard children, for food stamps, etc. from state offices. (They betta give me my money! I’m gon’ get my money!) They come out of the womb begging and feeling that they deserve it.
I see Hispanics pushing ‘buggies’ overflowing with name-brand foods and supplies at grocery stores. (They have to feed all those camping out in closests at their ‘home’, but… I buy mostly generic, why not? Most of it’s all the same. )
Again….no sense of responsibility!
Posted by GAonMYmind at 6:10 PM on January 16
The Cosby explanation—that there is simply a culture of consumption among black Americans—doesn’t quite cut it for economists.
This is why economics should not be the only basis for public policy. Economists (and economic determinist policies) can only see economic means and ends, and cannot see race.
Otherwise, the flaw in this study is that, while blacks and whites tend to go for “conspicuous consumption” (e.g. bling), blacks are more likely to “bling out” at the expense of bare necessities.
Posted by St. Louis CofCC Blogmeister at 6:21 PM on January 16
I notice the issue of being on welfare completely absent from this article. When white taxpayers are paying for your housing, heat, utilities, telephone bills, food, medical care and all other forms of backdoor welfare (park passes, free admission, museums, the theater, orchestestras - admittedly rarely used but available nonetheless) whatever cash you may get ahold of will be spent on garish ‘urban fashion,’ hideously ostentatious jewelry, outlandish automobile ornaments and whatever other type of attention beacons may be on the market. They didn’t earn the money, it will never run out, and they have no expenses so they just spend it on whatever pops into their impulsive minds. Of course, here we have the liberal with his contorted logic to explain away the empirical fact that lower income blacks are mostly clowns whose ‘wealth signals’ reveal a lack of class or good taste.
Posted by Civilized Neighbor at 6:25 PM on January 16
I think American Blacks would do well to learn to cook.We had many Black women, where I worked, who did not make much money.But when lunch time came around I did not see many brown bags.It was always those styrofoam containers from the local restaurant.The fact is the people who are responsible for importing blacks into this country like the mindless consumerism of blacks.Those stupid White people - hoping to leave something to their children when they pass away - cannot have that.
Posted by Tony Soprano. at 6:34 PM on January 16
Good grief, we need economists to measure what Jim Croce knew 35 years ago???
Now Leroy, he’s a gambler, and he like his fancy clothes
And he like to wave his diamond ring under everybody’s nose
He got a custom Continental, he got a El Dorado too
He got a 32 gun in his pocket for fun, he got a razor in his shoe
And he’s bad, bad Leroy Brown, baddest man in the whole damn town
Badder than Old King Kong, meaner than a junkyard dog
Posted by sestamibi at 7:07 PM on January 16
The study is accurate, the excuse is baloney. WHite making 35% less then others in a neighborhood don’t live with those whites. While people making a lot more money may opt for a less expensive home (size wise as they don’t need it) most will not do so—most will buy a bigger house.
I would say that an income of 45,000.00 is not enough to even buy a Toyota let alone 500.00 sneakers. But then I don’t buy 500.00 tennis shoes—I buy 500.00 leather shoes. That is a greater statement.
Posted by RobertB at 7:09 PM on January 16
I read the original article a few days ago. What the snippets above leave out is the author’s claim that low-income whites are more likely to live in middle-class neighborhoods than low-income blacks. (He supplies no proof, but I am willing to take his word for it.) No reason for this fact is given. When I was reading the article, I wondered if the author thinks that there is some force of nature that randomly assigns people to live in middle-class or poor neighborhoods.
Is it possible that some people have chosen to spend more on housing rather than on other goods? Given what every AmRen reader knows about IQ, I think that it is possible that whites are more likely to be smart enough to realize that a house in a nicer neighborhood is a better investment than a Cadillac and some “bling.”
Posted by jennymad at 7:31 PM on January 16
More Slate.com apologism for the achievement gap?
It’s getting harder and harder for them to refute the obvious.
Posted by from new orleans at 8:04 PM on January 16
The inability to delay gratification is a serious problem in the black and hispanic “communities”.
Delaying gratification is usually taught to children, so they will learn to be self-sufficient in the future, as well as learning how to build a savings for those “extras” in the future. You can’t teach this to most black or brown people because public demonstrations of “wealth” are critical to their respective cultures.
There’s also the rule of compensation where if you don’t feel adequate beneath, you put up a distracting front.
I’ve known blacks who lived in absolute filthy, trash-strewn homes, yet drove Cadillacs and dressed like fops (garish clothing). They may even have had jobs such as janitor, but “profilin’” was paramount in their lives so all income was devoted to clothes and jewelry.
And then there was an article in the Detroit News some years ago about autoworkers who worked extra shifts, making some serious money. The white autoworkers paid off their mortgages, bought vacation homes or second cars. The one black autoworker they profiled said that he took his extra cash and bought a Rolex watch for $80,000 plus.
Priorities in spending as always been a non-issue in their lives. Besides, if things get tough in life, there’s always the government so save them, they believe. How many blacks vote Democrat, the party that vows to rescue the self-destructive and that with money from the responsible?
Posted by Proactive at 8:35 PM on January 16
Or, instead of this convoluted analysis, you can just trust your eyes as to the spending habits of blacks.
Posted by at 8:50 PM on January 16
In recent years, there has been one thing that I see blacks wasting money on and that is cell phone conversations.
As one who passes through an urban setting every day, I see (and unfortantly hear) blacks spending far too much time talking on cell phones; even when they’re with their friends and clearly have people to converse with.
Most of these conversations are friviouls such as talking on the phone while riding the bus and telling the person on the other end exactly where they are on their journey; street by street or stop by stop.
I marvel at the money blacks must spend on cell phone minutes and phone plans. I’m amazed by anyone, not just blacks, who uses their cell phones in such a wasteful manner.
Posted by sbuffalonative at 9:15 PM on January 16
I just may be rather naive here; I’ll admit that.
But I don’t see how the authors have come to this conclusion (nor do I agree). Life experience has shown me something else.
All too often I seen blacks cruise around in Cadillacs, with high-priced outlandish duds, labor-intensive hair-styles, gaudy jewelry, manicures, gold teeth, carting around boom boxes, etc. And didn’t I read a study once where black women spend so much more on cosmetics than females of any other race? And yet they always seem to live in filthy shacks in the hood and the run-down projects.
Posted by kitty at 9:28 PM on January 16
You really don’t have to be a Wall Street economist to observe what’s obvious: blacks in general are impulsive spenders. If one could actually calculate the expense at which American tax dollars are diverted, through social transfer payments, to end up as hair weaves, fake nails, Air Jordans, “FUBU”, and other senseless garbage, I’m sure we’d all be astounded.
Posted by at 9:30 PM on January 16
It is amazing who marxists will twist facts through their little fairy tales to pretend that race doesn’t exist.
Blacks and Hispanics have a much greater portion of their population that is low class and low intelligence than whites. The lower classes have a very high time preference: They want whatever they can get now. They don’t consider the future. That takes discipline and intelligence and character, the very elements the lack thereof defines the lower class. Many a White Christian family lives in a smaller house than they can afford because they have the mother stay home and home-school the children. Most families who do make very good incomes invest a good portion for the future, and live well for there own benefit, not to impress someone not worth impressing. These families certainly do not identify with, much less associate with, lower class elements in their own or other cultures.
By conspicuous consumption the lower classes only advertise their crassness. They fool no one about their status except themselves.
Posted by Flamethrower at 9:34 PM on January 16
These crazy hipNew York apologist economists, doing their bit to excuse perverse anti-social behavior. Go figure.
He speaks of “black families” when he knows the issue isn’t black “families” at all. The men p!ss away their money on trash because they have nothing to save for. They spawn their offspring and dump them on the white taxpayer to take care of. There ain’t no “family” to it. They want to get laid, and it takes a show of wealth to get into a black woman’s pants.
Over 70% of black babies are b@stards. Their sires spend on “bling” to attract dams to get pregnant and dump. And the women like it that way. He can belch and fume and maunder on about “incentives” and “rational consumers” all he wants to justify a perverse lifestyle and persuade the rest of us that they are normal and we ought to keep paying for them and their babies, but he is soft in the head.
Rushton explained out the “rationality” of the black reproductive model some years ago. Spawn as many as you can. Don’t care for them. Get someone else (like us white taxpayers) to pay for them, and you will win out in the Darwinian battle. Black have shorter gestations, more multiple births, quit breastfeeding sooner, have smaller birth weight babies, reach menarch sooner, have babies younger and have a greater lifetime fertility than white people and Asian people.
Sure, Mr. Economist, It is “rational” in the sense that it causes white folks to forgo having children to pay for all the black babies and the social costs they inflict on the rest of the nation. But why is it economically rational for us white folks to subsidize it?
Posted by Big bill at 9:34 PM on January 16
What amazes me about American blacks is their incredible similarities. Where ever you go, they mispronounce the same words, listen to the same music, hold the same views, have the same interests, buy the same fashions, and dress in the same way. Blacks have nowhere near the broad range of interests, hobbies, and personality traits seen in whites. It makes blacks amazingly easy to market products to, but what a boring culture they have.
Posted by at 10:04 PM on January 16
Easier to scapegoat whitey rather than face up to YOUR OWN responsibility for your problems. Blacks have on average less assets than whites and other problems that are the direct consequences of the decisions they make in their own lives, such as 80% illegitimacy rate, rampant teen pregnancies, failure to save rather than spend. None of it is due to whitey, who looms in the black mind like the Jew did in the minds of Nazis.
Posted by at 10:06 PM on January 16
This refers to the old saying when a person foolishly spends a windfall, “You’re just being an N-person rich!”
These economist set out to square the circle. A more compelling explanation is degree of intelligence. I’m sure you can talk a man with the IQ of a ten year-old into having a diamond put in his ear lobe. But a normally intelligent man sees immediately what of waste of money it is. Additionally when work is involved the person asks himself, “Is the outlay of hard earned money worth the labor I’ve expended?” Of course if you’re not working and money comes easy as a hand out from the government, it’s to fun blow it on ornaments.
The phenomenon of blacks over indulging themselves goes back to their behavior in their native land, which has been portrayed many times in the movies before PC days. The white man brings a load of loud color clothes and the natives go wild.
Blacks in white society have a big problem. They compare themselves to whites and feel they are not attractive. White people’s skin, hair, and features are the standard to go by. Ornaments direct the eye away from the ugly. So the bottom line is you can’t be too hard on the blacks. They are doing the right thing by trying to measure up to whites, and they take the only way open to them. That is to enhance their personal appearance as best as they know how.
Posted by The Moderate White Activist at 10:56 PM on January 16
“The white man brings a load of loud color clothes and the natives go wild.” - Actually, it was beads and fire water; get it right, professor.
This is an interesting subject, and I’m sure there are several reasons that contribute to why blacks and mestizos spend more on ‘status’ items. But I think one of the biggest reasons is the difference in promiscuity among women in each racial group. If we use illegitimate births as a proxy for promiscuity, the stats for Asians, whites, mestizos, and blacks are about 12%, 22% (shameful, I know), 50%, and 70% (those of you familiar with Phillippe Rushton’s work know what’s up here).
What this means is that Asians and whites tend toward monogamous relationships while mestizos and blacks tend to have more than one sex partner at a time. And this means that for mestizo and black males, the 20/80 rule roughly applies: 20% of the males enjoy the, ahem, company of 80% of the females. These males are the most handsome, and also the ones who can display wealth to attract mates.
Mestizo and black males have a greater incentive to display their wealth because the field they’re playing on is wide open. Asians and whites tend to pair off by looks and IQ, and not much else.
Posted by Crimethinker at 12:12 AM on January 17
I have a part-time job and some of the workers are Black and we all get along well. Maybe the reason is that we do phone work so there’s not much time for chitchat. One of the Black women there is very nice, but she said something that really blew me away. She was telling me about this place where you could food for practically nothing. It’s a charity network and you can get like a month’s worth of food for something like $30, $35. I said that I wish I had known about it before because a couple of years ago my husband and I had gone through really hard times, although things were better now.(It got so bad that some of the people where I worked chipped in to get us some food because they saw how much weight I was losing. I remember one time coming home after working all night and all I could find to eat was a can of string beans!)Well, her attitude was, why not take advantage of it? She said she went there every month and got her food so she could have money for “other things” that she wanted.
I tell you, it’s a different mentality. I’m thinking that I don’t want to get take from this charity unless I’m in really dire staits because that food is needed by people who could really need it. She’s thinking that it’s there for the taking, why not?
I wonder just how many of these do-gooder Christian food charities know how many of their “clients” just want to have money for “other things”?
Posted by at 12:27 AM on January 17
12:27 AM,
You should feel free to take advantage of the deal. I’m well aware of those $30 assorted food packages. They are used for church fund raising and open to all.
Posted by at 1:36 AM on January 17
I could could really dig a new watch and pair of sneakers but I can’t afford it because I have to feed and clothe my own family plus an untold number of blacks and illegal aliens.
Posted by Jim at 2:26 AM on January 17
“what, exactly, makes black Americans more vulnerable to the allure of these luxury goods?”
Low IQ which is genetic.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSGd2hgcbqE
Posted by Dave at 4:08 AM on January 17
My theory about their spending habits is that such a high percentage of them are getting something for nothing, such as taxpayers money thru the welfare and social programs.
Posted by abc at 5:31 AM on January 17
When your house is being paid for by uncle Sam, you have a lot more to spend on things like cars. Then the media can do in-depth coverage about the huge, racist, net-worth gap.
It’s been pointed out here before that whites have to pay considerably more for housing also, or leave themselves and their kids open to being bullied or becoming crime victims, thereby leaving whites with less money to spend on leisure.
Posted by at 10:04 AM on January 17
Different breeds of dogs (all dogs are of the same species) behave differently.
Different breeds of horses (all horses are of the same species)
behave differently.
Different breeds of cats (all cats are of the same species)
behave differently.
Different breeds of humans (“races”) (all humans are of the same species) behave differently.
I figured this out when I was 16 and I ain’t no fancy college professor. Duh.
This applies to EVERY species on earth, Mr. College Professor. Group behaviour, as in physical appearance, is genetic.
Posted by LOGIC at 10:14 AM on January 17
So then. We all can see what the problem is.
I hear a lot of chin music, but no cogent plan to correct this injustice.
What to do..?
Posted by Oly at 10:37 AM on January 17
Garish fashion is so important in the black ghettos that the young folk therein will beat and sometimes kill one another for a pair of sneakers.
In the “hood” fashion is more important than life itself.
Posted by Proactive at 11:26 AM on January 17
Every year America is subjected to “Black History Month” yet the history of Africa prior to the Atlantic slave trade is totally censored. It was the blacks who invented the slave trade. After all, we can’t have blacks knowing that blacks enslaved blacks for millenniums before the Arabs enslaved blacks for centuries before Africa ever saw its first white man. Black on black slavery in Africa continues unabated to this very day, but blacks can’t handle the truth, because it contradicts the decades of communist indoctrination they’ve received at the hands of academia and the news and entertainment media…
Posted by at 1:36 PM on January 17
“The study is accurate, the excuse is baloney. WHites making 35% less then others in a neighborhood don’t live with those whites. While people making a lot more money may opt for a less expensive home (size wise as they don’t need it) ….”
Mike B.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
There was a book that came out a few years ago, “The Millionaire Next Door”, which made the point that a great many people who are literal millionaires actually live very frugally and that you would be surprised to know what they’re worth because they don’t indulge in the silly game of conspicuous consumption. They’re not out to impress anyone, and they don’t care what the neighbors have. It’s more likely to be the people who have much less who are the ones trying to live beyond their means and impress somebody.
Also, the people who are thrifty and frugal, who cut coupons and shop at sales and don’t buy on credit, who don’t feel compelled to have the newest and shiniest model of everything, demonstrate the sound financial habits that may account for how they got their wealth in the first place. [Yes, it’s been proven that people who cut grocery coupons are NOT the poor,as might be assumed, but tend to be well off. The really poor don’t bother with such stuff as coupons because they buy impulsively at the local all-night corner-store and don’t make grocery lists, keep track of prices, or plan ahead.]
Unlike the thrifty, the people who blow their entire paycheck and live high on credit will never have anything (but piles of debts), tho’ they may appear to be well off, having lots of “bling” to show. That appearance is entirely phoney. They may have a newer car than the millionaire next door who pays for everything with cash, but they’re really staving off the bill collectors and living from hand to mouth. Their lives are a false facade, like Potenkin villages; and eventually their improvidence is bound to catch up with them.
Posted by browser at 1:58 PM on January 17
Well, he has an interesting theory. But, on thinking it over, I still don’t buy it. His bottom line comes out (predictably) that there is really no difference between blacks and whites after all; and that what at first appears to be a difference is really due to entirely other factors.
Posted by voter at 2:20 PM on January 17
Blacks like sparkly and shiny objects. It’s just that simple.
Posted by at 2:27 PM on January 17
I’ve known blacks who lived in absolute filthy, trash-strewn homes, yet drove Cadillacs and dressed like fops (garish clothing). They may even have had jobs such as janitor, but “profilin’” was paramount in their lives, so all income was devoted to clothes and jewelry.
by Proactive
***************
Ha! So True! I am the opposite. I am the boss, but I have been mistaken for the janitor. Fact is, I am not “profilin” and I am not trying to impress anyone. I don’t have to.
Posted by at 2:31 PM on January 17
>>>I’ve known blacks who lived in absolute filthy, trash-strewn homes, yet drove Cadillacs and dressed like fops (garish clothing)
A world of truth in that comment. My question is, WHY even try to excuse or explain the mentality and behavioral pattern of Blacks. Their failings, as human beings, are hardwired into their brains! In other words, I seriously doubt they can be any way other than what they are.
Remember the post-Hurricane Katrina period. First the looting and carrying on in N.O. Looting that WalMart and other stores, indifferent to the TV cameras rolling. Then of course the shots directed at rescuers. The deliberate fires set. Nor can we overlook those 28 stolen Cadillacs — “borrowed” by the N.O. police for patrolling the debris strewn streets.
We then had the frenzied “please give money, clothing (but preferably cash) for those poor Katrina victims ‘who ain’t got nothin’.” Then the stories surfaced in our Houston Chronicle. The FEMA debit cards being used to pay for entertainment in nightclubs and at strip joints. Evacuees buying designer handbags and expensive guns with them.
You want more examples? There were those news exposes coming out of Florida a year or two BEFORE Katrina. Blacks making preposterous claims for losses to, AND BEING REIMBURSED by FEMA. No, those scandals of tons of taxpayer dollars being WASTED — even made NPR RADIO, one of the most biased, left-wing news sources available.
Seriously, other than ‘bad genes’, what excuse can rationally be offered for Blacks’ behavior? Granted, a small percentage rise above both their background and Blackness, but the majority… well, judge for yourself! The [negative] evidence is readily visible for anyone willing to look.
Posted by Fed Up at 3:47 PM on January 17
“Every year America is subjected to “Black History Month” yet the history of Africa prior to the Atlantic slave trade is totally censored.”
I was watching the DVD of “Primeval” (2007) yesterday, and a black character, an American cameraman in Africa, being chased by bloodthirsty African militia and a very large crocodile, said the following line (roughly): “I would never say this in front of a white man, but, slavery, whatever it take to get out of Africa, is okay with me!”
Posted by at 4:58 PM on January 17
There was a book that came out a few years ago, “The Millionaire Next Door”, which made the point that a great many people who are literal millionaires actually live very frugally and that you would be surprised to know what they’re worth…
By Browser
—————————————————————
Not that your point was wrong (I agree with it), but that book had way too many mistakes. For starters, the survey was mailed out and not everyone mailed it back…self-selection anyone?
And there are more, but I wont get into that.
Posted by TheOtherGuy at 5:14 PM on January 17
Blacks just love to show off. They have an exhibitionist streak in them. They strive for ‘status’. They feel they have something to prove. This is the root cause of their ‘bling’ culture. It’s all about ‘show’ and ‘image’. Saving your money, investing it carefully, learning about the stock market etc, this is ‘acting White’ to them.
Posted by at 6:31 PM on January 17
”..Their lives are a false facade, like Potemkin villages; and eventually their improvidence is bound to catch up with them…”
Posted by browser at 1:58 PM on January 17
browser:
That is unless big government comes to their rescue…and it looks like it just might.
If (God Forbid) Hillary Clinton is elected—she’ll use taxpayer money to bail out foolish idiots out who bought more house than they could afford continuing the cycle of irresponsibility and the expectation of a government bailout.
“…Clinton also proposed a $1 billion federal fund for local and state programs that help at-risk homeowners avoid foreclosures. She said those programs could help the ‘unsuspecting families’ linked to unfair mortgages…”
http://michellemalkin.com/2007/08/14/hillarys-socialist-housing-bailout-plan
No mention, of course, of those who LIED to get mortgages for which they were not qualified as the recent AmRen article, “Foreclosure Help Tough When You Lie” pointed out.
http://www.amren.com/mtnews/archives/2008/01/foreclosure_hel.php
The Millionaire Next Door is one of my favorite books—I believe it should be required reading in high school and college economics classes instead of the current socialist textbooks.
At what point will irresponsible people be held accountable for their own short-sighted, impulsive actions?
Simple Answer: Never, as long as big government will come to the rescue.
Bon
Posted by BonBon at 9:09 PM on January 17
One of my sisters has the misfortune of working with many AA blacks in her work environment, (and yes, she IS miserable at work because of it), tells me that every year as soon as the new year rolls in, the blacks are absolutely ABUZZ with nonstop chatter and exuberance over their unearned “earned income tax credits” (folks, it just doesn’t get any more Orwellian that that) coming to them. They literally think it is THEIR money that THEY earned. They no more understand (nor appreciate) “tax transfers” than they do anything else.
Posted by Voir Dire at 7:13 PM on January 18
Years ago, my uncle married a black Brazilian woman (don’t ask). When she was visiting the US, she stayed with my mom and me. One day she became very upset with me, and started shouting, “You don’t even have any gold jewelry. All you have is silver!” I guess I just wasn’t bling-y enough for her tastes. I wonder if I embarassed her in public…
Posted by at 8:50 PM on January 18
“…she stayed with my mom and me. One day she became very upset with me, and started shouting, “You don’t even have any gold jewelry.”
Sounds like she was looking to steal better things from you.
Posted by at 11:29 PM on January 18
One reason why blacks act like kids in a candy store with their money is that they lack discipline. It takes discipline to live frugally, to appreciate the value of a dollar and to save a portion of your earned income. This is the only way to ensure a secure financial future. Also part of this is the ability to delay gratification and have a long-term time horizon (I make investments in my retirement account with a 20-25 year time frame in mind. I don’t care what the price of the stock is today.) Blacks also do poorly in these categories as well.
Posted by at 12:15 AM on January 19
We are slaves to black and Bolsheviks people in many ways. One thing we still have is our voices and our determination to liberate ourselves from their oppression against us. Stay strong brothers and sisters. The black and Bolsheviks will not oppress us forever - we can liberate ourselves!
Posted by Elrey Jones at 11:59 PM on January 19
This is a recurrent theme here, but there are ways to live very well without spending much, such as by doing one’s own cooking.
The first new hobby I cultivated after being released from prison was cooking. First, I didn’t have much money, and second, I was doing food-service work at a restaurant where even pre-cooked meat was allowed to get only 48 hours old after being defrosted before being condemned. My boss let me take all that stuff home. As a hobby, cooking costs absolutely nothing, as one must eat anyway. Using cookbooks borrowed from the public library and recepies printed at the library after downloading them from Wikipedia, I reverse-engineered all my favorite resturant recepies.
For New Years’ Day dinner this year, I made us chicken Marengo. For New Years’ Eve, my wife and I had traditional Japanese fare she made, which also cost precious little. Chicken Marengo is easy - it was a field dish prepared for Napoleon after the Battle of Marengo. I caught the crawdads for the dish myself in Monument Lake. Visiting my mother this week, I brought up curry potato salad I had made from scratch. I blend the spices for all my favorite curries: vindaloo, saag and tikka myself. My mother raved about it over lunch on Saturday.
I also made and brought up a casserole dish of chicken Alfredo and a dish of stuffed grape vine leaves for use to have with dinner tonight; mom picked the wine: “Two Buck Chuck.”
Furniture is another place when one can save huge amounts of money. Years ago, I got a hotel lobby-quality brown, leather sofa from a company that peddled off overrun merchandise. Part of a contract got cancelled, and this sofa was one of the items. It was 60% off. For wooden furniture, the “Unfinished Furniture” stores that deal in unfinished, unassembled kits are great, and one can avoid things made from veneered particle board quite easily this way, if you detest particle board as much as I do. I built a storage chest for our living room two years ago. It doubles as a seat, as I upholstered the lid myself, after buying upholstery foam from Hobby Lobby and matching the leather of the sofa at Tandy Leather.
Ditto for home electronics. Do you really “need” a huge TV set or a LCD flatscreen computer monitor? We have three PCs at home, and all use cathode ray tube monitors. We have two more monitors as spares in the basement. One can often scrounge these for free. Of the five, I think we only actually bought one, and we bought it used from her employers.
My wife is petit, and has trouble finding dress clothes for work in her size in the US, so she sews most of her own. She also made me a reverse-fleece “Scottish gamekeeper-style” sheepskin coat last fall. It turns out those cost a pretty penny when you buy them at a leather goods store.
Grocery bills are easy to reduce by shopping at price clubs like Costco and Sam’s Club. The only people we ever see shopping at Costco are other whites and Asians.
Thrift stores can be great, too. My sister makes a fine living as a hospital radiologist and ultrasound tech, but still shops at thrift stores. I got a nearly-new gray herringbone tweed jacket in exactly my size for $10 at Arc back in 2006.
As for liberating ourselves from the Bolsheviks and their favorite two-legged pets, this is easy. Sock away every penny you can afford in tax-deferred accounts while you live well beneath your income. This is not particularly difficult; it is one of the defining characteristics of Japanese culture, for instance. If you have a mutual fund, have the dividends rolled over into the purchase of more shares so you will not even pay taxes on the dividends. Contribute as much as possible to your 401(k). Shop online to avoid paying sales tax.
The less of our money the socialists are able to take from us, the less control they have over us.
Posted by Michael C. Scott at 3:44 PM on January 20
“Sock away every penny you can afford in tax-deferred accounts while you live well beneath your income. This is not particularly difficult; it is one of the defining characteristics of Japanese culture, for instance”
M.Scott
***************
When I worked at a major bank, they had an employee profit-sharing plan which was very generous. You could invest out of your paycheck whatever sum you chose (up to a reasonable limit) in several different stock funds, and the bank would add an equal amount to double your money. It was a terrific deal. (The bank was GIVING money away!)
All the executives (whites) bought as much as they could afford, right up to the limit allowed. However, among the large number of blacks there (and there were a great many) I don’t know of any who participated in this plan. They couldn’t see any point in it. They would say they needed the money to buy things RIGHT NOW and didn’t see the sense of putting it away into some fund that they couldn’t get at. (You couldn’t access it for something like two years ahead.)
I guess for them two years was an eternity. Actually, most of them didn’t stay on the job for two years. They had very high turnover. Then they wonder why whites seem to always have money! Must be due to White Privilege, I guess.
Posted by at 7:13 AM on January 21
7:13 AM is correct. One company I worked for would match 40% of the first 6% of one’s income that was put toward the company 401(k) plan. With free money available (put in 6% and actually save 8.4% - all of it pre-tax), the minimum one should save in the 401(k) in that case was obviously 6%. If your company will match part of your 401(k) contributions, get all of the free money you can. If your budget is tight, stop eating out so much. The seven dollar lates at Starbucks should be the first thing to go.
For investment advice, avoid bonds & mortgages accounts, and avoid individual stocks unless you really know what you are doing. I bought Haliburton several years ago and haven’t exactly regretted it. Funds that invest in oil companies seem like a good idea today; out of a $3 gallon of gasoline, a third of that is oil company profit. It feels better putting expensive gasoline in one’s car, knowing that one is really on the other side of the equation. Defense contractor stocks will probably continue to do well, too. I am not a socially-conscious investor; I’m out to make money.
My wife and I keep our townhouse (I paid off the mortgage years ago) heated at 60F as a concession to me. She thinks about 45F on winter mornings is acceptable. One saves a lot of money by using less heat. Compact fluorescent bulbs are in every fixture that will take them. I buy spices in bulk at an Asian grocery store, packaged in heat-sealed plastic bags. Most of what one is paying for when one buys a small jar of a spice at a supermarket is the container.
I’ve had two pairs of boots resoled, instead of replacing them. The leather uppers were just fine. For buying new shoes, We always wait until Famous Footwear has a sale: buy a pair and get a second for 50% off. The second pair we always pick out from the 50% off sale rack, which means the second pair ends up being 75% off.
Books and DVDs and computer software we get from Amazon dot com, always waiting until we have an order large enough to qualify for free shipping. No sales tax and no shipping? Hard to beat that!
If we end up moving to Japan, I intend to buy a boat. I miss ocean fishing very much. Free fish is one of the few things that beats free shipping on books.
Posted by Michael C. Scott at 1:54 PM on January 22
“My wife and I keep our townhouse (I paid off the mortgage years ago) heated at 60F as a concession to me. She thinks about 45F on winter mornings is acceptable.
Compact fluorescent bulbs are in every fixture that will take them. “
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Ho, ho, ho! I am laughing, but believe me, I am laughing with you, not at you. “Laughing all the way to the bank”, as they say.
Michael Scott is definitely someone who will end up as a “millionaire next door” — if he’s not already.
Intelligence will out.
My kind of guy. Way to go, Michael!
Posted by poster at 7:13AM at 7:26 PM on January 22
