Picking on the Middle Class
I almost felt bad for picking on my favorite pregnant liberal the last few posts, but it had to be said. from what i can deduce from her comments, people are either 1. too lazy, 2. too stupid, or 3. too uneducated to be trusted to manage their own affairs.
That seems to be the basis for modern liberalism and many days I'm half inclined to go along with that. Rather misanthropic, but mostly true. But alas, the only thing worst that trusting individuals to take care of themselves is having government do it.
But I'm done picking on the poor. Mostly I'm afraid that someone I know will read it, but come on, why would they go to something called the pureinvestorblog in their precious free time when there's so much sports, porn, and online gambling to be done.
So let me pick on my people - the vast American middle class. I don't like them either or at least vast swaths of them. I know people who are on welfare and I like them because they don't have that chronic aspects about them. But the middle class - there's something else that bugs me. I should state that I'm mostly referring to middle class men.
There seems to be a soullessness to them. An emptiness. I'm not too spirititual but I just can't be happy with the pursuit of "stuff". We live in the most prosperous county in the world at the most prosperous time with unlimited opportunities. We are free to pursue whatever we wish.
And what do middle class men do?
From my sampling, it's a world of golf, college basketball, the pursuit of tvs with bigger screens, incrementally bigger cars parked in front of a garage clutter with more stuff attached to my favorite bogeyman, the cheaply built McMansions with the cathedral ceilings and half acre kitchens that are rarely used with tiny bedrooms and always poorly drained muddy grass. Many SUVs can't be parked in the few garages in my 1920s - 1940s built neighborhood. The homes were built for Catholics with a minimum of 5 kids. Now families with 1.32 kids needs some montrousity with a built in DVD player.
Then they do my favorite thing. After buying all this crap, they then complain about $3 gas. Well, boo-frigging-hoo. Is there no proportion here? My current example is a gallon of milk which costs about $2.50 where I'm at. the dairy is about 1 mile from my house in the city. The milk is shipped in from a 60 mile radious. Yet it still costs $2.50. My oil is pumped up from either Saudi, or Venezuela, or the North Sea. It's then shipped to the US and refined in Houston and still they get it to me for $3 or less and that's able to take me about 25 miles. Not too bad. It don't hear anybody complaining about "Big Leche". No it's mostly fat ass SUV drivers bellyaching about "Big Oil".
Shew! That was a vent.
Do I want to limit what the middle class can buy? No. I'll leave that to the smoking police and food police and the rest of the fascist. I just wish that in such time of plenty that we'd devote a little bit to something worth while. The closest much of the middle class comes to culture is American Idol.
I find them vapid and boring and souless. I don't like talking to them.
Stay You.
Back to Main Page
That seems to be the basis for modern liberalism and many days I'm half inclined to go along with that. Rather misanthropic, but mostly true. But alas, the only thing worst that trusting individuals to take care of themselves is having government do it.
But I'm done picking on the poor. Mostly I'm afraid that someone I know will read it, but come on, why would they go to something called the pureinvestorblog in their precious free time when there's so much sports, porn, and online gambling to be done.
So let me pick on my people - the vast American middle class. I don't like them either or at least vast swaths of them. I know people who are on welfare and I like them because they don't have that chronic aspects about them. But the middle class - there's something else that bugs me. I should state that I'm mostly referring to middle class men.
There seems to be a soullessness to them. An emptiness. I'm not too spirititual but I just can't be happy with the pursuit of "stuff". We live in the most prosperous county in the world at the most prosperous time with unlimited opportunities. We are free to pursue whatever we wish.
And what do middle class men do?
From my sampling, it's a world of golf, college basketball, the pursuit of tvs with bigger screens, incrementally bigger cars parked in front of a garage clutter with more stuff attached to my favorite bogeyman, the cheaply built McMansions with the cathedral ceilings and half acre kitchens that are rarely used with tiny bedrooms and always poorly drained muddy grass. Many SUVs can't be parked in the few garages in my 1920s - 1940s built neighborhood. The homes were built for Catholics with a minimum of 5 kids. Now families with 1.32 kids needs some montrousity with a built in DVD player.
Then they do my favorite thing. After buying all this crap, they then complain about $3 gas. Well, boo-frigging-hoo. Is there no proportion here? My current example is a gallon of milk which costs about $2.50 where I'm at. the dairy is about 1 mile from my house in the city. The milk is shipped in from a 60 mile radious. Yet it still costs $2.50. My oil is pumped up from either Saudi, or Venezuela, or the North Sea. It's then shipped to the US and refined in Houston and still they get it to me for $3 or less and that's able to take me about 25 miles. Not too bad. It don't hear anybody complaining about "Big Leche". No it's mostly fat ass SUV drivers bellyaching about "Big Oil".
Shew! That was a vent.
Do I want to limit what the middle class can buy? No. I'll leave that to the smoking police and food police and the rest of the fascist. I just wish that in such time of plenty that we'd devote a little bit to something worth while. The closest much of the middle class comes to culture is American Idol.
I find them vapid and boring and souless. I don't like talking to them.
Stay You.
Back to Main Page
posted by Howard McEwen, CFA at Tuesday, July 11, 2006
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