This morning I woke up to a story on how, despite all the silly hubbub of an economic recession (who needs jobs anyways?!), super rich assholes, pardon me, people, are still spending tons of money!! Thank Gawd. Whoo..I was really worried there for a second that with all the job cuts, inflation, foreclosures, and ridiculous spending on war instead of social programs, the wealthiest 1% of the population wasn't going to be able to buy their $10 million + apartments in the city. I think my favorite part [please read sarcasm] of the article was when one of these random richies had this thoughtful and articulate response to the subprime (generally not the million-dollar home) market crisis:
“I don’t want to sound harsh, but the people who were buying million-dollar houses with a combined household income of $70,000 or $80,000 were the ones who were chasing easy money,” he said.
Wow. He's really been living under a rock hasn't he? First of all, this is NOT the issue with the rise in foreclosures; I don't see too many people getting booted from their million-dollar homes. Second of all, if this was the issue, at some point it is the responsibility of the bank or mortgage company to say, "Yo, hold the bus. Your income doesn't support this kind of loan!"
Lastly, as another random richie stated, recession doesn't really affect him. Could it really be that they just don't notice having to spend a little more on food, gas, and a roof over their head?? Unfortunately, for something like the other 98% of the population, we are no longer having our caviar and eating it, too.
At least the NY Times can somewhat redeem themselves with stories on Appalachia.
Lastly, as another random richie stated, recession doesn't really affect him. Could it really be that they just don't notice having to spend a little more on food, gas, and a roof over their head?? Unfortunately, for something like the other 98% of the population, we are no longer having our caviar and eating it, too.
At least the NY Times can somewhat redeem themselves with stories on Appalachia.
4 comments:
Well, either the speaker is realllly out of touch or it's his way of diminishing the issue or justifying his own continued spending: there are probably no people with 70,000 incomes buying million dollar homes---but put that meme out there, which translates to "hey, they [the buyer] deserves it", so we can all go home now, and we quit talking about the real issue---securitization doesn't work and banks and lenders have known it for more than 10 years. It's like the welfare recipient driving the cadillac meme that repubs used to throw out there when they wanted to get rid of welfare rather than discuss the crux of the issue (alleviating poverty). The more things change. . . . .
umm, Lou, could you specify what a meme is? It has yet to cross by burgeoning vocabulary.
glad to help ya out Shawbee, but do try to keep up:A meme (pronounced /miːm or mɛm/) consists of any unit of cultural information, such as a practice or idea, that gets transmitted verbally or by repeated action from one mind to another. Examples include thoughts, ideas, theories, practices, habits, songs, dances and moods and terms such as race, culture, and ethnicity. Memes propagate themselves and can move through a "culture" in a manner similar to the behavior of a virus. As a unit of cultural evolution, a meme in some ways resembles a gene. Richard Dawkins, in his book, The Selfish Gene,[1] recounts how and why he coined the term meme to describe how one might extend Darwinian principles to explain the spread of ideas and cultural phenomena. He gave as examples tunes, catch-phrases, beliefs, clothing-fashions, and the technology of building arches. (Wikipedia)
So the idea, cultural phenomenon of the "welfare queen driving a cadillac" is a meme--a sort of shorthand way for those not supportive of welfare to say that people collecting it were really not in dire financial shape, that it was just a scam for people too lazy to work. Likewise, the idea that people who are getting hurt by the subprime mortgage crisis are overreaching poor credit risks/nonworkers/nonasset accumulators who really had no business getting those homes (and maybe they didn't, but not for the stated reason)and certainly should not be given any redress, much less assistance is keeping those homes (and more particularly having something to show for the payments they have made).
Thank you Lou, that's is really interesting. Earth science, although entertaining appears to have led me away from what should be my eternal subject: me.
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