The other day a friend of mine sent me a video that discusses the significance of radiant and muted Christmas lighting in the movie Eyes Wide Shut, a movie I wrote about three years ago. The hypothesis presented in that video seems plausible, but that is not the point. Instead, my mind got stuck on a scene that is only mentioned in passing but not expanded on. At the 08:26 mark, we see the wife of the protagonist looking at the price tag of a giant teddy. This was seen as an example of how meaningless Christmas was for the protagonist and his wife. There is another interesting implication, and one that is quite relevant for everyday life: Eyes Wide Shut is a story about a well-off guy wanting to take a peek at high society. Thus, he sneaks into a satanic party that is held at an opulent mansion, incidentally a former Rothschild residence in real life. The protagonist is a doctor and clearly very well off. Yet, he is not part of the elite who have the means and the power to stage elaborate sex parties and even kill hookers for fun. They have so much money that it is meaningless for them.
Middle-class aspirations, in contrast, are normally about staying afloat. Even in the upper-middle class you will not have enough money to just spend it. The wife of the protagonist has to check the price tag of a teddy bear instead of just buying it. Among wealthy people, however, you see exactly that behavior. I have only had brief encounters with this world, but it seems normal for these people to, for instance, order food and drinks without even checking the menu. Once I entered a fancy sushi restaurant with a rich client. As we walked in, he commented on the sushi platter at some table and said to me, “Let’s have that, too!”. He then ordered by telling the waiter that he wants what he saw at that other table, but two times. (The bill was about 200 euros in the end.) Another very wealthy client I had flew me in for a few days. On the first day, I helped him pick better clothes. The next day, he went out shopping on his own before he came to my hotel room. He showed me what he had just bought and asked what I thought — and the items I thought were not ideal he did not even bother to return. He asked me if I wanted any of the discarded items, and this way I ended up with an Armani blazer that was a bit too tight for him but which fit me well. The rest he just threw away as it apparently was not worth the hassle to return the clothes. Later, when I saw a T-shirt in a boutique I liked, he just spontaneously bought it for me. It cost around 100 euros.
Even among well-off middle-class households I have never experienced people really casually spending money. Sometimes they pretend that they are casual about money but often this is nothing but an act they put on. My deceased ex-wife comes from a middle-class if not an upper-middle class family. Her parents took her and her siblings dolphin riding on some island when they were kids, for instance. I did not even know that there are places where you can do that. Her parents also showered their kids with gifts and money. Her sister even got fake boobs for her birthday, which cost thousands of euros. Yet, as they did no come from Old Money, they kept a pretty close eye on their finances. Once I saw calculations on a sheet of paper in her father’s study. He did a budgeting exercise, listing various expenses, the mortgages they had — they possessed several properties — and juxtaposed this with their income, with the goal of ensuring that they would not end up under water.
As long as you have to work for a living, it is almost irrelevant what you do, from a financial perspective. Obviously, a doctor makes more than an accountant, but their lives will not be meaningfully different, just like a carpenter and an electrician will not lead meaningfully different lives. The working class stiff cannot afford to retire at 40, and neither can the middle-class striver stop working at 40. They need to pay down their mortgage debt and make sure to budget their money. The doctor may have a nicer house or apartment, and a fancier car, but in the end, he is simply on a marginally different treadmill. Thus, it may not even be a good idea to pick a middle-class career simply based on money. I see this in tech basically every day when I encounter people who do not really care about their craft. Now that the tech gravy train is running out, some may wonder if they may not have been happier in a different field. Of course, entrepreneurship is potentially a way to move into the upper class, but this only works if you achieve success at a level that is far above the typical YouTube huckster and his definition of success. With a business employing at least a few dozen people and profit in the low millions per year you are on that trajectory. However, if you only make what someone else in a regular job could make, you are not going to break out of the middle class.
I find the middle-class snobbery you sometimes encounter quite misguided. Often software engineers brag about their six-figure salaries online. Yet, they need to live in high cost-of-living areas, and as they still keep working they probably have not made enough money yet to feel that they can retire. In the start-up world a lot fewer millionaires get minted than the promoters of this industry may make you believe. These guys are also on a treadmill. Perhaps they sometimes get a glimpse at an upper-class lifestyle but they will not get there. I mentioned in the past that I went to university with someone who drove a supercar, an Audi R8. Perhaps a doctor with his own practice or a small business owner you know drives a nice car, possibly a Porsche or perhaps even a Ferrari. However, these people do not buy their children supercars. This is normally only possible for people who were either born into money or ended up making so much money that it basically loses all meaning for them.
People seem to completely underestimate how much money really rich people have. Let me add another anecdote: In my teens I worked for a local company, doing some clerical work. That was a few decades ago. When I last visited my parents, though, I spotted an article in the local newspaper about the owner of that company and his investment in commercial real estate, mentioning that he added a few 10,000 square meters more to his portfolio. It did not even mention his other businesses. That guy is easily worth in excess of 100 million euros. All these examples are meant to illustrate that even in the bottom of the 1% there is wealth at a level so high that it is comical to even assume that someone in the upper middle class could get there.
I have a hard time understanding this. A dentist who makes almost 200,000 USD to 300,000 USD leads a life indifferent to an accountant who can only earns around 100,000 USD?
Most of the people you mentioned seem to belong to certain categories of riches. They might be sons pampered by their parents, whose only choice is to cash a fat allowance to maintain a “rich and meaningful life”.
My sister went to a great school in North Carolina before attending a private institution. I don’t want to reveal her profession but she came to know quite a few kids whose family asset is worth 10 million. These kids don’t have the habit of spraying money through their car exhaustion system because they have been taught to make wise decisions and limit their spending. There was a Korean-American kid whose parents owned several condos in New York, including an apartment in Manhattan yet he spent rather thrift on clothes and accessories. He was well-dressed but that was because he knew about matching style.
Maybe it is a thing in Asia but if the kids are second generation, they will try to do things their parents taught them to, including saving money and investing.
Maybe rich kids in Europe are more spoiled?
I personally think the behaviours of these kids depend much on their parents’ education. My parents have always been very strict with us so we are not spoiled.
In my experience Asians tend to be much better with money than other ethnicities. Some would even call them “cheap,” similar to the Jewish stereotype.
I have also made this observation. There is even the pejorative that the Chinese are the “Jews of Asia”, but I have no idea what this is supposed to mean.
I was not necessarily writing from a US perspective, which is perhaps a bit of an outlier. In Europe, salary differences are not meaningful. However, even in the US the difference is not as big as you may think. You can start your career in Accounting after your Bachelor’s degree. In contrast, dentistry requires an undergraduate degree plus four years of dental school, where tuition alone may be above $100k per year. Don’t forget that there is interest on student loans. In addition, a few more years of training may be required after dental school. I just looked up that the median salary for dentists in the US is about $150k, albeit the data is a few years out of date. It will take quite a while for the dentist to catch up with the accountant.
Of course, the counter-argument is that dentists with their own practice seem to print money. What people often neglect to take into account is the cost of equipment, etc. Also, at that point you are a small-business owner and no longer an employee. I recall coming across some whining online about radiologists making money hand over fist. Yet, their equipment is ridiculously expensive. Sure, if you assume all of this is paid for already, the picture looks a bit different but this would amount to a very skewed perspective. Quite often, dental and medical students come from well-off families, but others without that kind of backing saddle themselves with a lot of debt, first for their degree and later when opening up their own practice.
I’ve heard that dentists have a very high suicide because of what you mentioned, Aaron.
The U.S. is, as Aaron points out, a bit of an outlier. Over there, someone like a lawyer can make very good money if they rise to the top. Physicians can make a couple hundred K per year even without rising to the top. Note that even with this kind of income, they’re unlikely to be able to build wealth that numbers in the tens of millions.
That’s not likely to happen elsewhere, though. A top neurosurgeon in Sweden will make less than most family doctors in the U.S., for example. Regulations and taxes have crushed incomes for many higher-tier occupations in Europe. 🙁
In the US, I think part of elitist strategy is to make what’s left of the middle class believe they have a much bigger slice of the pie than they have.
Similar to the slave owners in Antebellum South. Where poor white people supported slavery even though they didn’t benefit from it (and it probably was depressing their own wages). They can always say, “at least I’m not that guy.”
The Antebellum Southern phenomenon you’re pointing out had more to do with social class than money. It’s a bit different from the middle-class in the U.S.
The actual solid middle-class in the U.S. does have a pretty good life, though. Certainly better than in Europe. The problem is that the stable middle-class lifestyle is available to fewer and fewer people.
In the 1950s almost anyone who wasn’t a retard could achieve it. In the 1970s and early 80s, anyone who was able to handle an office job could have it. Late 1980s to early 90s, anyone with a college degree.
It just kept degenerating. Now a bachelor’s seems to be the minimum to even get a job that can pay for cheap rent and food, but to afford a family you basically need a higher-tier occupation, or two incomes. Most of the solid middle-class appears to be made up of those who made it into it before things changed.
Yeah, I’m aware that it is not the exact same thing. The economies of the different eras are too distant to make a direct comparison. I was just referencing the divide and conquer strategies of elitists.
One time an Uber driver looked around at the 2 story houses close to where I lived and wondered how these people could afford it. I just shrugged and commented that they were all just old (boomers). She said, “or it’s inherited.” Which is kinda the same thing when you think about it.
If Sleazy readers are into rabbit holes, this blog post theorizes on symbolism of Eyes Wide Shut:
https://vigilantcitizen.com/moviesandtv/the-hidden-and-not-so-hidden-messages-in-stanley-kubriks-eyes-wide-shut-pt-i/
Aaron,
Is all of this validation driven (people signaling their status/wealth, or trying to get a glimpse of the upper middle class)?
I think this kind of middle-class status signalling is driven by the misguided belief of these people that they can outshine their peers via excessive spending. The infamous $30k millionaires are an even better example as they seemingly want to give off the impression that they are multiple rungs higher up on the socioeconomic ladder than they really are.
On a related note, this remind me of people who go to Las Vegas where they pretend to be really rich or wealthy just for the weekend while on a budget. People want to live a life outside the norm. And you see plenty of normies trying to signal their fake wealth.
I’ve always seen what a racket casinos are. The people who are drawn to them seem to be those who have never had hard knocks. Or that hard knocks don’t exist (fucking LOL). Or that they can easily absorb the hard knocks (Wall Street????’) They believe they are deserved something. Motherfuck casinos.
And for any libertarians…..No they should not be illegal. Let them learn the hard way.