3. Rich man in the car paradox.
When you see someone driving a nice car, you rarely think, “Wow, the guy driving that car is cool.” Instead, you think, “Wow, if I had that car people would think I’m cool.” Subconscious or not, this is how people think.
The paradox of wealth is that people tend to want it to signal to others that they should be liked and admired. But in reality those other people bypass admiring you, not because they don’t think wealth is admirable, but because they use your wealth solely as a benchmark for their own desire to be liked and admired.
http://www.collaborativefund.com/blog/the-psychology-of-mone...
Work is a totally different story, but not bought by me, and also spec'd to utility, not extravagance.
I know I wrote my comment in a "haha gotcha" style but my main point is that most people with disposable income have areas where they splurge, and areas where they save. maybe it's not the car or the computer, but I bet you own at least one item that your peers would think you spent too much money on.
instead of shitting on people who spend money on stuff we don't personally value, or imply they only did it to show off how rich they are, why not just assume they bought it because they enjoy it?
Indeed if it weren't for people pursuing the new shiny, I'd have to pay at least 10x for the same utility. But as it is I'm glad to re-purpose/reuse. I have no delusions that I'm not a scavenger in this economic realm. Though I do appreciate a solid "grandpa" car that seats 6 and can tow a few thousand pounds and can still get 30mpg on the highway.
Gentoo would have been an even better analogy.
My original comment was pointing out the disparity between a nice car and a nice laptop. Even a 20k car is at least 5x the cost of a top of the line laptop.
You can also get a similar era V10 M5 or M6 for about the same cash and those will go like crazy. Again, to my eyes, good looking cars.
If you're patient and haggle well you can probably pick up a viper SRT-10, although you might be waiting a while; I see some around $24k but no lower without salvage titles.
I could go on, but you get my point. There are a ton of cars out there that really are pretty incredible for not a lot of money.
Huh, you're right. Actually, more than right. If I don't mind travelling across the country, I can get a 2005 SL55 AMG for $7,500. That car was 6 figures at release, though. That's a LOT of value to lose!
> They're also, to my eyes, pretty good looking
I will disagree there. I think they look boring as all hell. Obviously, this is entirely subjective.
> There are a ton of cars out there that really are pretty incredible for not a lot of money.
I might dispute "incredible" here, for two reasons. First, surprisingly cheap high-performance cars are so frequently from luxury brands that don't consider long-term reliability to be luxury features. Also, despite the SL55 AMG being able to hit 200 MPH, it weighs more than most SUVs, and so has a pitiful 0-60 time of 4.5 seconds. I admit I'm moving the goal posts a bit here, but quick acceleration is more important to me than top speed. I can't use 200 mph on my daily commute, but I can use a 0-60 speed on the on-ramp, or whenever I need to accelerate quickly to pass someone.
But if 0-60 is most important, I'd look at things like that SRT-10 (which makes it in 3.7s stock) or maybe even soup up a CTS-V, which can hit it in 3.3 with some work. Granted both of those, with modifications, will probably wind up closer to $25k than $20-- but who knows, you might get lucky.
Despite that, I maintain my original position: these are far, far beyond just being "nice" cars, and unless you can get a nice computer system for less than negative $80,000 there is no way to get such a system for even one hundred thousand dollars less than these cars, let alone several hundred thousand.
my hot hatch can do it in six seconds, and even that is a bit too much to use unless the road is wide open with no traffic.
However, 99.9% of luxury cars are not exotics. You will rarely see them on the road as they depreciate too much if you drive them daily.
I would think "if I had that car, people may think I'm a bragging asshole, not sure I want that kind of attention".
I couldn't look at myself in the mirror if I'd rather buy such an overpriced car then helping those in need.
It's a Sunday, it's lunch time, and it's packed. After going up and down a couple rows, I get lucky and see the reverse lights on a minivan light up just as I'm approaching the end of a crowded row. So I stop and wait.
While I'm waiting, I look in my rear-view mirror and notice this very new (no plates) white BMW aggressively weaving around other other cars stopped in the lane waiting for something to open up. Just as the spot clears, the white BMW races around me to take the spot. I'm stunned. I'm not a violent person nor even a particular strong person and haven't been in a fistfight since elementary school. But I'm ready for bloodshed. I lay on the horn.
A young handsome fashionably dressed Chinese guy wearing sunglasses exits the car on the driver's side. His attractive young fashionably dressed wife, also wearing sunglasses, gets out on the passenger side. She pulls out their young son, also well dressed and wearing sunglasses. Obliviously, they start walking toward the dumping joint where we're planning to eat.
I turn to my wife, incredulous: "Can you believe this? Did you see that asshole?" I'm not Chinese. My wife is.
"Asshole?" she replied. "In China, that guy would be a hero."
She didn't seem particularly upset by the turn of events. So I just laughed, put my vendetta in the hands of karma, and went in search of another parking spot.
Its not hard to see why though. In industrializing countries with a lot of income inequality, wealth is rare, and anyone who has that is seen as either getting it through hard work, or getting it via their parents' hard work.
BTW, Americans are hardly better, see all the yatches and private jets that corporate executives own.
I see it more that in these societies, the difference in quality of life between being rich or poor can literally make the difference between living or dying. In those conditions, the first thing you probably care about when assessing a potential partner or friend is whether they have clean shelter and know where their next meal is coming from, so the signaling value of money is extremely high. Whether they have excellent taste in music is a long way down the list.
In most developed societies, the difference between being lower middle class or upper middle class is relatively minor, and gives people the luxury to consider conspicuous displays of wealth to be crass, and to choose partners based on more subtle characteristics, like their ability to write funny comments.
On a similar vein, wealth often also brings protection against the State which often abuses its own citizens (e.g. corrupt Government and police officers). This does happen in the US as well (e.g. violence against African Americans) but not to the same extent.
In a world where most people are infected by a zombie virus, it might become very important to be able to signal that you're not infected. In this world, the fact that I'm not infected by a zombie virus is literally one of the least interesting things about me and will rarely warrant even a passing mention.
Likewise, to me, your t-shirt that just says the word GUCCI in massive letters tells me that you have rich parents and no aesthetic sense. In other circumstances, to other people, it might signal that their quality of life could be improved many times over by being with this person.
The irony becomes that these signals of disposable wealth can be so coveted that in certain places, people's priorities will shift such that they'll sacrifice all areas of their lives, eat nothing but the cheapest instant noodles, and spend a year's savings on, say, a Louis Vuitton wallet which, sadly, they'll no longer have any money to put in.
He was lying to you to make you feel better so that you tip more.
No, he wasn't lying.
This results in significant more of German luxury cars, especially BMW, Mercedes and Audi, being quite common, as well as being the most jammed up country on the planet.
So while it looks like fancy flaunting, the BMW 5, Audi 6 or Mercedes E is very common will not turn many eyes here.
Maybe this is true in Belgium, but how much is it true elsewhere?
Up until the early 2000's, this was the case in the US.
And people love to correct others about their bags or shoes when others misidentify them as a more affordable imitation of an exclusion designer, and then get to tell them who and how much it cost and how it is so worth it for the "quality".
They have this myth of the ultra rich everyday man, who despite their immense wealth and power, are just as relatable and humble as the rest of us. They wear blue jeans and you see them joking with the cashier, even though they could buy the supermarket chain.
In many other cultures that would be the epitome of hypocrisy. It's perceived as cheap and an outright lie. Being rich actually obligates you to look rich. It's expected. You can be kind, you can be generous, you can be helpful, but don't hide that you're rich.
Although it might be more pronounced in Asia, even in Europe the rich don't try as hard to be relatable as in America. Somehow Americans find displays of wealth almost offensive.
I’d think they were an asshole. BMW drivers are assholes, I know I used to drive one.
https://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/08/12/the-rich-drive-d...
On Youtube, Daily Driven Exotics is one of the largest automotive channels and I would suppose you would consider all the antics you see on that channel to be quite obnoxious. Plenty of Americans consider everything they see of that channel as "wow what a cool guy/car".
Is "good for him he's enjoying what his nice car has to offer" not an option?
The line between 'cool' and 'asshole' is very slim and depends on your assumptions about the individual in question, their character and motivations.
So why mention the type of car?
In one case, I watched a high executive tank a company into the ground (provably, with numbers to back it up that it was as a direct result of their own decisions) and got promoted 3 times for it. Eventually left their job and took an even higher position at another, bigger company.
No one seems to notice this. Its insane.
Interesting...
I'm an American, but apparently more Canadian in attitude about this. I've always taken overconfidence (or, worse, braggadocio) as a sign of incompetence.
Again, it's just my experience.
either person could be a valuable member of the team, but how do you say which one is more competent in a quick glance?
Which is precisely what the rich people want them to think.
Seems to apply to this article as well. Maybe 'high-class' overconfident people become more convincing as wealth disparity widens due to the magic sauce they must obviously possess to be so rich in the first place. It's like Gob's bragging from Arrested Development: "The guy in the $4,000 suit is holding the elevator for a guy who doesn’t make that in three months. Come on!"
I'm having a hard time finding a paper about the US/Canada difference now though, so maybe I'm wrong.