status symbols

STATUS SYMBOLS


This article was inspired by an article at

http://americanenergycrisis.blogspot.com/ . His focus was more on manners and “desperate housewives” ( Desperate Housewives - The Complete First Season ) wannabe’s and the divorce industry, but I hijacked to my own ends.

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Ah, status symbols ( Symbol, Status, and Personality ). The bright feathers of the peacock attracting a mate or the badge of wealth allowing one to be left alone by the riffraff. I’ll get to the symbols that the affluent survivalists/preppers sport in a moment. But first, allow me to rag uncontrollably on all the legions of idiots who play at this silly game. Well, okay, it isn’t complete idiocy. To a certain extent status symbols, or more accurately status costumes, are necessary and helpful. My work “uniform” is black slacks and a polo shirt with boots ( Cactus 6" Classic Boots 611 Brown 10 ). This allows me to appear slightly better kept while still holding up well to heavy work. I can go around every morning on donation pick-ups and not embarrass the business owners/managers if customers see me. And even working manual labor for a construction business or a factory, you still go into an interview dressed well. When I see young pond scum sucking whippersnappers going into a job interview with the butt crack showing droopy pants, pierced nose ring ( Small Sterling Silver Rose Nose Ring for noses with no hole (one piece) ) and facial stubble I can only conclude that they have below room temperature IQ’s or they don’t want to actually get a job and endanger their welfare bennies. Cloths are cheap anymore, what with Caribbean islanders and Chinese farmers slaving away at five cents an hour ( oooohhhh!!!!! There was a wage hike riot in China, now they are making a dime an hour. Theoretically educated commentators suggested that that meant factories would once again dot the Illinois prairie. I would like directions to Planet Happy Place ). But they still, to the degree illustrated above, retain some status function, even if only superficially.

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Cars used to denote status, although I would wager that once Jose the meat cutter ( the factory worker, not the independent butcher ) qualified for three credit cards, a car loan with zero down and a home mortgage on $15 an hour that is no longer as important as it once was. So perhaps that explains why houses got so totally out of control in price. Houses used to be a status symbol. Your neighborhood clearly marked your wealth ( once everyone had credit, the extra high prices still cleared out the unworthy due to the monthly payments ). You didn’t care that the price far exceeded the worth. You had bought your status symbol. And the whole “good schools for the kids” argument for the house was just another status achievement. Oh, sure, they had to be well educated to keep and multiply your wealth. But nothing shouts “poor” quite like a near-ghetto underfunded school district. That simply wouldn’t do. But nothing attracts consumer dollars like the dream of attaining a status symbol, deserved or not. Hence, cars, houses and college educations being jacked up in price. The market could bear it because the market for status is never over, good times or bad. All those things can soon go back to being real status symbols since they have gotten so unaffordable. It is pretty damn sad. As a nation, the vast majority of us looked at a lifetime of consumption like a teenager looks at a drivers license and a barely running beater. They think it will attract a mate ( How to Attract Your Ideal Mate ), but if most women are good at one thing ( built into the genes apparently ) it is smelling out frauds at wealth or security. I’m not saying they all agree with what that means. Some think credit or money is either security or wealth ( not that it is, anymore, due to credit contractions and the now imploding exponential money growth ). Some look at a guaranteed job. Others are more needy on a mental level. That isn’t the point. Whatever a mate looks for ( basically, a way to raise spawn safely ), they can spot the fake displays either immediately or very soon. Of course, they were fooled by Madison Avenue ( The King of Madison Avenue: David Ogilvy and the Making of Modern Advertising ) for a time, with the scam of escalating symbol frauds. But by and large it was a multi-generational scam, so it did make for a lifetime of false security. Which is now ending. But most of us still cling to the old false symbols.

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We look at houses as stores of wealth, rather than disgustingly overpriced pieces of poor craftsmanship. We look at cars as a sign of wealth, but they are also of poor quality and way overpriced. College educations, priced far in excess of the lifetime wages attributed to that degree. Meanwhile, the real owners of wealth ( or at least their spouses, same difference anymore ) display it with far better sense. They have the slightly better house, slightly better car, private school rather than high end public. But the critical difference is the time tested true badge of wealth. Hemorrhaging money on totally needless crap. I’m not talking millionaires here. I have no idea how those people live. But the upper middle class. They are the ones with several SUV payments, twenty bucks a day in Starbucks, the most expensive cell phones with Bluetooth ( Plantronics Voyager 510 Bluetooth Headset [Retail Packaging] ). The three quarters of a million dollar house ( still the same gum and glue, drywall and plywood, off quilter built on wet cement crap shack as a model one tenth the price, but with nicer finish ). All day shopping at the mall. The ability to waste, whether it was a hundred person buffet in the middle of a famine, or spending more on your hair monthly than a blue collar wage earner took home, is what is a status symbol scarcely able to be mimicked by the lower classes. It is a moving barometer, but it is the classic measurement.

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Now, go on over to http://www.survivalblog.com/ and read Friday’s article by C.C. Read it and just start to visualize the extreme wealth squandered. Not for a home, but for a retreat. These are the kinds of guys that the females over at the new Survivalists Singles forum are looking for. Not because they are necessarily thinking to survive the collapse. Because the ability to piss away cash on a strategically questionable purchase is a status symbol. The more things change…
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