In some circles I'm probably really out of touch — a whole new class of Joneses to keep up with.
A friend at work forwarded me a link to the recently announced 103″ Plasma TV from Panasonic. It's set to come to the States this December, for a cool $71,000. (It will sell in Japan for about $20k less.) Who needs a set this big? I mean, having a TV set that can show an eyeball the size of a large grapefruit just isn't worth that much to me. If you put this entire thing on a credit card, the minimum payment (assuming 4% of outstanding balance) would be $2,840 a month. I suppose I could rent it out to a bar for $10,000 on Superbowl 2007 — so they'd be the only guys in town with The World's Largest TV — but that still leaves me a couple of Hummers in the hole.
Dropping $6,000 for a birthday party is bad enough. It's absolutely ridiculous to shell out that much for a birthday party for a five-year-old! Our minivan didn't cost that much! I remember pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey and birthday cake made from scratch and cupcakes to take in to my classmates and homemade decorations and inexpensive but thoughtful presents. (The most expensive one was a pool party.) Not a rented merry-go-round, ponies, magic acts, a professional photographer, and food for 150 of my closest friends and my parents'. (The end of the article has some tips for throwing an inexpensive birthday party, for your information.)
I have my consumption-oriented soft spots, but I just can't imagine consumption of this level. It's hard — though not impossible — to avoid this kind of discretionary consumption. It's just a matter of degree. What's $50 to one person might be $500 to another or $50,000 to yet another. The problem is that these items aren't bought by people who make 10 or 1,000 times more — they often are just going into the hole, and the stuff they bought either depreciates or is gone. Often people who look rich, aren't, and vice versa.
I'll let the Joneses win. It's too expensive to keep up with them!
The adults paying $71K for a TV hopefully have the means to pay for it, so good for them I guess.
The worrisome thing is that their kids will see that as "normal". Those kids are the future Paris Hiltons of the world. They're being trained to think that money is required to create a meaningful experience.
I look at the TV this way….it costs twice as much as my house! WOW!
How many have thought about how to make it through the next economic Depression? Who would buy a $71k tv if you needed to sell it? What preparations have you made for survival once the lights go out, and the trucks stop delivering to the grocery stores, hardware stores, or pharmacies? Do you live on enough land to grow your own food, to hunt and fish or just be able to forage? How about trees, do you have any to cut for heat in the winter? Can you burn your own garbage where you live to keep from dying of plague?
These are things we need to think about. Was that 800Sf $650k 1Br condo really the way to go? Or that 7800Sf McMansion sitting on a postage-sized lot in the desert? We deserve what's coming, and we're well on our way. The US is a bankrupt country, our Fed prints money just to pay the interest on the gov't debt. Debt that future generations are expected to pay back to our foreign creditors, but we are a long way past that, and a long way past the point of no return.
My advice is to get out of the cities and buy lots of land. Build your own home with a basement, learn to do for yourselves without society now before it happens. Arm yourself well, stock food in the basement, and get off the grid. Build windmills or water wheels or put up solar panels, quit paying utilities.
Then you just might survive..
Wow, Lindsey. You and my mom should hang out.
I just shake my head and wonder why. I can think of thousands of things I could buy with all that money – and a plasma screen is just not one of them!
Thanks for the great blog!
Well, if you're a gazillionaire, knock yourself out. But…never mind the giant eyes. Who wants to look at every flaw and bump magnified? Yuck!
And I think even $600 for a little kid is ridiculous. They won't even remember 90% of it! Why is it that some kid's parties are equal to wedding receptions these days? What's special for the future, then? When I was a kid (I'm 50, for the record), my mom would send away for freebies from the backs of boxes to put parties together for us. I can still remember the cake with the paper carousel on top–and that has to be over 40 years ago. A kid can have lovely memories for a few bucks.
Sounds like some folks have read The Long Emergency — or at least would be nodding their head "yes" throughout the whole book.
That's an outrageous amount for a TV! They are cheaper now since you first wrote this but honestly! And, for our 2 year old, you can bet you'll see homemade cake (it's healthier) and thoughtful and inexpensive gifts. What matters is the time we spend with her and not the things she gets. It's not an insurance policy but few things are nowadays. I can't imagine selling a $72,000 plasma TV!!