Showing posts with label conspicuous consumption. Show all posts
Showing posts with label conspicuous consumption. Show all posts
Saturday, July 14, 2007
Thirsting For Consumption
There is a new trend for those who have decided that they have more money than they can spend sanely. The new local watering hole is an actual watering hole, where you can buy a bottle of water for up to $55 a pop. That's right. You too can head to a bar to drink H2O that costs more than many people make in a day. As you bump past the person struggling to make their bus to their second job at $8.50 an hour, you can celebrate your good fortune by drinking a litre of water at $55.
It's unlikely that you will find Matt Damon there in the crowd. Unlike other high profile celebrities, newly minted rich people (people with a history of wealth have that history by not spending $100 on two bottles of water), Damon is working through his foundation to build wells in Africa for those unfortunate 1,200,000,000 of us who have no acess to clean water.
This is not a rant against the wealthy, or saying that all rich people need to live off top ramen or macs & cheese. It's a pleading for sanity. Water is going to be the oil of this century. Spending obscene money on a product that basically has no taste is vulgar. Buy some caviar or something. Have a little class.
Tuesday, April 03, 2007
They are a military vehicle. They are not designed for rush hour traffic in LA. I know, I actually drove one of the first prototypes in the late 80's when I was in the military. It was cool. We could climb up embankments. It was rugged off roading. We were 18-25 year olds and the thought never crossed our minds, "Hey, it would be cool if we could take this thing and waste gasoline by sitting on a freeway for two hours". We were thinking of going up dunes, sideways on hills, and other dangerous things that would tax the capabilities of the vehicle. Silly us.
Apparently some people do though. There should be a special tax on these. It would not be a luxory tax. It would be an asshole tax. Who buys a Hummer who isn't one of the world's biggest pricks? I am including women here too. You count as well.
Our planet is cooking, our poor are starving, and you sit in fucking traffic, or go to the mall in a vehicle designed for rugged terrain. Until the H3 came out, many people were paying $85,000 a shot for these bastards too.
It's the moral equivalent of buying caviar for your cat or bathing in evian water, just because you can. You are a dick. I hope your car breaks down in a neighborhood where people worry about if there will be dinner tonight and you have to be at their mercy and charity to come help you.
That will fix you but good.
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