The most common car seen in my very affluent neighborhood (the whole front of the neighborhood is estate mansions on acres-we live in the zero lot line area, still very nice, but a fraction of the others) is GMC Denali, Tahoe, Lexus, then Mercedes. I’ve seen only one Bentley or similar in the entire time we’ve lived here (5 years).
More anecdotes, I realize.
BTW, I have a 4 year old M class that I love. It handles so well, and was less $ than my DH’s GMC.
@Nrdsb4 IMO Sharing anecdotes is appropriate, but making broad generalizations and/or drawing conclusions based on those anecdotes (which you did not do) not so much!
Just refreshed my memory - Jobs actually had a rolling 6-month lease. I’m sure that was a plutocrat-special not available to the general public, lol. The lease on his car probably ran around 3-4k/month if I had to venture a guess.
“One of the many things Steve Jobs was famous for was his refusal to put a license plate on the back of his car, a Mercedes-Benz SL55 AMG. Jobs—or someone close to him—spotted a loophole in California DMV regulations allowing six months of grace before a license plate had to be attached to a new car. As a result, the Apple supremo maintained a rolling six-month lease on a series of new SL55 AMGs, replacing one with another just before the grace period ran out.”
Why didn’t Steve Jobs want a license plate?
You mean this story?
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/how-hitlers-car-ended-up-parked-in-medina/
That one. Yup. The word on the street it did not have to travel much further.
It’s not about shaming. Objectively, factually, any one in the top 2.5% of AGI is income rich. People who think otherwise are delusional, and it’s beyond ridiculous to equate the financial problems of the family earning $300k to the one earning $30k.
“why do some feel it necessary to shame upper income families? It is their reality and it is as real and as stressful to them as financial worries are for lower income families.”
The shaming is wrong but so is this statement, IMO. I really think it is NOT AS real or AS stressful. Trying to find parity for the two indicates a real lack of understanding of the day to day realities of low income families. It also explains why upper income families do get shamed.
Probably Jobs didn’t want a license plate on his car for the same reason I don’t want an iPhone.
Two thoughts:
If you are in the 1% (particularly if you qualify by virtue of accumulated wealth) and are feeling financial stress or fear or pressure, you’re probably doing it wrong.
There is definitely a resentment/disdain against wealthy people in both society and on CC specifically. It seems as though some people either assume that the wealth is ill gained, that wealthy people possess negative character traits or other malevolent attributes or behaviors. Negative assumptions and judgments about how and why rich people spend their money abound.
And objectively, factually the poor in the US are better off than the poor in a vast majority of the rest of the world. Therefore, by this logic, the US poor are delusional.
I’m chuckling on a daily basis following this thread. Those posters who would vehemently support just about anyones feelings regarding anything (hey I FEEL this way, therefore you must be quiet and accept my FEELINGS,. Oh and while you at it… give me a puppy, a safe space and numerous trigger warnings), are more than happy to label those who are - by their definition ‘objectively wealthy’ as delusional if they do not FEEL the appropriately prescribed feelings.
Gotta love hypocrisy.
Accumulating (as opposed to inheriting) top 1% in wealth (say $10 million) is very difficult, in most cases requiring very high income combined with long term financial discipline.
I expect that most people who earn and save their way into the top 1% of wealth have developed habits that allow them to avoid financial worry.
“Accumulating (as opposed to inheriting) top 1% in wealth (say $10 million) is very difficult, in most cases requiring very high income combined with long term financial discipline.”
And at least a dash of luck and good fortune.
I don’t think people on CC shame the rich. I do think upper income people on CC run into trouble when they make offhand assertions that both wealthy AND low income families have it made for college. They complain about the cost of living in their area, how hard their kids worked, and how unfair it is that their college choices are limited by finances when top schools are “filled” with the wealthy and the poor. Nobody seems willing or able to move to a less expensive area and they seem to resent having to make their kid pick from the bottom half of their top 10 colleges. They want colleges to take their cost of living into account when they calculate aid. In my opinion, that translates as wanting the “benefits” of being poor without the challenges. I don’t think it’s unreasonable for posters to gently point that out to them.
@doschicos the above is very true. My H came from a working class background, worked hard, got a great education, and did extremely well financially. But what put him over the top was that he happened to be in the right place at the right time, saw that he had an opportunity, and took it.
@Nrdsb4 No one knows for sure why Jobs didn’t want a license plate, and he never fully answered the question when asked, but speculation was that he enjoyed circumventing the law, and maybe also didn’t like people taking pics of his car and tracking his location.
None of our cars has a front plate (as required by law in our state) because H refuses to drill through the front bumper to install the plate (none of the cars has a factory front bracket). We all keep the extra plate in the trunk in case we are pulled over (which has never happened in almost 30 years with a variety of cars), but I’m fully prepared to blame it on my husband.
@Bromfield2 Yes, and not having a major setback like a major illness or accident, etc. I feel my family has been lucky in that regard.
@Gourmetmom - Mr. B recommends The Law. The $120 it cost us for Model X significantly less than the ticket for not having the front plate. The holder attaches to the front of the car without any drilling and does not obstruct any sensors. Mr. passes at least 2 cop speed traps on the way to work every day, so the chances of getting pulled over are pretty high.
@doschicos @Bromfield2
Thank you for mentioning the “luck” factor! Some rich folks think they got to where they are today all due to their own talent/hardwork, not realizing that many factors not related to their innate abilities are also at work. The self-made wo/man image is then often used to shame poor people, imploring them to pull their own bootstraps, neglecting the fact that the poor “have to have the boots in the first place”.
This is from a few years ago about the scarcity of money/time let poor/busy people make bad judgement “When you have scarcity and it creates a scarcity mindset, it leads you to take certain behaviors which in the short term, help you manage scarcity but in the long term, only make matters worse.” A vicious circle. https://www.npr.org/2014/01/02/259082836/how-scarcity-mentaly-affects-our-thinking-behavior
Of course, if one wants vehicular anonymity, one can just drive something common like (in that area) a silver Prius.