Most people are not wealthy, or even close to it, though many enjoy reading about and watching and following the lives of the rich and famous.
Maybe it’s envy, maybe it’s enjoying hanging on the drama, laughing at the comedy and gawking at the lavish spending.
Or maybe it’s just the dumb things rich people do with their lives, the way they behave and the things that show how out of touch they are with the real world.
Of course, I have a couple of examples.
First, it’s the opposite of conspicuous consumption, which is when rich people buy expensive and flashy items to display their wealth for anyone not blinded by the glitter.
A recent report in The Wall Street Journal noted that the cost of luxury goods keeps going up. A basic cotton T-shirt with a Christian Dior logo can cost $1,000. Think about spilling spaghetti sauce on that. Leather handbags can cost as much as a small car.
Psychologists, according to the report, say people pay these prices to strut their wealth under less-wealthy noses. They want everyone to see those pricey logos on their clothes, handbags, eyeglasses and anything else they wear.
Yet, there are limits, particularly for the ultrarich. A study cited in the Journal’s reporting found that for every $5,000 increase in the price of luxury goods, the size of the brand’s embroidered or embossed or printed logo shrinks by almost half an inch.
Which means the more you can afford to pay, the less you want to announce it to your friends, neighbors, the hired help and the doorman at the club.
OK, I’m confused. I thought that was the point of overpaying for a luxury brand, telling the spa attendant that you spend as much on a T-shirt as they pay in rent for a month.
At least the more-you-pay-the-smaller-the-logo trend does not hurt anyone. Whereas my next example of how a rich person poorly thinks about poorer people does hurt others.
Elon Musk, one of the richest people in the world and a close adviser to one of the most selfish people in the world, President-elect Donald Trump, is in charge of the soon-to-be-created Department of Government Efficiency. Musk, who is worth an estimated $300 billion, and his cohort in the Trump administration’s efficiency drive, former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, who might be worth only a paltry $1 billion, are advertising for hard-working Americans to join the government.
The two co-directors of government efficiency posted a call last week for “super high-IQ small-government revolutionaries willing to work 80+ hours per week on unglamorous cost-cutting.” To apply, all you need to do is send your resume by direct message to the department’s account on X, the social media platform owned by Musk.
Couldn’t be easier. Type, link and post.
But under Musk’s changes to X since he took it over in 2022 and changed its name from Twitter, only premium subscribers to X can send direct messages to the federal department’s account. And that premium service costs $8 to $16 a month.
Which means that the rich guy in charge of making the federal government more efficient, and who will screen job applicants to serve the public, will take a cut from everyone who wants to apply for a job. Way to go Elon, profiting from public service.
Too bad his ego and greed don’t shrink as he gets richer, the way designer brand logos do.
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