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A rich lady named Wednesday Martin who lives on the Upper East Side has published an article (“Poor Little Rich Women“) and book “Primates of Park Avenue” applying her anthropology degree to the other rich (but not super-rich) stay at home moms she hangs out with. Of course, it winds up being about:
A. How rich stay-at-home-moms are oppressed by society.
B. How the author is better than the rich stay-at-home moms because while it may look like she’s doing exactly what they are doing, she’s actually pursuing her career of anthropology by researching them by going out to lunch a lot.
It was easy for me to fall into the belief, as I lived and lunched and mothered with more than 100 of them for the better part of six years, that all these wealthy, competent and beautiful women, many with irony, intelligence and a sense of humor about their tribalism (“We are freaks for Flywheel,” one told me, referring to the indoor cycling gym), were powerful as well. But as my inner anthropologist quickly realized, there was the undeniable fact of their cloistering from men. There were alcohol-fueled girls’ nights out, and women-only luncheons and trunk shows and “shopping for a cause” events. There were mommy coffees, and women-only dinners in lavish homes. There were even some girlfriend-only flyaway parties on private planes, where everyone packed and wore outfits the same color.
“It’s easier and more fun,” the women insisted when I asked about the sex segregation that defined their lives.
“We prefer it,” the men told me at a dinner party where husbands and wives sat at entirely different tables in entirely different rooms.
Sex segregation, I was told, was a “choice.” But like “choosing” not to work, or a Dogon woman in Mali’s “choosing” to go into a menstrual hut, it struck me as a state of affairs possibly giving clue to some deeper, meaningful reality while masquerading, like a reveler at the Save Venice ball the women attended every spring, as a simple preference.
US Army diagram
My impression is that upper crust married women are more faithful than in, say, Edith Wharton’s day. Partly it’s because they marry later. Whatever the reasons, social customs seem more designed these days to encourage monogamy than in the past when, say, married couples were traditionally split up at dinner and men and women sat alternately.
And then there were the wife bonuses.
I was thunderstruck when I heard mention of a “bonus” over coffee. Later I overheard someone who didn’t work say she would buy a table at an event once her bonus was set. A woman with a business degree but no job mentioned waiting for her “year-end” to shop for clothing. Further probing revealed that the annual wife bonus was not an uncommon practice in this tribe.
A wife bonus, I was told, might be hammered out in a pre-nup or post-nup, and distributed on the basis of not only how well her husband’s fund had done but her own performance — how well she managed the home budget, whether the kids got into a “good” school — the same way their husbands were rewarded at investment banks. In turn these bonuses were a ticket to a modicum of financial independence and participation in a social sphere where you don’t just go to lunch, you buy a $10,000 table at the benefit luncheon a friend is hosting.
Women who didn’t get them joked about possible sexual performance metrics. Women who received them usually retreated, demurring when pressed to discuss it further, proof to an anthropologist that a topic is taboo, culturally loaded and dense with meaning.
But what exactly did the wife bonus mean? It made sense only in the context of the rigidly gendered social lives of the women I studied.
It’s pretty common for anthropologists to get pranked by their subjects who figure out what they want to hear and then exaggerate and plain make up stuff. Margaret Mead getting taken in by the tall tales of Samoan teens is only the most notorious example. Pacific Islanders sometimes concoct elaborately silly rituals and folklore to amuse themselves at the expense of visiting academics.
A review in the NYT:
‘Primates of Park Avenue: A Memoir,’ by Wednesday Martin
Reviewed by VANESSA GRIGORIADIS MAY 29, 2015But the sociology rings true, even if the codification can be off (a common practice among stay-at-home moms and their working husbands in a flush year called “presents under the Christmas tree” is here designated a “wife bonus”). …
One requires security and protection in such a world. Martin finds it in a Birkin bag, which she absolutely must have as her “sword and shield” on the sidewalks west of Lexington Avenue. When she whispers this desire to her husband, “he just sort of groaned,” though he quickly agreed to buy it the next day. “I laughed — a loud, braying, mirthless, ungenerous laugh that seemed to alarm him,” she writes. How could he be so jejune to think that Hermès lets you waltz in and buy a Birkin? According to the BBC, “demand is such that there is no longer a waiting list for the bag, in the classic sense of the term. It’s a wish list, not an order list.” The scarcity of the Birkin, as Martin points out, is the thing-in-itself for upper-class women, a way to “rejuvenate our own scarcity, to reinvigorate the sense of everyone in our society of our own value.”
Humans naturally compete for status. Women spend years learning how to improve their looks to compete with each other for the attention of high status men. The expensive handbag frenzy, however, is a sort of arms control cartel among women who have successfully landed desirable husbands who agree that they won’t compete in luring astray each other’s husbands away. So they redirect their competitive energies from the sexual marketplace to this culdesac of handbags. No heterosexual husband in history has ever been seduced by one of his wife’s female friends flashing the latest handbag.
Instead the wives will just compete for status over whether or not their husband will pony up for a Birkin bag. Yeah, it’s a waste of money, but there are worse things than wasting money.
Tyler Cowen posted the rebuttal made by a wife bonus recipient.
http://nypost.com/2015/05/28/i-love-my-wife-bonus-deal-with-it/
In hindsight, it was not a good idea to send this to all my friends and post it on facebook. The ladies will start expecting it and their men will complain that I ruined our cartel, whereby we try not to make eachother look bad.
The lady with the anthropology was a bit of a bitch, in the interest of science of course. I’m a bit ambivalent on the wife bonus – I think it’s a good idea, but I deplore its use. However, if the men can indulge their mania for sport memorabilia and whatever, then I start to see the wife’s shopping as more legitimate.
Besides, the wife’s status enhances the status of the husband. Not with the male acquaintances (who only care if she’s good looking and pleasant), but with the female ones.
The odd thing is that she says she gets her bonus for "supporting" him (at the top of the article), and then at the bottom of the article she says she DOESNT get the bonus for anything she does (sex, cooking, cleaning). She seems a bit schizo about the arrangement.
Bottom line: she picked him so she could quit work, pop out [one] quickie kid, have an expense account, and hang out with her buds. Nice work if you can get it.
On (very rare) occasions my wife will pull that "we're-partners-and-I-help-you-with-your-career" nonsense. I flip the script. I tell her, "I am tired of patriarchally oppressing you and preventing you from achieving your full human potential. I want you to lead a rich, fulfilled, professional life. I am heartsick at you making not a dollar, not 75 cents, not even a quarter, but ZERO cents for every dollar I make!"
And then I ask her what I can do to help her advance her career so she doesn't have to stay home and be oppressed. Sometimes I rub it in by finding professional jobs for which she is imminently qualified, circling them in the paper and telling her, "This one looks interesting".
Gentlemen, we all know the story. When Polly Phillips was twenty she was screeching Womyn Power, feminism, independence, her career, and how women are the equal of any man. She rode the carousel as long and hard as she could, grew increasingly disillusioned and bored by her job, and then snagged her chump husband just before her time ran out.
At least in Edith Wharton's age women of Polly's class were honest about their ultimate goals and prepared for them by learning to cook, clean, entertain, set an elegant table, manage a household, and be a complement and helpmeet to their future husbands, instead of sneering at all that ... until they hit the wall.
~~
BTW, that "Tory Burch" dress is butt ugly. Or at the very least, it is unattractive on her.
I'm pretty much the furthest thing from a fashionista, but i'm always amazed at how many women who care about fashion, dress in stuff that is ugly and unflattering on them. They just have no "eye".
This woman has a boatload of money to burn--and is burning it--but wears something ugly and unflattering. Even though she seems to have a figure--not too far gone yet--that could easily be flattered with some smart fashion choices.
My older daughter is quite competent at this and manages to look good and well turned out on a tiny budget, with stuff she picks up at discount stores or the sales at her favorite girl stores. But she has a good eye.
Expensive handbags probably signal status in a second way in addition to their scarcity and cost: they signal that you can afford to live in a place where it’s safe to walk around with one.
This is interesting.
http://bamber.blogspot.com/2007/02/in-which-i-rationalize-indulgence.html
The author is a young lawyer from a middle class Texas family who writes why she paid a lot of money for a fendi purse.
“in the past when, say, married couples were traditionally split up at dinner and men and women sat alternately”: an admirable habit; have people really abandoned it?
But I could imagine that, at some point, a handbag gets so rare and expensive that any would-be thief would risk raising as much attention from trying to fence it as somebody who’d stolen a Picasso.
Or to getting their kids into the right pre-schools. And making gourmet snacks and lunches for them with non-violent, organic, fair trade, locally-sourced ingredients shaped like cute animals and cartoon characters (but something on PBS Kids or, better yet, something European such as “Miffy the Bunny,” not something gaudy and Middle American like Disney stuff).
Farmer markets are actually very inexpensive.
So are vegan ingredients in general, such as vegetable and most whole grains and legumes, assuming you buy them raw and cook them at home.If you want to save lots of money, go vegan, buy at farmer markets, and cook at home. Really.
"So they redirect their competitive energies from the sexual marketplace to this culdesac of handbags.""
Or to getting their kids into the right pre-schools. And making gourmet snacks and lunches for them with non-violent, organic, fair trade, locally-sourced ingredients shaped like cute animals and cartoon characters (but something on PBS Kids or, better yet, something European such as “Miffy the Bunny,” not something gaudy and Middle American like Disney stuff)."
And making sure you know that their dog is a rescue dog and that their engagement ring has only certified non-conflict diamonds and that they have a compost-bin, and all those other SWPL status-markers.
http://nypost.com/2015/05/28/i-love-my-wife-bonus-deal-with-it/
In hindsight, it was not a good idea to send this to all my friends and post it on facebook. The ladies will start expecting it and their men will complain that I ruined our cartel, whereby we try not to make eachother look bad.
The lady with the anthropology was a bit of a bitch, in the interest of science of course. I'm a bit ambivalent on the wife bonus - I think it's a good idea, but I deplore its use. However, if the men can indulge their mania for sport memorabilia and whatever, then I start to see the wife's shopping as more legitimate.
Besides, the wife's status enhances the status of the husband. Not with the male acquaintances (who only care if she's good looking and pleasant), but with the female ones.
It’s not really a rebuttal, because she’s describing something different: an arrangement with her husband where they each take 20% of his annual bonus, after taxes, and bank the rest. There’s no performance criteria and he gets the same amount she does. She’s just using that oped to show off.
There’s likely to be some cash and other goodies in the bag regardless.
Men dressed as women steal handbags from luxury Lincoln Park store
Chicago Tribune
I guess that makes it a spy op.
O/T: @ iSteve, here’s a nice example for your fake rape accusation database.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-3103301/THE-MIND-DOCTOR-MAX-PEMBERTON-Women-lie-rape-know-cost.html
The key bit is:
“Several years ago, I was falsely accused of sexually assaulting a female patient while I was looking after her in the Accident and Emergency department of the hospital where I was working.
It was utterly ludicrous for a number of reasons, not least because she was handcuffed to two policemen the entire time she was in the department, and also because she was under uninterrupted CCTV surveillance that showed I didn’t so much as touch her. Oh, and also I’m gay.”
She’s no Thorstein Veblen.
“I laughed — a loud, braying, mirthless, ungenerous laugh that seemed to alarm him…”
What wife would describe herself this way?
The account lacks the ring of truth.
How The Other Half Lives, told by a PC addle-brain in the repulsive jargon of pseudo-academia.
I think it’s a duty if you’re rich to buy the expensive clothes and handbags. It’s nice knowing that a shoe, bag, or item of clothing was crafted by a middle-class person with an artistic skill and dedication to excellence.
I’m the furthest thing from rich you can get, but I have made a few purchases thanks to gift cards…one if which actually included a note of support from the woman who spent several hours making the garment for me. It was pretty cool
I still have the note.
So yes, if its between say Donating to Political Causes and a Birkin…I’d hope the people on the opposite side of me choose the Birkin
“and making gourmet snacks and lunches for them with non-violent, organic, fair trade, locally-sourced ingredients”
I could never understand the stereotypical association between stereotypical healthy “local” eating and the rich.
Farmer markets are actually very inexpensive.
So are vegan ingredients in general, such as vegetable and most whole grains and legumes, assuming you buy them raw and cook them at home.
If you want to save lots of money, go vegan, buy at farmer markets, and cook at home. Really.
Status competition among the rich. Really, people have to have something to do. The only difference between that and the blue-collar guys pimping their cars is the item of choice and the price tag.
People compete for status, attention, acceptance, admiration (lots of "a" words, apparently). There is nothing new to this and anybody with some functioning senses and a working brain has been aware of this since at least high school.
The rich have more money to waste on this kind of stuff, and so they do. Life is in many ways boring and arguably pointless, and people need something to distract them from this reality.
One question left unanswered is the percentage of the rich husbands who are getting some trim on the side. My reasoned guess is approximately 100%.
Edit - I know I know, raised eyebrows. I haven't cheated, but I'm self-aware enough to know where possible socioeconomic success and the gift of the gab could lead me, in a moment of weakness.
If these high-end wives tend not to be cheaters it might be because they don't want to lose the meal ticket unless they can trade up. A lot of them are probably indifferent to sex but see it as a way towards a luxurious lifestyle which is what really interests them.
The huge amounts spent by these people on things like handbags probably doesn't resonate well with the working class who probably think they should all get the Marie Antoinette style haircut.
https://www.rosen.com/divorce/divorcearticles/alienation-of-affection-and-criminal-conversation/
An outsider’s interference with marriage can cost the outsider big bucks in North Carolina. Fairly high-dollar awards in such cases have existed here for a number of years, a fact not generally known.
Even if you do not actually file a complaint and sue the paramour, often times the threat of such a suit can be used as leverage in your negotiations with your spouse as you separate.
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/03/18/nc-woman-gets-m-alienation-affection-suit/
A jury has awarded a North Carolina woman $9 million from her husband's lover after ruling the other woman ruined their marriage.
Of course, to be fair, these suits are against the third party not the (wealthy) philanderer.
Exactly. Human Nature 101.
People compete for status, attention, acceptance, admiration (lots of “a” words, apparently). There is nothing new to this and anybody with some functioning senses and a working brain has been aware of this since at least high school.
The rich have more money to waste on this kind of stuff, and so they do. Life is in many ways boring and arguably pointless, and people need something to distract them from this reality.
Spent in the company of animals, though, life is deeply rewarding and insofar as caring for another living non-human creature has a point, very meaningful.
N.B. An affluent friend gave me an expensive hand bag she'd bought, then decided she didn't like. I'm surprised at how many compliments I get from other women when I carry it. (I have two purses, one for spring/summer, one for fall/winter.) They even comment on how expensive it must have been. I had no idea women ever thought about such things in such detail. I do like having two leather hand bags, the leather looks nice and wears well. Beyond that, I don't give a flip and can't understand why anyone else would.
The word here is divertissement, which is also exactly what Wednesday Martin is engaging in. I wonder if she wears a pith helmet as she stalks around uncovering hidden networks of behavior that only everyone knows about. She must at least wear a shirt with epaulets and pull her hair into a ponytail during her safaris.
I don’t particularly like Gavin Mcinnes, but: “Men don’t insist women spend $10,000 on an Hermes bag. We don’t even know what that is.”
Only because you don't know him. He's impossible not to like.
My sense is that in the past, wealthy men often married for looks. Their trophy wives may have been beautiful, but these women often sought out non-marital partners because they weren’t attracted to their husbands. These days wealthy men tend to marry highly educated who they’re compatible with, so their wives are more faithful and are also less attractive to other men. These women are more invested in their marriage and children too.
Marrying a bimbo is not a good strategy if you expect faithfulness and mothering.
That's what courtesans were for.
Hey, don't sell explosive orgasms short!
Sounds to me like some gay element is involved. Even in Downton Abbey meals are taken together and the sexes separate after for politics and family.
Well, the guy’s not an investment banker. It’s the same thing, just more downscale, as befitting their socio-economic status. It might not be workable to have him assign an actual percentage of his salary for her frivolous spending and call that a wife salary. At that level, they’re probably pretty leveraged and trying to live higher than even their substantial means would entail, so the wife bonus comes out of the bonus itself.
And a lot of the guys who aren’t rich, as well. Men are men, most of the times. Does it matter? The point of marriage is to legitimize children, keep a household with division of labor, offer mutual support and focus income and parental work on the kiddies. If a person gets some on the side, while maintaining his/her support for his/her family and his/her community and being a law abiding citizen, are his/her extracurriculars of any interest to anyone other than the spouse? I think that fooling around is a natural consequence of hypersexual and youth and status obsessed cultures, and the hypocritical outrage surrounding the issue is a huge liability (especially political, but also financial) for otherwise decent people. We tend to think it wrong that someone like Turing could be driven out of polite society for his homosexuality, or that people can be blackmailed and viewed as easily subverted because of their unconventional sexual proclivities. Marital infidelity is another such liability that would lose its power if it were treated as the inevitability it generally is for most of the population. It would be much easier to control and render harmless if it were to lose its forbidden mystique and become subject to specific norms like “you don’t affect the marriage status quo” “you don’t have kids with your college age mistress”.
Edit – I know I know, raised eyebrows. I haven’t cheated, but I’m self-aware enough to know where possible socioeconomic success and the gift of the gab could lead me, in a moment of weakness.
I'm not certain that marital infidelity is an inevitability for most of the population. Impulse control and future-time orientation are worthy character traits for success in life. The lack of which explain volumes of social and economic dysfunction.
I’m reminded of the story of a woman who shows up looking fab for a social event and saying: “The cleavage is for the men; the shoes are for the women.”
I think the handbag thing is a combination of women’s interest in fashion (i.e. looking good) + physically showing off to other women (requires non-sexual stuff that yet involves feminine talents—e.g. looking good but not slutty) + , high-quality product that has a synthetic rarity (i.e. smart entrepreneurs created haute couture+ rare) + showing off how well she can control men, another feminine talent (by getting her husband to go through the trouble of buying one for her).
The last category is important; while a female CEO might buy one of those super-high-end handbags or some other status symbol, watch other women’s reaction when she finds out that the woman herself bought it through the money she earned by working—i.e. not via husband or divorce settlement) —far from “sisters doing it for themselves” high fiving, the gloss wears off quickly, and women are much less impressed. Lesbians dressed to the 9′s simple don’t get why all these straight women don’t fawn over their high end stuff the way they fawn over straight women’s. It’s because the latter got it all through getting men to work for them, which is the true epitome of female power.
The high-end handbaggers also keep their quality up and supply down, making it a social-climbing coup to jump people in line and get one. For a counter-example, see Beanie Baby craze. What made certain Beanie Babies so valuable was that women (and gay men and shut ins) got a fixation on them and then the maker created some special ones that were rarer than others; in effect, he was a cartel. But unlike successful cartels like DeBeers or the high-end handbaggers or Jimmy Choos, he didn’t push the quality of his Bean Bag babies up, nor did he limit his market; he instead flooded it with cheap stuff and caused the ladies to turn up their noses; why, anyone can have an official Beanie Baby, so I don’t want one!
I’ve often thought that a quick way to extreme social power and wealth for the artistically-inclined would be launching a high-end belt or barrette or hair-ribbon line of merchandise—made of the rarest silk/ivory/tiger bone/tears of African children!–then limiting orders to 100 per year. Set the price extremely high (no bargaining) and watch the husbands line up to offer you goodies to push their wives ahead in line—free trips to the Bahamas on the private jet for months at a time, rent-free living at Park Avenue apartments, stock tips from insiders, etc.
Such a small thing, but I think women would flip out trying to outdo each other for them.
Especially Kristen Ritter (that’s for Steve).
Women's shoes--what are those?
I remember reading this article several weeks ago. The author, Martin, broached the wife bonus as some sort of demeaning ritual stay-at-home moms are subjected to by their husbands. Sort of like a John peeling off a few $20s from his wad of cash and throwing it at them. But to me it seems just as likely that the wife wants some fun money as a recognition for her labor—or at least her oversight of those who do the actual labor—ensuring that the husband comes home to a clean house, hot food, and healthy kids.
In other words, as Steve noticed, this is another shot fired by women who work against women who don’t.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3099736/Holidaymakers-misery-boat-people-Syria-Afghanistan-seeking-asylum-set-migrant-camp-turn-popular-Greek-island-Kos-disgusting-hellhole.html
It’s not just Sub-Saharan Africans looking to further immigrate into mainland Europe. The fact that our Western elites are forcing a country like Greece to deal with this situation with their record unemployment is beyond outrageous. Simply unbelievable.
“Why Do Rich Married Ladies Compete Over Handbags?”
They have money to burn they didn’t earn.
“culdesac of handbags”
boom goes the dynamite
In finance it’s common for bonuses to be multiples of the base salary. Wouldn’t any fiscally prudent couple delay large discretionary expenditures like designer clothes and charitable donations until they knew what their annual income was going to look like? How much of the wife bonus thing is really just budgeting with variable income?
Well, at least they don’t shoot each other to get their shamanistic totems. And they don’t mob the Hermes store, fighting and grabbing to get the latest Birkin offering.
One interesting thing is how different wealthy types project their wealth. Compare the parking lots of old money country clubs like Oentwentsia or Shoreacres versus new money clubs like Butler National or Bob O Link. Old money seems to be competing to see who has the oldest volvo when the Ferraris are at Butler.
The Irish clubs like Beverly or Butterfield are in the middle.
As a dude, this handbag thing is completely a blind spot to me. I was at a closing and a lawyer mentioned his daughter got a Hermes bag for 200 bucks. I asked if that was a lot. All the women literally gasped at my ignorence. But I do know the downstroke at every club in townal.
There’s that “suprious aristocracy” again.
There seems to be an endless supply of high end ‘escort’ services, women willing to be kept, wannabe mistresses who are looking to be kept up in style without working, etc. Someone is patronizing them and it isn’t Joe the plumber.
If these high-end wives tend not to be cheaters it might be because they don’t want to lose the meal ticket unless they can trade up. A lot of them are probably indifferent to sex but see it as a way towards a luxurious lifestyle which is what really interests them.
The huge amounts spent by these people on things like handbags probably doesn’t resonate well with the working class who probably think they should all get the Marie Antoinette style haircut.
I admit to relating to none of this, being unmarried, middle-class, and male – and having grown up in the countryside, where the relative wife population density was low enough to preclude competition (except of course for the most organized canning shelf in the pantry – a Swiss farming wife obsession) – but “wife bonus”? What on earth happened to the wife controlling the household finances? That the husband should have any control over his own money – beyond a small lunch stipend – is just plain unnatural.
http://nypost.com/2015/05/28/i-love-my-wife-bonus-deal-with-it/
In hindsight, it was not a good idea to send this to all my friends and post it on facebook. The ladies will start expecting it and their men will complain that I ruined our cartel, whereby we try not to make eachother look bad.
The lady with the anthropology was a bit of a bitch, in the interest of science of course. I'm a bit ambivalent on the wife bonus - I think it's a good idea, but I deplore its use. However, if the men can indulge their mania for sport memorabilia and whatever, then I start to see the wife's shopping as more legitimate.
Besides, the wife's status enhances the status of the husband. Not with the male acquaintances (who only care if she's good looking and pleasant), but with the female ones.
Read: “… for not divorcing him and cleaning him out.”
The odd thing is that she says she gets her bonus for “supporting” him (at the top of the article), and then at the bottom of the article she says she DOESNT get the bonus for anything she does (sex, cooking, cleaning). She seems a bit schizo about the arrangement.
Bottom line: she picked him so she could quit work, pop out [one] quickie kid, have an expense account, and hang out with her buds. Nice work if you can get it.
On (very rare) occasions my wife will pull that “we’re-partners-and-I-help-you-with-your-career” nonsense. I flip the script. I tell her, “I am tired of patriarchally oppressing you and preventing you from achieving your full human potential. I want you to lead a rich, fulfilled, professional life. I am heartsick at you making not a dollar, not 75 cents, not even a quarter, but ZERO cents for every dollar I make!”
And then I ask her what I can do to help her advance her career so she doesn’t have to stay home and be oppressed. Sometimes I rub it in by finding professional jobs for which she is imminently qualified, circling them in the paper and telling her, “This one looks interesting”.
Gentlemen, we all know the story. When Polly Phillips was twenty she was screeching Womyn Power, feminism, independence, her career, and how women are the equal of any man. She rode the carousel as long and hard as she could, grew increasingly disillusioned and bored by her job, and then snagged her chump husband just before her time ran out.
At least in Edith Wharton’s age women of Polly’s class were honest about their ultimate goals and prepared for them by learning to cook, clean, entertain, set an elegant table, manage a household, and be a complement and helpmeet to their future husbands, instead of sneering at all that … until they hit the wall.
In the Burbs the ultimate tangible status symbol are houses. It is probably much harder to show off and entertain in the city, particularly if there are children in the picture which is the case with these hausfraus. I remember talking with an American who was a Senior VP of US operations for a MAJOR Japanese corporation. In effect, he held the highest rank a foreigner could hold within a Japanese octopus. He commented to me that whenever the brass would visit the US it was customary for him to entertain them in his house. When he went there, they would always go to a restaurant or somewhere public. Even though he was the least senior person of his clique it was clear who had the bigger purse.
A high end NY couple was out to dinner at a very upscale restaurant. A stunning blonde walked up to their table, bend slightly forward and delivered a full , open mouth kiss to the husband. She shot the wife a glance and then said to the man, ” See you later?” The husband replied, ” Yes, yes indeed.” The wife dropped her fork, watched the woman walk away like a super model and then turned to her husband. “Who”, she hissed, “was that?” “That”, replied the husband, “is my mistress.” “Mistress?” said the wife, nearly choking on the word. “Yes, my mistress.” said the husband resuming his meal. “I want a divorce!” said the wife, “Do you hear me?” The husband took a sip of wine, leaned forward and said, “Ah yes, a divorce. And you are willing to give up membership at my club. Trips to London for Theatre. Trips to Paris to shop. Summers in Tuscany at my client’s estate. Flights on the corporate jet. Do I understand you correctly?” The wife stared in silence and then something across the restaurant caught her gaze. “Isn’t that your partner Jim over there? And who is the redhead he’s with?” The husband turned, looked and replied to his wife…”Yes, that is Jim and the woman is his mistress.” “Well”‘ said the wife picking up her fork, ” Ours is prettier.” Wifely bonus indeed.
Steve,
You’re not wrong, in fact there was so much right about this post. But I’ve dated a lot of big city office girls who make their own money and who are just middle class and a lot of them are really handbag happy WHILE they hunt for a man, and not necessarily in an ultra competitive way.
It’s just a thing they like, they’re into them. Sometimes a handbag is just a handbag.
But you write interesting things so I like reading you.
Marrying a bimbo is not a good strategy if you expect faithfulness and mothering.
I don’t know about that. When you read the histories of the rich and powerful from generations gone by it appears most wealthy men, married women from a similar class. Now within that pool the more attractive women had their pick of suitors but there weren’t too many stories of wealthy men marrying beautiful poor women.
That’s what courtesans were for.
Taki Theodoracopulos types seem relatively less common than they used to be, while there are a lot more Zuckerbergs.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/may/16/taki-gunter-sachs-playboys
Well, this is one of those articles that is a goldmine for generalizations. Bearing in mind that such generalizations are bound to be limited by individual experience, here are mine:
#1 – Everyone competes, at least for survival’s sake. Some compete for a lot more than survival, that’s usually because they are insecure or driven to become empowered because someone call them a little sh*t in sixth grade (cf. Weiner, Mathew)
#2 – To me, that’s a stupid way to live, because I would rather spend the maximum of time doing what I want to do rather than what someone else wants or expects me to do just so I can get a gold box parking space at the communal feed trough.
#3 – The entire point of this anthropologist’s writings is to emphasize that, while being the rich stay at home wife of a wealthy man may seem like a pretty good deal, it actually isn’t, women are much better off being self-empowered through their own jobs as Vice President of Diversity Management at Omnium Gatherum. Sure, they don’t have time to marry, or at least spend 3-4 hours making crayon drawings with the kids, but being truly independent is what counts. As such, these writings are pure propaganda directed towards career women.
#4 – Women obsess handbags for the same reason anyone obsesses something external: any kind of status quest is, however, a form of dependency, namely, on what others think of you. It’s like Shallow meets Shallow and they speak …. Shallow.
#5 – I actually know some people who are like this. In the first place, wealthy men generally work very long hours. No, it isn’t like working in a coal mine. But it is difficult. Think of the energy/stress levels of championship chess versus the energy/stress levels of a championship basketball game. They aren’t that far apart, even though the former spend all their time sitting down and staring at a board.
#6 – Because wealthy men generally work very long hours — they travel a lot too, because a lot of money is offshored — they generally neglect their wives and children. Not on purpose, and they try to make it up. But a family can tell when Dad is focusing on them for a day or so the same way he was focused on a client all last week. Most wealthy men I have known do not spend hours watching stupid monster movies with the kids nor do they spend a couple of hours watching stupid police procedurals with their wives at night. However, I am convinced that most married men do both of those things.
#7 – Wealthy stay at home moms spend a lot of time shopping. They also compete with the other stay at home moms. These are generalities, I’m sure there are plenty of moms who eschew the rat race, but those are my generalities.
#8 – The children of very wealthy parents are sometimes bright, and sometimes not. However, they all tend to be over-controlled. I don’t think that’s a good recipe for life success. If they are not very bright, their parents will dote on them for the sake of the grandkids and procure a sinecure for them from some subsidiary of O&G.
#9 – The problem with Edith Wharton’s generation — or Kate Chopin’s — is that in those days it was rather more common for marriages to still be semi-arranged, and the husbands were frequently much older, simply accentuating the lack of common ground. No two ways around it, a woman will usually expect her man to spend time with her every day, while most men usually have other things on their minds. By the same token, most men expect their wives to be physically available. The key to happily married monogamous couples is to take two disparate individuals to make it work.
#10 – We talk about IQ here a lot, implying that it is very important. It isn’t, above say 1 STD. And a lot of stay at home wives of wealthy men are not even that. Hard work, gamesmanship, focus, competitition — that’s what makes rich people (aside from inheritance, of course). Such people are generally not super-bright and are not particularly cultured, either, but they respect culture. But as they get older and there are fewer opportunities to impose their will on others, they tend to be somewhat adrift. The anthropology lady is actually lucky since she clearly has enough of a mind to make her life interesting. The rest of her cohort, not so much.
That's what courtesans were for.
That’s because there were dynastic considerations. Niall Ferguson’s books on the Rothschilds showed that they even kept marriage within the extended family. Are we limiting ourselves to the very rich or the rich enough, like Don Draper? Real mobility for lower class beautiful women came from “upward” class men who had themselves advanced through the ranks of a company, were expecting to be the sole breadwinner and had no reason not to find themselves the best looking girl they could, perhaps their secretary or a college mate. Some of those men would marry into old money or blue blood, but the latter were too few to satisfy every parvenu that the post-war boom had raised through the salaried ranks. The people who wanted to marry a name or legacy were always a subcategory. Also interesting are pairings between the nouveau riche bourgeois and the penniless aristocrats but, again, they are a subset of the population.
Hand bags are classic Veblen good whose desirability increases with price. Why is competing on handbags different from competing on tech gizmos.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veblen_good
Clothing and accessories made of expensive materials which are made under the supervision of a craftsperson are actually better, more practical and comfortable. People act like buying a knock off Channel suit is the same as the original but a Channel suit is designed and built to last a lifetime and be comfortable to wear for long periods of time. And be effectively cleaned. They are not prom dresses. Some of the criticism is just people who cannot afford a $1000 handbag explaining that they really don’t want it, but it is all they can think about.
If you are ever in NYC the exhibitions at the Fashion Institute of Technology is actually worth worth seeing even if you are not interested in Fashion.
Faking It: Originals, Copies, and Counterfeits
https://www.fitnyc.edu/22937.asp
Believe it or not the American middle class used to own nice things. Silverware made of silver. Jewelry made of precious metals and *cough* *cough* jewels. Tailored clothes. Quality wood furniture. One reason crime has declined is your typical pseudo middle class American does not own anything worth stealing. And looks like they don’t have anything worth stealing too.
While we are on the subject, Gay Talese thinks you should wear a tailored suit.
http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2007/08/talese200708
A Chanel suit might be more comfortable, but more practical? For whom? Is a tailored suit immune from changes in style over a lifetime of use? Most people don't even wear suits every Sunday anymore. Some don't even wear them at weddings. Or at funerals. I wouldn't own more than 2 or 3 ties if I wasn't required to wear one daily at work. The reason to own an expensive suit is you like expensive suits, not that it's practical. When people wore tailored clothes in the old days, they didn't cost the same as small automobiles.
I can see an argument for a well made wooden musical instrument or furniture - those might retain value or substantially increase. Maybe I'm wrong but I've never heard of a huge resale market for 50 year old used suits.
Are things made by craftsman nice? Sure. But most things don't need to last a lifetime. So it's irrelevant if they do.
Quite right. A good pair of shoes/boots gives consistent recurring satisfaction for years.
The only place I get more bang for buck is quality kitchen utensils. A solid chef's knife or a cast iron oven pot will delight long after the latest Beemer has been traded in.
The percentage might be lower in North Carolina:
https://www.rosen.com/divorce/divorcearticles/alienation-of-affection-and-criminal-conversation/
An outsider’s interference with marriage can cost the outsider big bucks in North Carolina. Fairly high-dollar awards in such cases have existed here for a number of years, a fact not generally known.
Even if you do not actually file a complaint and sue the paramour, often times the threat of such a suit can be used as leverage in your negotiations with your spouse as you separate.
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/03/18/nc-woman-gets-m-alienation-affection-suit/
A jury has awarded a North Carolina woman $9 million from her husband’s lover after ruling the other woman ruined their marriage.
Of course, to be fair, these suits are against the third party not the (wealthy) philanderer.
What is this anyway? Women just want the stuff that they feel their husbands should have given them instead of the "other woman"?
Kind of petty.
Now you’re just improvising. There’s nothing downscale about the couple. And as Steve noted (and a former Goldman Sachs partner I follow has suggested), the “wife bonus” on the UES is likely apocryphal.
People compete for status, attention, acceptance, admiration (lots of "a" words, apparently). There is nothing new to this and anybody with some functioning senses and a working brain has been aware of this since at least high school.
The rich have more money to waste on this kind of stuff, and so they do. Life is in many ways boring and arguably pointless, and people need something to distract them from this reality.
It certainly is if you spend very much of it in the company of other people.
Spent in the company of animals, though, life is deeply rewarding and insofar as caring for another living non-human creature has a point, very meaningful.
N.B. An affluent friend gave me an expensive hand bag she’d bought, then decided she didn’t like. I’m surprised at how many compliments I get from other women when I carry it. (I have two purses, one for spring/summer, one for fall/winter.) They even comment on how expensive it must have been. I had no idea women ever thought about such things in such detail. I do like having two leather hand bags, the leather looks nice and wears well. Beyond that, I don’t give a flip and can’t understand why anyone else would.
Well, the handbag thing is easy: it’s a vagina symbol. Like a gun or a powerful car is a penis symbol. The fancier the handbag, the more valuable the snatch. Plain and simple.
And to someday solve the mystery of why my keys always sink to the bottom.
Bonus-like calculations start way earlier.
Are you familiar with the push gift, also known as the push present?
That is one of the shakedown steps that certain new moms extort from hubby after their birthing work is done. Multi-carat diamonds are expected, or perhaps swap in a new car, or a spa vacation to recuperate while the nanny raises the offspring. A new wardrobe to accommodate the post-partum depressee is de rigueur.
The motivated gal can extract many little presents, and does.
I wish I was joking about the above. Locals have done that, and more, or less.
My kids were born back in the days when the ideal "push present" was a healthy baby. I don't think it ever even occurred to me to 'reward' my wife with an expensive gift for giving birth. She would have been too busy breastfeeding and cooing anyway.
Steve, I think the key to understanding why Wharton’s generation fooled around more than today’s besides later marriage, is the nature of each generation’s wealth.
Wharton’s was inherited, from commercial dynasties like the Rockefellers, Vanderbilts, etc. but nevertheless inherited. A heiress fooling around often had her own money, and even in the case of divorce could wield considerable money and therefore social power.
Look at who the original writer is talking about: men who are hedge fund partners or would-be partners, making somewhere around $10-15 million or year, or thereabouts, and their money is totally dependent on remaining a trust fund partner or moving up the ladder at Blackrock, Pimco, etc.
A divorce for one of the ladies who lunch today does not mean falling back on the parent’s trust fund. Because these ladies are not Dukes, Vanderbilts, etc. Their parents income was based on the same thing their husbands are: a social network and position within it.
Landed aristocrats of any strip (old line nobility, the Dukes and Fords and Vanderbilts owning companies and shares) are generally dissolute because their money allows them to be; absent traditional requirements to go off and die in wars with the peasants, and a need to unify to check ambitious kings seeking to seize their property.
This new class is far better, and far worse. Unlike old line aristocrats they have to hew to rigid social mores to keep their wealth going. Otherwise a divorce means no more Summer as a verb denoting Hamptons but grinding out a NYC asphalt baking heat wave. But because they have no wealth to grab but rather a social network to preserve (no estates, factories, etc.) they fall in line with whatever ruler is around and have no incentive to keep a peasantry relatively happy and like them (so they don’t get a leader from either the King or a revolutionary seizing their stuff — and different races don’t like different elites having stuff).
Are you familiar with the push gift, also known as the push present?
That is one of the shakedown steps that certain new moms extort from hubby after their birthing work is done. Multi-carat diamonds are expected, or perhaps swap in a new car, or a spa vacation to recuperate while the nanny raises the offspring. A new wardrobe to accommodate the post-partum depressee is de rigueur.
The motivated gal can extract many little presents, and does.
I wish I was joking about the above. Locals have done that, and more, or less.
Thanks for informing me about this new practice: have a baby, get a new car! (I suppose the driver’s seat has special pads to accommodate episiotomies, etc.)
My kids were born back in the days when the ideal “push present” was a healthy baby. I don’t think it ever even occurred to me to ‘reward’ my wife with an expensive gift for giving birth. She would have been too busy breastfeeding and cooing anyway.
You are exactly right that the ideal present is a healthy baby!
My kids were born back in the days when the ideal "push present" was a healthy baby. I don't think it ever even occurred to me to 'reward' my wife with an expensive gift for giving birth. She would have been too busy breastfeeding and cooing anyway.
Just doing my little bit to spread good cheer
You are exactly right that the ideal present is a healthy baby!
I would not be surprised if the “wife bonus” is neither a ruse to troll the academic nor apocryphal as others here have suggested. In China, historically and by some still today, a bonus is given to the wife for each child/son she bears. And wives will gossip and compare these things with each other. The classic bonus is a gold bar for each son.
Prior to the mass take over by publicly traded corporations female nepotism often took the form of the father hiring his daughter’s husband into the family business. This was a way of helping marry off his daughter to someone with the right genes but who had a lower social standing. Through careful estate planning and trusts the Patriarch could insure that the assets and power could pass to the grandchildren while his son-in-law could maintain and income and social status which helped his daughter. Third generation decline was always a problem but getting three bites at the apple is two more than most people ever get.
OT
Steve…anyone? Could someone please either confirm or deny, is this piece by Ron Unz a troll-piece? http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/his-panic
Some of those graphs towards the end looked like beautifully constructed spider webs (which was the intent right?)
My head hurts. ow ow ow.
Also i’m beginning to suspect, I know the lion fron its claw.
He won't admit it, but yes I think he's trolling. We know quite well from victim reporting, the local news, DOJ statistics, and prison data that he is wrong.
If he were right it would be a quite a miracle given the very high poverty and illegitimacy rate for Hispanics, and the very high crime rates in Mexico and the Caribbean where most US Hispanics come from.
“Twinkie says:
“So they redirect their competitive energies from the sexual marketplace to this culdesac of handbags.””
Or to getting their kids into the right pre-schools. And making gourmet snacks and lunches for them with non-violent, organic, fair trade, locally-sourced ingredients shaped like cute animals and cartoon characters (but something on PBS Kids or, better yet, something European such as “Miffy the Bunny,” not something gaudy and Middle American like Disney stuff).”
And making sure you know that their dog is a rescue dog and that their engagement ring has only certified non-conflict diamonds and that they have a compost-bin, and all those other SWPL status-markers.
I like this whole separate tables idea, the idea of gender segregation in social settings.
Frankly, I am lobbying for separate states. Separate everything.
I think the whole Muslim thing just might be be a damn good idea. Those women in say, Oklahoma, and me in Texas, would be satisfactory. The older I get, the more I just hate them, and at least I hate having to endure them.
Steven Moxon in the book,, The Women Racket describes how the segregation is actually natural, something that women want, because men, at least low status “unsexy” men, just bug the crap out them. And they feel this in a completely visceral manner.
If you follow the social development, young children are usually completely gender segregated, especially girls. If you give children the choice between choosing an activity first, then playmates or the reverse, they will usually choose the playmate first. And girls almost always choose another girl and boys choose boys. This remains in effect until puberty, when the most physically developed start to pair up first, then the others follow suit until all are mated (that will find someone to mate with). Then outside of the home, the mated pairs split up work and other situations into segregated groups. Both tend to pick work, especially women, where the their gender predominates.
I mostly spent my adult years in highly segregated worlds. At the time I moaned about it. But now at a month shy of turning 60, I realize how wonderfully fortunate I was. The Marines were probably the best example of this. It was not just a function of numbers but we were ostracized by the communities I lived in, Orange County CA, Japan (about 20 miles from Hiroshima), and Jacksonville NC. And the environments were meritorious, inclusive, honest, straightforward environments, generally free of subterfuge and jealousy, riotous, loud, robust social environments. After the Marines, I worked mostly in very high tech, often with the floor almost completely void of that other nasty, mean, conniving, plotting, dishonest gender.
My best friend in Japan received a very out of the blue, unexpected divorce petition from his stateside wife, who he was crazy about. And it was a very nasty “take him for all she could” sort of thing. When he presented it to the Marine Legal Officer, the guy read it and said what became the truest thing I have ever heard.
“Women!! If we couldn’t f*%k them, we’d put a bounty on ‘em and shoot ‘em.”
(As I write this an 8 year old blond girl is walking around me in the room where I thought I had found peace and quiet, talking on the cell phone with a some friend saying such momentous things as “I like cheese. Do you like cheese? Who doesn’t like cheese?”. Then she hung up the phone sat in a swivel chair across from me and starting spinning it around rapidly and asking me, “Why are you looking at me like that?” I opened the front door this morning, literally shocked at the amount of pink girl crap that had accumulated in the few moments that daylight had permitted, a table, a chair, a rocking chair for a doll, 5 or 6 dolls, a Hello Kitty pillow that has a compartment stuffed with more crap, also a stack of coloring books, two bins of pencils, crayons, pink highlighters. My wife has decided that “We need lawn furniture” and is busily accumulating links to various pages of things that “I need to look at”. The eight year old is now back up in the room with me and she is watching “Life with Boys” on Netflix and hassling me about where I have hid the chocolate, even though I have not. )
So the idea of Segregated Genders seems to me to be paradise. And I would be willing to pay any bonus I had to, to pay a tax even, if I could live in such blissful separation.
It means that no matter how much money these Masters of the Universe make, no matter how much social status they attain, in the end they’re all just beta schlubs who still have to pay for sex.
Paying for sex? Every man does that, one way or the other. What's the value of free sex?
I noticed references to blonde die-jobs and “blow-outs”, which aren’t traditional WASP affectations. Upper East side was a quarter Jewish as of the 2000 census. I wonder about the ethnic makeup of these primates. In addition to Bonobos and Jews, perhaps Italians, Armenians, and Syrians?
When I was a young man living in NYC, I ran across quite a few rich women. Every single one angled for an affair with me. To me, married women were kind of off limits, unless I was harassed into it. Many of these women just wouldn’t take “no” for an answer. Also, every single one introduced me to their husbands.
Most times I didn’t take ‘em up on it. Didn’t need the headaches, and you never know how something like that can pan out, if discovered. But occasionally, an extremely good looking wife, and the fog screen she had set up to fool her husband were perfectly matched.
Anyway, as far as rich women in NYC are concerned, marriage is a joke. They do not give one fuck about their marriage vows, as far as infidelity on their part is concerned. It’s too easy to do, and it’s too easy to rationalize with all the money involved.
If I were very rich, I’d never get married. The idea is stupid for rich men. Minuses far outweigh the pluses. Worst society-sanctioned business deal on the planet.
They always wind up a financial Mexican standoff. Why would any sane person invite that into their lives?
You want your own kids? Pay a good looking woman to be artificially inseminated, hire an english nanny, and a maid. It’s far cheaper than a wretched wife. You’d be hiring a nanny to raise your kid anyway, and you can fire her without having to give her half of what you own. All your girlfriends can be like the kids aunts.
Even if you aren’t wealthy. I can’t tell you how many friends I have who started out with a paid off house and a new Audi, who wound up in a shitty condo, driving a fucking Camry. Some more than once!
WHY?!!!
This is a very strange post. Why such condescension toward the writer/anthropologist? It’s really an interesting idea and a window into a strange, status-obsessed lifestyle. Sure, we all do it, but our lives don’t completely revolve around it!
Plus, we already discussed this weeks ago. Having some familiarity with this demographic, I left a long comment that I won’t repeat here. I notice Steve’s remarks above are all pretty much wild conjecture with no evidence provided to support them (her subjects were just pranking her, upper crust women are more faithful these days, etc).
The only point I will repeat from my previous comment, for emphasis, is that the whole premise is misleading – these are not SAHMs – all the actual care-giving and staying-at-home is done by their domestic staff.
You have a very rare and unique insider's perspective: you worked as one of the help to a rich mother, a nanny. And to top it off you're intelligent as well as articulate
Steve would be doing us a great service if he had you do a guest post. I'm dead serious.
Anyway, here is part of your old comment you allude to:
Reminds me of this Paul Graham essay, wherein he talks about how, where people don’t do anything of importance (like in high school and prison) people play silly status games and form cliques and in-groups / out-groups. Well, if all goes well and we automate ourselves into robotopia, this is the kind of world we’ll have.
Edit - I know I know, raised eyebrows. I haven't cheated, but I'm self-aware enough to know where possible socioeconomic success and the gift of the gab could lead me, in a moment of weakness.
The taboo is part of the mystique and enticement. The risk-taking and social penalty for having been found out serves as a barrier to the conduct. Acceptance as an inevitability would make it boring, a commonplace.
I’m not certain that marital infidelity is an inevitability for most of the population. Impulse control and future-time orientation are worthy character traits for success in life. The lack of which explain volumes of social and economic dysfunction.
https://www.rosen.com/divorce/divorcearticles/alienation-of-affection-and-criminal-conversation/
An outsider’s interference with marriage can cost the outsider big bucks in North Carolina. Fairly high-dollar awards in such cases have existed here for a number of years, a fact not generally known.
Even if you do not actually file a complaint and sue the paramour, often times the threat of such a suit can be used as leverage in your negotiations with your spouse as you separate.
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/03/18/nc-woman-gets-m-alienation-affection-suit/
A jury has awarded a North Carolina woman $9 million from her husband's lover after ruling the other woman ruined their marriage.
Of course, to be fair, these suits are against the third party not the (wealthy) philanderer.
Isn’t this what Donald Sterling’s wife was doing, suing V. Stiviano in court in an attempt to get back all the things he had given her?
What is this anyway? Women just want the stuff that they feel their husbands should have given them instead of the “other woman”?
Kind of petty.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alienation_of_affections
Maybe lack of capacity on the part of Sterling to give away his own property? Or possibly that it was marital property and thus not his to give without her consent? Anyone know if California is a community property state?
The flip side is that with the demise of the illegitimacy and divorce taboos in law, and to a large extent in society, the application community property does tend to unduly defend cuckoldresses and social climbing wives-of-convenience.
#1 - Everyone competes, at least for survival's sake. Some compete for a lot more than survival, that's usually because they are insecure or driven to become empowered because someone call them a little sh*t in sixth grade (cf. Weiner, Mathew)
#2 - To me, that's a stupid way to live, because I would rather spend the maximum of time doing what I want to do rather than what someone else wants or expects me to do just so I can get a gold box parking space at the communal feed trough.
#3 - The entire point of this anthropologist's writings is to emphasize that, while being the rich stay at home wife of a wealthy man may seem like a pretty good deal, it actually isn't, women are much better off being self-empowered through their own jobs as Vice President of Diversity Management at Omnium Gatherum. Sure, they don't have time to marry, or at least spend 3-4 hours making crayon drawings with the kids, but being truly independent is what counts. As such, these writings are pure propaganda directed towards career women.
#4 - Women obsess handbags for the same reason anyone obsesses something external: any kind of status quest is, however, a form of dependency, namely, on what others think of you. It's like Shallow meets Shallow and they speak .... Shallow.
#5 - I actually know some people who are like this. In the first place, wealthy men generally work very long hours. No, it isn't like working in a coal mine. But it is difficult. Think of the energy/stress levels of championship chess versus the energy/stress levels of a championship basketball game. They aren't that far apart, even though the former spend all their time sitting down and staring at a board.
#6 - Because wealthy men generally work very long hours -- they travel a lot too, because a lot of money is offshored -- they generally neglect their wives and children. Not on purpose, and they try to make it up. But a family can tell when Dad is focusing on them for a day or so the same way he was focused on a client all last week. Most wealthy men I have known do not spend hours watching stupid monster movies with the kids nor do they spend a couple of hours watching stupid police procedurals with their wives at night. However, I am convinced that most married men do both of those things.
#7 - Wealthy stay at home moms spend a lot of time shopping. They also compete with the other stay at home moms. These are generalities, I'm sure there are plenty of moms who eschew the rat race, but those are my generalities.
#8 - The children of very wealthy parents are sometimes bright, and sometimes not. However, they all tend to be over-controlled. I don't think that's a good recipe for life success. If they are not very bright, their parents will dote on them for the sake of the grandkids and procure a sinecure for them from some subsidiary of O&G.
#9 - The problem with Edith Wharton's generation -- or Kate Chopin's -- is that in those days it was rather more common for marriages to still be semi-arranged, and the husbands were frequently much older, simply accentuating the lack of common ground. No two ways around it, a woman will usually expect her man to spend time with her every day, while most men usually have other things on their minds. By the same token, most men expect their wives to be physically available. The key to happily married monogamous couples is to take two disparate individuals to make it work.
#10 - We talk about IQ here a lot, implying that it is very important. It isn't, above say 1 STD. And a lot of stay at home wives of wealthy men are not even that. Hard work, gamesmanship, focus, competitition -- that's what makes rich people (aside from inheritance, of course). Such people are generally not super-bright and are not particularly cultured, either, but they respect culture. But as they get older and there are fewer opportunities to impose their will on others, they tend to be somewhat adrift. The anthropology lady is actually lucky since she clearly has enough of a mind to make her life interesting. The rest of her cohort, not so much.
Interesting thoughts.
I think the handbag thing is a combination of women's interest in fashion (i.e. looking good) + physically showing off to other women (requires non-sexual stuff that yet involves feminine talents---e.g. looking good but not slutty) + , high-quality product that has a synthetic rarity (i.e. smart entrepreneurs created haute couture+ rare) + showing off how well she can control men, another feminine talent (by getting her husband to go through the trouble of buying one for her).
The last category is important; while a female CEO might buy one of those super-high-end handbags or some other status symbol, watch other women's reaction when she finds out that the woman herself bought it through the money she earned by working---i.e. not via husband or divorce settlement) ---far from "sisters doing it for themselves" high fiving, the gloss wears off quickly, and women are much less impressed. Lesbians dressed to the 9's simple don't get why all these straight women don't fawn over their high end stuff the way they fawn over straight women's. It's because the latter got it all through getting men to work for them, which is the true epitome of female power.
The high-end handbaggers also keep their quality up and supply down, making it a social-climbing coup to jump people in line and get one. For a counter-example, see Beanie Baby craze. What made certain Beanie Babies so valuable was that women (and gay men and shut ins) got a fixation on them and then the maker created some special ones that were rarer than others; in effect, he was a cartel. But unlike successful cartels like DeBeers or the high-end handbaggers or Jimmy Choos, he didn't push the quality of his Bean Bag babies up, nor did he limit his market; he instead flooded it with cheap stuff and caused the ladies to turn up their noses; why, anyone can have an official Beanie Baby, so I don't want one!
I've often thought that a quick way to extreme social power and wealth for the artistically-inclined would be launching a high-end belt or barrette or hair-ribbon line of merchandise---made of the rarest silk/ivory/tiger bone/tears of African children!--then limiting orders to 100 per year. Set the price extremely high (no bargaining) and watch the husbands line up to offer you goodies to push their wives ahead in line---free trips to the Bahamas on the private jet for months at a time, rent-free living at Park Avenue apartments, stock tips from insiders, etc.
Such a small thing, but I think women would flip out trying to outdo each other for them.
Especially Kristen Ritter (that's for Steve).
Oh, trust me, the cleavage is just as much showing off to women as it is to men. Boobs and cleavage are the goods, signifying sexual market value–to both men and women. Men will notice, and comment amongst themselves, but the women will talk incessantly about their boobs, or her boobs.
Women’s shoes–what are those?
What is this anyway? Women just want the stuff that they feel their husbands should have given them instead of the "other woman"?
Kind of petty.
Good question. I kind of looked away after the initial excitement. Wikipedia says that alienation of affection isn’t currently recognized in California so the theory of her case couldn’t be exactly that.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alienation_of_affections
Maybe lack of capacity on the part of Sterling to give away his own property? Or possibly that it was marital property and thus not his to give without her consent? Anyone know if California is a community property state?
Ask John Cleese to explain it to you.
Community property seeped into the US from Mexico. Thus it's concentrated in the West. Wisconsin is a weird anomaly.
Not beta schlubs. Most of them are impatient, ruthless assholes with a singular obsession, which makes them alpha or alpha-lite. It is a king of the mountain hierarchy, and betas don’t make it to Master of the Universe level. Many betas will make boatloads of money at some point–someone has to do the grunt work.
Paying for sex? Every man does that, one way or the other. What’s the value of free sex?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veblen_good
Clothing and accessories made of expensive materials which are made under the supervision of a craftsperson are actually better, more practical and comfortable. People act like buying a knock off Channel suit is the same as the original but a Channel suit is designed and built to last a lifetime and be comfortable to wear for long periods of time. And be effectively cleaned. They are not prom dresses. Some of the criticism is just people who cannot afford a $1000 handbag explaining that they really don't want it, but it is all they can think about.
If you are ever in NYC the exhibitions at the Fashion Institute of Technology is actually worth worth seeing even if you are not interested in Fashion.
Faking It: Originals, Copies, and Counterfeits
https://www.fitnyc.edu/22937.asp
Believe it or not the American middle class used to own nice things. Silverware made of silver. Jewelry made of precious metals and *cough* *cough* jewels. Tailored clothes. Quality wood furniture. One reason crime has declined is your typical pseudo middle class American does not own anything worth stealing. And looks like they don't have anything worth stealing too.
While we are on the subject, Gay Talese thinks you should wear a tailored suit.
http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2007/08/talese200708
“Clothing and accessories made of expensive materials which are made under the supervision of a craftsperson are actually better, more practical and comfortable. People act like buying a knock off Channel suit is the same as the original but a Channel suit is designed and built to last a lifetime and be comfortable to wear for long periods of time. And be effectively cleaned. They are not prom dresses. Some of the criticism is just people who cannot afford a $1000 handbag explaining that they really don’t want it, but it is all they can think about. ”
A Chanel suit might be more comfortable, but more practical? For whom? Is a tailored suit immune from changes in style over a lifetime of use? Most people don’t even wear suits every Sunday anymore. Some don’t even wear them at weddings. Or at funerals. I wouldn’t own more than 2 or 3 ties if I wasn’t required to wear one daily at work. The reason to own an expensive suit is you like expensive suits, not that it’s practical. When people wore tailored clothes in the old days, they didn’t cost the same as small automobiles.
I can see an argument for a well made wooden musical instrument or furniture – those might retain value or substantially increase. Maybe I’m wrong but I’ve never heard of a huge resale market for 50 year old used suits.
Are things made by craftsman nice? Sure. But most things don’t need to last a lifetime. So it’s irrelevant if they do.
I've also heard of a "high-end" vintage clothing store I think in L.A. It deals in great condition vintage women's clothing and sells it at a high markup to modern rich housewives. Think of it like a high-end vintage clothing boutique.
And they do hold value amazingly well. People on that forum have said they have bought brand new, never worn vintage suits -- suits with the price tag still on them. Adjusting the old retail price for inflation yields prices very near what the modern purchaser pays.
I wouldn’t want to be czar either, look what happened to Nicholas II and Alexander II. Unless of course I had an oprichnina .
There is a theory that polished stone hand axes were perfected beyond any useful improvements. Unless the use was to display fitness, desirability as a mate.
Famously, almost all females appearing in Homer are spinning or weaving, even the underwater nymphs. Maybe fine textiles adorning a woman signal a desirable skill, needle work, in a mate.
Farmer markets are actually very inexpensive.
So are vegan ingredients in general, such as vegetable and most whole grains and legumes, assuming you buy them raw and cook them at home.If you want to save lots of money, go vegan, buy at farmer markets, and cook at home. Really.
Doing this well requires a lot of time and skill. That’s the show-off part.
Plus, we already discussed this weeks ago. Having some familiarity with this demographic, I left a long comment that I won't repeat here. I notice Steve's remarks above are all pretty much wild conjecture with no evidence provided to support them (her subjects were just pranking her, upper crust women are more faithful these days, etc).
The only point I will repeat from my previous comment, for emphasis, is that the whole premise is misleading - these are not SAHMs - all the actual care-giving and staying-at-home is done by their domestic staff.
Casey,
You have a very rare and unique insider’s perspective: you worked as one of the help to a rich mother, a nanny. And to top it off you’re intelligent as well as articulate
Steve would be doing us a great service if he had you do a guest post. I’m dead serious.
Anyway, here is part of your old comment you allude to:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alienation_of_affections
Maybe lack of capacity on the part of Sterling to give away his own property? Or possibly that it was marital property and thus not his to give without her consent? Anyone know if California is a community property state?
What!? Were you born after Johnny Carson’s last monologue? California is the community property state!
Ask John Cleese to explain it to you.
Community property seeped into the US from Mexico. Thus it’s concentrated in the West. Wisconsin is a weird anomaly.
Marrying a bimbo is not a good strategy if you expect faithfulness and mothering.
“Marrying a bimbo is not a good strategy if you expect faithfulness and mothering.”
Hey, don’t sell explosive orgasms short!
How do you glean Jewishness from the US Census? Or did you use Glenmary’s?
Paying for sex? Every man does that, one way or the other. What's the value of free sex?
That’s the thing. They may be impatient, ruthless assholes with a singular obsession, but in the end they’re just beta schlubs dutifully doling out cash to their hens. Dirt poor Chechen or Afghan goatherds are more alpha than them.
Women's shoes--what are those?
You’re mistaken; women are very quick to pounce on women who are deemed to be looking too slutty, especially by showing too much cleavage or leg. Women do want to have nice boobs and legs and faces, but they don’t want to have to lead with them, as it’s considered a sign of a woman’s weakness that her best play is dressing slutty. They may talk about their boobs/legs to other women, but showing them off more than other women in their group is a losing play.
“http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/his-panic
…So if these local gangs aren’t committing much crime, what exactly is the definition of a “gang”?
Gangs aren’t competing to commit crimes. They form for self-protection and grow from there. They are willing to commit crimes if they have to, but they’d just as soon have control, money, etc.. It’s best when its “legal”.
What is this anyway? Women just want the stuff that they feel their husbands should have given them instead of the "other woman"?
Kind of petty.
Hardy petty, especially if there are children involved. One of the reasons bastardy and legitimacy laws existed in the first place was to protect the interests if honorable women and their children and to prevent the confiding of society’s treasures to children reared in immoral situations. It is hard to understand why a cheating husband should be allowed the maneuverability to hand major portions of his estate over to his whore, or why this latter should be rewarded by watching the social ascension of her bastard children.
The flip side is that with the demise of the illegitimacy and divorce taboos in law, and to a large extent in society, the application community property does tend to unduly defend cuckoldresses and social climbing wives-of-convenience.
I read in a book by a black woman, among black women, slang for vagina was “pocketbook.”
I actually do search for the perfect bag not because of price or status, but because I think that I will find the magic bag that organizes all the stuff I carry around everyday. An efficient, attractive, but friendly bag that will just allow me to get whatever I need from it, immediately, and not hide them from me, playing games.
And to someday solve the mystery of why my keys always sink to the bottom.
That's what courtesans were for.
If you go back very far in the past, that’s true. In more recent times, there was a trend towards wealthy men (often 2nd/3rd/4th generation wealth) marrying bimboish women. Now the trend is towards wealthy men marrying women of comparable class.
Taki Theodoracopulos types seem relatively less common than they used to be, while there are a lot more Zuckerbergs.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/may/16/taki-gunter-sachs-playboys
Steve,
I would love for you or Ron to consider asking Casey above to write an article or post. Topics like this come up from time to time and here we have been extremely blessed to have someone who is both a former nanny as well an iSteve reader: intelligent and curious.
It’s important that she was in a humbler and more intimate position than Wednesday Martin. Insights from such a person who is highly insightful, intelligent, and articulate? You just gotta.
Farmer markets are actually very inexpensive.
So are vegan ingredients in general, such as vegetable and most whole grains and legumes, assuming you buy them raw and cook them at home.If you want to save lots of money, go vegan, buy at farmer markets, and cook at home. Really.
You have not been to the Union Square famers market
A Chanel suit might be more comfortable, but more practical? For whom? Is a tailored suit immune from changes in style over a lifetime of use? Most people don't even wear suits every Sunday anymore. Some don't even wear them at weddings. Or at funerals. I wouldn't own more than 2 or 3 ties if I wasn't required to wear one daily at work. The reason to own an expensive suit is you like expensive suits, not that it's practical. When people wore tailored clothes in the old days, they didn't cost the same as small automobiles.
I can see an argument for a well made wooden musical instrument or furniture - those might retain value or substantially increase. Maybe I'm wrong but I've never heard of a huge resale market for 50 year old used suits.
Are things made by craftsman nice? Sure. But most things don't need to last a lifetime. So it's irrelevant if they do.
Yes there is. Read what people on the TheFedoreLounge.com’s suit forum do. Big trafficking in suits from before the 1960′s; even bigger trafficking in fedoras. Or just check eBay and vintage clothing stores.
I’ve also heard of a “high-end” vintage clothing store I think in L.A. It deals in great condition vintage women’s clothing and sells it at a high markup to modern rich housewives. Think of it like a high-end vintage clothing boutique.
And they do hold value amazingly well. People on that forum have said they have bought brand new, never worn vintage suits — suits with the price tag still on them. Adjusting the old retail price for inflation yields prices very near what the modern purchaser pays.
“But occasionally, an extremely good looking wife, and the fog screen she had set up to fool her husband were perfectly matched.”
I certainly hope you are not Christian. Breaking the cardinal rule, one prays that God forgives you. However, with your willingness to engage in this mortal sin, I doubt it.
“Even if you aren’t wealthy. I can’t tell you how many friends I have who started out with a paid off house and a new Audi, who wound up in a shitty condo, driving a fucking Camry. Some more than once!”
You sound like a whiny dude who got burned in several relationships. Seek therapy.
“You want your own kids? Pay a good looking woman to be artificially inseminated, hire an english nanny, and a maid.”
You do realize you have been indoctrinated by Cultural Marxists, right?
I’m always amazed that wealthy, intelligent people are into this whole ‘expensive baubles’ thing.
If you are smart enough to make that amount of money, you really should know better. I just don’t get it. I guess I’m a puritan.
I’m not suggesting the wealthy should walk around in rags, but you can get high quality, stylish clothes without sinking into piggish sillyness.
After a certain age, nobody cares anyway.
Why aren’t you in the Merchant Marine? That’s what it’s for.
Certainly true that women can be annoying, but that 8 year-old blond girl, assuming she’s your daughter, may be the one person who takes care of you in your old age or at least visits you in the nursing home. Those of us whom women ignore – introverts, short guys, ugly guys, nerdy guys or some combination thereof – won’t have that.
For anyone interested, I've narrowed down the patio furniture and am just deciding on blue and white vs. the tan and brown. One has to consider what looks best on green against the color scheme of the house, you know :)
I don't particularly like Gavin Mcinnes, but: "Men don’t insist women spend $10,000 on an Hermes bag. We don’t even know what that is."
I don’t particularly like Gavin Mcinnes. . .
Only because you don’t know him. He’s impossible not to like.
Steve...anyone? Could someone please either confirm or deny, is this piece by Ron Unz a troll-piece? http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/his-panic
Some of those graphs towards the end looked like beautifully constructed spider webs (which was the intent right?)
My head hurts. ow ow ow.
Also i'm beginning to suspect, I know the lion fron its claw.
I was mystified by Unz’s articles arguing that Hispanics commit crime at comparable rates to whites for a while. This isn’t the only one of them.
He won’t admit it, but yes I think he’s trolling. We know quite well from victim reporting, the local news, DOJ statistics, and prison data that he is wrong.
If he were right it would be a quite a miracle given the very high poverty and illegitimacy rate for Hispanics, and the very high crime rates in Mexico and the Caribbean where most US Hispanics come from.
Very true. Hiring a relative into a family business was a common practice for many of these companies became publicly traded.
Yes, it’s a privilege to be annoyed, isn’t it. Anyway, he’d be bored without us
For anyone interested, I’ve narrowed down the patio furniture and am just deciding on blue and white vs. the tan and brown. One has to consider what looks best on green against the color scheme of the house, you know
It's a typical guy choice, but go with tan and brown.
Anything white outside will pick up and show a certain amount of dirt just from rain\dust.
~
Mark is fortunate to have an eight year old around pushing sixty. (Though it might not be so great for the girl to have geriatric dad.) I'm a couple years younger, my kids have all been off to college for a couple years ... and i'm pretty bored at home with just the wife. I'd love to still have some youngins around the house.
#1 - Everyone competes, at least for survival's sake. Some compete for a lot more than survival, that's usually because they are insecure or driven to become empowered because someone call them a little sh*t in sixth grade (cf. Weiner, Mathew)
#2 - To me, that's a stupid way to live, because I would rather spend the maximum of time doing what I want to do rather than what someone else wants or expects me to do just so I can get a gold box parking space at the communal feed trough.
#3 - The entire point of this anthropologist's writings is to emphasize that, while being the rich stay at home wife of a wealthy man may seem like a pretty good deal, it actually isn't, women are much better off being self-empowered through their own jobs as Vice President of Diversity Management at Omnium Gatherum. Sure, they don't have time to marry, or at least spend 3-4 hours making crayon drawings with the kids, but being truly independent is what counts. As such, these writings are pure propaganda directed towards career women.
#4 - Women obsess handbags for the same reason anyone obsesses something external: any kind of status quest is, however, a form of dependency, namely, on what others think of you. It's like Shallow meets Shallow and they speak .... Shallow.
#5 - I actually know some people who are like this. In the first place, wealthy men generally work very long hours. No, it isn't like working in a coal mine. But it is difficult. Think of the energy/stress levels of championship chess versus the energy/stress levels of a championship basketball game. They aren't that far apart, even though the former spend all their time sitting down and staring at a board.
#6 - Because wealthy men generally work very long hours -- they travel a lot too, because a lot of money is offshored -- they generally neglect their wives and children. Not on purpose, and they try to make it up. But a family can tell when Dad is focusing on them for a day or so the same way he was focused on a client all last week. Most wealthy men I have known do not spend hours watching stupid monster movies with the kids nor do they spend a couple of hours watching stupid police procedurals with their wives at night. However, I am convinced that most married men do both of those things.
#7 - Wealthy stay at home moms spend a lot of time shopping. They also compete with the other stay at home moms. These are generalities, I'm sure there are plenty of moms who eschew the rat race, but those are my generalities.
#8 - The children of very wealthy parents are sometimes bright, and sometimes not. However, they all tend to be over-controlled. I don't think that's a good recipe for life success. If they are not very bright, their parents will dote on them for the sake of the grandkids and procure a sinecure for them from some subsidiary of O&G.
#9 - The problem with Edith Wharton's generation -- or Kate Chopin's -- is that in those days it was rather more common for marriages to still be semi-arranged, and the husbands were frequently much older, simply accentuating the lack of common ground. No two ways around it, a woman will usually expect her man to spend time with her every day, while most men usually have other things on their minds. By the same token, most men expect their wives to be physically available. The key to happily married monogamous couples is to take two disparate individuals to make it work.
#10 - We talk about IQ here a lot, implying that it is very important. It isn't, above say 1 STD. And a lot of stay at home wives of wealthy men are not even that. Hard work, gamesmanship, focus, competitition -- that's what makes rich people (aside from inheritance, of course). Such people are generally not super-bright and are not particularly cultured, either, but they respect culture. But as they get older and there are fewer opportunities to impose their will on others, they tend to be somewhat adrift. The anthropology lady is actually lucky since she clearly has enough of a mind to make her life interesting. The rest of her cohort, not so much.
I agree with a lot of your points.
There were a few that were particularly good.
2. I agree it makes no sense to spend all your time at work just to be higher on the status ladder. Ultimately, what a waste of life. Imagine looking back on your life and realizing you wasted it at the office.
5. Finance, consulting, corporate management, and business ownership tend to require very long hours. Other than medicine and dentistry, high pay is tough without putting in extravagant hours and dealing with a very high level of stress and politics. The exception would be 2nd/3rd generation inherited wealth, who live off their father’s or grandfather’s business.
6. Wealthy men actually tend to be highly invested in their kids, from my experience. There are a lot of rich guys like the recently deceased Mr. Sheryl Sandberg. They spend a lot of time at the office and a lot of time on their kids.
9. I think couples are also much better matched for attractiveness these days. Good looking young beauties spend their 20s partying, rather than married to some guy who they’re not attracted to. A lot of women that end up with wealthy men are more older and mature, and also less likely to have the type of looks that attract excessive male attention. Lots of millionaire wives are mediocre looking.
On the other hand, I wonder whether a bum sleeping in a cardboard box and slowly freezing to death ever thinks, "Gee, maybe I should have tried to hold onto a job."
I will say this.
If you want your wife to stay faithful to you, don’t marry a woman who’s significantly younger and more attractive than you. From my experience, those women are much more prone to committing infidelity or cleaning their husband out.
Even if we couldn't change the default marriage contract to be more equitable, if courts would simply honor pre-nuptial agreements, more men would would use them and it would significantly curtail the incentive for divorce rape.
Men and women should go into marriage with a clear mutual understanding of the marriage contract and the consequences of divorce. If we simply had courts that instead of gleefully enjoying divorce rape, would simply enforce the marriage contract's terms of divorce, pretty darn sure you'd see a whole lot less divorce happening.
What we have now is that there is very little legal incentive to hold women to the marriage contract. And the societal incentive (shame) has basically vanished. So--unsurprisingly--women can, and plenty do, divorce--whenever they decide their husband doesn't make them haaaappy. And the husband pays and pays and pays.
Marriage having been turned into a game of Russian roulette--"will my wife actually think abide by the terms of our marriage contract even though no one is holding her to it?"--unsurprisingly fewer and fewer guys are signing up to be fleeced.
Negotiate legally binding marriage contracts up front and men and women--but particularly women--will behave better, be better wives and as a result ... amazingly! ... have happier marriages and happier families. And young men and women will find it easier to get married.
Natural History of the Rich is an older book on roughly the same topic. Written by a journalist taking an animal behaviorist perspective on rich people. Totally a good read.
A Chanel suit might be more comfortable, but more practical? For whom? Is a tailored suit immune from changes in style over a lifetime of use? Most people don't even wear suits every Sunday anymore. Some don't even wear them at weddings. Or at funerals. I wouldn't own more than 2 or 3 ties if I wasn't required to wear one daily at work. The reason to own an expensive suit is you like expensive suits, not that it's practical. When people wore tailored clothes in the old days, they didn't cost the same as small automobiles.
I can see an argument for a well made wooden musical instrument or furniture - those might retain value or substantially increase. Maybe I'm wrong but I've never heard of a huge resale market for 50 year old used suits.
Are things made by craftsman nice? Sure. But most things don't need to last a lifetime. So it's irrelevant if they do.
You’d be surprised at how much longer couturier-made clothing remains in style. Its prices nowadays are beyond all but the top .001% (Saudi oil wives and tech billionaires, basically), but even in the past when labour costs were lower, it was beyond the means of most people. Customers don’t want to pay for something so expensive that can only be worn a few times, so the styles of “haute couture” clothing tend to be more conservative, and thus more enduring. The kinds of clothes that date in a season, the kind that often look outrageous to ordinary people, popularly thought of as “designer clothes”, are still very expensive but not in the same league, i.e. $5,000 for a suit rather than $20,000, or something like that. It’s the difference between ready-to-wear and bespoke, handmade clothing.
As a resident I’d say a quarter Jewish sounds really low.
A lot of the WASP uniform type clothing stays in style for decades, especially for men. My father regularly wears a tweed blazer with elbow patches that he got when he graduated from high school…in 1965.
I would love for you or Ron to consider asking Casey above to write an article or post. Topics like this come up from time to time and here we have been extremely blessed to have someone who is both a former nanny as well an iSteve reader: intelligent and curious.
It's important that she was in a humbler and more intimate position than Wednesday Martin. Insights from such a person who is highly insightful, intelligent, and articulate? You just gotta.
Are you actually Casey?
I've also heard of a "high-end" vintage clothing store I think in L.A. It deals in great condition vintage women's clothing and sells it at a high markup to modern rich housewives. Think of it like a high-end vintage clothing boutique.
And they do hold value amazingly well. People on that forum have said they have bought brand new, never worn vintage suits -- suits with the price tag still on them. Adjusting the old retail price for inflation yields prices very near what the modern purchaser pays.
I think you’re stretching it a bit. Yes, there is a market for some vintage clothing, but hardly for everything. My mom had a mink coat she bought around 1980 and paid $3,000 for. You can hardly give something like that away today.
I agree it makes no sense to spend all your time at work just to be higher on the status ladder. Ultimately, what a waste of life. Imagine looking back on your life and realizing you wasted it at the office.
On the other hand, I wonder whether a bum sleeping in a cardboard box and slowly freezing to death ever thinks, “Gee, maybe I should have tried to hold onto a job.”
That’s why there needs to be a middle ground.
There are plenty of suburban men who work 40-45 hours per week and live decent lives.
$100K/yr is the amount need for a middle class life in flyover country. What exactly do you need huge amounts of money for? Why should anyone kill themselves to move from the middle class into wealth?
There are plenty of suburban men who work 40-45 hours per week and live decent lives.
$100K/yr is the amount need for a middle class life in flyover country. What exactly do you need huge amounts of money for? Why should anyone kill themselves to move from the middle class into wealth?
Of course, some people are just very ambitious empire-builder types, but that’s not everyone. Our more ordinary salary man’s $100k/yr job might disappear at anytime and has a high likelihood of being automated away in the next 20 years. It takes more money than that to provide a middle class life for one’s family in the present and to save up enough money so that the family can have a middle class life when the job and income have disappeared earlier than desired. A full-employment economy and lack of vibrant social pathology would reduce the need for this risk-averse economic behavior, but this country is moving in the opposite direction.
I think you’ve gotten this one backwards. Yeah, women like shopping, but I think it’s the men who like to adorn their women with expensive handbags as a signal to other men: “Don’t waste your time trying to sleep with my wife, I have way more money than you so it’s going to take a lot to tempt her. Oh, does that make you feel a little bit inadequate?”
In the 19th century and before, it was common for a successful apprentice to marry his master’s daughter, and probably especially if he didn’t have any sons. It wasn’t nepotism, but it did allow the father to thoroughly vet his future in-law and to potentially keep a family business alive into the next generation.
I think the handbag thing is a combination of women's interest in fashion (i.e. looking good) + physically showing off to other women (requires non-sexual stuff that yet involves feminine talents---e.g. looking good but not slutty) + , high-quality product that has a synthetic rarity (i.e. smart entrepreneurs created haute couture+ rare) + showing off how well she can control men, another feminine talent (by getting her husband to go through the trouble of buying one for her).
The last category is important; while a female CEO might buy one of those super-high-end handbags or some other status symbol, watch other women's reaction when she finds out that the woman herself bought it through the money she earned by working---i.e. not via husband or divorce settlement) ---far from "sisters doing it for themselves" high fiving, the gloss wears off quickly, and women are much less impressed. Lesbians dressed to the 9's simple don't get why all these straight women don't fawn over their high end stuff the way they fawn over straight women's. It's because the latter got it all through getting men to work for them, which is the true epitome of female power.
The high-end handbaggers also keep their quality up and supply down, making it a social-climbing coup to jump people in line and get one. For a counter-example, see Beanie Baby craze. What made certain Beanie Babies so valuable was that women (and gay men and shut ins) got a fixation on them and then the maker created some special ones that were rarer than others; in effect, he was a cartel. But unlike successful cartels like DeBeers or the high-end handbaggers or Jimmy Choos, he didn't push the quality of his Bean Bag babies up, nor did he limit his market; he instead flooded it with cheap stuff and caused the ladies to turn up their noses; why, anyone can have an official Beanie Baby, so I don't want one!
I've often thought that a quick way to extreme social power and wealth for the artistically-inclined would be launching a high-end belt or barrette or hair-ribbon line of merchandise---made of the rarest silk/ivory/tiger bone/tears of African children!--then limiting orders to 100 per year. Set the price extremely high (no bargaining) and watch the husbands line up to offer you goodies to push their wives ahead in line---free trips to the Bahamas on the private jet for months at a time, rent-free living at Park Avenue apartments, stock tips from insiders, etc.
Such a small thing, but I think women would flip out trying to outdo each other for them.
Especially Kristen Ritter (that's for Steve).
The rarity isn’t always entirely synthetic. High quality leather goods such as handbags and shoes are often made by skilled craftsmen with years of experience.
Day-Lewis, whose father was Poet Laureate of England, knows craftsmanship.
The odd thing is that she says she gets her bonus for "supporting" him (at the top of the article), and then at the bottom of the article she says she DOESNT get the bonus for anything she does (sex, cooking, cleaning). She seems a bit schizo about the arrangement.
Bottom line: she picked him so she could quit work, pop out [one] quickie kid, have an expense account, and hang out with her buds. Nice work if you can get it.
On (very rare) occasions my wife will pull that "we're-partners-and-I-help-you-with-your-career" nonsense. I flip the script. I tell her, "I am tired of patriarchally oppressing you and preventing you from achieving your full human potential. I want you to lead a rich, fulfilled, professional life. I am heartsick at you making not a dollar, not 75 cents, not even a quarter, but ZERO cents for every dollar I make!"
And then I ask her what I can do to help her advance her career so she doesn't have to stay home and be oppressed. Sometimes I rub it in by finding professional jobs for which she is imminently qualified, circling them in the paper and telling her, "This one looks interesting".
Gentlemen, we all know the story. When Polly Phillips was twenty she was screeching Womyn Power, feminism, independence, her career, and how women are the equal of any man. She rode the carousel as long and hard as she could, grew increasingly disillusioned and bored by her job, and then snagged her chump husband just before her time ran out.
At least in Edith Wharton's age women of Polly's class were honest about their ultimate goals and prepared for them by learning to cook, clean, entertain, set an elegant table, manage a household, and be a complement and helpmeet to their future husbands, instead of sneering at all that ... until they hit the wall.
You’re imputing all sorts of stuff that isn’t there. It’s not a “wife bonus”. It’s them banking 60% of his after tax bonus and splitting the rest on discretionary purchases.
For example, Daniel Day-Lewis got burnt out on being a movie star, so he apprenticed for a couple of years in Florence with a master cobbler who makes zillion dollar shoes for extremely discerning customers like Day-Lewis.
Day-Lewis, whose father was Poet Laureate of England, knows craftsmanship.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-3103301/THE-MIND-DOCTOR-MAX-PEMBERTON-Women-lie-rape-know-cost.html
The key bit is:
"Several years ago, I was falsely accused of sexually assaulting a female patient while I was looking after her in the Accident and Emergency department of the hospital where I was working.
It was utterly ludicrous for a number of reasons, not least because she was handcuffed to two policemen the entire time she was in the department, and also because she was under uninterrupted CCTV surveillance that showed I didn’t so much as touch her. Oh, and also I’m gay."
Being gay is irrelevant if, as we’ve been told by feminists for the past 40 years or so, men don’t commit rape in order to get sex but rather to display power.
For anyone interested, I've narrowed down the patio furniture and am just deciding on blue and white vs. the tan and brown. One has to consider what looks best on green against the color scheme of the house, you know :)
Assuming you’re really Kate Minter …
It’s a typical guy choice, but go with tan and brown.
Anything white outside will pick up and show a certain amount of dirt just from rain\dust.
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Mark is fortunate to have an eight year old around pushing sixty. (Though it might not be so great for the girl to have geriatric dad.) I’m a couple years younger, my kids have all been off to college for a couple years … and i’m pretty bored at home with just the wife. I’d love to still have some youngins around the house.
If you want your wife to stay faithful to you, don't marry a woman who's significantly younger and more attractive than you. From my experience, those women are much more prone to committing infidelity or cleaning their husband out.
Or maybe … we could just end the whole divorce rape industry?
Even if we couldn’t change the default marriage contract to be more equitable, if courts would simply honor pre-nuptial agreements, more men would would use them and it would significantly curtail the incentive for divorce rape.
Men and women should go into marriage with a clear mutual understanding of the marriage contract and the consequences of divorce. If we simply had courts that instead of gleefully enjoying divorce rape, would simply enforce the marriage contract’s terms of divorce, pretty darn sure you’d see a whole lot less divorce happening.
What we have now is that there is very little legal incentive to hold women to the marriage contract. And the societal incentive (shame) has basically vanished. So–unsurprisingly–women can, and plenty do, divorce–whenever they decide their husband doesn’t make them haaaappy. And the husband pays and pays and pays.
Marriage having been turned into a game of Russian roulette–”will my wife actually think abide by the terms of our marriage contract even though no one is holding her to it?”–unsurprisingly fewer and fewer guys are signing up to be fleeced.
Negotiate legally binding marriage contracts up front and men and women–but particularly women–will behave better, be better wives and as a result … amazingly! … have happier marriages and happier families. And young men and women will find it easier to get married.
http://nypost.com/2015/05/28/i-love-my-wife-bonus-deal-with-it/
In hindsight, it was not a good idea to send this to all my friends and post it on facebook. The ladies will start expecting it and their men will complain that I ruined our cartel, whereby we try not to make eachother look bad.
The lady with the anthropology was a bit of a bitch, in the interest of science of course. I'm a bit ambivalent on the wife bonus - I think it's a good idea, but I deplore its use. However, if the men can indulge their mania for sport memorabilia and whatever, then I start to see the wife's shopping as more legitimate.
Besides, the wife's status enhances the status of the husband. Not with the male acquaintances (who only care if she's good looking and pleasant), but with the female ones.
Thousands of words to demonstrate that her husband married poorly.
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BTW, that “Tory Burch” dress is butt ugly. Or at the very least, it is unattractive on her.
I’m pretty much the furthest thing from a fashionista, but i’m always amazed at how many women who care about fashion, dress in stuff that is ugly and unflattering on them. They just have no “eye”.
This woman has a boatload of money to burn–and is burning it–but wears something ugly and unflattering. Even though she seems to have a figure–not too far gone yet–that could easily be flattered with some smart fashion choices.
My older daughter is quite competent at this and manages to look good and well turned out on a tiny budget, with stuff she picks up at discount stores or the sales at her favorite girl stores. But she has a good eye.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veblen_good
Clothing and accessories made of expensive materials which are made under the supervision of a craftsperson are actually better, more practical and comfortable. People act like buying a knock off Channel suit is the same as the original but a Channel suit is designed and built to last a lifetime and be comfortable to wear for long periods of time. And be effectively cleaned. They are not prom dresses. Some of the criticism is just people who cannot afford a $1000 handbag explaining that they really don't want it, but it is all they can think about.
If you are ever in NYC the exhibitions at the Fashion Institute of Technology is actually worth worth seeing even if you are not interested in Fashion.
Faking It: Originals, Copies, and Counterfeits
https://www.fitnyc.edu/22937.asp
Believe it or not the American middle class used to own nice things. Silverware made of silver. Jewelry made of precious metals and *cough* *cough* jewels. Tailored clothes. Quality wood furniture. One reason crime has declined is your typical pseudo middle class American does not own anything worth stealing. And looks like they don't have anything worth stealing too.
While we are on the subject, Gay Talese thinks you should wear a tailored suit.
http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2007/08/talese200708
Clothing and accessories made of expensive materials which are made under the supervision of a craftsperson are actually better, more practical and comfortable.”
Quite right. A good pair of shoes/boots gives consistent recurring satisfaction for years.
The only place I get more bang for buck is quality kitchen utensils. A solid chef’s knife or a cast iron oven pot will delight long after the latest Beemer has been traded in.
Nope. I don’t buy it.
But the point of being higher on the status ladder is to help your children meet the right people. That’s important.
If you are smart enough to make that amount of money, you really should know better. I just don't get it. I guess I'm a puritan.
I'm not suggesting the wealthy should walk around in rags, but you can get high quality, stylish clothes without sinking into piggish sillyness.
After a certain age, nobody cares anyway.
Just remember — we aren’t all the same. Some rich people don’t do this kind of stuff, and they date/marry people who can detect more subtle signals or who actually like them for reasons other than (or in addition to) the money.
I don’t understand. What was wrong with it?
It's a typical guy choice, but go with tan and brown.
Anything white outside will pick up and show a certain amount of dirt just from rain\dust.
~
Mark is fortunate to have an eight year old around pushing sixty. (Though it might not be so great for the girl to have geriatric dad.) I'm a couple years younger, my kids have all been off to college for a couple years ... and i'm pretty bored at home with just the wife. I'd love to still have some youngins around the house.
That’s what I was thinking too. Thanks!
Mark is the eight year old’s step-father. (Her father is forty-seven.) And, according to him, his comment was going in a different direction, but he then became totally distracted by the cheese conversation. LOLOL Later he did say he thinks she will be a fine adult. That she has a real sense of fun.
With kids in college, it sounds like you’ll be getting your wish soon in the form of grandchildren!
The Steveness of this post is enough to make one dizzy. The effort of women to land “high value” men is overstated–many women look for men who match up well with their fathers (including fathers who weren’t particularly good at it). For that matter, how many matches are ever really contested? Does Sailer imagine wives so competitive they try to fuck each other’s husbands, but after awhile settle for buying unusual purses instead? This is garbage pseudo-psychology.
The dumbest part is the old stand-up line about men not caring about a woman’s handbag/shoes/earrings. This is another dumb misreading of motivation. Women aren’t under an evolutionary pressure to vie for expensive purses, rather to vary their plumage, a declension of which is an interest in novelty of one’s appearance–ergo clothing, accessories, hairdos. Women are sexually receptive and thus they try to induce giving, mainly of attention. But this isn’t, as a certain type of complainer would say, because women are narcissists who love flattery. Rather, it’s because in getting attention the woman verifies that she is pleasing to her mate. (For his part a man verifies his value by how easily a woman yields to him and serves him–it’s complementary, except for misfits.) Steve beep boops this into FELLAS WE DON’T EVEN NOTICE THEIR HANDBAGS!
No. I’m sincere, nothing false here