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August 03, 2006

The rich are different from you and me...

In that they have freedom from Want. What the Rich want, as Py Korry explains is the same sort of things that you and I want...

I’m not sure that I share his sense that this is at all strange. By and large income inequality isn’t _so_ great that there are that many rich-only consumption options. Furthermore, as the book Trading up explains, often the middle class will show their aspirations to wealth by buying a single luxury good and making up for it with several lower-quality goods. So the Rich can be identified by the fact that they buy a lot of the same sorts of goods that you and I might buy a few of. Fascinating stuff...

The other thing to keep in mind is that individual’s tastes tend to stay the same. By and large American wealth is earned, rather than inherited. This will begin to change as the Inheritance tax is phased out, but for now Bill Gate’s isn’t passing all that much onto his children. So someone with middle-class tastes is going to have middle-class tastes until the day they die. Their children, though might be different...

We’ll just have to wait and see...

Posted by Andrew at August 3, 2006 09:34 AM

Comments

Interesting enough the thing that came to mind for me here with my tastes is that even if I was a lucky enough to receive an inheritance that changed my tastes, I still think I would prefer functional furniture. When I think of wealthy homes I think of unused rooms where you do not touch anything in fear you will ruin it.

But then I have three cats; three rambunctious crazy cats that can be clumsy and often get into things or knock stuff over. There is a reason I cannot have nice things.

However…money enough to travel and buy a house. Yeah I could be down with that.

Posted by: Sami [TypeKey Profile Page] at August 3, 2006 02:55 PM