Why I Don't Envy the Rich, Part II

Inherited wealth can be a burden as well as a blessing.

We were in Avery Island, which is the home of Tobasco Sauce.  The McIlhenny family owns the island (which is a salt dome, not a real island) and has made a fortune in the salt and pepper businesses (if you'll pardon the pun) over the years.  The company is family held, and the current CEO has lived on the island for the last 25 years.

He is at least 60.  So that means he spent most of his life not living on Avery island.  I wonder why.  Maybe because living on a godforsaken hot-as-hell pepper farm isn't as nice as the Riviera?  Perhaps.

We took a tour of the nearby gardens, and a young boy and girl were selling lemonade there.  How quaint!   But they were not street urchins or orphans, but rather the grand-niece and nephew of the current CEO.  Their parents thought it would be a good experience for them to work at the business that was their inheritance.

Cute kids.  Smart too.  They were raised in South Africa and had charming British accents.  No doubt, they've been to Swiss boarding schools and such.   Their future is bright, or so it would seem.

But the more I thought about it, the more I felt sorry for these two kids.   Sure, they might never have to work a day in their lives.  But then again, they have expectations to live up to.   And if they really want the real loot, well, they'll have to arrange a plane crash for Uncle and then wait for Mummy and Daddy to die.  

That is the nature of inherited wealth.   It kind of sucks, really.

As I noted in an earlier post, I grew up around folks like this, and most of them were very unhappy.  Rich kids who shot themselves in the head, out of sheer boredom and depression.   They had "all the money in the world" and it was still not enough.   I guess live has to be at least a bit of a challenge, or it is no fun at all.

The hot sauce kids will no doubt do well.  It was a smart idea for their parents to take them to the island and make them work a bit - see where their heritage started and where all that money came from.   And who knows?  Maybe they will take an interest in the business - and it is a booming one.

But as I drove away, I thought to myself, maybe one day one of those kids will have to move to the island and take over the family business, even if they don't want to.  And since there is so much money to be had, they will have to do it - or feel obligated to do so.   You may think rich folks have more choices than you and I, but oftentimes they have fewer choices (although you might argue they are nicer choices).

But when you don't own yourself, you don't own anything, really.   And for some folks, all the money in the world isn't enough - it is just a burden that weighs them down.

The point is, I have more choices with what I want to do with my life than these kids do.   They have a set of expectations thrust upon them at an early age.  Money can be a burden.   And there is little or no satisfaction in inherited money - no feeling of having earned it.   And maybe that is the reason so many wealthy people are unhappy.

The Death of Gay Businesses?

Cultural Ghettos evaporate once a minority group is accepted in mainstream America.  Gay-themed businesses are starting to fail and close at an alarming rate, as gays go mainstream.

American culture is omnivorous.  It swallows up other cultures, wholesale.  In fact, it is carnivorous - it is a predator.   For the most part, this is a good thing.  People and cultures are accepted and swallowed into the whole, and what was in the past "foreign" becomes as American as pizza and spaghetti.

I was reading an "images of America" series about Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and it had photos of the black business district in the pre-integration era.   The book noted that once there was a thriving middle-class of black businessmen in Fort Lauderdale.  However, once integration took hold, these businesses evaporated, for the large part, as black customers flocked to the better deals offered in mainstream businesses.

It is a pattern repeated throughout American history.  In Washington, DC, the area known as "Chinatown" was once a Jewish neighborhood.   The large Baptist church there was clearly once a synagogue.  Successive waves of immigrants have moved to the area, only to move away once they became successful and accepted into American society.

While some moved to more upscale ethnic enclaves, many just assimilated into society - evaporated into thin air, so to speak.  And with that evaporation go cultural values and traditions, which are watered down and also absorbed by the mainstream.   Our language absorbs foreign words.  Our menus absorb foreign cuisine.  Our cultural traditions morph and mash until they are a compilation of various cultures, mixed together.  This is a good thing, in large part.

The latest group to be assimilated are the Gays.  In the past, Gays lived in various ghettos in cities across America.  Greenwich Village, Dupont Circle, the Castro District, South Beach - were all neighborhoods that were well-populated with Gays and also Gay businesses.   However, as homosexuality has become more and more accepted in mainstream American society, these areas have become more gentrified and less Gay than before.   And increasingly, Gay and Gay-themed businesses are disappearing.

Gay bars are the first to go.  Once the meeting place for closeted men and women, today they have been supplanted by "apps" on smart phones.   Young gay men and women no longer feel they have to "hang out" at a Gay bar, but rather hang out with their friends - gay and straight - and go to a bar that is not defined by sexual orientation.   Increasingly, gay bars are becoming old folks' homes - which is a further turn-off to the younger generation.

In cities across the country, gay bars are closing - and not being replaced by new ones.  Attendance at existing bars is decreasing.   The entire bar culture is just disappearing - being absorbed by mainstream America.

Key West, once known as a Gay Mecca, has turned into an upscale vacation spot for people of all persuasions.  High property values have induced many gay business owners to "sell out" with once iconic gay destination resorts being bulldozed into condos for young investment bankers and their families.  There were once a dozen gay resort hotels in Key West.  Today, there are only two.   The few gay bars that are left cater mostly to curious tourists, who want to see a "drag show" in order to laugh at men in dresses.   These sort of Stepin Fetchit routines are somewhat retrograde, and they too are disappearing fast.

(Provincetown, by the way, falls into the same category as Key West.   Once property values started to skyrocket, it became less and less a gay resort and more of a mainstream tourist destination.  Old timers complain that the town is no longer "gay" anymore!).

Gay people today have a choice of where to spend their money.   And second-rate hotels, bars, campgrounds, and the like, no longer cut it, when mainstream products are so much better.   In the olden days, the mafia ran most of the gay bars.  They put them in bad parts of town because they could get away with cheap rent and poor locations.  They sold watered-down drinks at exorbitant prices because they could get away with it.   And they routinely blackmailed closeted gay men.   Today, no one would dream of going to such a place - gay people have much more self-esteem.   And these mafia-run hangouts were the first to close.

And yes, a part of it is (or was) sex.   Today, people of all persuasions hook up on the Internet or via cell phone.   Back in the day, well, it was different.   In the 1960's, Times Square - some of the most valuable Real Estate in New York City, was full of peep shows and sex shops.   And back then, those were thriving businesses.  Today, they block off part of the street and put out cafe tables so people can sip coffee and then find their sex partners, not through a peephole, but through their smart phones.

Again, this is probably a good thing.  The "backroom bars" of the 1970's lead to the AIDS epidemic of the 1980's.   Exploiting people's low self-esteem and shame is not desirable.   In a more accepting culture, there is no longer a need for sex to be seedy and shameful (unless someone prefers it that way, I guess).

So what does this mean?   Well, it means if you run a gay guest house or B&B or bar or restaurant or campground, you are probably screwed.   And you've probably seen the writing on the wall for some time.   You've noticed your customer base getting older and grayer - and also dying off.   And maybe you've thought about selling out or closing the business or re-opening as a "regular" guest house, B&B, bar or restaurant.

And that latter thought is probably a good idea.   Because as gays come out of the closet and are more and more accepted by mainstream America, they will patronize gay businesses less and less.   Like most astute consumers, they will seek out the best bargains and best value for the money.   And they will be less and less tolerant of substandard goods and services proffered to them merely because they are gay.

***

The image above is of the Stonewall Inn, famous in the day as the scene of the "Stonewall Riots" which ignited the gay rights movement.  Ironically, the Inn closed a few years later, as rents increased and business fell off.  It was recently re-opened as a gay bar, as interest in gay rights increased.  However, it is more of a museum than a gay bar, at this point.   Young gays can go there and order a drink and say they've been to Stonewall, as if it were some sort of pilgrimage.  Maybe that is where the growth industry is - in gay historical sites and museums.   Perhaps Key West and Provincetown can open gay museums - replete with historical re-enactors!

Three Months, 20 States, 3 Canadian Provinces, and 7,000 miles later...

Most Americas get two weeks of vacation a year.  Is that really living?

One reason I started this blog was that I am basically lazy.   I'd rather just sit and stare at the sky than get up out of bed and commute to some gawdawful cubicle, making someone else rich, just so I can have a new smart phone and a leased Acura as a reward.

This seems like a pretty simple concept to me, but you'd be surprised.  Most folks like to talk about chucking it all and enjoying life.  But most folks chose the cubicle, the smart phone, and the Acura.   And it is a choice.  The cubicle job can be a means to an end, not an end in and of itself.  Most folks do the latter.

So what has all this penny-pinching done for me?   I've cut my expenses to the bone.  Done without cable TeeVee and smart phones.   I've cut my own hair, switched from coffee to tea.   You name it - if it saves us a penny, we've tried it.   And I've written about it - at length - on this site.

We've dumped the status possessions which were fun to have, but expensive and time-consuming to own.   Yea, I had two houses, six cars and two boats.   And I had to make $150,000 a year to support it all - working at least 40-60 hours a week, with little time to enjoy all that crap.  And I spent all my spare hours washing and waxing vehicles or cleaning gutters or repairing toilets.   It was a lot of work, and in retrospect, not worth it.

So we downsized.  Instead of a vacation home, we spend over three months of every year on the road, touring America and Canada.   And it has been fun, too.   This year, we covered more than 20 States and two Canadian provinces, driving over 7000 miles (an average of 100 miles a day - less than some folks' commutes!).  We visited Mystic Connecticut, Provincetown Massachusetts, North Hero Vermont, Montreal, Buffalo, Saugatuck Michigan, Elkhart Indiana (ground zero of the RV world) and of course Nashville, Tennessee.   We drove the Natchez trace from one end to the other and are now in New Orleans.

In another week, we'll be home, and hopefully most of the hot weather in Georgia will be behind us.   But we won't be staying long.   We'll probably plan a trip to the Keys this winter, and despite my reservations about cruises, will take a "repositioning cruise" across the Atlantic to Portugal, Spain, and Italy, and then spend a few weeks in Europe before flying back.   And then next summer, when it gets hot, we hitch up the trailer again and head North.   I've always wanted to see North Dakota.   Maybe this year I'll go.  It will be cooler than Georgia, that's for sure.

We meet a lot of people traveling this way.  Most have huge RVs that are larger (and more costly) that many people's homes.   Most - more than half - never venture more than a few hundred miles from home.   At five miles per gallon and with only two weeks vacation, they can't afford to travel far, in terms of money and time.   And I marvel that they spent a quarter-million dollars on an RV that they use only a week or two every year.  Is that really worth it - to be able to say you have the most bad-ass RV in the park?

(Funny thing, too.  We'll be parked next to a half-million dollar Prevost "motorcoach" with our little Casita, and people come up and say, "you have the cutest trailer! Can I see inside?" and they marvel at it.  Meanwhile the Prevost guy is fuming because he has an outdoor kitchen and flip-up 55" TeeVee on the side of his rig, and no one is paying attention.)

When they ask us where we are from and we say, "Georgia" the inevitable reply is, "You drove all the way here?"   Their mindset is, you get two weeks vacation, so you drive "straight through" - often 12 or more hours behind the wheel - to get to vacation destination X and then return within a day or two.   When I try to explain that we've been traveling for months, well, it is like talking Esperanto to a cat.

There are some retired "full timers" who are traveling this way.  "We've sold our house and bought this bus motorhome!" they chirp.    But I'm afraid they've yet to discover the cost of such a lifestyle.   

We do run into a few people who "get it" - folks like us who climbed over the wall of the cubicle and made good our escape.   They travel in simple rigs that are inexpensive to buy, easy to own, and don't use much gas.   And they spend months at a time, just traveling, or just staring off into space by a nice lake somewhere, during the week when the park is empty and all the "weekend warriors" with their buggies have gone home.

We enjoy this life, and we can afford to do it, as we don't blow all our money on status things like rock-star buses or smart phones or whatever.   And the nice thing is, having spent so little money on our RV (and having paid cash for it) we can easily sell it and move on, when we decide that we want to do something else, or just settle down somewhere.

But other folks have different values.   That's their choice of course.  But they don't seem happy with their choices - always complaining about money or bitching that they are living "paycheck to paycheck".   They look at my lifestyle and think, "Gee, that sounds like fun!  I wish I could chuck the cubicle and just do whatever the heck I want!"

And I say to them, "Gee, nice smart phone you got there!"  - as they show off the shackles that bind them to the cubicle.

We all have choices in life.  Don't bitch if you don't like the choices you make - make different choices.   It can be done, even if your fellow mouth-breathing cubicle dwellers think you are "weird" for not following "dancing with the stars" and going ga-ga over the latest iPhone.

New Tools, Old Habits

Smart phones should be empowering, as the Internet was, initially.  What happened?

In my last posting, I mentioned that I had talked with someone who had a new smart phone - and yet didn't monitor their credit card account more than once a month.  They had the power in their hand to balance their accounts daily, yet chose not to do so.

They were desperate to tell me that they bought a new iPhone 6 - mentioning it no less than five times.  When I didn't react, they kind of got frustrated.  Wasn't I impressed with their purchase of a consumer item?

Well, no.  It takes no "talent" to go to a store and buy a product.  Sorry.

But what got me thinking was how these devices should empower people, yet they tend to enslave them.

For example, it would not be hard to build an "app" that would compare prices at different stores and if you went shopping, you could scan the bar code of an item, and have your smart phone tell you what the prices other stores in the area are charging for that item.

But such an app really doesn't exist for the simple reason that there is no economic incentive for anyone to provide one.  Stores don't want you to cross-shop on prices, so they would not participate in such a scheme, nor would they pay to support such a scheme.  The phone users would likely not pay (or pay very much) for such an "app".  And the person developing such an app would need to constantly update prices or allow some sort of wiki to add pricing data (which could be readily spoofed).

So my great idea for an app fails miserably.

Instead, we have a lot of faux financing apps.  Mostly, these are apps designed to get you to consume, and consume badly.   Things like "open table" will make reservations for you - at restaurants that subscribe to the service.   Of course, which restaurants need to subscribe to such a service?  The ones that need customers.  The great restaurant that has a line out the door and doesn't accept credit cards (because it doesn't have to - the food is that good) isn't going to be listed on your "app".

And so on down the line.  A device which should provide financial empowerment ends up as a conduit for spending and dissipating wealth instead.  And the Internet in general seems to be falling into the same pattern.   Initially, it seemed like the Internet was a great way to find obscure items and bargains at obscenely low prices.   Brick-and-mortar stores would be replaced by online shopping, which would cut costs and thus lower prices for consumers.   But what we are seeing instead is the retailers just cutting costs and pocketing the profits.

For example, a year or so back, I went online to buy a pair of sneakers.  I had liked my Merrill sneakers, and since I knew what size I needed and the brand and model, I could shop online and get a good price, right?

Wrong.  Every outlet online had the same price - $90 or $89.99 or $89.91.   It was scary how similar the pricing was.  And the local shoe store wasn't that much more, either.   Rather than scoring a great deal, I merely scored an OK one.

Banks and other financial institutions regularly push faux financial planning on their websites.  For example, Bank of America ran a cutsy-wootsy little cartoon on its site, ostensibly about financial planning.  However, the entire thing was a sell-job for a debt-consolidation loan.  If you are in debt, a debt consolidation loan isn't really going to solve anything - it will just take short-term debts and make then into long-term ones.  Basically you are mortgaging your life.  A better approach is to cut back on spending (rather than budgeting for designer coffee drinks, as the cartoon suggests).

Websites and discussion groups abound that talk about faux financial acumen as if it was a real way to get ahead.  Clip those coupons!  Get those frequent flyer miles!  Chase those cash-back deals!  12 months same as cash!   You will get ahead, if only you go after the best bargain the debt-mongers dangle in front of you!

But as I noted in another posting, no one ever got rich clipping coupons.  If they did, they'd own yachts. And coupon-clippers are notoriously yacht-free.

And then there are the financial investment sites.  Our friends at Motley Fool routinely hype this or that investment, as if you could stock-pick your way to riches.   Have you ever heard about anyone who invested with Motley Fool and got fabulously wealthy?  I mean, other than the founders of the company that is.

I rag on the fools at Motley Fool a lot, but at least they are a "legitimate" investment advice site (not that I endorse their advice!  Far from it!).  There are a host of other, shadowy sites out there that hype penny stocks or gold or other fringe investments which are often fraudulent or just really, really poor advice.   And yet they flourish.  Each one promises to tell you the "secrets to wealth" if you just send them some money for their book or brochure.  The easy money system can be yours for only six payments of $19.95!!!

Sadly, the Internet is sorely lacking in information on how to really accumulate wealth.   Sure, there are lots of come-on websites that promise this.  But none of them deliver.

And the secret is no secret:  Spend a penny less than you earn.  

That's it. No magic trick or formula.   You just have to save money, stop spending on crap, and stop borrowing.

But the Internet - and now smart phones - promote the opposite.  Spend more by shopping smartly!  Borrow more by borrowing smartly!  With all your coupons and cash-back bonuses, you'll come out ahead!

But of course, you cannot spend your way to wealth, just as you can't eat your way to slimness.    If you want to accumulate wealth or lose weight, you have to do hard things and make sacrifices.

And no, it ain't easy.  There is no "easy trick to the tiny belly" just as there is no "easy trick to wealth!"   Both are hard to do and take a lot of willpower and resolve.

And we all fail, at least some of the time, at this.

The sad thing is, today we have all these wonderful tools at our disposal, which we can use to really cut our expenses, monitor our spending, and save money.   We can go online and pay our bills and monitor where the money is going, down to the cent.  There is no excuse to ever bounce a check or be late with a payment.  There is no need to pay high interest rates, when lower rates are available.   You can go online and find the best prices for things, or hard-to-find repair parts, with the click of a mouse.

And such tools were not available, just a few years ago.   When I was a kid, if you wanted to buy something, you went to a local merchant, and if they had it, you could buy it - at a price they set.   There were a few catalogs here and there, but not much.   Yet oddly enough, back then, people were more careful with their spending and saved more.  Maybe the fact that it was so much harder was an incentive to save.

The power to control your life is in the palm of your hands - perhaps quite literally, if you have a smart phone or even a laptop computer.   You can go online and check your bank balances every day, and never, ever bounce a check again.   Yet even today, I hear people complain about how "unfair" check bounce fees are.   And these complaints come attached with "sent from my iPhone" tags.

We live in a brave new world of online communication and commerce.   We bank electronically and can spend with the click of a mouse - and soon with the swipe of a smart phone.  These are powerful tools and if used properly, could save you money and help track your spending and saving.  If used improperly, they could just fuel your mountain of debt and feed your spending and borrowing habits.

And sadly, I think most people seem to be inclined to do the latter....

Life is Fragile

Most of us bitch and moan about how hard we have it in life.   Most of us are clueless.

You've heard it before, at a party or just while shooting the shit with people.  Some idiot tells you how hard is life is, because he is living "paycheck to paycheck" and if it weren't for Obama/Republicans/Wall Street Fat Cats/ Liberals/Whatever, he'd be living on Easy Street instead of "suffering".

Or you hear some yahoo moaning about how the "American Dream" is shattered or some news reporter blathering on about how some "victim" is losing their overpriced and under-financed home and how awful that is to lose a THING that you never could have afforded anyway.

But what these folks don't realize is how fragile life is and how unimportant "things" and money are.   If you are sick, injured, or killed  - or someone you love is sick, injured, or killed - then none of the "things" in life - or money - really matter.

I met a man last night who was injured in a car wreck.  He is OK, but his wife died in the wreck and his two children face months of surgery and rehabilitation, if they are ever to walk again.   One moment, he is worrying about credit card bills and asking the kids to pipe down back there and worrying about traffic.  The next moment his life is torn apart.

I mentioned before a friend from college who was in a major wreck like that and faced years of back surgery and rehabilitation.  She said that the experience really put life in perspective - and insinuated that I was pretty superficial and lazy.  She was right.

Sadly, most of us never figure these things out.   For some, it takes a life-changing event to finally put things in perspective.  For others, the fragility of life becomes apparent over time, as one realizes how quickly things can change in an instant.

Now, some folks might take what I am saying the wrong way.  "Well, it could all end tomorrow, so you might as well enjoy today!  Get a new smart phone! Watch Cable TV!  Spend it all!"

But that is just the opposite of what I mean - and the thinking I had when my back-injured friend told me I was superficial and lazy.   Life is precious, short, and fragile.  And that is all the more reason to get your shit together and stop spending money like a drunken sailor.  It is all the more reason to save for a "rainy day" as it can rain buckets at any minute.

Life is too short to go through it being unhappy because of bills, material things, or "living paycheck to paycheck".   It can all end in an instant, and if you've wasted it all by running a treadmill so you can have "things" - whose fault is that?

The fellow I met last night was in remarkably good spirits considering all he had been through.  I suspect that the experience put his life in perspective.  He realizes now what is important in life and what really isn't.   And he realizes how little control we have over fate and destiny.

No, we can't control the fates.   But we can balance our checkbooks.   Bouncing a check is not destiny, but a choice.

* * * 

Speaking of which, a story on Evening Liberal Claptrap is a case in point. They are talking about bank service charges and how ATM fees are a way for banks to make money off of other banks' customers.   "Unlike a bounce check fee," they drone, "with an ATM fee, at least you have a choice!"

Really, bouncing checks is inevitable?    No, it is not.  Not if you balance your account every day - which is so easy to do in this day of smart phones and Internet.   Yet the people with the smart phones are least likely to do this.  One fellow admitted to me that he checks his credit card account once a month.   Once a month?  And in his hand is a device that allows him to check it hourly.  But that would interfere with his texting, I guess.