The Loneliness Industry

People make money when you live alone...

I was talking to someone about online dating the other day and they told me they get these fake "likes" from people.  Usually, the person "liking" them has a head shot from a glamour magazine and they are located halfway across the planet - in Australia or New Zealand.  No danger of actually meeting them.  You try to communicate with them, but they usually never reply, or if they do, only with a generic comment.

It seems these online dating services (Tinder, Grindr, Bumble, etc.) use these fake profiles and automated bots to maintain "engagement" with customers, so that they stay online more and see all the ads for porn.  Eventually, they give up on meeting someone in person and just go to the porn site.  Mission accomplished!

If you think about it, it makes sense.  The last thing a dating site wants you to do is actually meet someone.  If you did, then you might get married, settle down, and close your tinder account for good.  And we can't have that, can we?  It might impact our engagement numbers for the site!

This made me think - I know, a dangerous pastime - that so many industries that cater to the singles crowd, really want to make sure they stay single.  The single's bar (the meat market) caters to the one-night stand.  It is a hard (but not impossible) place to meet a life partner.  If you do meet someone there, for a "pump and dump" you will be so turned off by it, you will vow to never go back again!  But low-self-esteem and desperation kick in, and you find yourself walking again to the singles bar, to spend too much money on watered-down drinks and maybe meet Mr. Wrong.

The more you think about it, the more it makes sense.  Corporate America makes more money off of single people than couples.  Your landlord certainly doesn't want you getting married.  You might buy a house!  Or, at the very least, the two of you might move in together and thus split the rent - and that's no fair to the Landlords of America, is it?

Single people, I suspect, are more likely to order out for food, or patronize fast-food restaurants.  Two single people buy almost twice as much "stuff" as a married couple.  From a business standpoint, singles are far more profitable than couples. The single people I know are more likely to spend money on discretionary things.  Couples save up to buy a house, have a child, or put that child through college.  Singles buy a fancy car and fancy clothes - they have nothing else to do with their money - right?

Maybe I am being a bit dramatic. But it seems this whole "red pill" and "incel" movement is designed to keep men single by making them toxic to women.  And the few women who mistakenly marry an Andrew Tate fan, end up getting divorced - feeding the divorce industry, which makes profits from turning couples into singles.

It is a perfect closed-loop ecosystem.

This raises the question, If dating sites are a waste of time, and singles bars are toxic, how do you meet someone to spend your life with?  Tough question! Ann Landers always suggested going to civic events or meeting someone at church. They have liberal churches, too - if you don't want to end up marrying a holy roller.  But joining a book club or other organization may put you in contact with other people having similar (but not identical) interests.  The more people you are exposed to, the more likely you'll find one that you like.

Of course, the loneliness industry hypes the myth that there is a "perfect match" out there somewhere for you - and you need only sign up for their website or computerized dating service to find out!  People are disappointed that their "perfect match" is anything but perfect, and off to the divorce lawyer they go - again, a closed-loop system.  They're now back on the market!

So, how did I end up staying with the same person for 36 years?  Well, we are hardly a perfect match, but we realize that and accept we aren't perfect.  But on the other hand, we don't hate each other - too much, anyway.  That's a relationship - there is a lot of give-and-take, and sometimes, frustration and anger, although as we've aged together, we have fewer and fewer disputes, mostly when we are just tired and cranky and have low blood sugar or are dehydrated.  Stuffing a cookie in Mark's mouth (or mine) often ends arguments abruptly.  We keep "granola bars" or peanut-butter crackers in the car for just such a purpose.

Surprising, isn't it?  Much of what we think are serious or deep emotions are, in fact, a combination of brain chemicals or blood chemistry.  Hydration and blood sugar are the two that can change your mood in a heartbeat.

This is not to say you can cure mental illness this way.  If you spouse abuses you, chances are, there are serious issues involved. If your spouse starts subscribing to a "red pill" discussion group and tries to "neg" or "gaslight" you, well, you've lost him to a cult.  But usually, you can spot these things - or should - before you commit to a relationship or marriage.  Sadly, my Dad failed to dodge that bullet!

But I digress...

The point is, these dating sites and pickup bars are not your friends.  The last thing they want you to do is get married - that's bad for business!   Even your friends are against you in this regard - if you get married, you won't hang out with them as much, and it will make them feel even lonelier.  Many a "friend" has sabotaged a good marriage or relationship, by promoting a "girls night out" for the wife, or buds who want a "boys night out" for the husband.  Like crabs in the bucket, they want to pull you back down to their level of misery and loneliness.

Even your parents and other relatives may try to subtly sabotage a relationship.  Mothers-in-law are famous for their "Momma's Boys" who defer to Mom whenever a serious discussion or decision has to be made in a marriage.  The wife is always out-voted 2:1 in this scenario.  Sisters and brothers may be jealous of your happiness and want to bring you down to their level - and have you spend more time with them instead.

You are under attack from all sides - or so it can seem.

Sadly, it seems that social media, the ubiquitous smart phone, and dating apps have all conspired to keep us single.  We are all exhorted to hold out for "the perfect mate" or told that we better accept what we can get (even if it is a horrendous match) because "the clock is ticking."  Neither is a good proposition.

This so-called "epidemic of loneliness" isn't, perhaps, an accident, but in fact, a marketing ploy.  Lonely people are good for business!

Why Your Kids Won't Talk To You...

Being a parent is heartbreaking in that, at some point, your children become separate beings and not mere possessions.  Some parents can't adjust to this - and in fact, most don't.

Elon Musk is in the news again, which suits him just fine.  This time around, he is grousing about how his kids won't talk to him anymore (and ex-spouses, ex-employees, ex-friends, most people, America in general, the world, aliens, etc.) which, in the case of his daughter, he blames on a "woke" school "brainwashing" her.  He claims that is what motivated him to buy Twitter, and turn it in to a Saudi-Arabian propaganda machine.

Nice try, Elon.

The reason she won't talk to you is right there in front of you.  Rather than assume she is an independent adult human being with opinions of her own, you assume that someone "brainwashed" her, because, hey, who doesn't like Elon Musk?  I mean, other than the folks I listed above.  I forgot animals.  I suspect even animals dislike him, too.  Dogs probably bark at him, sensing that he is one of the undead or something.

Kids grow up into adults just like you!  And like most adults, they tend to think they have their own opinions and ideas and want to live their own lives.  Sadly, many if not most parents have a problem with this - they raised you from a pup and see you as some sort of half-formed existance that is, in fact, their property.  They "created" you, so they own you - right?  This sets up the inherient parent-child conflict.

My Mother, when she was drunk and maudlin (as opposed to drunk and violent) would tell me how sad it made her, when, one day, when I was five or so, she wanted to hold my hand crossing the street, and apparently I said, "No, Mommy! I can do it myself!"  I have no memory of this, and I remember everything else (sadly) so I wonder if, in her drunken mind, she was either making this story up, or it happened with one of my siblings. But it illustrates how parents have to go through this separation - this transition from this small being who you completely control, to this independent human with ideas of their own.

And they have ideas of their own.  I have seen a lot of kids in my day (in fact, I was one, at one time, believe it or not) and it always surprises me (and their parents) how children come screaming out of the womb with their own personalities and ideas, distinct from their parents.  And by the time puberty rolls around, this, along with hormones, often leads to strife between parents and children.  Some parents just can't come to grips with the idea that their children are no longer their possessions.

Of course, in Musk's case, the problem is more acute.  His daughter is apparently "trans" and Dad is meanwhile running a social media site that embraces a lot of anti-trans, anti-gay, pro-Nazi, pro-racist, and other odious views, in the ersatz name of "free speech" - funded by the Saudi Government.  Dad promises to "pay the legal bills" of anyone who is "cancelled" yet refuses to defend a Saudi teacher sentenced to death for Tweeting against the Saudi government.

Hey, Trump never pays the legal bills of his lackeys, even after promising to do so.  Hell, he never pays his own legal bills, either - or any other bill, for that matter.  Musk seems to be following this pattern, not paying his landlords or his contractors, or even his former employees.  This seems to be a new Billionaire trend, not paying people.  Or maybe that is how they get rich in the first place?

Anyway, you can't blame a person for refusing to talk to their Dad, when Dad is encouraging and platforming people who want to kill you.  And these far-right folks are quite clear on this - talking of shooting gays and trans people (as DeSantis' own preacher has said, from the pulpit!) as well as talk of "Civil War" and shooting Democrats if they don't get their way.

Quite frankly, I am shocked anyone wants to talk to Musk at this point, other than die-hard Trumpers.  But then again, they are conflicted.  They drive Dodge pickup trucks with diesel engines, "blowing coal" and despise electric vehicles in general.  Musk may find himself a man without a nation - not welcome among Democrats, despised among Republicans.  The new "cybertruck" will have to be converted to coal power!

But there are other reasons not to talk to family members - or engage with them in any way.  For example, if you were molested or physically, psychologically, or financially abused, you may not feel comfortable sitting down to Thanksgiving dinner with your abuser.  There may be more mundane reasons as well - you just may not like them and they make you uncomfortable.  People are different and have different values from one another, and when you grow up, you realize that you don't like certain people, not because of their opinions, but their personalities.  Visiting such people can give you anxiety and even make you physically ill.  And you are not obligated to sacrifice your life on the altar of "family."

In a lot of cultures, this is quite literally the case - adult children, well into their 30s, 40s, and 50s (and beyond!) are expected to kow-tow to the demands of their parents and siblings.  I recalled before how a Korean-born friend of mine, who became a successful attorney, was grousing about the high cost of car insurance. As "number one son!" he was expected to buy cars for his parents and siblings and insure them.  And as you might expect, his siblings just were layabouts who got lots of speeding tickets and got into accidents, which made his insurance skyrocket.

I didn't understand it, but he told me it was a cultural thing - that a successful family member was expected to subsidize those less successful.  Of course, this encourages other family members to not try as hard.  I am not sure if he ever broke free of that trap, but from what I understand, similar things happen in other cultures, and indeed, even here in America, where parents will browbeat children into coughing up money, once they have squandered their own.

There is also the issue of role-reversal.  Parents get old and enter a "second childhood" which is often preceded by a second adolescence.  At some point, the children may be more "mature" than the parents, who revert to hissy-fits and meltdowns.  Second childhood has come early for Elon, it seems.   It gets awkward, for example, when you have to extricate your own parents from legal troubles, or watch them behave like small children.  Many choose to simply look away and not engage - and often that is the only thing you can do, unless you want to make yourself miserable.

It isn't abnormal to move on from childhood and live a life of your own.  What is abnormal is to live as a perpetual child - as many do these days, often living with their parents - only "free" to live their own lives, very briefly, once their parents die.  A family should not be like a fraternity house - where you bide your time until you are the one in charge and can then "haze" the newcomers.  That isn't love, that isn't "family" - it is just abuse.

RIP Jimmy Buffet Inc. LLC

A lot of people are mourning Jimmy Buffet today.  Don't feel sorry for a Billionaire!

I mentioned before about Parrotheads - Boomers who spend their dreary lives in a cubicle or some other drone job, and then go wild on the weekends at Jimmy Buffet concerts or hanging out and drinking syrupy sweet Jimmy Buffet Margaritas or having a "Cheeseburger in Paradise" while staying at  Jimmy Buffet Resort and Casino or even the Jimmy Buffet Trailer Park, before retiring from the drone factory and moving to a Jimmy Buffet retirement community.

I kid you not, all of these things exist - as well as his fleet of airplanes, boats, yachts, and so on and so forth.  And there is much more I didn't mention - Jimmy Buffet beer, Jimmy Buffet liquor, Jimmy Buffet clothes - this guy has more licensing and endorsement deals than an NBA star or Harley Davidson.

Of course, more power to him - he figured out how to turn his "wasted away in Margaritaville" and his apparent laid-back persona into a lifestyle that millions can latch onto - and bring a bit of light into otherwise darkened lives.  For some folks, this is all that keeps them from a pit of despair.

But as much as he sells his "laid back" lifestyle, you will find that Jimmy Buffet Inc. is not so laid-back when some schmuck decides to open a bar and call it "Margaritaville" in homage to his favorite star.  They will swoop down on you faster than McDonald's will, if you decide to open a diner and name it after yourself (and your name happens to be McDonald!).

I have enjoyed listening to his music in the past.  I bought a five-CD set, as I recall, of his greatest hits.  And I went to one Jimmy Buffet concert, but I kind of felt like it was more of a marketing experience for Boomers than a musical event.  They no longer let you party in the parking lot -  you have to go in and buy their "Land Shark" beer instead.  I mean, they have a business to run and bills to pay.

I've been to Disney World a couple of times, too.  And while I enjoyed it, I am not a "fan" of Disney Corporation as some people are.  You know, the folks who have Disney stickers plastered all over the back of their minivan, and the mouse ears on the antenna, and the annual pass sticker.  They will bore you for hours about the "secret tips 'n tricks" to enjoying your Disney experience and "beating all the lines!"  Same shit, different corporation.

It is no different to people pledging their lives to Chevy trucks or Harley-Davidsons.  People actually get corporate logos tattooed on their bodies..  What's next?  Bar codes?   It's OK to just like something without being a "fan" of it.  Fandom is a dead-end, personally, and can backfire in a big way when the fan you pledged your life to, ends up being less than you thought, or worse yet, does something horrible, as routinely happens with celebrities.  When that happens, it puts fans in the awkward position of defending dog-fighting or pedophilia. And some do, too - they can't admit they were wrong - a position many Trumpers are finding themselves in today.  People who live their lives in the reflected glow of celebrity are sad and depressed people who don't believe in themselves enough to be their own fan.

I don't hate Jimmy Buffet.  I don't even know him.  The laid-back persona they sell on television may be him, or just an act he puts on, like those podcasters who get outraged on cue, because outrage sells.  I think we are all mourning the loss of that persona, and if that was the real Jimmy, then RIP.  But there is another Jimmy Buffet, who is a Billionaire head of a corporate marketing machine.  I am not sure I would like that guy, although I can admire his business acumen.

Of course, life goes on after death - look at how the Elvis Presely estate (or that of Micheal Jackson) keeps chugging along, decades after death.  Jimmy Buffet Inc. will keep going, and despite a massive hurricane, the new Margaritaville complex on Ft. Myers Beach will continue to be built, and no doubt more casinos, resorts, trailer parks, and retirement communities will be built as well.  That is, until one day, no one will remember who he was and one by one, these businesses may fall by the wayside.

I recall as a kid being given some "Fess Parker" candies on Halloween.  They were old and stale and as a kid, I said, "who the FUCK is Fess Parker?"  But apparently a decade earlier he was quite famous for playing Daniel Boone, and someone licensed his name for candies and they sat around for a decade before I lost a tooth to one of them.

Maybe something similar will happen to Buffet - whose name doesn't resonate as much with the post-Boomer generations.  In fact, I suspect they will say, "Ick! My parents liked him!  Gross!"

Well, that is, until they rediscover him one day, ten years from now, as they visit an old, run-down Margaritaville resort and think it is cute and kitchy and "retro" much as many today felt about the rat-pack era or Trader Vic's and the whole Tiki movement (which itself is tangentially related to Buffet).

Of course, other celebrities refuse to die, which no doubt flummoxes their heirs.  Bob Dylan steadfastly refuses to die, but then again, he doesn't own a chain of amusement parks or anything like that.  But you can be sure his legacy will live on and no doubt, some heir will license his likeness and profit from the estate for generations.  Hey, it worked for Elvis.  Celebrities really never die - they just fade away.

So anyway, RIP Jimmy, whoever you are.  Your music brought a bright spot in many dreary lives and entertained us all.  You had a good run, though, so I won't shed any tears over your death.  You lived a life that most folks only dream about - and many do.

Too Many Ugly Flags

They're ugly and there are too many of them.  Sorry!

Mark and I were remarking that the various gay pride flags (and there are now dozens of different varieties of them) are not really very pretty, from a design standpoint.  In fact, they are so ugly you'd think a straight guy designed them.

The history of the gay flag is [not that] interesting.  Someone came up with the idea of rainbow colors, which I think was meant to represent the diversity of all peoples and all orientations.  It was also a shout-out to "somewhere over the rainbow" which became something of a gay anthem, because the gays love camp, and we love drug-and-booze addled divas who die young (why, is beyond me). Someone else took out two of the colors to make it fit a display and the modern gay flag was born.

Simple?  Yes. Garish?  You bet! The use of simple, primary colors is reminiscent of decorations in a kindergarten or a child's room, or the colors used for Pla-Skool toys.  And today, people are freaking out because a classroom has colored construction paper which no doubt means the teacher is grooming the kids!  They fail to realize bright primary colors predate the gay flag.

But from a design standpoint, it is a nightmare.  It looks like something a child would draw - a poor child whose Mother could only afford the cheap crayon set from the dollar store, that came with only seven crayons.  It is... tacky.  There I said it.

But OK, so we get this garish flag.  No sweat.  But that wasn't enough for some folks.  They started adding colors and designs and logos, because the rainbow that represented inclusiveness wasn't inclusive enough for them.  Worse yet, what that wanted was a flag of their own that separated themselves from everyone else.  So today, we have dozens of such flags, for every person and purpose, and to what end, I am not sure.

The latest variation is the "trans" flag.  Again, the rainbow is supposed to represent everybody (even straight people!), so there is no need to add more colors or images to include more people.  But they went ahead and did it anyway, adding a weird triangle with pastel colors (clash!) on one side.  They took a design for a flag that was at least simple, if not inelegant, and made it into a mish-mosh of primary colors and pastels, stripes and triangles, angles and shapes, all in the name of inclusivity - from an original flag whose very rainbow was meant to represent inclusivity.

And a gay man designed this?  The myth of gays having talent and sophistication has been shattered.

Of course, it isn't just the gays flying ugly flags these days. The Trumpers have a whole set of ugly flags that keep morphing and mutating. The flag business must be pretty brisk these days!  There is the Trump 2020 flag, of course (updated for 2024!) and the so-called Gasden flag ("Don't step on the snake!") and the thin blue line, thin red line, and thin whatever line American flag (with black stripes, which supposedly means "take no prisoners" or something).  Then there are distressed versions of all these flags, with the stripes fading off to nothing.  They even have a "punisher" flag with the logo of a comic book hero who, ironically, fought the very sort of people who fly that flag.

Some of these right-wing flags were clearly designed by straight men, with busy designs, lots of text in tiny elaborate fonts, and garish colors.  You can't even read what they say, unless they are tacked to a wall and you are standing no more than six feet away.  There is a reason most flags are very simple in design - so they can be distinguished when flown from a flag pole.  Look at some of the classics from Europe - the French flag, the Italian flag, etc.  Simplicity itself!  Clean classic design.

So, right or left, we are awash in a sea of butt-ugly flags, it seems.  And let's not even talk about those "seasonal" flags  your Grandma flies on the porch - you know, the one with the cute bunny for Easter, and the other with the green leprechaun for St. Paddy's Day.  Grandma, we love you, but... yeeech!

And it seems that flag-waving is a new thing.  Because when I was a kid, none of these modern flags existed. You might have an American flag you flew on the 4th of July or Memorial Day.  A few people had a flag pole on their front lawn and raised the flag every day (and lowered it at sunset, as you are supposed to do, per the unenforceable flag code).  But most folks thought that people who flew flags every day were a little weird.  Yea, we get it, we're in the United States.  No need to label it, unnecessarily.

So the American flag and maybe your State Flag (but who even knows what those look like?) would fly, but that was about it.  And we didn't fly them very often, and we wouldn't fly them from our pickup truck - that would be disrespectful.  And yea, maybe there were some rednecks in the South who would fly the Confederate battle flag, but they were just racist jerks and everyone hated them.  Today you see ignorant yahoos in Pennsylvania flying the Confederate flag.  They just don't get it - Pennsylvania was on the winning side, remember?

I digress, but what is it with people who pine to be losers?  The South lost.  The Nazis lost.  No one liked them, they were outnumbered and they had shitty causes to fight for.  Do people really want to lose again and again?  It only took about five years to beat the South - and the Nazis.  What's the point of re-hashing all that?

Of course, everyone has a right to fly the flag of their choice, within reason and in accordance with the HOA rules and local regulations. Yes, free speech doesn't mean unlimited speech, just as the second amendment doesn't mean you can build an H-bomb in your basement.  There are limits to everything, whether people want to believe it or not.

Recently, a young man gunned down an old lady for having the audacity to fly the gay pride flag.  He was no doubt mentally unhinged, so of course, he had easy access to guns.  27 years old and gunned down by the cops (that saved us all a lot of time) - what a waste of two lives.  If only we had some sort of building where we could put mentally ill people who are dangerous to themselves or others, and then help them with therapy and treatments.  Nah!  That would never work!  Better to arm them and let them roam free - it will all sort itself out, somehow.

But no doubt, what triggered this wind-up soldier wasn't the lady's gay flag.  She was just displaying it in her bookstore to show solidarity for a minority under attack - she wasn't gay herself.  But certain television networks and online channels have been pushing alarming messages of hate, and that's what triggers these wind-up soldiers.  That lady was shot by Fox News and ONN - using a mentally ill young man as an intermediary.  They can claim they didn't intend that particular person to be shot, but they can't argue they weren't aware their incendiary rhetoric wouldn't cause violence.

Again, free speech - you are free to say horrible things, I guess, but not free from the consequences.  And many advertisers are fleeing such networks and websites, as they don't want to be associated with racism, misogyny, violence, or insurrection.

Just as, as a customer, you don't have to patronize a business who flies a Trump flag - or a gay flag for that matter.  And as a business owner, it generally means it is bad practice to align yourself with one political spectrum or another, unless you know your customer base is largely aligned with that spectrum.  Flying a gay flag at the Lesbian Wymyn's Co-operative isn't going to turn away customers (but sadly, attract gunmen).  Flying a Trump flag at the Kountry Kitchen Kafe isn't going to cost you any business.  I always get a laugh when some redneck diner owner goes on television and says, "no one is going to cancel me!" as if his customers will shy away from the very same views they espouse.

But of course, no one is gunning down people for flying a Trump flag - yet.  It seems that some, however, pine for the next Civil War, where you can just go shoot people you don't like.  What is it with humanity and its desire to self-destruct every 50 years or so?

Flags - they flew a lot of them in Nazi Germany, and quite a few in the Civil War.  Flags can unite us or divide us.  We seem to choose the latter.  With the plethora of Gay flags today, it seems the message of inclusivity and unity has been shattered.  Everyone has their own flag, and their own cubby-hole, which is exclusive to them.  I'm not like you, I'm non-binary asexual transgender!  Go away!

Divide and conquer, the oldest game in the book!

Maybe less ugly flags?  But then again, I am being redundant - there are few "pretty" flags in the world, it seems.

Buy It For Life? Not Necessarily!

Engineering a product doesn't mean making it last forever, but making it cost-effective.

There is an old trope about poor people and shoes - and it dates back to the era where everyone wore leather shoes, not "sneakers."  You watch those old cop shows from the 50s and 60s and realize everyone is running with shoes on - my knees hurt just thinking about it.

But anyway, the trope goes like this:  A rich man (back in 1930) can afford to spend $10 on a pair of good leather shoes that last him a decade or more.  A poor man spends $2 on a pair of cheap shoes with cardboard soles (no, really, and many women's dress shoes are still this way!) that barely last a year.  Over a decade, the rich man spends $10 on shoes, the poor man spends $20 or more - and thus the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.

I am not sure that even made sense back in the 1930's.  The rich man has a closet full of shoes - a dozen or more - and thus his shoes rarely wear out.  The cost of shoes isn't making him poor or making him rich.  But the idea is, the poor man can't afford to scrape together $10 for a decent pair of shoes, so instead spends more money on a succession of shitty shoes. He probably walks more, too.

It is like the waitress we met once, who just went to work on Jekyll.  Back then, the toll was $8 and a yearly pass was $45.  She complained about the toll and we asked her if she got a yearly pass.  "Not yet," she replied, "I have to wait until payday next week to have $45 to buy one!"  Maybe she was trolling for tips, but I find it hard to believe that there was no way she could afford a yearly pass that cost less than a tank of gasoline.

But it illustrates the penny-wise, pound-foolish approach. Between now and her next payday, she would spend as much on a succession of daily passes as she would have for the one yearly one.  But again, maybe this is an example of poverty-think.

There are discussion groups that tout "buy it for life" products.  The idea is, instead of buying cheap shoes or daily passes, you save up to buy "investment grade" things that last a lifetime, and thus save money.  Instead of a set of cheap knives, you buy carbon steel.  Instead of buying cheap Tfal cookware, you buy cast iron pans (both are good, cast iron literally can last a lifetime, though).

Is this a good way to save money?  Like anything else, yes and no.  There are some products that just wear out and cannot be made to last forever - even if you wanted them to - at an affordable price.  Shoes, for example - today we all wear sneakers or what would be considered sneakers back in the day.  These have expanded polyurethane foam soles and the foam compresses down to nothing after a year of daily wear.  Eventually, it is a better idea for your feet to just buy a new pair of shoes.

If you want to save money, just buy a decent set of sneakers instead of some trendy "designer" label endorsed by an athlete, that costs hundreds of dollars.  No one will ever mug me for my Merrell shoes.   They work well, and I generally can buy a pair for under $100.

Could they be made to last longer?  Well, that was the idea behind the NIKE AIR shoes - the soles had chambers filled with gas (not air - that would leak out) and thus not compress as much over time.  But there are other factors to consider.  Sneakers get funky and smell bad over time,  You can wash them, but this tends to degrade the sneaker.  You can replace the laces when they break, and put in "Mr. Scholls" inserts to extend their life - by a few months.  But eventually, it is a better idea to just start over - they are a wear item and should be replaced over time.

The weird thing is, of course, that unlike the trope about cheap shoes, we see today that the most expensive sneakers, such as yet another iteration of "Air Jordans" are not sold to rich people, but rather to the very poor, who covet status items more than any other demographic.  Some folks buy sneakers and then never wear them - convinced they are "collectible" and will be worth a fortune, years from now. Yea, the poor fall into that trap as well- buying "collectible" Elvis plates or Beanie-Babies.

So, are there things that you should "buy for life?"   Well, to begin with, bear in mind that many of these "buy it for life" discussion groups are trolled by companies trying to sell product. Speed Queen washers, for example, are touted as lasting forever.  But buyers discover that, while not a bad product, they tend to break down and last as long as any other washer on the market - but cost far more to buy.  You may spend more on a product, that doesn't mean it will last longer.

In fact, as I noted many times in this blog, "professional grade" products can be fussy and unreliable.  The "subzero" built-in refrigerator costs 5X more than a plain-Jane model, and yet the simplest refrigerators seem to last forever (because they are uncomplicated) while the fussy model with all the "features" gets cranky over time.   BMW and Mercedes make fine cars, but they are expensive to own and expensive to repair.  You rarely see older ones on the road, as the cost of repairs more easily exceeds resale value, particularly after a decade or so.  You spend more and you don't get more, you just spend more.

But that is the point with a lot of these expensive products - the idea is to show people you don't even know that you have money to spend on status items.  It is just a foolish waste of money - ask me how I know!

One commentator noted that things like carbon-steel knives are great and all, but they cost a lot of money.  Over the years, though, he found a set, one at a time, at garage sales and thrift shops.  Most people can't tell a good knife from bad and that's where you can score a good deal.  On the other hand, a set of "cheaper" knives may be all that most home cooks really need - they still slice your unions and garlic, and can be sharpened regularly.

When Mark worked at Williams-Sonoma, he brought home a lot of "scratch and dent" items from the store for pennies on the dollar.  Tellingly, a lot of it is either gone or rarely used.  The aluminum "Calphalon" pans turned out to be a hassle - food tended to stick to them and they got a funky color after a while.  But a big pot rack hanging from your cathedral ceiling, loaded with Calphalon could give the impression you were the next Martha Stewart!

On the other hand, cast-iron Le Creuset generally doesn't wear out, although the plastic pot handles on some later models will crack over time (you can buy metal replacement knobs at the outlet store, however).  But a basic cast-iron "spider" (fry pan) from Lodge can be had for a few dollars - oddly enough in the camping section at Walmart.  They literally last a lifetime and can be handed down from generation to generation.  They also are a deadly weapon, too.  Crack someone on the head with a cast-iron frypan and it's lights out!

Sure, a cast-iron skillet is "buy it for life!" as it has no moving parts.  You see a connection here - the simpler you can make something, the more reliable it is.  The more expensive and complicated something is, the less reliable it is.  You start adding complexity, reliability suffers.  The military is aware of this - MIL-SPEC-217D adds up a factor for each component in a circuit to determine the failure rate per 1,000 hours of service.  The more components, the higher the failure rate.

So, simplicity is the key.  You don't have to spend extra to have reliable things that last a long time - in fact, the opposite is true.  And sometimes, things can be so cheap to buy, there is little point in "buying for life" as it is cheaper, overall, to discard a product at the end of its life cycle and just buy anew.  This is particularly true for appliances and automobiles, which are generally designed for a 15-year product life.  They wear out, and there is little point in trying to make them "last forever" as you will spend more money keeping an older car alive than it costs to buy a new one.  The Weibull curve cannot be denied.

Rather than "buy it for life!" think about what is most cost-effective and most reliable and gives good service.  It may be better to buy two of something over time, than to pay three times as much for something that doesn't last a long as two of the cheaper models.   A lot of "buy it for life!" products are over-stated and frankly, will not last your lifetime.  Moroever, you may find you are bored with a product or your lifestyle needs change over time.

For example, we own a lot of Stickley furniture - a "buy it for life" type of product.  And while we have had this furniture for more than two decades now, we may reach a point where we downsize and no longer need it.  We might get most of our money back at that point, or maybe not.  Not everyone likes the craftsman style of architecture and furniture.  I  have no regrets, but paying $2000 for a chair does seem excessive.

Others buy cheap furniture and replace it every ten years - throwing away the old furniture as it is worn out.  I can't say that either approach is better than the other.  Sometimes it is nice to have new things.

Think carefully before you "buy it for life!"   Some things were meant to be replaced periodically.