Twix candy bar primitive feels bad

[franksolich]

http://www.democraticunderground.org/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x7018193

Oh my.

The indispensible dispenser of financial advice, the Twix candy bar primitive:

TwixVoy  (1000+ posts)        Sun Nov-15-09 02:06 AM
Original message
 
Will you feel bad for the rich?

Part of me wonders how the regular "rich" (not the filthy rich 1%) are going to handle the next stage of this depression that may see their wealth wiped out. I see a lot of great depression era suicides coming down the line. These people are so completely out of touch with the rest of the world it continues to amaze me.

As some may know from previous posts I had started a new career as a telecommunications technician a few months ago. This has me going to many peoples homes. My territory happens to be the ultra rich part of the city.

I go to mansions on a daily basis surrounded by gates and full of house keepers.

I had one rich (clearly millionaire) lady go psycho on me today. I told her we were going to have to run a new drop (line) to her house in order to fix her internet. I told her it typically is done by the next day. She went ballistic. Started telling me it was an "emergency" that she have internet, that she needed it done RIGHT NOW, and that she didn't know what she was going to do. What was her emergency that required the internet be working RIGHT NOW? She couldn't use her Itouch on the internet for 2 days.

I just wonder what these people are going to do when their wealth evaporates just like the great depression and they find themselves living like the rest of the country does.

Personally I don't think I will feel bad for them

Big bonfire, as those lit by the Twix candy bar primitive usually are.

The Twix candy bar primitive's a great audience-puller-in.

anonymous171 (1000+ posts)        Sun Nov-15-09 02:25 AM
Response to Original message
 
5. Hell no. They are lucky we aren't getting the guillotine out right now.

Fire_Medic_Dave  (1000+ posts)      Sun Nov-15-09 02:29 AM
Response to Reply #5
 
7. Yes they are lucky we aren't lynching people who are different from us.

cherokeeprogressive  (1000+ posts)        Sun Nov-15-09 02:30 AM
Response to Original message
 
8. The unrec is mine. If "rich" as you define it is "millionaire", then we're not on the same team.

My net worth is right at the point of "millionaire", but only because I own my own house. So you're saying that my hard work, dilligence, and more than a little luck puts me in the category of "rich".

I can't get onboard. Sorry. I live day to day, week to week, and month to month. My new wife and I clip coupons. We live in the dark, with our only nightly light provided by candles. I just had five chords of wood delivered (and stacked them myself). That alone will save us over 3,000 dollars in utility expenses between now and April. We're pinching pennies until they ****ing scream. I've been told that I'm so tight that I squeak when I walk (by my nephew, who expected me to pay for his lift ticket, dinner, and place to stay when he came up the mountain to snowboard).

If your beef is with people who claim to be "millionaires", you're barking up the wrong tree. I earned my assets as a credentialed teacher in the state of California, and supplimented them by selling real estate.

I wear sweatshirts and Levi's, and drive a five year old Chevy Tahoe. I recycle. I do more than most to help the environment (see paragraph two, sentence five).

After all is said and done, I don't WANT you to feel bad for me. A quick search will show that I've worked food lines during the holidays and have donated what I could to those less fortunate than myself.

Naturyl (1000+ posts)        Sun Nov-15-09 02:36 AM
Response to Reply #8
 
9. Cheapskate does not equal not rich.

Grats on your "hard work" and "diligence." Earned, earned, earned, right? And now, you're trying to pass yourself off as "struggling." LOL. Yeah, my people are familiar with people like you. You are the ones that hire my people to do a low-paying job and then don't want to pay, because "money is so tight." Admitting to $1m net worth and then trying to get on the boat with those of us who make 20k a year, 15k a year, or 7k a year (in my case)? Nah, peddle that shit elsewhere. Clipping coupons doesn't make you poor. My wife's multi-millionaire aunt does the same thing, shops at thrift stores, and trots out the same hilarious arguments you just made.

cherokeeprogressive  (1000+ posts)        Sun Nov-15-09 02:52 AM
Response to Reply #9
 
12. As a teacher, with a Full Time Designated Subjects teaching credential issued by the State of California, the MOST I made in a single year was $46,000. I didn't reach that level until my seventh year as a teacher. Tell me that as a teacher, I didn't do "hard work". Tell me that I didn't have to spend any of my hard earned money on supplies for my class. Tell me that I didn't buy books for adult students who couldn't afford them. Tell me when I couldn't afford to buy them on occasion, that I didn't walk into the bookroom at my school and literally steal them in order to allow students in my classes who couldn't afford them to stay in my class. Ask me how many times I paid for Microsoft Office software for students who couldn't afford it.

I'm not rich. I am simply able to claim a house that I own outright. Tell me that I didn't scrimp and save to be able to send more than the mortgage payment every month by burning candles rather than light bulbs.

Earned, earned, earned is right.

I got out of the Navy in 89 after nine years of service with a high school education, from a public school on the edge of East Los Angeles.

I'm nobody special, just someone who was in the right place at the right time, and had the right skills. I went from refinery worker to student (after a third knee surgery) to teacher at the very school I went to to learn a new trade.

**** you and what you think is hilarious. I AM Mr. Bootstrap.

Lastly, I hire no one to do menial work for me, as I do my own menial work. I vacuum my own floors, scrub my own toilets, and cook my own meals.

Who would "your people" be?

Naturyl (1000+ posts)        Sun Nov-15-09 03:16 AM
Response to Reply #12
 
21. Alright "Mr. Bootstrap," fair enough.

Look, maybe you are okay. I don't know, because I don't know you from Adam. What I *DO* know, without a shadow of a doubt, is that there are a TON of people who have $1m+ net worth who say the same sorts of things you do in order to claim how "ordinary" and "struggling" they are. I don't know your life story, and for all I know, maybe you've done decent things all your life. However, I *DO* know many of the people who make the same claims, and I know they are selfish "me-first" sort of people who think because they clip coupons (out of garden-variety cheapness and miserliness), they deserve some kind of "regular guy" badge of honor.

My people (meaning my family) are self-employed housepainters. Yeah, they are those people who slap colors up on your walls. They have done good, honest work all their lives, and if they ever made more than $20k a year doing it, I can't recall when. Their business doesn't employ anyone but themselves and they aren't commercially "successful" because they don't like price-gouging and ripping people off. They have done a thousand jobs for a thousand millionaires, at least 900 of whom have complained about the (very reasonable) prices, delivered the check late, canceled the job altogether because they found a drunken son-in-law to do it for free, etc. These are people who have "earned" every dime they have managed to extract from their millionaire cheapskate employers. People who have spent their lives on 30 foot ladders, inhaling toxic fumes, doing heavy lifting, and listening to the self-justifying "sob stories" of people who spend more in one night at Red Lobster than they budget for a year's entertainment.

So yeah, "Mr. Bootstraps," congratulations. You made it to a million. How about the others who are yanking just as hard (or harder) on those mythical "bootstraps" and are just wearing themselves out, wondering where they will get the money for a new pair of boots? I'm not asking you to have pity or sympathy. Far be it from that. Just don't try to pretend you are one of them, because you most emphatically are not.

Taitertots (1000+ posts)      Sun Nov-15-09 03:17 AM
Response to Reply #12
 
23. Something doesn't add up

You claim to have never made more than $46,000 a year. Yet you also claim a net worth over a million dollars. In less than 30 years how did you make more than $1,000,000 after expenses.

$46,000 * 30 years = $1,380,000

So where did your millions come from?

cherokeeprogressive  (1000+ posts)        Sun Nov-15-09 03:24 AM
Response to Reply #23

27. Wow. I own a house. I have a spouse who brought her own money to the table.

I was a Realtor (yes, Realtor) part time while I taught, and full-time afteward.

Millions? MILLION(S)? Wouldn't MILLIONS imply that my "net worth" was more than TWO million dollars?

Taitertots (1000+ posts)      Sun Nov-15-09 04:33 AM
Response to Reply #27
 
51. So you made more than $46,000 a year?

There is no way that making less than $46,000 a year you have an asset value over a million dollars. Would you care to admit to your actual income.

cherokeeprogressive  (1000+ posts)        Sun Nov-15-09 03:18 AM
Response to Reply #9
 
24. As a Sailor in the United States Navy, my wife and I had enough money on our first anniversary to buy a pack of cigarettes and a six pack of Milwaukee's Best. We had to WALK to the ****ing liquor store from our trailer park.

Wanna know something? We had no ill feelings toward ANYONE or ANYTHING. I guess we were too young to know real hate.

We sat in the dark and drank beer out of our wedding glasses and smoked cigarettes.

That night, we went to bed in our 14x70 trailer HAPPY.

Naturyl (1000+ posts)        Sun Nov-15-09 03:30 AM
Response to Reply #24
 
28. Well, all criticism aside, you have good taste in beer.

Milwaukee's Best is indeed the "best" of cheap beers. Every broke person knows this, so you get some cred points there.

Touching story about the 14x70 trailer of your youth. I'm 34 years old and go to bed in my 14x72 every night. Will continue to do so until it falls down. My parents, who have worked hard all their lives and are pushing 60, will also be going to bed in their single-wide tonight, and presumably for the duration. That's just one part of the difference... but again, grats on buying the best cheap beer. That is one thing all of us do have in common... although I presume you don't drink it anymore.

cherokeeprogressive  (1000+ posts)        Sun Nov-15-09 03:34 AM
Response to Reply #28
 
30. Yeah well, at the time my ONLY objective was to show my wife a good time.

It was all I could do, all I could muster. Looking back on it, it's not something I'm proud of.

She deserved tons better than that, but on my salary as a military E-3, it was the best I could do for her.

For what it's worth, would my military pay have been better, she might still be my wife, and the daughter we had together might still be a major part of my life.

Naturyl (1000+ posts)        Sun Nov-15-09 03:42 AM
Response to Reply #30
 
32. If she left you over money, you're better off. 

God, that's insulting to all of us who have nothing. "If my pay had been better." Really, do you know what that would make this woman? Hint: there's a word, but I won't say it. I'm not here to attack you, just to offer an alternative perspective.

If she would have been part of your life had you made more money, you have every reason to be thankful she ISN'T part of your life. Plus, now that you are worth a million, who really has the last laugh?

Don't ever pay for love. Don't ever pay for a wife. Don't ever think you should have to pay for those things. It insults yourself, women, your ex, and the whole human race. Love is not a commodity and if you can buy it, it's not real.

If your daughter isn't a major part of your life, it isn't because you didn't make enough money. Are you supposed to be SOLD the company of your own daughter? Of course not. Don't blame yourself. Blame the real culprit - materialistic values.

cherokeeprogressive  (1000+ posts)        Sun Nov-15-09 03:52 AM
Response to Reply #32
 
35. Yeah well, life is what it is.

I own a house that was once worth close to a million dollars. It's not worth that now. But, I didn't buy it to make money on it, I bought it because I loved its location and what it represented. I put every penny I had into it. It will always by mine, and no one can take it from me for any reason other than non-payment of property taxes, which are nothing to sneeze at.

I'm not rich, no matter what you think of me.

Have a good night.

P.S., I have no ill will toward the woman I married at 21 who had bigger and better hopes for her life. She grew up as the daughter of a management person at the South Gate General Motors plant in So. Cal. After our divorce, she got pretty much what she wanted, which I could never have given her as a Sailor. It is what it is.

earth mom  (1000+ posts)        Sun Nov-15-09 02:58 AM
Response to Reply #8
 
15. Try having to go and GET THE WOOD, SPLIT IT and STACK IT.

That's what my hubby has to do to get our wood for heating.

Your frugality is really nothing new or amazing to many of us DUers and most of the country these days.

Frankly, while my husband and I don't have but a small fraction of your wealth, I feel rich these days because my husband has a secure middle class union job and we have a roof over our heads.

Which is a helluva a lot more than many people have these days.

cherokeeprogressive  (1000+ posts)        Sun Nov-15-09 03:05 AM
Response to Reply #15
 
17. I live at the edge of the San Bernardino National Forest. I could go and get "my own wood".

I chose not to. That choice helped a person who shares this paradise with me to put food on his own table, or pay his rent/mortgage/car payment.

I don't have "wealth", I have a home unencumbered by a mortgage, and nothing more.

The primitive brawl goes on and on, and finally the Twix candy bar primitive shows up again:

TwixVoy  (1000+ posts)        Sun Nov-15-09 03:49 AM
Response to Reply #29
 
34. I didn't go in to the kind of personality I witnessed

But she was, for one thing, a racist mother fu**er. One particular line while about 30 seconds after I arrived. I got to the door. Her house keeper answered. I started talking to her about who I was and why I was there. She came running up, stood right in front of her like she wasn't even there, and told me "Don't talk to my mexican maid. You know they can't understand". (funny, she had been talking to me just fine in english)

But hey I suppose I am the smug one.

TwixVoy  (1000+ posts)        Sun Nov-15-09 03:56 AM
Response to Reply #36
 
38. And my thought was what would such a shallow racist fu** do if she was suddenly in the same position as her help and the average person? That is the point of the post.

Yeah, what's the kaput primitive, the "kpete" primitive, who this lady obviously is, going to do when her wealth evaporates?

Bella Abzug shows up at this bonfire too, but never mind.

[Chris]

TwixVoy  (1000+ posts)        Sun Nov-15-09 02:06 AM
Original message
 
I had one rich (clearly millionaire) lady go psycho on me today. I told her we were going to have to run a new drop (line) to her house in order to fix her internet. I told her it typically is done by the next day. She went ballistic. Started telling me it was an "emergency" that she have internet, that she needed it done RIGHT NOW, and that she didn't know what she was going to do. What was her emergency that required the internet be working RIGHT NOW? She couldn't use her Itouch on the internet for 2 days.

I guess this guy never heard of working from home.

[JohnnyReb]

G** D*** DUmmies.......piss away every dime they make on drugs and junk then get angry at someone that didn't do the same.

If the DUmmies don't have a 1/4 million dollar net worth by age 30 (indexed to inflation from here on), we should put them in work camps where they work 12 hour shifts and have to hot bunk like submariners. 

[ScubaGuy]

TwixVoy  Donating Member  (1000+ posts)  Journal  Click to send private message to this author  Click to view this author's profile  Click to add this author to your buddy list  Click to add this author to your Ignore list 
34. I didn't go in to the kind of personality I witnessed

But she was, for one thing, a racist mother fu**er. One particular line while about 30 seconds after I arrived. I got to the door. Her house keeper answered. I started talking to her about who I was and why I was there. She came running up, stood right in front of her like she wasn't even there, and told me "Don't talk to my mexican maid. You know they can't understand". (funny, she had been talking to me just fine in english)

But hey I suppose I am the smug one.

What a load of BS.  That sounds like it came right out of some sitcom on TV.

LeftyMom  Donating Member  (1000+ posts)  Journal  Click to send private message to this author  Click to view this author's profile  Click to add this author to your buddy list  Click to add this author to your Ignore list 
Oh ffs, the sky is not falling.

If you want to panic go ahead, and if you want to indulge in some fantasy where the powerful are laid low and you're not, go right ahead and do that too, but stop acting like you have some special insight into the functioning of the economy just because you work for AT&T or because you used to be a department head at Target. It's silly.

 

[Chris_]

Their jealousy and hatred for anyone having more than they have is astonishing.  The main reason DUmmies have nothing is laziness.  Pure laziness.

That Twix candy bar tries so hard to spin a good story.  So very hard. 

[DumbAss Tanker]

I do have to say ol' Cherokee's numbers do really beg for some 'splainin'.  46K in CA is not nearly as much as it sounds like anywhere else, he must've made a killing on the real estate, totally raped someone on the purchase price of his current digs, or the new Mrs. Cherokee had the dowery (Or some combination of the three).  Or, of course, maybe he was dealing.

[GOBUCKS]

DUmmies keep getting their financial advice from a fired Target clerk, now a probationary cable installer. Smart.

So he starts this bouncy lie, and sees it taken over by an argument between a drunken indian and a nutcase DUmmy naturyl, a born loser, from a family of losers, who sounds like a relative of the wino DUmmy bobbolink. So DUmmy TwixVoy comes back and tries to reclaim his thread by adding a bouncy about a Mexican maid.

I think Dummy TwixVoy is campaigning for recognition in the list of Top DUmmies of 2009.

[crockspot]

When the open class warfare starts, it's gonna get ugly. I actually dug out a good chunk of my 7.62x39 ammo stash a couple of weeks ago and put it in a more handy place. I don't consider myself rich, but I own my property free and clear, and my vehicles, and have a 401k, so to a guillotine crewing DUmmy, I'm prime fodder.

[BlueStateSaint]

When the open class warfare starts, it's gonna get ugly. I actually dug out a good chunk of my 7.62x39 ammo stash a couple of weeks ago and put it in a more handy place. I don't consider myself rich, but I own my property free and clear, and my vehicles, and have a 401k, so to a guillotine crewing DUmmy, I'm prime fodder.

The proper word is "target," which is what the DUmb****s will be to you.  A couple 123-grain "disincentives" into any group of DUmb****s stoopid enough to mess with you should do the trick, and other good Green Mountain Men should be able to finish the lot off.

[Carl]

What a bunch of blatting bullshit from all of them.

[USA4ME]

The progressing Indian primitive has been making all sorts of wild claims as of late.  I like the one where he yelled out at Mike Tyson at the airport, some security from Tyson's group come over to where he was, he stood up and was bigger than the other guy, and the guy ran off.  That one screamed "I'm lying!!" about as loud as you can get.

.

[BadCat]

I just had five chords of wood delivered

Eminor, Aminor, Ddiminished, Cminor and Gminor?

Appropriate CHORDS for a DUmmy, they all sound depressing.

[BannedFromDU]

http://www.democraticunderground.org/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x7018193
 

Yeah, what's the kaput primitive, the "kpete" primitive, who this lady obviously is, going to do when her wealth evaporates?
 

     Are you saying that TwixVoy=kpete?

[SSG Snuggle Bunny]

I earned my assets as a credentialed teacher in the state of California, and supplimented them by selling real estate.

 

[Celtic Rose]

I do have to say ol' Cherokee's numbers do really beg for some 'splainin'.  46K in CA is not nearly as much as it sounds like anywhere else, he must've made a killing on the real estate, totally raped someone on the purchase price of his current digs, or the new Mrs. Cherokee had the dowery (Or some combination of the three).  Or, of course, maybe he was dealing.

His numbers don't add up.  If he started teaching in '89, then he has reached the 20 year mark, and he would be making considerably more than $46,000.  Around here, a public elementary school teacher makes around $72,000 after 10 or 15 years, so to max out at $46,000, he must have quit pretty early on, or teachers made half as much as they do now 10 years ago. 

In fact, the Dept. of Labor says that the average high school social studies teacher in LA county starts above $53,000 right now.

DOL Wage Library

[dandi]

The axiom goes: The rich stay rich because they keep doing the things that made them rich. The poor stay poor because they keep doing the things that made them poor.

DUmbasses believe in the Zero Sum game. DUmbasses don't believe wealth can be created for oneself. DUmbasses believe the reason they are poor is because other people are rich. They believe that by killing the rich or confiscating their money, they then will become rich. Well, that may be true at least temporarily. If you bring everyone down to the same level of mediocrity then even those getting ahead just a little bit will seem rich, relatively speaking. But you really won't have much more, if any, than you have now. Is it then a moral thing to do? It seems to me something to be done out of spite, out of envy, rather than a good faith attempt at problem solving.

You could take all the wealth away from the rich tomorrow, redistribute it to the masses, and in a couple of years time the distribution would revert right back to the way it is now, because of the above axiom. In order to change your status in life on a more permanent basis, you have to adjust your attitude and behavior to something consistent with your goals, not believe you can just keep doing the same things and get a different result. Anyone of sound mind and body who advocates confiscating other people's wealth is just a parasite. Lazy, stupid, or both, take your pick.

[AllosaursRus]

What's the old "adage", give everyone in a group a nickel, then put them together. Eventually the entrepreneur of the group will end up with all the nickels?

[kenth]

DUmbasses believe in the Zero Sum game. DUmbasses don't believe wealth can be created for oneself. DUmbasses believe the reason they are poor is because other people are rich.

Yep. Other people have to lose for them to get ahead. It's their basic outlook on life. They want everyone around them to lose and be a bigger loser than they.

my wife and I had enough money on our first anniversary to buy a pack of cigarettes and a six pack of Milwaukee's Best.

There we go, fixed that up. Instead of trying to find some flowers and even a small candy, or maybe stuff to make one of her favorite meals he buys smokes and beer that he can share.