Do materialistic, consumer-spending-addicted Americans need to learn a lesson?
(Bonus Question - why did rap music change a few years ago from drugs, crime, cop killing and shooting people to today's out-of-control spending, Cristal, materialism and bling? Doesn't that say something about current American society too? Is this connected to the housing bubble)
October 23, 2007
HousingPANIC Stupid Question of the Day
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48 comments:
So, that does not look like J6P to me.
Hell yes! All the way to the point where somebody rewrites the American dream. The current "dream" followers are destroying this planet with extreme selfishness and arrogance.
We live inside a sterile nice little glasshouse, except that house is in the eye of hurricane. Everything is rather calm for now...
Do materialistic, consumer-spending-addicted Americans need to learn a lesson?
Humans, from the dawn of mankind and through out the world today are materialistic. Tribes in Africa fight over pigs, islanders in the pacific want bigger canoes...it is the same feeling as Americans have - just about different stuff.
The only people I have seen different are some Christians who have taken Jesus' message to heart when he exposes the deficiency of riches (as many think of "the good life" in terms of material prosperity)
Jesus taught there is more to life than material possessions
a. Man's life does not consist in the abundance of possessions
- Lk 12:15
b. As illustrated in the parable of the rich fool - Lk 12:16-21
Jesus taught the insecurity of riches - Mt 6:19-20
a. They are susceptible to corruption
b. They are open to theft
Jesus taught the danger of riches - Mt 6:21-24
a. They can dominate our affections
b. They can blind us to the true light
c. They can prevent us from being able to serve God
Rap was better when it was angry. Now it serves its corporate masters who want you to buy their products
Marky Mark said...
Tribes in Africa fight over pigs, islanders in the pacific want bigger canoes...
and monkeys fight over bananas.
YES! an economic meltdown will hurt me too, but I see very little alternative right now. My parents were depression children, and they NEVER bought crap on credit - two exceptions - their house (they paid it off in 18 years and had a Mortgage Burning Party) and sometimes a car. . .although my father would buy a one year old "turn in car" and pay cash!
I was recently in Phoenix/Scottsdale, and they are still driving Hummers and HUGE trucks everywhere. . .here in SD, it isn't much better - our "friends" bought a boat on a HELOC recently, even though their house has gone down in value. . .go figure.
This angle is kinda funny Keith! You are right to a certain extent about the music changing but that was after east coast west coast shootouts. Traditionally white music (alternative rock which is dead) was about lifes emotions played out aggressively and hip hop (black music) was about spending money either in the club or at the mall or the new hot luxury sedan at the moment! It has esclalated from Q45, to Lexus LS, to the BM 745, the S500 to the bentley. If you have a bentley now you have made it! Hip Hop music is all about making it big and quick! There is a lot of people out there who have one goal and that is to have 1 track that gets some air play! It's not about making a goood cd it's about makin a track which every one can nod their head to. "this is why i'm hot" made big coin on 1 song! What's even more amusing is Chris Mimms made even more $$$ selling ringtones!! That is the goal for music today is to be driving in a ford escort like low middle class spending all of the time trying to make a beat with a upbeat vibe and a few good hooks. So they can make enough $$$ on ringtones to live out what they are saying on their track!!!
You mean you've just noticed? Anytime you see bag boys drive off in luxury German vehicles, sipping on $6 Frappucinos, you know there's a financial imbalance in the system.
$7/hr after taxes = ~$5/hr. How many hours does it take to come up w/ a ~$400-500 lease payment on that 3series after you've shitted half your day's wages on Frappucinos?
I can't wait till the system purges the liquidity and gives most people a reality check. Most kids at COMMUNITY colleges drive nicer cars than *I* do and I make about 200billion times more money than they (well, 200billion x 0 = zero since technically they don't work).
Ah, ranting feels good. I'm not even going to get started on the lower classed ethnic groups that drive around in 50k+ H2's, Escalades, Benz's... Trying to keep it clean.
About the bonus, I believe the tobacco companies conducted studies and prepared reports that answer the question...
Comment on MArky Mark. . .even a heathen like myself would have to agree - we need some religious values - Buddhist, Christian, Amish (now there are some good people). . .I still believe people are good - the current fires in San Diego are bringing people together, and everyone is taking in friends and neighbors, pets, and making donations - I am leaving shortly for the pet center with some dog/cat food. . .why does it always take a natural disaster to bring people together. . .so I guess - "bring on the economic collapse" and perhaps it will do some good.
Nice Hat!
Only on HP would you find Quotes from Jesus and the Bible.
We have Rappers, Joe Six Packers, And Bible Thumpers..
Welcome to HS...HOUSING SPRINGER
Oh and if my mind serves me correct the original Bling Blinger was MC Hammer and the Gangsta Rappers looked down on him cause he was making millions..funny how the tables have turned.
Enough said I am off to Church.
Rap was better when it was angry. Now it serves its corporate masters who want you to buy their products......
We now take a break from these angry inner city rythms to bring you this important message about Kraft Foods new cheesier "Mac and Cheese"!
Word!
I think the materialists are definitely in for a reality check in SoCal right now! I bet the wildfires are bailing out some failed flippers in San Diego County. It's easier to watch it burn then sell it.
Fighting over pigs is not materialism. It's survival. Materialism is the wanton accumulation of unnecessary consumer products, that’s what’s happening in the U.S. It has nothing to do with survival.
Global consumerism consists of taking resources from a hole in the ground on one side of the planet, using then for a few weeks and then putting them in a hole on the other side of the planet. It’s killing the planet and the planet will teach us a lesson in the end.
When is rap, like disco, gonna just go away?
Is that DOPES?
Rap was better when it was angry.
Rap is a rip-off of the Beat Poets from the 1960s.
you know the market is bad when MTV Cribs is done at the rappers house and he has a foreclosure sign in the yard while he is showing you his bentley
Hank Reardon
greatest thing that ever happened to me was when my wife and i had our first child and decided for her to stay at home...in 1996 fresh out of college and a baby and our first house (78K in savannah) we reduced our income from 21+27K to just 27K...
We agreed and knew we would get in debt but knew also we could rebuild our credit and pay our debt off but couldnt get back the years missed with our kids..\
Now the kids are older in school and wife is back teaching and I am doing well... income rich credit poor with low scores , coming up.
As a vet i could buy 100% now, but knew here in the DC MSA that houses were priced wrong and a correc tion was needed... saw it 4 years ago..
the Urge to own (house, car, furniture, etc) was overwhelming but past credit issues kept us from falling for liquidity...
now we are sitting pretty watching those around us start to lose their homes, then their cars, maxed out credit cards, no MEW, no more dining out every night..
Now i get a new car, and dine without the lines...
Home depot is barren....
And i still rent a mansion for 80% less than i could buy it..
amazing, perfect timeing for us...
So we climb the FICO ladder as everyone around us starts their path downward...
ironic...
Hank Reardon
And we fight over SUVS, Super Ugly Vehicles
>> So we climb the FICO ladder as everyone around us starts their path downward...
You're heading upward, they're heading downward - BOTH for the wrong reasons!
Your goal should be a FICO score of 0 - zero - zilch. How? Have no debt, no credit cards, pay cash for everything. In other words, the higher your FICO score, the bigger a debt slave you are.
In a generally positive book on hip hop, critic Nelson George writes, "One of the prevailing assumptions around hip hop is that it was ... solely African-American created, owned, controlled and consumed. It's an appealing myth—but the evidence just isn't there to support it. ... I'd argue that without white entrepreneurial involvement hip hop culture wouldn't have survived its first half decade on vinyl."14
What George doesn't tell his readers is who these white entrepreneurs are. A brief overview of "Who's Who" in the record business, leads one to the unmistakable conclusion that the recording industry, as far as the production, distribution, and popularization of rock and rap, is under the control of a syndicate representing a marriage between organized crime networks and high level fixers on Wall Street.15
The first rap recording was "Rapper's Delight," which was released by Sugar Hill Records in 1979. Sugar Hill was nominally a Black-owned label which, by 1979, had fallen into deep debt. That debt was covered by one Morris Levy, who had been identified by the New York State Crime Commission in 1972 as "the front man for the syndicate [i.e., organized crime] in the record business." Levy was an operative for the Genovese family. He was co-owner of another label at that time, Primo Records. The other co-owner was Tommy Eboli, who was then the boss of the Genovese family.
Following its success with "Rapper's Delight," and with backing from Levy, Sugar Hill went to MCA in 1983, looking for bigger backing and more opportunities in the expanding area of rap/hip hop. Levy brought in Sal Pisello for these negotiations. Pisello was a high-ranking figure in the Gambino family, another of New York City's organized crime families. He was under investigation at that time for heroin trafficking. Another associate of Levy was Vincent "Vinnie the Chin" Gigante, later boss of the Genovese family, who was also part of the organized crime families' involvement in the record business. Another associate of Levy in the record business was Gaetano Vastola. When Vastola was indicted for his role in a vast organized crime conspiracy, which included money laundering through the record business, his attorney was Roy Cohn, a long-time organized crime fixer
Kieth,
I'd say this London born Rapper(Hip Hop Legend) Slick Rick was smarter thank a lot of the sheeple in America today...
He bought Gold! And Guns!
They bought Homes and Hummers
WORD!
RayNLA
Worse than that, American consumerism is readily exported and overpaces property bubbles in taking over the planet.
Second-hand consumerist ideas, after becoming worn out in the USA, are reused elsewhere. So that Russians - with GDP back at 1989 levels but consumption at 160% of that - now have to learn about gift certs, rebates, "collect 100 plastic craplets and win a Premium Customer card", lousy booklets on "smart shopping ideas", price tags of 9999.95 in place of 10000, overpackaged foods (20% product, 80% plastic), you name it...
The world needs to be taught a lesson. From the environment at least.
You don't have any credibility rapping about the ghetto when you're worth millions.
yes, its financial cleansing time. The rappers will go back to rapping about rape, murder and cop killing and stealing to get what you need when the tide turns. main street will not see many of them in the mercedes or the lexus or the hummers, but out on bikes and walking through your neighborhood. Crime is already going up, I dont have stats for my area, just look out the window and what do you see? btw 70% of rappers cds are purchased by young white males. ponder that.
I haven't followed rap music, but the national crime statistics. Crime went down in and after the ninetines, but the decrease has now stalled. It seemed to coincide a bit with the housing market, with many foreclosures meaning a lot of crime. If that coincidence is causation, it's not the materialism in music that made the housing bubble, but the bubble that made materialism. And now it would be back to desperation again.
In mid-2004, a close friend of mine decided to buy a home by saying that it was the right time to get in or else he risked being priced out forever. I told him that the stock market would offer better returns over time and if he was patient till the bubble burst and invested in stocks, he would be in a better position. The sucker worked for Apple and got carried away by his wife's arguments that all their friends were buying homes and therefore he too should own one. He had 5000 stock options and sold all of them ( same day sale ) at around $15 making about $30~40K in the process which he put as a down payment. He bought a home in West San Jose (Cupertino school district) for about $600K and justified the purchase saying he was settled till his kids completed school. So far so good!
Now the same stock options are worth nearly $900M ! The guy regrets selling his stock but does not regret buying his house. How do you explain that ? Maybe he should have gone for a neg-Am or interest only loan and avoided that down payment and he would have been able to payoff the house today. Instead he is making $3500 as monthly payments on his mortgage and still working for Apple.
No doubt the guy did a smart thing by buying as that same house is worth $800K today but he would have done even better if he had obtained exotic financing and kept his stock.
Peter T said...
I haven't followed rap music, but the national crime statistics. Crime went down in and after the ninetines, but the decrease has now stalled. It seemed to coincide a bit with the housing market, with many foreclosures meaning a lot of crime. If that coincidence is causation, it's not the materialism in music that made the housing bubble, but the bubble that made materialism. And now it would be back to desperation again.
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
Peter T is absolutely right!
In the past, I have always understood you can always tell the strengh of the economy by Car sales and the crime rate.
Peace out!
RayNLA
SUVS SHITTY UGLY VEHICLE
Congrats, Keith!
28 comments, many critical, but not one that I, black and left-wing as a jet to Tokyo, would call racist!
Anonymous @ 5:34, you said a mouthful!
wait till blackwater "agents" take over the local police departments and start using their above the law status.... you thought 150 bullets into suspects was excessive???or the thought that in
'good" police work,,everyone is a suspect
Whazzup my crackas?
Dem rap stars got deyselves up in the endorsements cuz dey record companies be holdin all da cash. Product placement is da way da playas roll, yo!
Liberty is not free everyone needs to understand, and fight for the right to be!
Slowly the Gov it taking away our freedoms without a fight. We have all turned into a nations of sheep being lead to the slaughter!
Old and young alike are going to have to make a choice real soon. The people we hold in great esteem have an effect on soceity as a whole (George Bush) enough said!!!
AREN'T WHITE PEOPLE THE ONES WHO STOLE MONEY TO LIVE IN MULTI MILLION DOLLAR HOMES DRIVE MERCEDES BENZ'S AND BRAG ABOUT STOCK MARKET AND BONDS PORTFOLIOS DON'T FORGET THE PLATINUM 25,000 WEDDING RINGS AND MILLION DOLLAR WEDDINGS AND BOTOX, FACE LIFTS, BOATS, CRUISES, HUMMERS, LAND ROVERS, CARRERAS, CORVETTS, PERSONAL SCREENING ROOMS, HOMES WITH BOAT DOCKS AND JET SKI'S, OFF OR ALL TERRAIN VEHICLES TO DRIVE AROUND IN THE DIRT, SKI'S VACATIONS, RIVER RAFTING, AROUND THE WORLD TRIPS AND EXPENSIVE COLLEGE EDUCATIONS FOR THIER BRATS. DIDN'T WINO WHITE PEOPLE ALL GET TOGETHER TO FUND THE NAPA WINE VALLEY SO THEY COULD JUSTIFY GETTING DRUNK ON WINE AND CALL THEMSELVES "EXPERTS". DIDN'T WHITE PEOPLE START THIS WHOLE FIASCO BY DRIVING UP THE PRICES TO RIDICULOUS LEVELS TO FUND THEIR LIFESTYLES. I SAW WHITE PEOPLE BUYING 30,000 SQUARE FEET BUILDINGS FOR A FAMILY OF FOUR, WHILE THE WIFEY HAD BOZILLA TITTY IMPLANTS, LIP COLLEGEN, AND FACE LIFTS SO TIGHT THEY LOOKED CHINESE. SO DON'T YOU TRY YOUR RACIST SHIT AND TRY TO SAY BLACK PEOPLE HAD ANYTHING TO DO WITH YOUR FUCK UP, ASSHOLE. YOU PEOPLE STARTED THIS SHIT AND WHEN BLACK PEOPLE TRY TO GET A PIECE OF THE PIE YOU WANT TO FORGET WHAT THE FUCK YOU DID AND TRY TO MAKE THEM LOOK LIKE THEY ARE THE REASON THIS SHIT ALL STARTED. REMEMBER BLACK PEOPLE DO NOT BUY THAT RAP SHIT, IT IS YOUR DRUG ADDICTED, ANTI SOCIAL SOON TO BE RACIST LIKE YOU ARE BI POLAR KIDS SO FUCK YOU.
Music industry. More corrupt than RE.
and i forgot who is going to the schools shooting them up, who are the movie stars getting busted for drinking and driving, who are the people who are starting wars, who are the people who are stealing money REA'S, who are the people that all those rehab places are for, and who are the people who are stealing on the internet, who are the people that are killing whole families to get the life insurance policies, and lastly who are the people who are on the news about having adult male sex with 3 and 4 year old girls, the man who had 30,000 names of boys he molested and who was that guy in Idaho who wanted to kill the family so he could have sex with the kids and then killed the boy in front of his sister. WHITE PEOPLE So don't you go around acting like you are so fucking pure white folks are just as sick and twisted as everyone else. Jerks.
Mark in San Diego said...
Comment on MArky Mark. . .even a heathen like myself would have to agree - we need some religious values - Buddhist, Christian, Amish (now there are some good people). . .I still believe people are good - the current fires in San Diego are bringing people together, and everyone is taking in friends and neighbors, pets, and making donations - I am leaving shortly for the pet center with some dog/cat food. . .why does it always take a natural disaster to bring people together. . .so I guess - "bring on the economic collapse" and perhaps it will do some good.
October 23, 2007 5:24 PM
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Maybe something about having a wall of 75-foot tall flames bearing down on their neighborhood makes people realize that, at least to some extent, they are all in it together.
turquoiseblazer said...
I think the materialists are definitely in for a reality check in SoCal right now! I bet the wildfires are bailing out some failed flippers in San Diego County. It's easier to watch it burn then sell it.
October 23, 2007 5:30 PM
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Problem is insurance pays enough (maybe enough) to rebuild, which is a lot less than the house + lot is mortgaged for. The lot is most of the "value."
BLING BLING AND A CHICKEN WING!!!
It's the ghetto culture comming to you via Section 8!!!
Oh c'mon Marky Mark. American Xtians are some of the most shallow, materialistic people on the planet.
"God told me to get rich!"
Conservatism is dead.
The American dream is about owling allot of debt and letting the bigger fool pay for it.
Someone should make a rap about that.
Do you know where your US Dollar are going - NO.
Don't worry neither does the State department.
But who cares just ask Ben Bernanke to dilute the US Dollar some more and make it as weak as possible and it won't matter.
http://www.ktlk.com/cc-common/
news/sections/newsarticle.html?
feed=104668&article=2822382
The State Department does not know specifically what it received for a billion-dollar contract with security firm DynCorp International to provide training services for Iraqi police, a U.S. watchdog agency said on Tuesday.
The Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR) said it was forced to suspend its audit of the DynCorp contract after administration officials told investigators they had no confidence in their own accounting records.
The inspector general said the agency had not validated the accuracy of invoices received before October 2006 and described bills and supporting documents as being in disarray.
Among the problems identified before the audit was suspended were duplicate payments, the purchase of a never-used $1.8 million X-ray scanner and payments of $387,000 to house DynCorp officials in hotels rather than other available accommodation.
Crap music, excuse me, cRAP music is and always has been about cRAP!The cRAPPERS have no talent, their music stinks, and their fans stink.
ALL dem dogs in da hood lisen up! Do us all a favor, PLEASE!
Shut the FU%k up and let us get through this life in PEACE and in one PIECE!
Peace out!
.
2007 version of Step-n-fetchit!
.
@ Anon 10:52
In the immortal censored words of Jay-Z: "Jigga what?"
Might I direct you to Anon 5:20
What exactly are the "lower classed ethnic groups?"
And all this time I thought all men were created equal or something.
.PRINT THIS
What exactly are the "lower class ethnic groups?"
Just look at that photo, it's that gang bangin' knuckle draggin' guy thats your lower class crap!
NOT the Blacks or the African
Americans (whatever their called this week) But that low life gun toten bling monkey! That's the problem!!!!!
.
566aN2 Your blog is great. Articles is interesting!
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