Thread: The age of abundance

We are undoubtedly at the age of abundance, or rather, at the end of it.
Never in the known history of man so many people had so much for so little effort.

It is crushing the human spirit.

We do not value what is so easily received. We do not appreciate what we have in quantity.

We value things by their scarcity. We appreciate what is hard to get. We enjoy the fruits of our efforts.

My personal experience shows as much. When I was a kid there was type of pastry that I enjoyed a lot. When I got money for the first time, I went out and indulged myself until I could no longer look at it.
Then I found another type of pastry, and it happened all over again. The end result is that I no longer desire any type of pastry. I was a lot happier my before I could buy whatever I want.

This works with everything. The free access to pornography has devalued it and made people look for more "kinky" stuff in a downwards spiral of depravity. All because of abundance.

People do not care ablout knowledge and information, because they can have whatever they want for free. Long past are the days that we would look and treasure a book about a rare and specific knowledge. When I was a kid, in my backward area of the world, I once found a book about model airplanes at the local library, and it was like finding a treasure, I still remember the intensity of wanting to know about it, and the experience of reading it for the first time.

Abundance corrupts the human soul, scarcity builds it.

Through these lens we can look at our society and see how inevitable it is that women are more "corrupt" than men, because we still have to make some efforts while they have many thing given to them with much less effort.

To most men sex is not abundant, to most women sex is easily abundant. Who do you think will value sex more? Women understand this instinctively, that is why they tend to reduce sex in relationships, to keep its value to the man.

It is important to understand this and achieve self-restraint in everything that matters, less we kill it by overindulgence.

A few years ago this dawned on me as well. I used to work my fingers to the bone to have all the toys and bling. When I arrived there, the allure of it all started to wane because it was there and easily attained. I decided to do a 180 and untangle/uncomplicate my whole existence. Both in a material way and in a relationship way. I sold my crap and downsized everything. I exited my relationship at the time. This artificial scarcity was sitting well with me and I realized how important and valuable the simple things in life are. I stopped yearning for extravagant earthly possessions and never looked back. Now I live a comfortable life and always keep in mind that excess corrupts the soul.
By the way Manfred, where is your backward area of the world?

Great insights - I'm going through this process as well with both my personal life and my farm...years spent building up a fleet of machinery (that sits idle 95% of the time, rusting away and accumulating interest payments), large livestock herds that were marginally profitable but required 16-18 hour days to manage just to feed a bunch of elitist snow-flake types. All so I could "grow" my asset base and accumulate more material items.

I've always been attracted to a more simple life (it was what motivated the farm purchase in the first place) - but then just got sucked right back in to the grind. Not unlike our individual journeys/challenges along the way to achieving the MGTOW life...I'm sure many of us have made rudimentary efforts to go our own way in the past, only to literally get sucked right back in .

It is quite freeing - and as Manfred states - this age of wretched excess is quickly coming to an end, so not much choice in the matter is there...

I'm in this spiral decline all the way to the bottom! I think it's an awesome challenge to adapt and thrive!

I had a friend from Kansas recently tell me he liked my outlook on things when I told him, @ $5.00+ a gallon fuel oil, my labor value has almost tripled on processing firewood, as well as my efforts in gardening for a good portion of my food sources.

I downshifted for this economic corner without locking up the tires and hitting the wall like I did in "09"!

I have wondered why some other guitar players own 40 guitars. To me that seems absurd. Owning that many won't make you play better. I own 5 guitars (2 acoustics and 3 electrics). Each has very different characteristics. However, the most important thing to me is to upgrade my playing skills. That can only be accomplished via time and practice. No amount of money will do that for you.

It's way more important to appreciate what you've got than to go out and get more.

I’ve always believed that people need a little stress in their lives, a little hardship. Without this there is no motivation to grow.

Finding a balance though between enough stress to motivate and so much stress that it cripples can be a long and difficult journey, but once achieved the rewards are HUGE.

Relationships are worlds of never ending, mostly unnecessary stress; stress that is usually inflicted upon men by women for no reason other than they get their jollies from it.

The first step, IMO, to finding such balance is to remove those from your life that seek to cause disharmony.

There are enough stresses in life to help you find a balance – those that are important vs. those that mean nothing to you personally – without seeking out more of them.

My parents grew up in the great depression and knew only hardship till the economy picked up during and after WW II. They never forgot those days, no matter how much better they did later in life. The only thing they had in common with today's people is they are both carbon-based life forms.

I don't think abundance corrupts the soul. I think people give up their soul to get the abundance.

I just came from a job where everyone was making $150+ in yearly money. The issue? They had to breathe acid, stand outside in flame retardant suits or acid suits in 110 F heat, and work 90 hours a week. The result: no one had any souls. They all hated life itself. They gave all their money to their wives and spent it upgrading the house or taking exotic vacations. They were all unhappy.

My favorite is how one guy spent $90,000 to buy a truck which broke down within a year! He parked that truck on the driveway outside his garage. I thought you would put expensive vehicles inside the garage, so why not do that? The junk inside the garage is like $2000 at most, so why not put the truck in there? Well, because no one in the neighborhood could SEE his awesome truck if it was in the garage.

When people spend so much of their lives working, they want to show something for it. So they buy this 'stuff' to show off.

These people hate me so much even though I say nothing. They see I am content with my used car that goes as fast as their sportscar and works just as well. I sleep just as well in my one bedroom apartment as they do in their mansion (and it is a mansion). But by having no hours to themselves, they have no person. They are merely 'job'.

And since I have no wife, they really, really, really hate me!!!!!

Originally Posted by frog

My parents grew up in the great depression and knew only hardship till the economy picked up during and after WW II. They never forgot those days, no matter how much better they did later in life. The only thing they had in common with today's people is they are both carbon-based life forms.

Same here... The older I get the more I am resorting back to what was taught to me as a child. "Waste not, want not". I do have the odd clean out or give things away that I am not using.

One reason I like using cash, when I count it out to buy something, I am counting out my time it took to earn it. A swipe of the card is the same for $2 or $20K.... Credit cards can be a huge trap, used correctly they can be a useful financial tool.

Originally Posted by pirate88

My favorite argument with self righteous Boomers. I'm late 40's - before any older people get offended. I know what a Boomer is, my dad is one. Many R/P Boomers get offended and think I've bought into the age/sex/race warfare. I had a graphic that I'm unable to find now, published by the "Federal Reserve". It showed the monetary growth between 1980 and 2007. INSANE!!! They extracted all wealth, current and future, sent jobs overseas, had a decent/good corporate culture (compared to the nightmare it is now especially), and now cling to the resources (homes/investments) until the day they die.

I read an article and it stated that roughly half of Boomers plan to leave their inheritance to a charity instead of their kids. I wonder what that number was for the Boomers parents? Instead we are left to pay 10X to buy the house from the Boomers estate...

"I paid into the system. I'm entitled to social security!" OK, I've personally paid into it for 34 years and I won't see a dime. You get paid out, possibly at a minor loss, while I should pay increasingly bigger social security/medicare taxes to make you whole. Then when I'm broke and the age you started the process, I get stiffed??

I see why kids in their teens/20's are pissed. Imagine starting where they are right now.

Originally Posted by 2_Time_Loser

My favorite argument with self righteous Boomers. I'm late 40's - before any older people get offended. I know what a Boomer is, my dad is one. Many R/P Boomers get offended and think I've bought into the age/sex/race warfare. I had a graphic that I'm unable to find now, published by the "Federal Reserve". It showed the monetary growth between 1980 and 2007. INSANE!!! They extracted all wealth, current and future, sent jobs overseas, had a decent/good corporate culture (compared to the nightmare it is now especially), and now cling to the resources (homes/investments) until the day they die.

I read an article and it stated that roughly half of Boomers plan to leave their inheritance to a charity instead of their kids. I wonder what that number was for the Boomers parents? Instead we are left to pay 10X to buy the house from the Boomers estate...

"I paid into the system. I'm entitled to social security!" OK, I've personally paid into it for 34 years and I won't see a dime. You get paid out, possibly at a minor loss, while I should pay increasingly bigger social security/medicare taxes to make you whole. Then when I'm broke and the age you started the process, I get stiffed??

I see why kids in their teens/20's are pissed. Imagine starting where they are right now.

Okay..........I doubt this will help. Just a second perspective. You're post proves you have bought into the age/race/sex warfare. You just typed it all out here.

So should you buy a home. Have some investments and so forth. Are you planning on doing something other than "cling" to your resources? You just going to give it away for the good of the world or something? You won't be needing a place to live till you die? Or money to care for yourself? Please expand on how you are going to do something better.

When I bought my grandmothers house. In the 1980's. I paid more than 10X what she paid for it. Yet I didn't complain or whine. I just paid. I'll also mention that mortgage rates were over12%. That's right 12%.

The I'll never see a dime of social security has been said since forever. You don't know for a fact you will get stiffed. You just prefer to use something that has not happened, to pile on to a past generation.

What a victim mentality. Good luck with that outlook on life.

Originally Posted by O.G.

Okay..........I doubt this will help. Just a second perspective. You're post proves you have bought into the age/race/sex warfare. You just typed it all out here.

So should you buy a home. Have some investments and so forth. Are you planning on doing something other than "cling" to your resources? You just going to give it away for the good of the world or something? You won't be needing a place to live till you die? Or money to care for yourself? Please expand on how you are going to do something better.

When I bought my grandmothers house. In the 1980's. I paid more than 10X what she paid for it. Yet I didn't complain or whine. I just paid. I'll also mention that mortgage rates were over12%. That's right 12%.

The I'll never see a dime of social security has been said since forever. You don't know for a fact you will get stiffed. You just prefer to use something that has not happened, to pile on to a past generation.

What a victim mentality. Good luck with that outlook on life.

I respect you O.G., and I prefaced my comment as much as I could. I do own a paid off home on land, so check. I'm not a victim of anything, never claimed to be. Disprove what I said. That's all I ask when I get into these spats, prove me wrong.

Explain how we went from the Greatest generation - practically no national debt - to $150 trillion+ in unfunded liabilities in 60 years?

How did the Dow Jones go from 1,000 to 30,000??

Where did most Boomers make their retirement money?

How many H1B visa holders did you compete with for a job at 22?

And my plan is to leave my 2 children adjacent 5 acre lots with a paid off home on each of them when they graduate college. I don't care if I have 3 homes and an RV when I'm 75.

Perhaps every generation has said they will get stiffed, but the people who RUN THE SOCIAL SECURITY ADMINISTRATION have said it will be depleted by 2035. That happens to be when I'll be 61...... I wonder why I think I might get stiffed. https://www.aarp.org/retirement/soci...be-around.html.

Your 10X house, read this https://www.cnbc.com/2017/06/23/how-...ince-1940.html.

Originally Posted by 2_Time_Loser

I respect you O.G., and I prefaced my comment as much as I could. I do own a paid off home on land, so check. I'm not a victim of anything, never claimed to be. Disprove what I said. That's all I ask when I get into these spats, prove me wrong.

I respect you as well. It's not about that. Like I said. I paid over 10x what my relative paid. So skeet/skeet. The difference is how todays folks whine about it. Along with a way higher mortgage rate. Yet you did not address that point. That's 1 point proven wrong.

Are you planning of divesting yourself of your property and money soon? Heck you're 43. Time must be coming to give it away no? You're not planning on using them till you die like us self righteous boomers are you? You didn't speak to what you intended to do better and different. I'll say you don't plan on giving it away. That's a 2nd wrong point proven.

My generation did not get to pick what corporate life was like. Or what jobs we were going to send overseas. Most of us regular Joe's were working those jobs. You think we did it to ourselves.

People who spread stuff like you did in the first post just don't think it through. My generation. Just like your generation. Did not set out to fuck over those behind us. BOTH our generations got fucked. By the politicians and corporations that's who.

You get up. Do your work. Then vote on voting day for who you think is best. Then you get royally fucked by the very people you elected. That's how it worked for us. It's how it will work for you. Your beef isn't with some Joe Boomer like me. It's with a dishonest and corrupt government and corporate leaders. Yet you point the finger at Boomers.

It's not hard to prove you wrong at all. So keep your same mindset. Elect the leaders of your generation who will do things right. According to you. Then bend over and take it right up the wazzoo when the dirty bastards double cross your generation. Just like the guys boomers elected.

A Scottish Philosopher and Classicist came up with the cycle of civilizations around 1800:

Just saw some edits of yours.

Nope...No H1B visa to compete for a job in my day. What I couldn't do was compete against the Chinese. When they put the steel industry on it's knees back in my day. 100's and 100's of jobs lost. So because the tech industry uses lot's of H1B folks. That means the rest of the job market is over run too? Are their H1B carpenters, electricians, brick layer sand so forth flooding those trades?

I made my retirement money working and investing.

I was told the same thing about Social Security. Just like you.

So you truly believe that half of all Boomers are planning to give their money to charity? Rather than family?

And my plan is to leave my 2 children adjacent 5 acre lots with a paid off home on each of them when they graduate college. I don't care if I have 3 homes and an RV when I'm 75.

You believe that no Boomers have done that or more for their families? That you have cooked up something new. That our generation would never consider this? That we just hang on to assets till we die?

Originally Posted by O.G.

I respect you as well. It's not about that. Like I said. I paid over 10x what my relative paid. So skeet/skeet. The difference is how todays folks whine about it. Along with a way higher mortgage rate. Yet you did not address that point. That's 1 point proven wrong.

Are you planning of divesting yourself of your property and money soon? Heck you're 43. Time must be coming to give it away no? You're not planning on using them till you die like us self righteous boomers are you? You didn't speak to what you intended to do better and different. I'll say you don't plan on giving it away. That's a 2nd wrong point proven.

My generation did not get to pick what corporate life was like. Or what jobs we were going to send overseas. Most of us regular Joe's were working those jobs. You think we did it to ourselves.

People who spread stuff like you did in the first post just don't think it through. My generation. Just like your generation. Did not set out to fuck over those behind us. BOTH our generations got fucked. By the politicians and corporations that's who.

You get up. Do your work. Then vote on voting day for who you think is best. Then you get royally fucked by the very people you elected. That's how it worked for us. It's how it will work for you. Your beef isn't with some Joe Boomer like me. It's with a dishonest and corrupt government and corporate leaders. Yet you point the finger at Boomers.

It's not hard to prove you wrong at all. So keep your same mindset. Elect the leaders of your generation who will do things right. According to you. Then bend over and take it right up the wazzoo when the dirty bastards double cross your generation. Just like the guys boomers elected.

Obviously we will not see eye to eye on this O.G. Let's just agree to disagree.

That is the main issue with modern society. Is it really good having the options to watch, read or play etc thousands upon thousands of multimedia in a split of a second? Indeed back in the day you went to the video store to rent a film and enjoy that or you went to the library to research a certain topic without getting side tracked so much. There is good videos people have made into the psychology and dangers of modern apps like Tik Tok that rewire our brain to lose interest so fast.

One of six kids. Step-dad was 3 stripes Air Force. Mom was housewife, dropped out in 11th grade to help with family during WWII. They bought their house in 1959 for $10k. Built in 1950, it had 3BR 1BA, 828 sf, not sure of that included the single-car garage. In 1963 we were transferred overseas, they rented their house with help from sister-in law who lived up the street. (Our extended family lived within a 5-mile area, grandmother, aunts, uncles, cousins, the whole fam damily.)

Wherever we were transferred, we could only afford a 3BR rental with 1 bathroom. With three sisters, it was hell to get the bathroom to be freed up.

In 1970 we came back to the USA, landed in Wyoming of all places. The folks bought an old house built in 1920 for $12.5k, 2BR 1BA, but the basement had been sectioned off to be two more bedrooms, not pretty and finished like you see today, and there was a toilet in the basement with a pull-chain, enclosed in paneling. Finally, a second bathroom! Being an old house, there was a parlor with French doors that the folks converted to be their bedroom so that the rest of us could have our bedrooms, by then we lost one sister to marriage. The house payment was $100/month.

My dad retired from the USAF in 1973 after 20 years and 4 stripes and in 1976 the folks decided to move back to our home state so they sold that house for $38k. My dad took the first offer and in my youth I looked down on him for that but said nothing. I'd just got on with the phone company so I stayed in Wyoming, moving from rental to rental. Most people my age at that time had roommates to keep expenses down but I never liked the idea of roommates so I scoured the ads and quickly visited the apartments for rent, accepting the basements of people's homes as the best deals. I paid monthly rents like $145 plus utilities, then $135 plus utilities, then $125 including utilities. That last one was a garden-level apartment next to a mortuary and the mortician, my landlord, lived upstairs. He was a bit odd but we got along well enough.

Sometime in the 70s, I'm guessing 1977 or so, I had heard on the radio that the average price for a home in the USA had just reached $100k. As I was still a renter and of modest means, I got discouraged at that princely sum of money but my brother-in-law said, "There will always be a time to buy a house". I let his comment make me feel better, intuiting that it had to be true.

In 1979 my folks finally paid off the house they bought for $10,000 in 1959. Twenty years to pay it off. (Years later, when they had both passed away, dad first, there would be nothing for any of us six kids to inherit except modest furniture. We never expected more than that, we always knew we were a family of humble means. The money from the sale of their house went to reimburse Medicaid for my mom's dementia.)

I lived next to the mortuary for 6 years until I faced layoff unless I was willing to follow my work to one of a few cities in other states. At the last minute I got picked up for a job with them in Phoenix, Arizona. Drove my car to there, with doggie sleeping shotgun, filled with doggie downers for the trip. When we stopped overnight at an Albuquerque hotel, the first thing my dog did when we got to the room was shit on the carpet. I don't blame him.

Arrived on Valentine's Day 1982. Tommy Tutone's 867-5309/Jenny and J. Geils Band's Freeze Frame were the charting songs that greeted me upon arrival that sunny day. I shared an unfurnished rental house with a female coworker who had moved from Wyoming a month or two before, shared the rent/utilities, slept on the floor of my bedroom under a blanket. I lost my dog the first week (he escaped from the yard) and soon learned that huge valley by visiting twice a week the dog pounds spread across the valley. Got the dog back, I was so happy. Soon my roommate's deadbeat brother and his deadbeat buddy, both from Wyoming, showed up to live there, paying no rent, staying up half the night playing music and doing cocaine, drinking my beer while I was at work falling asleep at my desk through lack of sleep due to their late night noise. Not a great impression to make in a new job. I didn't stand up to her brother because I feared he was so low-life that he would retaliate and let my dog out to get lost while I'm at work. Couldn't go through that again. So I played the pussy while secretly seeing a realtor to get me my first house to get the hell out of there.

In 1982, mortgage interest rates were 17% so to avoid paying that rate, buyers were assuming the seller's mortgage by paying the seller's built-up equity in cash. It was called Cash To Mortgage (CTM) so every newspaper ad would say $25,000 CTM on assumption or $20,000 CTM on assumption, etc. I had only $5,000 cash to my name and for that amount the realtor could only show me dumpy houses. It was disheartening until she found a seller who would finance a 7-year balloon at 13.5%. The house was nice, 3BR, 1.75BA, 1280 sf with carport. I swore I'd never do a balloon but figured the economy would turn around in seven years time so I went for it. I borrowed $2,000 on my signature with the Credit Union to make my down payment. I paid $58,000 for that first house, 2 months after arriving in Phoenix. Biggest thing I'd ever bought. House payment was a scary $700/month plus payment for the signature loan and I was nowhere near top pay yet. I had no furniture and was flat broke. They say the first year you are house-poor and I was definitely the poster child for that. I ate meals sitting on the kitchen floor until I found a used dinette at Goodwill for $100 (I still have it in my kitchen today where I live) and bought a mattress and box springs laid directly onto the floor, hippie-style. Bricks-and-boards bookshelf. Someone gave me a sofa. Coffee table was my footlocker that I bought years before (and I still have, in great shape).

I refinanced out from under the balloon 5 years later when interest rates went down. Worked lots of OT the first years there. Every time the phone company shuffled the jobs interstate, things are so screwed up afterwards that they offer all the OT you can handle. So, 1984 was a great year for income and I bought brand new a Camaro Berlinetta with almost all the bells and whistles for $16k when base price was $11k, thinking if I were to get married I'd never afford a new car again so hey let's go for it. I refinanced twice more, seeking to lower the interest rate but naively extended the loan maturation date, saving me nothing as the amortization schedule each time reset to the beginning where the bulk of the interest is paid.

In 1995 the phone company decided to move jobs interstate again and I faced layoff but got picked up in Seattle. Phoenix, in that 13 years, had been a flat real estate market and in selling my house I took the first offer at the appraised value of $65.5k less $2k carpet allowance. This is when I understood why my dad took his first offer all those years before, when he needed to leave town and didn't want to hang onto the house any longer than he had to. I felt bad for having been immature enough to have looked down on him.

I arrived in Seattle in April 1995 with $50k in cash to my name and found an unfurnished rental house, upstairs only, basement was a studio apartment. Rent was $700/mo plus utilities, plus I optionally rented for $100 the sole use of the off-street driveway for my still-nice Camaro. It was a year lease while I shopped for a house to buy. The average price of a house in Seattle at that time was $150k. That sounds so affordable today but back then you might as well have told me one million dollars. I had just sold a house for really no profit at all after realtor commission and what am I supposed to do to come up with the $100k on top of my $50k? Am I supposed to shit that kind of money? I was mad at nobody in particular of course, just mad at life. Why did I choose Seattle? I started to feel hopeless and one day I was telling a coworker about this when he said, "Well, you could do what everybody else does and just dive in." Miraculously, his words unlocked my thinking, swept away my despair, and made me reframe the situation that it was the bank who needed my money and I had the power. I never told that coworker the effect of his words because I did not want him to fear being responsible for the financial actions of another, me.

So, I went shopping and found a house for $175k, figuring that if I buy above average price, it should always remain above average price over the years. (Turned out to be true for me.) I told my landlord that I was moving out after 7 months but would honor the year lease. He was nice and held me only to the end of the current month. To avoid mortgage insurance on the new house, I put 20% down which came to $35k, almost wiping me out. The first year, again, I was house poor. I paid my 30-year mortgage as if it was a 15-year mortgage, I was damned determined to not stay on the mortgage merry-go-round this time.

As they did in their previous interstate job moves, the phone company again offered all the OT you could handle. I worked 11.5 hours a day, five days a week, for four and a half years, plus occasional Saturdays.

I dedicated all of my earnings to paying down the principle of that mortgage. I took no vacations. I used a national free 56k internet dial-up service that served my area. I paid for no subscriptions except a newspaper. Anything that had a fee associated with it was avoided. I took the bus most places I went, Camaro stayed home on a low mileage insurance rate.

After four and a half years, I had paid the 30 year mortgage as if I had only 11 years to go. Interest rates had come down and I wanted to refinance but this time no naively extending the maturation date. They offered 10-year mortgages so I refinanced to that, shortening my maturation date by one year, to March 2009 and bringing almost all of my OT money at closing, to get the new amount way down. I was a man with a mission. In November 2008 I saw I had a mortgage balance of only $2K so as a Christmas present to myself, I walked into the bank and handed them a check for that amount. Finally, no more house payment, achieved in 13 years of what started as a 30-year mortgage. This was in 2008, right when many others were suffering in the housing crash. I am not lucky so much as I worked very hard to pay it off.

I still have my 1984 Camaro, still use the same clock radio received as a Christmas gift from 1971 as well as other older appliances such as 40 year old washer/dryer, same dinette but different mattresses on the bedroom floor. I don't replace things that still work even if I don't look trendy because of them. My clothes are not crisp and modern but neither am I, and I take good care of them. I even darn my socks. I mean, who does that today? My folks' dinky starter home from 1959 just sold last June for $386k, I can hardly believe that. My home today on Zillow in this nowadays high-dollar city fluctuates between 1 and 1.2 million but I hate that because the real effect to me is not the buzz of thinking I have major unrealized equity but that I pay higher property taxes based on that evaluation. I am not responsible for the value of my home.

With my retirement pension, I am classified in Seattle as low-income, can you believe it. I can.

I tell you this long story with actual dollar amounts so that any young person reading this and who might have assumed an easier picture for the generations that came before, might see beyond my nicely manicured lawn and think about the obstacles and effort involved. There's a lot of older people like me out there, regardless of what the magazine articles might allude to.

I darn my socks too! That makes at least two of us. I HATE buying clothes. I make them last as long as possible. I just threw out a pair of shorts that I bought on sale at Penny’s in about 2003 for three bucks. Bought two pair- still have the second pair, but they are about done for too.

I wear decent stuff to work- dockers and a button down shirt, but I don’t replace them till they fall apart. There’s so much other stuff I’d rather spend on (this is after making double mortgage payments- same as you) than clothes. And frankly, I don’t need to impress anyone, so if it fits, I wear it. I sew them up when needed, and replace when they disintegrate.