I can't seem to be able to read or listen to anything without getting pissed off, wow. If you sit and read all of this, I apologise massively in advance.
So I've been listening to some car podcasts by a group of people known among car enthusiasts for having loads of expensive and exotic cars. From what I've heard of the first few episodes, it seems like most of it is about these guys talking about all the posh places they go to, cool people they hang out with, and whining about poor people being jealous of/mean towards them.
I thought I'd listen to the next one while cooking dinner, of which the main topic of conversation is that some 21 year old guy recently managed to buy a Lamborghini Gallardo. They're all applauding his effort, yadda yadda, etc... then the topic of conversation turns to how he could afford it. It went something like:
TL; DR: "How can I afford an exotic car?" "Work for it. Work hard. Work harder. Work until it threatens your health. Work past it threatening your health. If you don't, you're a lazy asshole who doesn't want to work for what you get. Also don't buy anything else in your life."
Guy 1: "So just how does someone so young get to afford an exotic car like that?"
Guy 2: "They work for it."
G1: "What, like-"
G2: "I worked my ass off, I come from a very modest background and I built up one of the largest repossession companies in the north east at the time and I sold it back in 2007, so I was basically retired.
G1: "Okay, well how do you - for the guy right now saying "I graduated college, I can't get a job that pays anything over minimum" like, that's not even in the cart to go out and buy a car like that. An exotic car's gonna cost you about a minimum of 75 grand. How are you gonna go out and do that?"
G2: "Work! Work, work, work! To the guy who's sitting on his ass asking "how am I ever gonna afford it", there's a reason he's not gonna afford it, because he's sitting on his ass scratching his balls."
G1: "But he goes to work 60 hours a week -"
G2: "Well look for another job. Do something else. I used to work 22 hours a day, legitimately, 22 hours a day, 6 days a week. I slept 1 hour in the morning and 1 hour in the evening. My mother used to throw cold water on me at night to get me up so I could work. I did it myself, I just worked my ass off and I didn't stop until I sold the business."
G1: "Well it's one thing to be 21 years old and go out and commit to a $100K purchase and have no additional expenditures, right? If I'm living at home, I'm not paying of college, I'm not paying off grad school - "
G2: "Well do you need college?"
G1: "No, what I'm saying is that if you don't have anything else to pay off, a $100K purchase is not that unattainable for most people. But you have to be willing to give up your whole other lifestyle. You have other people like Seth here who gets expensive cars all the time and still lives comfortably. You're not sacrificing other aspects of your life, that's the difference here."
G2: "I'm also a little different here. I mean, not everybody's built the same way, right? I'm the type of person - if I wanted to, I could go buy a Veyron tomorrow. I'll take out a payment of $25K a month. You know what? I'll figure out a way to pay that. And I'll work or I'll change something in my life to be able to afford it."
G1: "I think the point here though is that you're not going to have to give up the happiness in your life, right? I always tell people that you have to save where you can so you can spend where you want. A lot of people do the "fake it 'til you make it thing" and they walk around in an $800 suit. You don't need an $800 suit."
G2: "I always say the money doesn't make the man, the man makes the money."
G1: "Correct, but it's one of those things. You have to find out what actually brings you enjoyment. If cars bring you enjoyment, then stop spending money on all the other stupid shit in your life, stop getting the $800 belts, stop going out to clubs. Like, all that shit that people feel like they have to do in order to fill in everything else that comes with owning an exotic car. If owning a car is what you value and what you enjoy, then stop wasting money on all the other useless shit."
What kind of classist, privileged bullshit is this? You know the reason working limits were imposed? Because people were literally dying from working too hard and too much. Which is exactly what this guy is saying you have to do if you want to succeed, whilst also implying that if you can't get a job or can't get a job that pays well, you're simply not trying hard enough.
What about those of us, like me, whose family have come from absolute rock bottom and worked their lives away for ungrateful and vindictive pricks and have ended up not far from that rock bottom? What about people like myself, who have so many more social, physical and mental obstacles to overcome in social life, education and work life than your average person? What about people like me who end up having to shell out more than your average person for things necessary to keep them stable and alive? I can't find a well paying job, simply because nobody will hire me.
My areas of training are well paying, but extremely limited, which I didn't know at the time of choosing it. I've been to pretty much every work agency in the city, and I'm signed up with 3 of them. They haven't called me to a single hour for any of them, despite constantly checking that I'm still signed on. I've worked the past 7 years of my ass off just to get the requirements for jobs substantially above minimum, and I've had absolutely fuck all in return. In fact, I'm massively out of pocket for things I didn't really want to do. I'm living on practically nothing and I'm struggling to simply survive and keep the will to live, not "spending on useless shit".
A few weeks ago, I was super happy with myself being so financially savvy that I managed to save £1 of my weekly expenditure to buy a couple of cloves of garlic. The perspective being that I am in such a state that being able to afford garlic was the highlight of my week.
And then there's people like these assholes, who are the prime demographic for employability and ease of acceptance, saying "well we did it, so if you can't that's because you're lazy or financially incompetent."
God, I fucking love capitalism and society.