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What do wealthy people buy, that ordinary people know nothing about? (2015)

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Re: What do wealthy people buy, that ordinary people know nothing about? (2015)

#401

Post by throwanem »

TacticalCoder wrote: post #343
safety1st wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On a personal level I know several guys who are worth $10-30M, one who's worth probably $40M, and one who's worth around $700M, this is LNW. Not much in the Reddit reply checks out for me. It's true that the $700M guy socializes with "Senators/Congressmen/community leaders." He travels a lot, and comfortably, but has no ownership in a jet. He retired young-ish and no longer works so maybe that's why. He doesn't flash…

I was invited for coffee at a friend's friend. He seemed a pretty regular guy, very friendly: kids playing in the pool. Nothing out of the ordinary except as many house employees as adult guests (and house employees where calling guests by their name). I happened to know the artist Jeff Koons: not a big fan of the "inflated balloon dogs" but I do like his ballerinas. Well... Turns out the dude had one house destroyed…

> But yup: buying x times the exact same car when times comes to change cars is kinda just weird.

Is it?

I'm on my second iPhone 13 mini, this one being the replacement after the first died of a drop. There are two more stored in the attic, each preconfigured with the accessories I like and with a SIM from my provider in the box. So if anything happens to this phone, as soon as I get home I just break out #3, restore the latest backup, activate the SIM and assign it the number, and I'm back in business at the same old stand.

An iPhone 13 mini with the accessories I like (case and charging adapter) is about $300. That's amply worth it to me, a couple times over, to never have to think about how to replace a cooked phone and get back into communication with my family and the world. Nothing special about the phone, it's if anything unusually unassuming. It's just the phone I happen to like (since 2021 when I concluded it no longer made sense to keep keeping 1st gen SEs alive) and thinking about phones is something I only like doing when I want to. That's the problem this money solves, and I have the money available to use this way, so why not?

Scale the dollar amount up a few orders of magnitude and the necessity down by the same amount, and sure, I see how it makes sense to "just" drop an identical set of wheels at every one of your pieds-à-terre. What did the funny sweary smoking man in the movie say? "You learn to spend what's in your pocket."

Re: What do wealthy people buy, that ordinary people know nothing about? (2015)

#402

Post by JKCalhoun »

jajko wrote: post #257
rienbdj wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The best interiors feel lived in but not stuffy. A few old pieces of furniture can help achieve that. Part of the skill of interior design is making these pieces work together in new ways. You don’t want your home to feel like an ikea catalog surely!?

Not sure why the fixation with Ikea, they provide decent value at given price point (as in better than competition, but still within their cost band). Anyway one prime example I can see - we have rather bigger kitchen, and storage is its prime function. Anything below waist needs to have pullout drawers, its supremely more practical and simply more efficient for storage. You don't need to go on your knees every time…

> provide decent value at given price point

That is the reason for the fixation on IKEA: the "decent" part. If their peers are Target, Walmart, then to be sure IKEA are decent.

Even during assembly though I've had joints fail such that the finished piece of furniture is, say, 90% structurally sound. But then trying to disassemble the piece so I can move ... I'm lucky if I am able to disassemble it without additional component failure. And then the re-assembly after the move also takes its toll.

Sadly I've come to see IKEA furniture as disposable (I sure don't see it in the local Goodwill). And that is the problem with IKEA (and Target, and Walmart) furniture: it goes direct-to-landfill with a move.

Re: What do wealthy people buy, that ordinary people know nothing about? (2015)

#403

Post by mattmaroon »

esperent wrote: post #370
notsydonia wrote: post #363

You know how a person on 'average' income might sometimes browse retail sites as displacement activity, while waiting for something/someone or a side-quest etc? Ultra-wealthy people also do that but they're trawling through Sothebys or Christies - eg: https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/luxury/books-&-manuscripts/b... They don't have time to read - say - a lengthy biography about a Civil War general but they can purchase…

> They wouldn't even have a brand on their dishwasher - it would be commissioned by an architect or interior designer quietly maintained at regular intervals by an appliance engineer I'm not sure that I buy this. It's not simple to make a bespoke appliance like a dishwasher that's better than a very high end mass produced one. Where did you get the idea that this happens from?

That would be the ultimate status symbol, paying the world’s best dishwasher engineer to design you a custom one off dishwasher.

Re: What do wealthy people buy, that ordinary people know nothing about? (2015)

#404

Post by adhamsalama »

ta1243 wrote: post #302
Gud wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bill Gates gets a lot of hate for good reason. His business practices killed off a lot of good products. BeOS, anyone?

His business practices in the 90s and 00s were terrible. His actions since then have been far better. The hate he gets now tend to be from people attacking his more recent actions. "Trying to cure malaria - clearly mind control" sort of stuff.

Well, his company does help Israel in its genocide against Palestinians.

Re: What do wealthy people buy, that ordinary people know nothing about? (2015)

#405

Post by al_borland »

atwrk wrote: post #385
randomcarbloke wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

we didn't arbitrarily select people to make rich, they are externalities of our wants and needs, and a sign that those things are being ~ satisfied.

They are decidedly a result of the taxation system of a country. The country decided they wanted to have this class of people to exist. (The degree of) Wealth inequality is always a product of society.

Poor people pay next to nothing in taxes, yet they don’t end up wealthy from this.

The tax systems doesn’t create wealthy people, it just doesn’t cut their legs out from under them.

Re: What do wealthy people buy, that ordinary people know nothing about? (2015)

#406

Post by decimalenough »

jajko wrote: post #327
decimalenough wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I lived in Southeast Asia for years and explored countless beaches at price points all across the spectrum, and while I understand what you're saying and agree to some extent, there are still experiences only money can buy. Example 1: the overwater bungalow in the Maldives where I could watch fish swim under a glass table and step right off the balcony into the reef to join them. Example 2: the stupidly expensive hot…

Not really, ie that Maldives bungalow - I had exactly same experience in Mabul island for example, with 0 snobbishness that luxury inevitably brings (and is disgusting for me personally). Literally watching manta rays under my feet while eating breakfast. Kids would come on their dhingy and sell fresh coconuts right from water. All for peanuts. Very similar experiences can be had in ie Togian islands in Sulawesi. And…

With all due respect, you're showcasing some serious reverse snobbery yourself here, since you're basically claiming at your "authentic" travel experiences make you superior to those "disgusting" luxury tourists paying for their experiences.

But I'll throw you a bone: it goes both ways. I've had equally memorable experiences doing things like sitting with a couple of farmers on the floor of a jam-packed 3rd class train carriage in Thailand, sharing a bottle of Maekhong and watching the rice paddies go by. And commuting to work with canal boats in Bangkok barrelling down the klongs at ridiculous km/h was much more fun than taking a taxi, as long as you didn't bonk your head on a bridge or slip and fall into what's basically ripened sewage.

Re: What do wealthy people buy, that ordinary people know nothing about? (2015)

#407

Post by JKCalhoun »

EvanAnderson wrote: post #224

Through some odd circumstances I found myself receiving a lot of catalogs and sales solicitations for a reasonably wealthy person. Most of the stuff was what you'd exoect-- expensive furnishings, clothing, home goods. The two that were most interesting were the travel-related (guided trips in exotic locales w/ profiles and resumes of the local guides), and oddly specific and highly-focused catalogs (gardening, specif…

Yeah, post the company name — because I'm picturing instead a company posing was a company for the rich and famous. Do we remember The Sharper Image catalog?

Re: What do wealthy people buy, that ordinary people know nothing about? (2015)

#408

Post by al_borland »

refurb wrote: post #235
candiddevmike wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet people still hate the thought of a "maximum wage" or limit to wealth. Everyone should have a life of comfort, not just those who won the lottery or were born into it.

It’s easy to determine what income would be if everyone made the same amount - average income, which is $72,000 per worker. That includes everyone who filed a tax return from the kid working at McDonald’s to Warren Buffet. Not sure what you’d call a comfortable life but a single mom making $72,000 per year would be struggling in many major cities.

People don’t become ultra wealthy from a high income, they generally own a business that increases in value.

Re: What do wealthy people buy, that ordinary people know nothing about? (2015)

#409

Post by wiseowise »

4gotunameagain wrote: post #341
wiseowise wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is just streamlining process of how to become desirable. Nerds with money can afford to even the odds VS their more successful peers who manage to do it naturally. Nothing cringe about that.

Based on the fact that you just wrote "streamlining process of how to become desirable" , we will probably never see eye to eye on what is cringe :)

Whatever helps you sleep at night.

Re: What do wealthy people buy, that ordinary people know nothing about? (2015)

#410

Post by JKCalhoun »

esperent wrote: post #370
notsydonia wrote: post #363

You know how a person on 'average' income might sometimes browse retail sites as displacement activity, while waiting for something/someone or a side-quest etc? Ultra-wealthy people also do that but they're trawling through Sothebys or Christies - eg: https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/luxury/books-&-manuscripts/b... They don't have time to read - say - a lengthy biography about a Civil War general but they can purchase…

> They wouldn't even have a brand on their dishwasher - it would be commissioned by an architect or interior designer quietly maintained at regular intervals by an appliance engineer I'm not sure that I buy this. It's not simple to make a bespoke appliance like a dishwasher that's better than a very high end mass produced one. Where did you get the idea that this happens from?

Yeah, dishwasher? I doubt it.

Custom wine cabinet? Sure.

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