For those of you sheltered individuals out there, a Yuppie is a term from the eighties meaning Young Urban Professional. They were the go-go crowd determined to make enough money to live the good life. The job was their life, it was the means to achieve wealth and luxury living and security. Today we have such marvelous creatures as Tinks, two income no kids. About the same thing but less stressful since a major expense is missing ( not that kids are expensive, the slums are full of them- most Americans just can’t live frugal ) or at least a source of stress. Yuppies to me have always represented the Dark Side of working. Puritans worked hard and spent little. About like the Chinese immigrant work ethic. Save the money to loan to other family members so they can start their own business, then they do the same, etc. Prosperity and financial independence without bankers.
Today I call the average working professional Yuppies. Those that just work for luxury. I call Soccer Moms Yuppies. The fancy car and clothes and snobbish attitude. My crap don’t stink, I have easy credit so I can afford the appearance of wealth and I’m better than you so there! The local gathering place for these insufferable idiots is at Costco. If you threw three Molotov cocktails into the parking lot you could easily do over one hundred thousand dollars of damage immediately. These are the kind of people I wish to suffer through social collapse from Peak Oil just because their SUV’s mean so much to them. Am I a bit envious? Perhaps. I can’t force myself to screw others over for wealth such as lawyers, civil servants or building contractors do. Mostly I just hate their class snobbery.
One thing Yuppies will never be is independent. They are addicted to the show of wealth that can’t be compromised by used cars or clothes or solar panels on a trailer roof or a house under two thousand square feet or even a dirty wood burning stove. Luxury can’t be compromised. Their idea of energy independence is buying a two thousand dollar pellet stove. I love the things too but they are strictly a Society Stable product since you can’t go into the woods and cut yourself a few bags of pellets. And by the way, Lowe’s pellet stove is two hundred bucks higher this year. And still the cheapest one around that I have seen.
The two items you must compromise on if you wish to achieve financial independence and future security are your home and your car. You can’t be free with a mortgage and a car payment. And even if you build yourself you need a mortgage if you build to code. Only unconventional structures off the radar of the local zoning board are cheap enough to construct. That is the only reason I recommend trailer living as it is usually legal and hassle free, at least compared to any other cheap shelter. And bicycle transportation is a hassle most times of the year but at least it frees you from a car. No strategy is foolproof or free of pain or compromises. Even the rich retreaters are faced with acquisition debt, lack of security for a remote retreat and the problems of getting there during social chaos.
The simple fact is that if you wish to drop out of the rat race or achieve financial independence or future security at a time when government welfare plans ( to include Social Security and Medicare ) will soon face bankruptcy which can only be prevented short term through massive inflation so as to pay off the voting recipients in nearly worthless dollars, then you must live a less conventional lifestyle. You can’t have your cake and eat it too. A mortgage and car payment alone are too much other than for dedicated wage slaves. Any other debt on top of that means you will never escape. You must free yourself of the golden handcuffs you have placed on yourself.
Let’s say you are a seller on E-Bay of ceramic widgets. You think this is your path to financial freedom ( we are assuming they sell ). But you need to sell at least a thousand widgets a month since you must pay the mortgage and the SUV payment and a few credit cards and buy new clothes and shop at the trendy organic foods market. If you ever sell less you are screwed. If you lived in a shack on a paid for lot and pedaled a bike to Wal-Mart for shopping you would only have to sell a hundred widgets a month. The extra sales would go into real goods such as precious metals and food storage and ammunition. Rather than making the bankers rich.
Look, the housing bubble did few people a service. A few bought $50,000 houses and sold them for $250,000 and moved out of California and screwed the rest of the western states over by artificially increasing local real estate costs. The rest are buying $250,000 houses that are using the same land and labor and materials that $75,000 houses used ten years ago. You are not getting your monies worth by a long shot. These are Gum & Glue houses that won’t last past the first buyer without extensive continuous maintenance. Is it worth thirty years of your life to live in that kind of “luxury”. Artificial and overpriced. And totally dependant on our economy never having a hiccup. And cars are shooting up in price without quality outside of Asian imports. No way are they worth thirty grand. It is sheet metal and an engine that guzzles a depleted resource.
If you want security it does not lay with worthless Greenbacks and a job subject to importation. It is living poor. Live poor, earn middle class ( live on less than your paycheck ). And be secure. The price is giving up luxury and the conventional lifestyle.
END
Original: http://bisonsurvivalblog.blogspot.com/2006/11/yuppies.html
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