MR WRONG: Strike price
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Today I want to think about the big United Auto Workers strike, and how they are asking for a giant raise and stuff, and how the bosses and shareholders or whatever are probably not gonna be real happy to give the Workers, who—depending on what Commie-Pinko books you read that haven’t been banned or burned or de-rezzed yet—supposedly Control the Means of Production, more dough and better other stuff! Meanwhile the car companies are making Billions of dollars, so it’s real easy for me to say they are Greedy, but we’ll see what happens, I guess, if the Workers go on strike and then both sides get down to make a real-deal.
I’m pretty much always on the side of the Workers, especially when the crops are high, you know? Like, c’mon, how about a little somethin’ for the effort, right, guv’nah? Rich fuckos stay rich because they don’t give anybody anything, right? I got mine! They don’t tip, they slow-pay/no-pay people on deals, they always try and get over on the underclass, etc. Personally, I think a lotta rich people got their dough because they worked for it, and it’s weird to think somehow a Billionaire made their stack by not tipping for pizza delivery, I dunno, yeah every Great Fortune has a Great Crime, I watched There Will Be Blood. Anyway, it seems to me that it’s after they pile up the loot that they all start to get all weird and miserly and stuff, and screwing people over when they don’t have to, I mean, what the fuck, they have a bottomless pit of loot! I read a thing once someplace that said the ideal amount of money for a U.S. American to have, to be happy and not be miserable with mo’ money mo’ problems is like, $70 grand a year, because you live OK, not large, not small, but you're not gonna lose your shit and buy a Maserati and do a buncha blow which you shouldn’t anyway because it’s all cut with fentanyl now, stay away from that shit. Yeah, I forget how long ago I read that thing about having the ideal amount of money, but probably now, adjusted for the year 2023 maybe it’s a buck-fitty a year? Then you gotta allow for how big your family is and stuff, and then figure in the Health Care, just like these Automobile Workers are trying to do. Not to belabor the obvious, but yeah, I’m gonna belay the Captain Obvious and not say that too much money will fuck up your mind.
Car companies, though! Mostly it’s a buncha shareholders. They’re the ones who wanna see Results, and they don’t even run the companies, they’re just holding the paper, so they don’t give a shit about anything except the Number. That’s the real Greed, and the only way you get through to them with a strike is to make sure they know you are gonna fuck up their Number real bad, so might as well sit down for Let’s Make a Motherfuckin’ Deal, OK?
The other thing about this big car strike, for me, it’s fucking crazy that we have an Automobile Industry that is as big as it is. Why do so many people need a new car all the time? I mean I know why you need a new dump truck or construction vehicle, those things get beat on and they wear out. With cars, of course there are car crashes, and unless you got killed, you need a replacement vehicle, but many people are out there like, just buying a new car because they want something New. There are so many cars in junkyards and stuff. Get in your car and take a drive around the industrial areas on the outskirts of your communities, there are strips of highway lined with gaping pits stuffed with cars.
It’s crazy how much manufacturing and energy goes into making a shiny-new car and then you drive it off the lot and it’s suddenly worth five grand less than when you bought it. Most people don’t need a new car any more than people who buy those giant wristwatches that cost a hundred grand need a new wristwatch. How many different ways can you tell time on your wrist? They’re rubes, getting played like juicy Marks on the Midway, shiny crap for for their disposable Income, or for money they haven’t even earned yet, so they finance the new car, which is a whole Industry in itself that does zero to help the world, based on paying for machines that continue to suck up all the minerals and poop out planet-destroying vapors.
One time, once, I bought a new car. It was a 1996 Honda Civic. I drove that fucker over 300K miles and donated it to charity after 20 years of use. Don’t stop me if you’ve heard this before, but I won a buncha money on a teevee game show once, and the first thing I thought I would do was buy a new car. I went out and looked at all these different cars. I test-drove five different Ford Mustangs, I checked out a Honda Fit and some Toyotas and Dodges and a buncha other cars, and in the last new car with the new-car smell that I sat in with the idea I was gonna buy it, I had this overwhelming feeling that I was a chump. I was gonna drop $40K-plus on a new car?!? I ended up buying a 2005 Pontiac Vibe on Craigslist for three grand, and I’m still driving it. If I was rich, I wouldn’t even own a goddamn car, I would hire drivers, who own nice vehicles as part of their Business. Wow, what a Luxury to have a Driver! You can sleep in the car, read something, be drunk, it’s the best, I think. Anyway, the whole idea that we have an Auto Industry is unsound, it’s unsustainable, seriously. We’re gonna now switch to Electric Car and go to Mars or to the fucking Moon to get minerals for the batteries, and Robot Car, and with a bunch of qualifications, I’m all for it, except for the part about how the Auto Industry is gonna continue to make a gajillion cars and base their business on Growth. It’s dumb! No offense to the Auto Workers, I support their demands for better wages, but there should be less cars. I also support the Writers and their strike because you can never have too many movies and teevee shows and game shows and other things that are written, by human writers. Thank you.
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MR WRONG: Strike price
"I read a thing once someplace that said the ideal amount of money for a U.S. American to have, to be happy and not be miserable with mo' money mo' problems is like, $70 grand a year": Here you go:
"In the aggregated global data, we found that the satiation point for life evaluation occurred at approximately $95,000 ... For positive emotions, satiation occurred at a lower level of income, $60,000, as did negative emotions at $75,000. For all three measures of SWB [subjective well-being], there were no appreciable increases in SWB after these incomes. In fact, for life evaluation, we found that after satiation had been reached, further increases in income were associated with slight decrements to SWB."
(Jebb et al., 2018, Nat. Hum. Behav. 2:33-38, https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-017-0277-0)
The authors found variation by geographic region, but less than you might expect and much less than the gap between $95,000 and the 1% in the USA.
In other words, money does buy happiness, but only up to a point far below what the 1% have yet well above what most of the 1% are dedicated to keeping most of the 99% from ever having.
"I think a lotta rich people got their dough because they worked for it": They didn't, not anything I'd call "worked". Of the top 0.1% in the USA, less than 20% are entrepreneurs, even under an expansive definition of "entrepreneur". On the contrary:
"The data demonstrate that executives, managers, supervisors, and financial professionals account for about 60 percent of the top 0.1 percent of income earners in recent years, and can account for 70 percent of the increase in the share of national income going to the top 0.1 percent of the income distribution between 1979 and 2005."
(Bakija et al., 2010, http://piketty.pse.ens.fr/files/Bakijaetal2010.pdf)
That's the top 0.1% by income. Among the top 0.1% by wealth, inherited wealth looms very large. Even among the top 0.1% by income, being from a wealthy family looms very large.
"Anyway, it seems to me that it's after they pile up the loot that they all start to get all weird and miserly and stuff, and screwing people over when they don't have to": Nah, c'mon, most of them are greedy jerks from way back. Donald Trump is a type specimen. He's especially egregious, but narcissism is typical of the rich and people who strive to get rich.
That may be the main reason why "further increases in income were associated with slight decrements to SWB". I suspect those people tend to have emotional problems they're trying to solve by piling up mo' money, but of course it doesn't work.
I too once and only once bought a new car. I drove it for 13 years before it came down with a terminal illness. I'll never buy another new car, because not only are they ridiculously expensive, they're stuffed with electronic crap that's aggressively snoopy and insanely insecure:
"It's official: Cars are the worst product category we have ever reviewed for privacy"
(https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/privacynotincluded/articles/its-official-cars-are-the-worst-product-category-we-have-ever-reviewed-for-privacy/)
In fact, I hope I'll never buy another used car either. Even used cars are ridiculously expensive these days, not just buying them but also driving, maintaining, and insuring them, and then there's the whole trashing-the-planet thing.