God Hates Displays of Wealth

It’s impossible to trust the government (shocking) when it comes to reports about the prosperity of the American people. For example, it’s possible to have a low official unemployment number when an unusually large number of people are unemployed.

A few years ago, I came up with the Baldor Bench Grinder Index. You go to Ebay and search for used Baldor bench grinders.

When times are hard, people sell their tools. Back during the Clinton forced-minority loan housing crisis, I got a barely-used 19″ Shop Fox band saw for way less than it ordinarily cost. I got a Powermatic 66 table saw with a big extension, Biesemeyer fence, and a punch of pricey blades for $500. Both tools came from cabinetry shops.

When things improve, you don’t see a lot of used Baldor bench grinders on Ebay.

Yesterday, I drove by an auction site. They sell trucks and heavy equipment. I visited a couple of years ago, and the lot was full of junk no intelligent person would buy. Yesterday, there was a lot more stuff. I saw two very nice-looking track loaders (similar to skid steers) right out front.

Today I checked the Baldor Bench Grinder Index. There are a lot of grinders on the market. Maybe 60% more than there were a couple of years ago.

Is the index reliable? I don’t know. The business of selling things online has changed. Craigslist punched Ebay in the gut, and Facebook Marketplace is stomping Craigslist. Seems to me that even if the grinder index had a somewhat low number, it would mean things were not going well. The other sites are taking sales away from Ebay.

Today I saw Charlie Kirk say that 4 years ago, a person needed an income of $59000 to buy a house, and now it’s $106000, meaning you might be excluded even if you have a high-paying profession, such as working at Burger King for $25 per hour.

He said big companies are swallowing up houses and renting them out, driving the purchase prices up. He said lowering interest rates makes things worse by making it easier for corporations to buy homes, decreasing the supply and jacking up prices. I don’t know if that makes any sense, because it also makes it easier for the rest of us to buy homes. Anyway, a lot of young people think they will never own homes.

The difficulty of buying homes and food under Biden, which is indisputable, is a phenomenon we used to call “poverty.” If you had a hard time buying things, we said you were “poor.” Affluence is becoming less common, and poverty is on the rise.

Americans are becoming poor. That’s the short version.

When I was a kid, I heard the term “rich Americans” all the time. When my family visited Europe, the people seemed poor and also short and spindly. Now Americans are descending the ladder of wealth, in terms of net worth. We passed Switzerland, which is number one, per capita. Our GDP per capita is far below Ireland’s, if you can believe it.

I think we are hiding the pain through denial and credit. I sometimes go to fast food joints, where I can expect to pay $13-$25 for a low-quality meal, and I often see a lot of cars in front of them. My county is not wealthy, and I know the people who keep spending on fast food generally can’t afford it. They must be pumping up their credit card balances because they can’t make themselves accept the lower standard of living their incomes now support.

I checked, and credit card debt is now at an all-time high. Adjusted for inflation, the only higher figure was reached in 2008, and we all remember what that was like. Deflation. Prime beef for $7 per pound, because no one could afford it. Shuttered businesses.

I am terrified of debt, so I stay away from it. If I die tomorrow, some credit card companies get a few grand, and that’s it. I don’t know how people can stand lying in bed at night thinking about debt mountains that will kill their estates and leave their heirs with nothing.

On rare occasions, my wife thinks I’m cheap because I won’t pay for something I think is ridiculous, like a Vuitton purse. She always comes to her senses later. She has visited 6 countries with me over 4 years. I don’t expect her to get a job. I try to supply her with more than she needs. She knows this. She has moments when she loses perspective, but she snaps out of it fast.

Lately, God has been teaching me about the evils of ostentation. I believe it’s sinful. I think it turns God against people.

Since purses have already been mentioned, I’ll use them to illustrate the point. A good, durable, classic purse that will last 20 years starts at maybe $300. A $500 purse can be a very good investment. A $2000 purse with little Vuitton symbols all over it is different. It won’t last any longer, and the only thing the extra $1500 gets you is the ability to impress shallow people and hurt the feelings of the poor, who are already humiliated enough.

When I buy boots, I don’t buy $65 Chinese disposables from Rural King. They will hurt my feet, let water in, and fail in less than a year. On the other hand, I don’t spend $1500 on custom-made boots from Oregon. I don’t need them, and I don’t get a good return on the investment. I’ll spend $140-$250 to get something that will last years and do a great job. Very often, $250 boots sell for over a hundred dollars less on Amazon. I have boots I bought over 20 years ago.

Often, buying good, expensive things ends up costing less than buying cheap things. I understand that. And trying to save money has caused me a huge amount of unnecessary pain. But you will never see me in a $500 Gucci baseball cap unless someone puts it on my corpse.

A friend of mine has a diesel Mercedes SUV. I thought he got it because he liked diesels, but now I think he drives it partly for status.

The car has been a nightmare to own. I hate it. It had a persistent limp mode problem for maybe two years. To replace the battery, you have to cut the carpeting or remove the passenger seat. It has cheaply-made engine parts that fail routinely, and they are very expensive to buy. Working on it is pure hell.

I have a Ford and a Dodge. I think they’re both fantastic. Reliable, comfortable, and common, so everyone knows how to fix them, and parts are everywhere. I never asked myself whether my wife would be impressed when she saw it. She was supposed to be impressed with me and the way I treated her, not a machine. But a big percentage of American women–this is incomprehensible to me–are put off by great men in ordinary cars. Incredibly, there are millions of women in American who will have sex with you just because you have a high-end car. That’s worse than being a whore. A whore gets paid.

My friend has an Iphone, which he hates. I asked him why he got it. He said he got it because women like them. I can’t figure out how it feels to think that way. If women started saying they were insanely excited by men in a certain $3 shirt from Tractor Supply, I wouldn’t buy one.

My wife likes Land Rovers. She will never have one if I have to pay for it. They’re unreliable. They cost a fortune. The insurance is high. They only exist to impress people who don’t matter.

My car is now 9 years old. It has fewer than 75,000 miles on it. It has no rust. The interior is good. I may drive it until I die. It has antilock brakes, a bunch of airbags, climate control, and comfortable seats. It was made before spy technology made it possible for the government to shut cars down and helped insurance companies find out how people drove.

What else do I need?

I’m building up her jewelry collection. A woman has to have jewelry. I get her tasteful pieces that look great, but I will never jeopardize our future by buying a ruby the size of a lima bean. Apart from the cost, over-the-top jewelry makes women look shallow. A lot of it makes them look ghetto.

God has given us extraordinary blessings. We have a nice house in a secluded area far from the Satanic lefist and Islamist mobs. Away from the constant parade of murderous, entitled sexual perverts. We have enough wealth. We have good food and clothing. We don’t have to go to work and bend the knee to a system designed to crush Christians.

He didn’t give us these things because we were good people who deserved it. He let himself be tortured to death so he could show his love by giving us all this in spite of the fact that we are failures. If we show off and make other people feel bad, and if we want them to admire us for receiving charity in return for our histories of vileness, then we are provoking God to take it all away and give us what we deserve.

There are tens of millions of Americans out there spending money they have not earned, along with crippling interest, in order to make other people (sincere Kardashian fans and influence-worshipers) think they’re bigger deals than they are. These are the same people who go on Facebook and post photos of their cars and dream vacations. They are the same people who post glowing remarks about their perfect families while they are having screaming fights in front of their kids or losing children to homosexuality and drugs.

I don’t understand the social media liars. Everyone who knows them knows about their failures, and they talk.

I used to go to church with a deacon named Manny. He called himself an architect, and he called his business and architecture and engineering firm. He has never been to college. He’s committing crimes by pretending to be a licensed professional. If he ever tries to design anything, he could get someone killed.

His wife used to post family photos and say how wonderful their lives were. Meanwhile, she texted a friend of mine and said her life was a living hell and she had to get away from Manny.

My wife knows a model from Zambia. She lives in the USA. She posts photos of her expensive things, like $30,000 purses. This is a common thing in Africa, as it is among ghetto people here. Bragging is considered acceptable, and people who do it also make fun of the poor people who comment.

My wife says she just found out this woman is a whore. Are the purses real? Well, she lied about herself, so she’ll lie about a purse. What about the cars? Anyone can stand next to someone else’s car in a picture. Ghetto people do it all the time. Same people who get a hundred singles and one hundred-dollar bill, put the big bill on the top, and fan the whole stack out in pictures so it looks like they have $10,000.

I don’t think it’s evil to drive a nice mid-priced car through a slum. It’s not evil to have a big house as long as it’s not a nouveau-riche status symbol tarted up with things like a helipad. I think it’s fine to go on vacation and use a good camera to take pictures in a poor country. But God surely hates showing off, which is gratuitous. You have to watch it.

I hope that if we really are looking at a permanently lowered American standard of living, God spares his children and helps us to be generous and quiet. With all the other spirits, nations, and people out there trying to destroy our prosperity, the last thing we need is to join them.

I’m going to make a special effort to toe the line and get my wife to do the same.