Terry Pratchett said it best!
“The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money,” wrote Pratchett. “Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of okay for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles. But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that’d still be keeping his feet dry in ten years’ time, while a poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.”
brygphilomena@lemmy.world 9 months ago
The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money.
Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles.
But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that’d still be keeping his feet dry in ten years’ time, while the poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.
PerCarita@discuss.tchncs.de 9 months ago
The Sam Vimes’ Theory of Socio-Economic Unfairness! Can we be friends? XD
CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world 9 months ago
I always think of Ben Stein’s comment in that Frontline episode on the Secret History of the Credit Card - people that pay off their credit cards every month and pay no interest are called “deadbeats”. Around the 11m 30s mark…as it goes for credit cards, it goes for so very many other things. If you can afford an upfront hit or what have you, you pay less than people that are in a worse financial situation.
inv.tux.pizza/watch?v=2mHsTKvAuZc