Armed Polite Society
Main Forums => The Roundtable => Topic started by: Jocassee on January 15, 2015, 12:56:22 PM
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https://www.yahoo.com/parenting/teen-opens-pawn-shop-for-sneakers-108170991002.html
Basketball sneakers can sell and re-sell for hundreds of dollars, depending on the shoe model, how limited the production run was, and how easy it is to find a pair in good condition. Sneaker Pawn carries shoes with price tags of more than $1,000.
I truly do not get the whole Sneaker thing. Granted as a High SPF Person who appreciates good footwear, I have been known to shell out up to $200 for a pair of boots that will last three or 4 years of 5-7 days wear per week.
But this seems like status symbol whoring to me. Correct me if I am wrong.
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Sounds like a convenient fence for untraceable goods.
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The duo decided to renovate the space in Harlem, where they had been living before moving elsewhere, into a retail location. And to pay for it all, Chase sold his own collection, bringing in about $30,000.
Imelda Marcos, move over.
I've got to hand it to the kid's father - holding the multi-hundred dollar shoes until the kid paid back the money he borrowed to buy them. I'm seeing holding the kicks for ransom as possibly a better way of getting the kid to go out and get a job than saying "Wait until you earn your own money to buy them." This way the kid is (should be?) less tempted to spend his money on something else. It's sad that the Gimme-I Want Generation has come down to that.
stay safe.
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But this seems like status symbol whoring to me. Correct me if I am wrong.
Aside from John DeLorean, very few people have ever gone broke once they figured out a good way to pimp out a status symbol.
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Aside from John DeLorean, very few people have ever gone broke once they figured out a good way to pimp out a status symbol.
John didn't quite pimp out his status symbol enough.
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Same with the entire "Fresh" hat thing, "Bling", and "Pimp my Ride".
It's the ghetto equivalent of Animal Courtship and Male Mating Displays, aka "Look at me, I'm rich baby."
However, if ghetto females have any sense (which the vast majority do not), they would realize that any male that devoted that much money to displays of wealth obviously does not have any or else they would not need to flaunt it, nor would they still be in ghetto.
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Sounds like a convenient fence for untraceable goods.
^^ I think you're onto something there.
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Same with the entire "Fresh" hat thing, "Bling", and "Pimp my Ride".
It's the ghetto equivalent of Animal Courtship and Male Mating Displays, aka "Look at me, I'm rich baby."
However, if ghetto females have any sense (which the vast majority do not), they would realize that any male that devoted that much money to displays of wealth obviously does not have any or else they would not need to flaunt it, nor would they still be in ghetto.
Not just the ghetto. It's popular in urban "culture", that is to say among anyone who listens to rap etc.
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... or else they would not need to flaunt it, nor would they still be in ghetto.
Disagree.
Seen too many males with all sorts of high amounts of cash on them still living and operating in the ghetto. Only one had thought far enough ahead to buy his mom a new dress for Easter.
It was an obviously cheap crappy one, which might have contributed to the fact that she turned him in. That and the $1000 Tip Line reward. (Don't diss mom!)
stay safe.
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Same with the entire "Fresh" hat thing, "Bling", and "Pimp my Ride".
It's the ghetto equivalent of Animal Courtship and Male Mating Displays, aka "Look at me, I'm rich baby."
However, if ghetto females have any sense (which the vast majority do not), they would realize that any male that devoted that much money to displays of wealth obviously does not have any or else they would not need to flaunt it, nor would they still be in ghetto.
This phenomenon is not limited to the ghetto. Non-ghetto status symbols include different but still-expensive cars, houses in the nice part of the city, fashionable clothes, large bank accounts, etc. Competitive acquisition is universal.
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This phenomenon is not limited to the ghetto. Non-ghetto status symbols include different but still-expensive cars, houses in the nice part of the city, fashionable clothes, large bank accounts, etc. Competitive acquisition is universal.
Yes, but it's done after basic needs, and self-sufficiency are met. So there's still a difference IMO.
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Yes, but it's done after basic needs, and self-sufficiency are met. So there's still a difference IMO.
Meh. Not always.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0HX4a5P8eE
There were a lot of home foreclosures in the "nice" neighborhoods. And on the flip side, I don't see the folks in the ghetto with nice sneakers starving, or sleeping in their Escalade's, so I would argue they have met their basic needs. Just because they managed to do it with your money doesn't mean they weren't met.
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https://www.yahoo.com/parenting/teen-opens-pawn-shop-for-sneakers-108170991002.html
I truly do not get the whole Sneaker thing. Granted as a High SPF Person who appreciates good footwear, I have been known to shell out up to $200 for a pair of boots that will last three or 4 years of 5-7 days wear per week.
But this seems like status symbol whoring to me. Correct me if I am wrong.
You spend out the money for boots that you will actually use and work in, plus you buy one pair.
And you buy it with your own, legitimately earned money.
I think I've told this story before...
My cousin dated a basketball player at her university. He got her pregnant and dumped her. Later, when he got kicked out of his apartment she (dumbass) invited him to move in with her family out of the kindness of their hearts and because he was the father of the child. He wound up getting pissed off and running home to his mom and left a bunch of his stuff.
I went up to my cousin's house and stayed with them for a week. The room he had been staying in was full of shoes, it was over 30 pairs. Boxes and boxes and boxes of $200+ sneakers. Closets full of new clothes, flat brimmed hats everywhere, and because his job was manager of a shitty ass nightclub, a bunch of suits and such.
There had to be at least 6 grand plus of clothing in that room, yet the son of a bitch mother *expletive deleted*er didn't contribute a dime to the child's wellbeing. Ghetto trash...
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I went up to my cousin's house and stayed with them for a week. The room he had been staying in was full of shoes, it was over 30 pairs. Boxes and boxes and boxes of $200+ sneakers. Closets full of new clothes, flat brimmed hats everywhere, and because his job was manager of a shitty ass nightclub, a bunch of suits and such.
A trip to the worst laundromat in town with some leftover fiberglass insulation seems to be in order. Dryers will distribute that stuff throughout the clothing pretty effectively.
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This phenomenon is not limited to the ghetto. Non-ghetto status symbols include different but still-expensive cars, houses in the nice part of the city, fashionable clothes, large bank accounts, etc. Competitive acquisition is universal.
There is a huge difference between having stuff that you worked hard for and can afford and flaunting stuff that you can't afford.
A good corollary would be the middle class guy driving a 12 year old car worth a few thousand dollars home to a well kept and well maintained $150,000 house, while ghetto trash drive a $40,000 escalade/mercedes/lexus to their squalid broken down house in a garbage strewn yard.
There is an idiom that comes to mind: Big hat, no cattle.
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There is a huge difference between having stuff that you worked hard for and can afford and flaunting stuff that you can't afford.
Considering the number of cars repo'd in nice neighborhoods, I'd have to say it still spans socioeconomic classes.
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A good corollary would be the middle class guy driving a 12 year old car worth a few thousand dollars home to a well kept and well maintained $150,000 house, while ghetto trash drive a $40,000 escalade/mercedes/lexus to their squalid broken down house in a garbage strewn yard.
The funny thing is that Ghetto trash have a lot harder time getting credit, and middle class folks are WAY more often financing their cars. You seem more annoyed that the ghetto folks have chosen different status symbols to concentrate on.
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The funny thing is that Ghetto trash have a lot harder time getting credit, and middle class folks are WAY more often financing their cars. You seem more annoyed that the ghetto folks have chosen different status symbols to concentrate on.
There is an element of that, I think.
Still, the house should sell for about what you paid for it, inflation adjusted. It maintains it's value. The value of a $40k Escalade with spinners drops like a rock in relation, even worse if it's not maintained properly.
For that matter, the interest on a home is normally less than rent for all but the nastiest of ghetto places.
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True on the value of the car. Less so I think on the interest. The interest I pay on my main house would rent my rental property, and I lived in that house for 10 years. It's a nice little place.
But on the subject of status symbols: My Econ 101 teacher has a saying: Incentives Matter.
For the Ghetto folks (of all colors) we have set up a system where, if they are "poor" enough, the .gov will give them money, food, and housing. Or at least parts of it. The government, being mostly not ghetto folks, then set the benchmarks for "poor enough" by non ghetto norms. i.e. good job, own a house, bank accounts. Things like that. We incentiveized NOT having traditional signs of wealth. Incentives Matter.
So, because I really do think competition is hardwired into the human psyche the folks responded to that incentive and found ways to compete with their neighbors without loosing the free benefits. They pretty much made up new wealth symbols. So we have wheels, shoes, clothes, cars and the like rising in this subculture. It's not any different from the more traditional forms of wealth competition.
You can argue about "basic needs first" and debt all you want, but by and large the folks with shoes, suits and nice cars are demonstrably not starving, nor are they living in the streets. I'm not sure what basic needs you feel they haven't met before they bought the kicks?
I understand, and agree, that the mooching they use to meet those needs is repugnant, but it is a pretty obvious response to the system and incentives Liberal White Guilt set up for poor america. Out where near where I live it's a rough trailer, a $50,000 truck and $5000 worth of Duck Commander clothes. In the city it's a Caddy, 30 pairs of Nike's and a different hat for every day. In my actual neighborhood it's $300,000 homes, more cars in the family than drivers, and Nice suits from Nordstroms. Either way it's all the same dance. I applaud the OP for finding a good way to profit from human nature.
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Still, the house should sell for about what you paid for it, inflation adjusted. It maintains it's value. The value of a $40k Escalade with spinners drops like a rock in relation, even worse if it's not maintained properly.
Also, very few people get drunk and destroy their house overnight.
Outside the ghetto, some of it comes down to working for a symbol; plenty of guys around here drive cars that would normally be well outside their means because they bought it with a blown engine or similar price-killing issue for less than the down payment on a working one would have been, then fixed it up themselves. Harder to do that with a house, since the initial investment for anything but a burned out shell is going to be a lot harder to save up, and you can't exactly stick a 3/2 in the garage while you overhaul it one part at a time.
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For the Ghetto folks (of all colors) we have set up a system where, if they are "poor" enough, the .gov will give them money, food, and housing. Or at least parts of it. The government, being mostly not ghetto folks, then set the benchmarks for "poor enough" by non ghetto norms. i.e. good job, own a house, bank accounts. Things like that. We incentiveized NOT having traditional signs of wealth. Incentives Matter.
I understand, and agree, that the mooching they use to meet those needs is repugnant, but it is a pretty obvious response to the system and incentives Liberal White Guilt set up for poor america.
I was part of 'poor america' growing up, as I'm sure many others here have been.
Taking handouts in the form of welfare or food stamps was never an option.
If you were healthy enough to shovel *expletive deleted*it, mow a lawn, or clean a house, you weren't poor enough to take a handout.
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I was part of 'poor america' growing up, as I'm sure many others here have been.
Taking handouts in the form of welfare or food stamps was never an option.
Government cheese, and then food stamps was always the only option we allowed; keeping everybody fed was top priority. Anything other than food, we'd borrow money (and then paying it back became the next priority below food) to cover it rather than taking the handout. The concept of declaring anything beyond food, critical (and limited preventive - no point letting an infection take hold and then become critical at a vastly higher cost, for example) medical care, basic clothing and shelter to be so essential that it should even be possible to get it as a handout just makes my brain hurt.
Employment assistance, I'd put in a separate category, when done right. More of an investment than a handout. Still, like any investment, it should be done on a case by case basis with full attention to the needs and the potential of each case.
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I was part of 'poor america' growing up, as I'm sure many others here have been.
Taking handouts in the form of welfare or food stamps was never an option.
If you were healthy enough to shovel *expletive deleted*it, mow a lawn, or clean a house, you weren't poor enough to take a handout.
Right, bubut that is no longer the case, and hasn't been for at least 30 years. Probably longer.
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Harder to do that with a house, since the initial investment for anything but a burned out shell is going to be a lot harder to save up, and you can't exactly stick a 3/2 in the garage while you overhaul it one part at a time.
It's no harder to do with a house than a car, it just takes longer. Lotsa people, myself included, remodel our own houses. Most do it for resale and profit. I'm doing it because I want to live in a house that will eventually be well above my means.
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Right, bubut that is no longer the case, and hasn't been for at least 30 years. Probably longer.
Yep, long enough to get multi-generational families who have never known anything other than being on welfare for their entire lives.
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It's no harder to do with a house than a car, it just takes longer.
The initial investment is the key; I can buy a crappy beater with one paycheck, and never have to save up more than one paycheck at a time for parts to fix it up. I don't know of anywhere off the top of my head where $1,000 would even buy an empty lot, so doing it with a house requires a lot more saving up to get started.
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That implies you need a down payment. Having met an idiot that actually got a NINJA mortgage, I can tell you that's untrue.
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That implies you need a down payment. Having met an idiot that actually got a NINJA mortgage, I can tell you that's untrue.
And those don't exist anymore. All the GSE* backed mortgage lenders have really tightened up their minimum requirements. And no private equity lender or small to regional bank is will to do anything less then what the GSE's mandate.
*- Government Sponsored Entities: Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, FHA, VA, etc.
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And those don't exist anymore. All the GSE* backed mortgage lenders have really tightened up their minimum requirements. And no private equity lender or small to regional bank is will to do anything less then what the GSE's mandate.
Have they fixed the fraud problem?