How to maintain your social status in the United States

Last week we c husband, white wealthy people, took a sofa from the trash. A small crack in it was easily repaired with two screws, and the covers were washed down to novelty. Ikea wants 400 dollars for this. Now he, who has found a second life, is looking at the mist-eaten hills of San Francisco, one of the most expensive cities on Earth.

The activities of corporations and the boom of startups in Silicon Valley have led to the fact that renting a modest one-room housing takes from two to four thousand per month. If you have a million dollars, in our area you can afford a house that will be a bit more decent than a barn. And people who buy these and more expensive houses, do not hesitate to drag them to the piece of furniture from the nearest garbage. This is because the circulation of things in America is not related to social status.

Locals love picking up furniture and appliances by the road. The hunt happens like this: you follow the site Craigslistlooking for eyes curb alert - announcement of things left on the sidewalk. You have about half an hour to get to the specified point and drag off the treasure yourself, while others have not reached it.

Googlers (employees Google) other tech-tolstosums, among others, like free, in spite of the fact that for getting a job - sign-up - they are stimulated with cash bonuses. Depending on the contribution to the process, the new employer encourages someone to 20 thousands of dollars, and someone can bargain all 100. Enough to order trinkets by Amazon drones for the rest of their lives. The technological elite has its own internal exchange sites: this is how a printer from the Amazon office drops to you via a dating network.

The progressive layer prefers to exchange services and goods on the spot, supporting the local commune (self-sustaining community).

We ourselves unknowingly became participants in such recycling, exchanging a high-quality audio system produced in the 90 for an expensive modern speaker from an American friend. For a person from the side of such a deal is meaningless. For participants, the exchange is priceless. Another friend of mine simplified her needs to the level of the Stone Age: olive and coconut oil, soda, alcohol, baby powder and clay from the mountain replace her with shampoo, antiperspirant and cream.

Natives bay area peaceful hippie nudists without much financial ambition, consider the giants as the insatiable Silicon Valley plague. Abusive posters throughout the city do not spare biodegradable electrical tape and recycled paper. However, those and others suffer from the inflated price tag. Therefore, with all the duality of money perception, the meaning of the existence of both forces is often reduced to the Jobs garage.

But there are others related to mental stability, level of education and basic wealth. This is expressed in clothing and general appearance: "formal" or "non-formal."

A rich man can live in a mansion with colonnades in the woods or on the edge of a cliff, like Tony Stark, but maybe in a trailer in the parking lot. Downstairs people live in tents on the central streets of financial districts. These two categories have the blessed freedom of being off-grid (off-the-grid). But the representative of the middle class, the “collar”, has to hide from everyone that he now does not live in an apartment, but in his old silver sedan, whether it is forced or to save. Being voluntary prisoners of the American social matrix, people must externally correspond to others of the same, safely existing in the body of the loan, so that society will accept them.

The buyer and the store are playing a game: who will beat whom. It starts on a sunny Sunday morning, the buyer performs the ritual, taking up all the available parking spaces at the shopping center, now Sunday shopping is the equivalent of a Sunday mass.

The client came to shop on the principle shut up and take my money but it does not want to pay the full cost. Moll prepared for him coupons, promotions and bulk carts for economical large ("family") packages.

Here you will find a plastic device for easily squeezing toothpaste, ceramic bird-shaped plates for the names of dishes, and hamster suits: Magister Yoda, Darth Vader, Princess Leia. All these cute things at surrealistic prices - three, five, nine ninety-nine - would be desirable. They take possession of your soul no worse than the products of the alcoholic beverage department.

Things up to twenty dollars of the same quality can be purchased as in the low price segment - Walmart, and on average - Target or Kohl's, and Macy'soriented to the upper middle class. Second hand goods Goodwill cost the same as new discounted outlets like Marshalls. Leather jacket in H&M and Bloomingdale's: 200 dollars against two thousand. Having come to a discount, the second will cost 400.

Shops without a single question and emotions on the seller’s face return money for unpacked and used. Underwear can be attributed back if tags remain on it. One way to save up to fifty percent is to buy Refurbished - products that were returned by someone due to malfunctions and repaired by the store.

The next morning after Black Friday, an expert panel of teens white-toothed blondes with mock smiles will show on TV a custom video of fights for a forty-inch plasma. "Americans are trained to consume and demand"- commented on the local consumer habits of a familiar American of Irish descent.

With the relative cheapness of things healthy food is expensive. By healthy, I mean acceptable quality farm vegetables with no pronounced smell of vegetables, meat, dairy and fruit, either with tiny bones, or like California watermelons and grapes - without seeds at all. But also in comparison with the average price tag of servings in a restaurant (20 dollars) - it is more profitable to cook at home. This is what expatriates in the first generation do, in whose culture cooking is natural. The average American is not adapted to this, therefore, daily eats in a cafe.

Later, all his life efforts are reduced to finding loopholes in the bureaucracy, to pay less or, if lucky, not to pay anything for a while. People do not get tired cheating the system with ease and ease. In response, she will certainly do the same with them.

A year of study in a regular city college costs from 10 to 20 thousand dollars. The loan rate is modest: 1-5%. A small loan restructuring is possible if you present your bank with a favorable offer from a competitor bank.

Masters of life skills are those who are able to relatively quickly pay debts for school and home. This is real if you give up the car, the cat, the daily latte from Starbucks and move to Wyoming. To maintain your credit rating, do not recommend marriage with those who have it much lower. You can still pretend to be mentally ill and receive a monthly allowance of 800 dollars from the state.

Corporations also prefer life hacking in the form of reduced prices on 20 employees from personnel firms - contractors. In the hands of an employee hired through an agency company, up to 70% of the amount paid for him remains. Such an employee is not protected by labor law as a staff member; it is much easier to hire and fire him. People humbly go to reduce the value of their labor due to high competition.

The deity of capitalism constantly requires little sacrifice. A prerequisite is the connection of the newly-baked American within two weeks to all systems of life activity: banking, insurance, and communal. From now on, questionnaires will always be filled out, application fees will be charged, credit history will be checked - hard check. A whole list of usernames and passwords for each breath and breath of free American air appears.

Rebuilding a TV costing 1000 dollars after the expiration of the warranty will cost approximately 1500, excluding 20% Californian tax and a symbolic fee - 49,99 - for detecting the problem.

Much has been written about American de facto socialism. Despite the fact that politicians are afraid to pronounce the “s” word out loud, the vast middle stratum of people who are not deprived of anything exists largely thanks to embodied socialist ideas. During the years of overcoming the Great Depression, unemployment benefits appeared - and still exist today. People with physical and mental disabilities are employed. Employers provide social packages and retirement plans.

But today, many Americans are looking for a solution for themselves, how to become independent of any financial income - some have experience of bankruptcy during the 2008 crisis of the year, others are simply filled and seek other values. Having a scant understanding of other countries, they attribute things to themselves as their main vice. Therefore, they began to look for a cure for it, trying to rid themselves for the beginning of everyday monetary slavery.

The popularity of service exchange sites and time banks (hourly professional mutual assistance in local communities) amid economic crises, as well as the development of 3D printing technologies and voluntary self-abuse in consumption suggest that American passionaries and creators are beginning to think about the importance of things more than about their cost. Borrowing the concepts of the eastern worldview at the junction of recycled capitalist and socialist ideas gives rise to new values.

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