Wealth

A little over a week ago I got an iPhone. I have to say that I love it. As an avid Apple user it meets all the demands I have for a phone that wants to connect me to the Internet. While there are complaints about it from some slightly more hardcore users, I find it fits my needs fairly well.

As I was getting my iPhone activated I noticed a skuzzy looking guy who was probably some sort of manual laborer getting an iPhone as well. That said I recently saw an article on /. that said that even lower-middle class people are getting the iPhone. Now this makes sense seeing as how the plan it only slightly more than what most people are paying for cell service now and the phone itself is not to prices. This bit of news and the economy have got me to thinking about money and buying power.

The day I bought my iPhone we had a discussion about the idea of wealth in my economics class. One student said that thanks to the market "crisis" he didn't feel that wealthy. To this I and a few others tried to correct him by suggesting that he has yet to worry about getting food or anything else despite the slowdown with the professor chiming in, "The US, where a problem is that the poor people are fat." Our point was that we are so wealthy that we feel poor even when we are able to be overweight if we so please.

This is such a stark contrast to a few generations ago. My grandparents, all of whom have passed, were all never high ranking people. They all came from modest backgrounds where they all made decent livings and knew how to save and make a dollar into more than it was when they first got it. These were people who live through the Great Depression, went to war, and worked until they were able to retire comfortably. For them by the time they were ready to retire they were wealthy.

Now, they were not wealthy in the way that they could have gone out and bought manor houses and rare art. They were wealthy in that they could buy large meaty meals every day and feed me just about anything I could have wanted whenever I was over. They loved watching me eat. They also liked giving me nice things like clothes and toys, but it was being able to see me provided with a thick juicy steak that really made their hearts sing. Not that I am blaming them for my being a bit overweight for a good part of my life. I am just saying that they saw intense value in food and wanted me to have it.

My brother has a kid now, making my parents grandparents. However, I don't think that they will get the same sort of joy out of feeding my niece as my grandparents had for me. This is because they have never felt like food wasn't something people simply just have without much question. Now the quality of food, that will always be something to want to improve, but food itself...

I say this because in our troubled economic times when we are riding a roller coaster of an economy trying to find its way in a post-housing bubble world, we need to have some perspective. We need to appreciate that we are so comfortable with our food supply that even the proletariat can buy what might be considered high technology. We don't have to decide between iPhones and butter. We have both, and by most people's standards we here in the US are pretty wealthy.