Owning an iPhone is the Number-One Way To Guess if You're Rich or Not, Research Finds (businessinsider.com) 497
An anonymous reader shares a report: In the United States, if you have an Apple iPhone or iPad, it's a strong sign that you make a lot of money. That's one of the takeaways from a new National Bureau of Economic Research working paper from University of Chicago economists Marianne Bertrand and Emir Kamenica. "Across all years in our data, no individual brand is as predictive of being high-income as owning an Apple iPhone in 2016," the researchers wrote. There are details and caveats to the research, but the economists found that owning an iPhone gave them a 69% chance to correctly infer that the owner was "high-income," which they defined as being in the top quartile of income for households of that type -- like single adult or couple with dependents, for example.
Owning a luxury car (or jet/yatch) is even better (Score:4, Insightful)
I know a better way: owning a Ferrari is definitely even more precise! I am pretty sure the correlation for Ferrari -> rich is close to 100%.
And on my one person sample (me), it's 100% more accurate since I don't own an iPhone (yuck!) but do have a Ferrari (albeit an old one.)
Re:Owning a luxury car (or jet/yatch) is even bett (Score:5, Insightful)
Both iphones and Ferraris sometimes only predict that your parents are high income.
Re:Owning a luxury car (or jet/yatch) is even bett (Score:5, Insightful)
They're talking about wealth - not income. And thanks to the low class mobility in the U.S., the number one way to become rich is to be born to rich parents.
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Re:Owning a luxury car (or jet/yatch) is even bett (Score:5, Funny)
Owning a Ferrari is a sign that you are going bald and have a small dick.
It has been that forever.
Re:Owning a luxury car (or jet/yatch) is even bett (Score:5, Funny)
Owning a Ferrari is a sign that you are going bald and have a small dick. It has been that forever.
Can confirm: Thick hair, big dick, no Ferrari.
Re:Owning a luxury car (or jet/yatch) is even bett (Score:4, Informative)
This is actually a serious philosophical question - the Raven paradox [wikipedia.org].
Let's say you want to prove a statement like "All ravens are black". This statement is logically equivalent to saying "If something is not black, it's not a raven."
Now let's say you find an apple, and it's green. That is a non-black object, which is not a raven. So the existence of a green apple is evidence in favor of the second statement ("If something is not black, it's not a raven"), which in turn supports the first statement.
But how can finding a green apple teach you something about ravens?
See above link for attempted resolutions.
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As usual the detective method you want to employ is determined by the type of error you can most tolerate.
IPhone Owner - Higher false positive rate. Lots people who are not rich manage to get their hands on one. So you mistake them for money because they have a phone. Clearly there are still false negatives, even though Apple is considered the luxury brand in the space Samsung for one makes some very nice high end phones as well and some rich people no doubt prefer them.
Ferrari ownership - Higher false n
How the car is different than the phone (Score:3)
First you are right, conspicuous consumption like a Ferrari is a status symbol of the wealthy. The Iphone can be that too of course but that would not really account for it's ubiquity. Instead the greater your income the more you are aware that time/money substitutions. The greater you pay rate the more it makes sense to Rather than use your own time to do something you purchase a product that does it. With iphones there's no big surprises and they work well and if they don't apple has great service cen
Re: How the car is different than the phone (Score:2)
It's a status symbol. It demonstrates your status as part of the generic middle class American milieu. Since "everyone" has one, people feel the need to buy one to demonstrate their own status in the herd.
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With that UID I'm surprised that you're even allowed outside.
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Re:Owning a luxury car (or jet/yatch) is even bett (Score:5, Funny)
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Let's compare our senator-wallets, maybe we could exchange a few.
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Re: Owning a luxury car (or jet/yatch) is even bet (Score:3)
Well, that claim was never about price, but ease of use. The Mac was for "the rest of us" who didn't want to deal with MS-DOS.
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Ferraris, feh. Owning a senator is how to tell if you're rich or not.
In Russia, owning a President is how to tell if you're super-rich or not.
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Honestly, from what I've gathered, owning a Senator is cheaper than a Ferrari.
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(and four helicopters, a dozen figther-jets, two nuclear-capable bombers (three soon), a lot of tanks and support vehicles. Ah, and two battleships)
Re: Owning a luxury car (or jet/yatch) is even bet (Score:4, Informative)
I live in Europe. I can roam the whole continent and probably a lot further too with the same SIM card.
no individual brand is as predictive... yeah (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously? Owning a Bentley is a worse predictor of being high-income than owning an Apple iPhone? Are we sure there are no further qualifications here?
Re:no individual brand is as predictive... yeah (Score:5, Informative)
Re:no individual brand is as predictive... yeah (Score:5, Insightful)
"no individual brand is as predictive of being high-income as owning an Apple iPhone in 2016," Seriously? Owning a Bentley is a worse predictor of being high-income than owning an Apple iPhone? Are we sure there are no further qualifications here?
Uh, from TFA:
"In 2004, Land O' Lakes butter and Kikkoman soy sauce were predictive of high-income households. In 1992, Grey Poupon mustard was the strongest sign of a rich family."
I've found more useful statistical data from bullshit articles on The Onion, which this might as well be. I sure as hell hope taxpayers aren't funding this "research".
Re:no individual brand is as predictive... yeah (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously? Owning a Bentley is a worse predictor of being high-income than owning an Apple iPhone?
Yes. I know plenty of people in the top quartile, and none of them own Bentleys.
If you want to determine if a randomly selected person is in the top 25% by income, asking if they own a Bentley would be a very poor discriminator.
Top quartile cutoff is $78k. If your household income is above that you are "rich" according to TFA.
Disclaimer: I am top quartile. I own an iPhone 6 refurb. I do not have a Bentley.
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You poor, poor devil. :)
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Top quartile cutoff is $78k. If your household income is above that you are "rich" according to TFA.
Disclaimer: I am top quartile. I own an iPhone 6 refurb. I do not have a Bentley.
The article header here on Slashdot is a little misleading:
"Owning an iPhone is the Number-One Way To Guess if You're Rich or Not, Research Finds"
If you're single and make $78k; yeah, you're likely rich, can save the vast majority of your pay check, have lots in the bank and probably never worry about money.
If you're a family of 6 and make $78k, you're definitely not rich. You probably go without a lot of things, worry about money constantly, probably have no savings -living pay check to pay check- and co
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Top quartile cutoff is $78k. If your household income is above that you are "rich" according to TFA.
Depends where you live I guess.
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Roughly, they are looking for households making over 100k/year.
Sure, if you own a Bentley, you are in that group. If you don't own a Bentley, you probably still have about a 25% chance of being in that group, so it's a poor indicator because of the false negative rate.
Of course, as they point out, this isn't a good measure either. There's a 30% false-positive rate, and presumably a very high false-negative rate. It's just *less* severe than brands like Bentley or Ferrari.
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I earn less than 100K. I don't have a Bentley. I do have an iPhone.
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Which is the 30% false-positive rate that I pointed out.
In other words, there is *no* singular brand/product choice to indicate wealth very well, but of those product/brand choices, the iPhone comes the *closest* to such a mythical thing. Still not to be used by itself, but as a weighted factor among other pieces of data, if you really need to care that much.
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I earn less than 100K. I don't have a Bentley. I do have an iPhone.
Same as my mom, who lives on her social security. But then, I pay for the phone.
*predictive* brand (Score:3)
Owning a Bentley is a worse predictor of being high-income than owning an Apple iPhone?
Yup, because you might be seeing a 25%-er that owns a Ferrari instead. Or one who own a Maseratti. Or one who owns a Tesla Roadster with all the stupid options like SpaceX rockets. Or a Porsche. etc.
But all of them happen to own an iPhone, just like a significant chunk of all the other 25%ers (including that 25%ers who doesn't own any car and entirely relies on professional driver services (you know the services that UberBlack drivers actually do for a living when they're not moonlighting on Uber) )
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"no individual brand is as predictive of being high-income as owning an Apple iPhone in 2016,"
Seriously? Owning a Bentley is a worse predictor of being high-income than owning an Apple iPhone? Are we sure there are no further qualifications here?
I suspect the "research" was done to fit the Iphone owners opinion of themselves.
Iphones are not a status symbol, the only people who think they are status symbols are hopeless Apple fanboys. For most people they're just another phone, even someone on benefits can get one on a £40 a month contract. Possibly less.
Likewise you don't have to be rich to own a Bentley, there are a few 90's Brooklands or Mulsannes going for less than £10,000. OTOH, there are people still living with their mum s
Apple haters (Score:3)
Iphones are not a status symbol, the only people who think they are status symbols are hopeless Apple fanboys.
Actually I'd say the only people who think (or hope) they are status symbols are people who are Apple haters. Given that each and every one of my grand parents (and yours too I'm betting) owns an iPhone or an iPad or both, I think we can pretty safely dispense with the myth that they are some sort of status symbol. There's nothing exclusive about them when my grandmother whose only income is Social Security has one.
Image over function (Score:4, Insightful)
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What? You think sports cars and yachts just look good and aren't actually a pleasure to use too?
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I know a few sports cars that are exactly NO pleasure to use. Need a shoehorn to get in, need a pulley to get out, shock absorbers that make your spine the actual shock absorber... no thanks.
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Need a shoehorn to get in, need a pulley to get out, shock absorbers that make your spine the actual shock absorber... no thanks.
Being fat is another indicator of wealth. In the medieval days, being plump meant you were eating well and thus meant you came from wealth. Ergo, found the rich guy.
-dk
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I know a few sports cars that are exactly NO pleasure to use. Need a shoehorn to get in, need a pulley to get out, shock absorbers that make your spine the actual shock absorber... no thanks.
That's called a tradeoff. All that stuff makes a better sports car. Although I have to admit, it IS nice to have a vehicle which can go over broken and bumpy pavement without shaking one to hell. I used to have a 240SX with a 3" drop and over 4x the stock spring rate. It was basically telepathic, but going over bumps was quite painful. Now I have an A8 Quattro. It goes over that stuff like it's not even there, it doesn't even upset the car in a turn. But it also wallows by comparison.
Honestly, if I could wi
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Buy a 90s Miata as a toy. We're talking about beer money for one in decent condition, $3000 or so. I drove one daily and it was even fun as that.
You drink very expensive beer... you must be an iPhone owner and well in the top quartile.
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Buy a 90s Miata as a toy. We're talking about beer money for one in decent condition, $3000 or so. I drove one daily and it was even fun as that.
Spotted the midget. Mazdas are unsuitable for anyone taller than an oompa-loompah, and I'm 6'7". Otherwise I'd get one, I don't care how gay I'd look. I really should have spent my A8 money on a Boxster, I could have had one. Feel dumb now, even if I am very comfortable.
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Depends what you think the function of a phone is. In general I use mine to make and receive phone calls the fact that it's does text, email, calendar reminders, shows me the weather forecast and works like an media player is just a bonus. You won't catch me gaming on my phone or doing other things the screen is just too small.
That being said walmart has iphones right next to the huawei and LG phones now that apple offers low end models.
Smartphones are really just computers (Score:2)
Depends what you think the function of a phone is
Not really. The device in my pocket is called a "smartphone" but the fact that it makes phone calls is fairly incidental to its utility for myself and most people. It's really just a small personal computer with the ability to make phone calls added in. I probably use the phone capability less than 5% of the time I'm using the device and I think I'm pretty typical these days. If you use yours primarily to make calls that makes you something of an outlier.
You won't catch me gaming on my phone or doing other things the screen is just too small.
And why do we care? You be you. If gaming isn't
Pretty != Fun (Score:2)
You think sports cars and yachts just look good and aren't actually a pleasure to use too?
In a lot of cases they are only good to look at and definitely not a pleasure to use. Have you ever actually driven a Lamborghini Countach? I have and it SUCKED. Looks pretty as hell and is fast in a straight line but James May said it far more eloquently [youtube.com] than I could about why it's a terrible car.
Just because something looks good and has a high price tag doesn't necessarily mean it is something you'll enjoy owning.
Re:Image over function (Score:5, Informative)
It seems to me that owning an iPhone shows that you are more concerned about image over function/capability.
This isn't 2007. Nobody is impressed by an iPhone.
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I've owned both Android and iOS phones over the years... an HTC, an original iPhone (which I inherited), a Nexus 4, a OnePlue One, and finally an iPhone 6S.
The Android phones were flagships of their time and a lot cheaper than iPhones. That doesn't seem to be true any more, or at least, the prices for a top-of-the-range iPhone or Samsung are so absurd that I treat them both as luxury goods not meant for me, and the price difference is irrelevant. It's probably still true that you can get better specs in an
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Or maybe you prefer a phone that always gets all the updates, instead of Android phones that are stuck 2, 3 versions behind. After 2 different Android phones I said fuckitalltohell and got an iPhone, and could not be happier.
Confirmation bias (Score:2)
It seems to me that owning an iPhone shows that you are more concerned about image over function/capability.
No that's just your confirmation bias talking. The primary attraction of most Android phones is simply price. (which is very reasonable) The features are a secondary concern at best for most users. If you are arguing that iPhones aren't functional you are crazy. Most buyers of these devices aren't worried about using every last feature and just want something that works. For most users iPhones are primarily about function (they mostly work great), reliability, and not image at all. My parent's are a p
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If you are arguing that iPhones aren't functional you are crazy.
We aren't arguing that :-/ We're arguing that phones for half the price of the iPhone has more functionality.
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they mostly have iPhones because they're tired of ... every vendor trying to lock you into their ecosystem.
....
tied you into their store
While I don't disagree with most of what you said, you complain about vendor lock-in from Android and then you present Apple as the alternative?
I wonder if you realise the irony of that.
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My first iPad was the 10.5" one...the Pro model, I got it decked out with full memory and cellular (if I were to need it).
I didn't buy for a status symbol, frankly, I don't know of anyone that would consider one a s
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
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Or the tastiest glue [pinimg.com].
Odd, it's different in Europe (Score:3, Funny)
In Europe, it's mainly a sign that you're an obnoxious douche that wants others to think that you earn a lot of money.
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In Europe, it's mainly a sign that you're an obnoxious douche that wants others to think that you earn a lot of money.
I certainly feel that way every time I see a "Sent from my iPhone" message as a signature. That signature just exudes sliminess.
Article also says Android... (Score:2)
So there you go. If you own an iPhone or Android, you could be high income. Useful.
More money than sense (Score:2)
Re: More money than sense (Score:2)
If you can afford an iPhone you donâ(TM)t have to be careful with your money. But you still have sense. Why does every Apple hater assume that all folks who but Apple are idiots?
Re: More money than sense (Score:2)
Buy, not but.
Dropping market share... (Score:2)
Never mind phones, WTF dishwasher soap? (Score:2)
Look at the charts in TFA... why is there always a disparity between having a dishwasher and using dishwasher detergent?? The detergent is horrifically caustic so who is using it not in a machine? Either that or what genius is using a machine without detergent? Messed up....
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Since I'm too poor to afford more than one dinner plate, care to explain what you mean by "storage"?
Slow news day? (Score:2)
Wealthier people more likely to be able to afford expensive product than non-wealthy ones, hence more likely to buy it.
Film at 11...
Yeah right (Score:2)
A while back some "study" found that it was healthier drinking coca cola than water - guess who funded that one?
Overpriced Items (Score:2)
Is this a correlation that people who own iPhones have money to burn, or more of a correlation that iPhones are solidly in the over priced category, like many other luxury items?
Who cares anyway? (Score:2)
caveat (Score:2)
Bill Gates... (Score:2)
Apparently Bill Gates is an outlying point in their data:
https://www.zdnet.com/article/... [zdnet.com]
Rich and/or stupid (Score:2)
Insofar as it's an indicator of whether people are careless with their money, sure.
Predictive (Score:2)
Find the zip code. Take in the average of a city and its rent say in Springfield MO, Akron OH, Tuscon AZ, Rochester NY, Asheville NC, Irvine CA, San Jose CA.
Factor in rent control, Section 8 housing social experiments in the same part of the city and see what the wage, trust fund covers per month.
Rent needs a real double working income? Thats not poverty.
A big brand has to offer millions in real convertible cash to get professional workers able to move to an
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I do agree but I only posted because no one ever mentions Rochester,NY.
It's always Buffalo and Syracuse.
As you guessed I live in greater Rochester.
P.S. Isn't the 'dw' pair odd? How many words pronounce that like in 'dwelling'
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A land use restriction on what can be done after spending millions.
Really now? (Score:2)
There are a lot of things I would infer about a person with the ownership of an iphone. Wealth is not necessarily one of them.
Disposable income /= wealthy (Score:2)
Your average THOT owns an iPhone.
Counting on something so fragile is a risky proposition for anyone who gets serious shit done.
FTFY (Score:2)
Owning an iPhone is the Number-One Way To Guess if You're Upper Class or Not, Research Finds
Top 25% != Rich
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news for you, that's not even upper class.
plenty of solidly middle class people own iphones, most the people at work have them. I can afford any phone made...but choose to own android that costs less than half of iphone price
Yeah, sure guys. (Score:2)
Every deadbeat I knw has an iPhone. iPhone ownership predicts that you live in the USA, it says *nothing* about your income except relative to the rest of the world.
No, it's not, from TFA (Score:2)
The iPhone was just the best single product from a very narrow list of products, not the best indicator.
Owning a passport was one of several better indicators.
And an Android phone is a 59% indicator. Come on /.
Interesting, isn't it? (Score:3)
I mean, a total household income of $78,000 qualifies you as in the "top quantile"? I know this gets a bit off-topic of how good an iPhone is as an indicator of being part of that group.... but I find it a bit depressing that our collective incomes have dropped enough to make this a reality.
This isn't talking about individual incomes, mind you - but total household income. 2 parent families with kids and so forth.
That means a husband and wife could each have jobs paying less than $40,000/yr. and yet they're among the "richest" in America that these marketing people are interested in zeroing in on?
I know ..... differences in cost of living by geography and all that. But STILL? My very first "career job" in the early 2000's was doing computer support/helpdesk type work for a small to mid-sized family owned business and I was earning $40,000-ish/yr. pay back then, in the midwest where cost of living was low.
If you're married and the two of you, together, aren't earning at least this "top quantile" of income or darn close to it? It's not even realistic to imagine you can handle paying the typical mortgage for a small home, a couple of car payments so the two of you have vehicles to get to/from work, and paying everything else while saving the minimum recommended amount towards retirement. (If I'm way off base, please explain! I keep reading the economic advice from the people telling us we shouldn't be putting down more than X% of our income on a car payment, and Y% on a mortgage payment, and yet should be putting Z% into a 401K or IRA ... and none of that adds up as possible with a $78K household income, from what I've seen.)
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If everyone with an iphone is rich, this is the richest country of fucking retards imaginable
Professional Narcissist and Attention Whore are now paid professions. The 21st Century has doubled down on the fact that wealth has never been a guarantee of intelligence.
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Pretty much this. The only person in my extended family that owns an iPhone is the one who lives with their parents (and happens to be a waitress). The rest (business owner, physician, sports clothing company creative director, etc.) own Android phones.
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Rich people create jobs? How? By buying lots of junk?
Some Android phones cost about the same (Score:2)
Some Android phones cost about the same and they are more open
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I can't afford to keep upgrading to the next version because Apple fucking bricked my current one with their fucking updates.
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You're good for 5 years or so with a new iPhone before an OS comes along that it can't use. If you cant afford to update your phone at lease every 5 years, you're nowhere near wealthy. So you fit the correlation nicely.
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No you can't. You can rent-to-own an iPhone at a substantial markup by including the rental price in your monthly phone service bill.
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Over here they're called basement dwellers.
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The survey is based on HOUSEHOLD income. So kids living with their parents count as "rich" if the parents are "rich". Since all income counts, if the kids are employed, even in low wage jobs, they likely push their household over the threshold.
The main difference between households in the top quartile and bottom quartile is not wage or salary level, but NUMBER OF PEOPLE WORKING. In the bottom quartile, an average of 0.4 people are in full time employment. In the top quartile, an average of 2.1 people ar
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This. Over here in Europe you can watch younger (read: 20-25 year old) second generation immigrants that drive the stereotypical BMW Model 3, carry around iPhones and other trinkets and when you wonder how they afford it, the magic answer is usually leasing. And when you dig deeper, you eventually find out that they don't even technically own the Calvin Klein Boxers they're wearing.
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This. Over here in Europe you can watch younger (read: 20-25 year old) second generation immigrants that drive the stereotypical BMW Model 3, carry around iPhones and other trinkets and when you wonder how they afford it, the magic answer is usually leasing. And when you dig deeper, you eventually find out that they don't even technically own the Calvin Klein Boxers they're wearing.
Should I be disturbed that you know what type of boxers the 20-25 year old immigrants are wearing? More on point though- how does one "lease" boxers? Are you talking about them owning them on credit?
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You could've taken a few years off and traveled the world at your leisure, but you decided to buy an airplane and new car and iphone instead. You're simply a rich person choosing financial struggle.
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I own a small airplane that I paid $300k and an iPhone 6.
Many people in my part of the country live in homes that cost less than $100k- they're not the best homes... but they're homes.. A decent average family home is $150k.
With your house and your airplane- consider that you own the equivalent of three or four homes for a significant percentage of the country's population. Now tell me again you are not "rich".
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So when my iPhone having temporary warehouse workers call in and say they can't make it to work because they don't have gas money...they're lying>?!?!?
If you can afford to pay $1000 for a cell phone- you're either not hurting for money. (Or you're an idiot with no priority on what matters in regards to how you spend your money)
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