{"id":27028,"date":"2024-01-06T05:00:53","date_gmt":"2024-01-06T10:00:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/?p=27028"},"modified":"2024-01-06T08:35:22","modified_gmt":"2024-01-06T13:35:22","slug":"the-fisking-of-stewart-123","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/2024\/01\/06\/the-fisking-of-stewart-123\/","title":{"rendered":"The Fisking of Stewart 123"},"content":{"rendered":"

The on-line magazine Vox employs someone named Emily Stewart.\u00a0 She describes herself as a \u201cmillennial\u201d from a \u201csolid working-class background.\u201d\u00a0 She wrote an article called \u201cYou don\u2019t need everything you want.\u00a0 Our expectations around money are all out of whack<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is one of a number of articles I\u2019ve seen that are meant to make people think that runaway inflation is perfectly normal and nothing to get upset about or vote a president out of office for.\u00a0 Well, anyway that is the hope.\u00a0 Let\u2019s see how she does.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am tired of talking about money. I recognize how that sounds, given that I talk about money for a living. Still, it feels like an inordinate number of conversations I\u2019m involved in lately end up about how much more expensive everything is now (which is true) and how much the economy sucks (which is false)\u00a0\u00a0 …\u00a0 It\u2019s not that these issues aren\u2019t painful, it\u2019s just that they\u2019re also exhausting. Some of them have simple solutions, too, just not fun ones. You can cook at home. A fancy wedding is not compulsory. Tips are optional, and if you\u2019re that upset over giving the barista a dollar or two, there are cheaper alternatives for your morning coffee.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

So, she \u201ccovers business and economics for Vox and writes the newsletter The Big Squeeze, examining the ways ordinary people are being squeezed under capitalism<\/em>,\u201d but she\u2019s tired of talking about money?\u00a0 What would she prefer to talk about, her horoscope?\u00a0 If we need any clearer indication that the facts don\u2019t support her thesis in this article, I don\u2019t know what that would be.<\/p>\n

\u201cPart of the issue is that we seem to have blurred the distinction between a want and a need. Child care and a place to live and a tank of gas to get to work are necessities. The latest iPhone, not so much. On this, some people \u2014 and I include myself here \u2014 have lost the plot. If you took a European vacation this year, what a delight. Also, it was a privilege, not a right. It\u2019s a choice, too, and one that might make your financial goals later down the line harder to attain.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Okay so here is the explicit distinction; want and need.\u00a0 European vacation and tank of gas.\u00a0 And that is very clear.\u00a0 What she doesn\u2019t admit is that for the great, great majority of people in this country it\u2019s the \u201cchild care and a place to live and a tank of gas\u201d money that has become unattainable.\u00a0 The average person picking this up and reading it will be mumbling curses under his breath and thinking what a clueless prima-donna.\u00a0 She\u2019s taking European vacations and quibbling about how she should feel about it.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe American economy remains one of abundance. Said abundance isn\u2019t equally distributed, of course, and lots of people really are struggling. But as angry as consumers say they are about the economy, they\u2019re not, on aggregate, changing their spending habits. For many people in the country, life is pretty good. And yet, they often don\u2019t feel that way. No matter how much we\u2019ve attained, we always want more.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Now this is a crock.\u00a0 I guess under her definition Venezuela is a land of abundance because there are several billionaires living there.\u00a0 Even though the average citizen is trapping sewer rats for his dinner, it\u2019s a land of plenty because there are still plenty of sewer rats.\u00a0 This woman is delusional.\u00a0 They don\u2019t change their spending habits because they spend their money on rent and food and gas.\u00a0 Unless they commit suicide they still need those things.<\/p>\n

\u201cI say all of this recognizing that I am in a bubble \u2014 I am a millennial living in New York City and surrounded largely by middle- and upper-middle-class people, though many of them don\u2019t see themselves that way. I also say this as someone who is upwardly mobile from a solidly working-class background. If I could tell the child version of myself how things were going to turn out \u2014 that I\u2019d be living in a big city, be able to afford to rent an apartment in said city, and have the chance to regularly take trips that involve a plane \u2014 she would not believe it. I am aware this is not the case for everyone in my generation or those before or after me. Still, I sometimes catch myself feeling like it\u2019s not enough.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

She got part of it right.\u00a0 She is living in a bubble, an opaque bubble.\u00a0 Apparently, New York City is filled with middle- and upper-middle-class people.\u00a0 I guess I must be missing something when I see the headlines about the illegal immigrant hotels and the homeless encampments.\u00a0 Eric Adams, their mayor, looks pretty shook up about the fiscal meltdown the city is currently going through but apparently La Stewart hasn\u2019t heard about it yet.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt all feeds into the hedonic treadmill, where we\u2019re constantly chasing down the next dopamine hit but ultimately return to our baseline level of happiness, whatever happens. The pursuit of constant pleasure or fulfillment is enticing, but it\u2019s also not wise \u2014 eventually, that Big New Thing just doesn\u2019t have the same kick. Even if we can buy that $40 bottle of wine to have with dinner, it\u2019s genuinely often better to stick to the $15 bottle and keep the pricier option for special occasions. Really good and special experiences in life should be rare, Schwartz said, so they don\u2019t become commonplace and can still deliver satisfaction. (He joked that as far as he knows, \u201cno one on Earth\u201d has ever taken this advice.)\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Ah, so this is her target audience.\u00a0 Affluent White Female Liberals (AWFLs).\u00a0 She is writing to the single middle-aged childless urban cat ladies who need that $40 bottle of wine and \u201cwant to see Taylor Swift and Beyonc\u00e9 live<\/em>.\u201d\u00a0 She is consoling them about having to vote for Joe Biden despite the fact that that means they will only be able to see \u201cTaylor and Bey\u201d in the movie version of their concerts.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s stunning how myopic and self-centered Stewart and her cohort are.\u00a0 Someone who writes on business and economics could look up just how many people are living paycheck to paycheck, at best.\u00a0 People are taking out loans to buy food and pay the rent.\u00a0 These are not times of great abundance, unless you\u2019re an AWFL with a sinecure at one of the New York media properties.\u00a0 Then it\u2019s pretty good.<\/p>\n

But there is an audience for this article.\u00a0 And she eventually staked it out pretty clearly.\u00a0 It\u2019s just not people that anyone normal would want to talk to.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The on-line magazine Vox employs someone named Emily Stewart.\u00a0 She describes herself as a \u201cmillennial\u201d from a \u201csolid working-class background.\u201d\u00a0 She wrote an article called<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[4388,4387,4386],"class_list":["post-27028","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-affluent-white-female-liberal","tag-awfl","tag-fisking"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Fisking of Stewart 123 - Orion's Cold Fire<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/2024\/01\/06\/the-fisking-of-stewart-123\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Fisking of Stewart 123 - 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