Wretched Excess, or Not.
Scrolling back through my previous KTK diaries I noticed that I was focussing frequently on income disparity. It’s obvious that this is getting worse and worse. We are back to the Gilded Age. So much wealth juxtaposed with abject poverty, and ostentatious wealth at that, Mansions, private jets, Lamborghinis, $500 dinner menus, multi-million dollar yachts, and more. The latest wealth estimates were recently featured in the media: A record number of Americans are now millionaires, new study shows. As of the end of 2016, there were a record 10.8 million millionaires nationwide, according to a new study. Of course I don’t want to be too judgmental; millionaires have feelings too.
This afternoon Laura Clawson published a diary about homelessness: San Francisco: The year of hardening my heart. This resonated with me, as I mentioned in the comments.
Homelessness is a major problem up here in Santa Rosa, usually the number one of citizen concerns. The recent fires have only exacerbated the problem, with many marginally housed people having lost even the little they had. As in your last sentence, I’ve often wondered about their quiet acceptance as they see the affluence around them.
What inspired this subject was a catalog I received yesterday. Among the plethora of catalogs presenting Christmas junk and quotidian merchandise was one from 1stdibs. I should have been alerted just by the name alone. Ha! Greed is good. I got dibs on the good stuff. And when I opened it to a random page, I saw…..a wall sconce. Looked like a pretty nice wall lamp, until I saw the price: $25,875. This being KTK I just had to check out a dining table. There it was, for $15,200. We had recently purchased a nice one for the condo. I waited till it was on sale, and snagged it for $400. I could go on and on, but to me the most egregious was the fire poker in bronze and steel. Would you stir up a fire with a $2,800 poker? I think not.
I showed the catalog to Mrs. side pocket and she pointed out that there is something good about high end artists being paid commensurate with their skills, Admittedly a lot of the merchandise is just gorgeous, but it’s pretty much true that we couldn’t afford anything in the catalog. Maybe there is a broadening of artistic sponsorship. After all:
The Medici are most famous for their patronage of the arts. Patronage is where a wealthy person or family sponsors artists. They would pay artists commissions for major works of art. The Medici patronage had a huge impact on the Renaissance, allowing artists to focus on their work without having to worry about money.
So now, right here in the USA, we have 10.8 million potential Medici. Progress.
On another subject, I will be having some major oral surgery tomorrow afternoon (that’s where I spend my money). So if I make it to tomorrow’s KTK, please forgive any comment that makes less sense than usual. I’ll blame the drugs.