Quote:
Originally Posted by NemesisX
It's a statistic. Regardless of whether or not you like the guy, he cites a statistic (and sources it in the book) and that's that.
I drive the car that I drive because as a percentage of my net worth it's miniscule. I drive a car that's well below my means. You can't look at the brand of car that I drive and imply that I'm being hypocritical.
And I'm thrilled that you've made a positive return on your watch, but by and large watches are awful investments and lose anywhere from 20-30% of their value the minute you walk out of the store. The same is true for cars, of course, but the difference is that functionally speaking there are numerous, tangible benefits to driving an entry level luxury sedan versus, I don't know, a base honda civic.
I can't get stock acceleration of 0 to 60 in 5 seconds and a comparable interior for much less than the cost of the 335i. If I could (and provided that I liked the look of the car) I'd totally consider the cheaper car.
I can get an automatic for $500-$1000 of comparable quality (and one that is functionally equivalent) to a $4000 or $5000 watch.
Honestly though you sound incredibly bitter about a statistic. Why? No one's stopping you from spending an exorbitant percentage of your income on a watch. Go buy whatever makes you happy.
The post that you quoted me in had nothing to do with belittling your choice for spending thousands of dollars on a watch, so I don't know why you bothered to quote it. I was merely stating the fact that most wealthy people don't spend more than a few hundred bucks on a watch to explain why <$1000 watches are in sufficiently high demand.
I don't care about your conspicuous consumption habits so stop dragging me into your bullshit. I didn't question you or anyone who buys multi-thousand dollar watches in the quote that you posted. I mean I did initially, but that was several posts ago and I received some nice perspectives from watch aficionados like Rookie84.
If it makes you feel better to be willfully ignorant of a statistic, then fine. Here's a fake statistic if it makes you feel better: millionaires spend a median of $100,000 on a watch. It doesn't matter to me either way. I was simply trying to explain why tag heur has a sufficiently large market to tap at the ~$500-1000 level, the implication being that if millionaires spend a median of a couple of hundred bucks on a watch, then people at lower levels likely spend no more than a couple of hundred bucks on a watch as well.
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Am I bitter about your posts? No but I am annoyed at your level of ignorance on the matter. You rely so heavily on skewed data. Conspicuous consumption... did you conned out of $$$ by those get rich in real estate courses and then find religion in those financial self-help books that focus on anti-consumerism?
You cite this book in several watch threads with the sole purpose of (1) talking about them as being for wannabe millionaires or (2) finding someone else who, along with you, doesn't see the value in spending >$1000 on a watch. If you don't like watches or think that spending money on a watch is stupid, why are you on these threads?
I certainly wouldn't call it a statistic. Dr. Stanley's data nothing more than a poll that he designed to prove his point and nothing else. I can design a similar "statistic" that would show the exact opposite: My millionaires poll only wear >$10,000 watches yet don't own a primary home and where no millionaire drives a car let alone owns a car but belong to a car club that allows them to drive every exotic car under the sun. Their net worth is $3M+ vs Stanley's $1.6M (in his first book, he does include primary home in that number). Granted, these are all kids in Manhattan with heavy portfolios and 7 digit wall street bonus checks so it isn't indicative of the population at large but neither is Stanley's.
Oh, and Stanley's millionaires average a whopping $131k a year at 50+ years old... its no wonder he doesn't want them to buy anything because they are all too busy not spending money in order to be in his "Millionaire" club". Yet, he disparages those making $500k a year for buying things they enjoy and can afford but didn't want to divulge their net worth to a quackjob PhD