To wrap the week up, nothing at all about how my life is weird or how I've become an accidental Tik Tok star or anything like that. Instead, one thing I've noticed the past few weeks, a sign that the US economy is strong and that some people have way too much money--
All of the insanely expensive summer cars on the streets this year.
That was made quite apparent over this past week, when I saw dozens of bright shiny new “mid-life crisis mobiles” (my jokingly juvenile term for them) on the streets of Marquette while out & about. Many of them were red, almost all of them were convertibles, and most of them were driven by someone of obviously advanced years. I don’t know if they were just out enjoying their new toy, or trying to recapture lost youth (or both), but there sure seem to be a lot more of them out on the roads than in past years.
I’m probably not the best person in the world to write about these vehicles; after all, I don’t drive much, and when I do drive it’s in Loraine's six year old car that gets about 40 miles per gallon. Part of me understands why people drive around with their newly purchased tops down; after a long winter of being cooped up inside your home (and your car) you just wanna feel the rays on your skin and the wind in (what’s left of) your hair. I get that. But what another part of me doesn’t understand is why you’d spend a lot of money (and in some cases, a massive amount of money) on a car that, around here, at least, you can only drive a few months out of the year.
I mean, some of the cars I’ve noticed the past few days obviously cost a LOT of money. I’m not talking about the standard Corvettes and Camaros you might think of as summer cars; no, I’m talking about several high-end European sports vehicles I saw tooling around. I’m not a car salesperson (nor do I play one on TV), but even I know that if you buy a BMW or a Fiat with all the options that it’s gonna cost you a few bucks. And to spend that much money on a vehicle you can only use for a fraction of the year...I dunno.
I just don’t get it.
Think what you could do with the 5 (or even 6) figures that you might spend on a part-time car. Think of the hungry children you could feed. Think of the non-profits you could help out. Think of the people whose lives would be better if you gave that money to an organization that could help them out. Or you could look at it an entirely different way. When Loraine and I are out walking and see one of those cars, we try to figure out how much it would cost, and then figure out how many trips we could take to Europe on that money. I might be weird in this instance (and it certainly wouldn’t be the first time that happened) but it just seems strange to me to spend that much money on a toy.
Even one that has a drop-down top and goes from zero to 60 in 3 and a half seconds.
I guess I’ll just never be one of those people who goes out and spends tens of thousands of dollars on a toy. Of course, the way I’m going, I’ll never actually HAVE tens of thousands of dollars to spend on a toy, but that’s another matter all together. There are obviously people who do have that much money to spend, and if they wanna spend it on a part-time toy; well, that’s their right. You, in fact, may be one of those people, and if you have bought yourself a zippy little summer sports car, I hope you’re having a blast with it. After all, you earned the right to do it. I might not understand it, and I might believe people could do better things with their money, but it’s their money. As an economist might say, as long as they spend it on something, that’s the important thing.
And around Marquette, at least based on what I've seen this past week, that’s what they’re doing.
Have a great weekend, everyone!
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