Illusion of Control

I did not grow up on a farm, but I visited my grandpa's hobby farm pretty often as a kid. It was only about 20 minutes away from my parents house. My grandpa lived the farmer/rural life and my parents and our family lived the suburban life. Now I live in a pretty rural place, and we have a hobby farm that's surround by a heavily wooded park.

The suburban life is nice and insulates families from a lot of the darker aspects of the world. Death is pretty rare in suburbia for example. When death does happen it is often in pretty controlled circumstances, where an ambulance shows up to take care of an ailing relative for example. On a farm, or even in just a rural or wilderness area, there's just a lot more life, so there's correspondingly more death and it's more random and intrusive.

In fact, this time of year--right around the summer solstice--is peak life and also peak death time here at my property. Everywhere I look during the day there are some animals busy trying to make a living. A crazy number of song birds are flying around this time of year because the birds that hatched in May are now full size. Critters like squirrels and raccoons are running around all the time and there are deer and fawns passing through the yard several times a day. If I go out at night with a headlamp on I see green glowing eyes all over the place.

Unfortunately, every year a handful of wild critters get in trouble of various kinds and end up dying in places on my property where I have to deal with it personally. A few years ago I put a poor skunk out of its misery. It had possibly been maimed by another animal or hit by a car. Last fall I had to cleanup a dead deer, for example and last summer one of our ducks got killed by a raccoon and this year two of our ducks got killed when a possum found a weak spot in the enclosure for the ducks and the chickens and broke in over night. 

Dealing with the dead wild animals is a downer, but not too emotionally draining, but finding the dead stripped carcasses of domestic animals early in the morning is a much bigger hit to the psyche. They're not quite pets, but they're pretty close, and they are more vulnerable than a dog or a cat, plus they require quite a bit of care from the time they are young until they're outside. To see them dead and ripped up is disorienting, sad, and feels like a big failure all in one.

Anyway, I think I have a more realistic idea about how vulnerable life is now than when I was a kid in the suburban bubble. People invest a huge collective effort in trying to control the world and end up sterilizing it in the process. That more sterile and controlled world makes personal safety and really the safety of the human species seem assured. Of course it's not, though. The human species is just a mega disaster away from extinction, and individuals are just lucky to get through each day in one piece.  

Extrapolating an Obvious Pattern to the Future

There are lots of youtube videos out of places like NYC or LA that show broad daylight thefts going on at grocery stores, big box retailers, boutique shops, etc... The thefts are so common that stores close up and move away.

That doesn't happen where I live at all. Is it because we have a "good" state or local government and criminals are put in jail and there are plenty of police? No, obviously not. It's really because the population here is somewhat disciplined and adheres to age old codes of fair play. Also there are not that many poor people, and almost everyone here is white. This area passes the shopping cart test--go to almost any store any day of the week and all the shopping carts are put away nicely, and when someone is a slacker and leaves a cart out, another rando citizen will put the cart away.

Large areas of the US resemble my town. Those communities will continue to function for years to come while the rot in places like California or New York state will turn those places into very small islands of function surrounded by an ocean of dysfunction. Also, paradoxically, many of the turbo-decline areas are super wealthy high cost regions too.

I complain about "the matrix" in almost every single blog post, and the matrix really is white people living in a disciplined way that mainly serves the system that feeds off their time and energy. However, the chaos and dysfunction of ghettos is not an improvement at all. In fact, it's pretty easy to see that people stealing a shopping cart of junk food from a grocery store are way more dependent on the system than the typical corporate drone who's slaving away at a dumb corporate job like I do. Also the dysfunctional people are hyper entitled and believe a whole new bible of bullshit about themselves, and a parallel universe history book about their victim status and entitlement. They're not more in tune with the natural cycles and the like because they're not key cogs of the corporate matrix world. They're more like the rust on the machinery of the matrix world.

Over the next decades, the US is going to break up. That process will be turbocharged by big changes around the world, like loss of US financial domination. If US companies have to compete toe to toe with Asian companies to survive, cost of living of workers and "elites" will have to plunge. The current crop of entitled US "elites" thinks they can basically cordon off their own private markets from competition. I don't think that's going to work.

Similarly, US families and individuals will have to adopt a new philosophical mindset to thrive and survive. Christianity is not going to work, neither will other various flavors of jew mythology and ideas which pose as universal but advance the cause the jew priests.

Low cost regions with smart people with access to low cost access to international shipping and commerce should be able to kick ass. Lots of areas in the US also have abundant resources and low population density.

Chinese Wheels

I've been racing and riding road bicycles since the early 1990s when I was in college. The premium bike stuff industry was dominated by European, American, and Japanese companies. Many of those companies shifted their manufacturing to China to boost profits and to be more competitive, then eventually Chinese companies started producing their own wheels, bike frames, and the like at a small fraction of the cost.

For example, I bought some nice carbon fiber wheels back in the early 2000s for about $1500 (about $2400 in today's money!). Now, a similar set of Chinese wheels is about $300-400. (about $250 in 2005 money.) The chinese companies post videos of their assembly lines in China. They use state of the art equipment and at least in the videos the employees look like they're pretty happy and professional.

I bought a set of Chinese wheels to see if they're legit, and they're perfectly fine. My old fancier wheels--like 15 years old--started to pop spokes after years of use and abuse. There's no reason to believe the Chinese wheels won't last. That said, they do seem maybe slightly less rugged and a big impact might cause a problem, where my fancy wheels absorbed pretty severe abuse without a glitch.

There are people who believe China can't compete in specific markets, like semiconductors. I can't see why they wouldn't be able to compete at a world class level in any area. At the same time, I can't see how the US will continue to compete at a high level in the various industries the US used to dominate when corporations sold out so thoroughly and the US population becomes dumber and dumber every single year. The number of students graduating US high schools with competency in math or other subjects declines every year.

Getting Suckered into War

Recently, munitions from the US blew up some Russian civilians on the beach in Crimea. That carnage spilled over from the war between Ukraine and Russia, which is really a proxy war between neocon jews in the US government and Russia.

Most of the wars I can think of over the decades I've been alive resulted in overall failure. I'm most familiar with the ones the US engaged in, but the handful I can think of that involved other countries failed as well. The US wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are epic failures for example. The war in Ukraine looks like an enormous waste and failure for both "sides".

It's unfortunate the civilian population keeps getting suckered by mafiosi politicians. It's also unfortunate the military keeps going along with terrible advice from psychopaths, not only in the US, but around the world.

What could either side in the Russia/Ukraine war achieve through a "win" that will offset the massive economic and physical damage incurred by the war? The upside for the US is even murkier--what would an average American get from "victory" in that war? It's not like the US is conquering territory and reaping new material riches. The only possible outcome for the US is more debt and corruption.

The US is at the end of a big economic and political cycle--it's pretty clear that the neoliberal corporatocracy is a busted piece of shit and the next step for the thing, if it's allowed to continue is gross corporate tyranny where government micromanages everyone's life on behalf of Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk. The government wants to dictate how you spend your money, and what you must spend it on. The government wants to orchestrate the economy so non-viable companies can continue to operate for decades by putting up stiff trade barriers for example.

I hope the US public is at least smart enough to realize the government is not their friend and that any push for general war is retarded, but I have my doubts. Any September 11 style massive attack is almost certainly some fraud meant to drag people into total destruction, like the meatgrinder consuming russians and ukrainians.

When the government tries hard to sell a war, the appropriate thing for every civilian to do in every country of the world is to chuck its government in the trash and start over.

 

Nobody Knows What They're Doing

There's a very fancy courthouse in rural Illinois that cost over a million dollars in 1870s money. It took citizens there 40 years to pay for it. The courthouse in Macoupin county looks pretty nice, but it was built on scams and corruption. Every monumental building is like that. They're really monuments to vanity and gullibility.

 

Government and religious buildings are essential to the scammers that make a living on institutionalized corruption. That pattern has existed for thousands of years going back to ancient greece or rome, or even all the way back to egypt and its pyramids.

These scams are all based on a void at the heart of civilization. Not a single person knows what he's doing let alone why. For some reason, almost every single person living in this or previous civilizations imagines there's somebody who does.

I think the schools of philosophy in ancient greece are really quite interesting to consider from the perspective of that void and the relationship to the public. Ancient greek religion was just some prior version of the current jew based religions. The greeks had Zeus. Modern people who are religious worship Jew Zeus and/or his son that rolls up a bunch of middle eastern god tropes, like the dying harvest/sun god like Tammuz or Dionysus.

A bunch of people in ancient greece didn't buy into the public spectacle, nor the claims of religious or political leader's pretense of knowledge. In a couple of cases, their investigations led to ideas that are similar to Taoist concepts that human reason is severely limited and that "knowing" via speech is impossible.

However, that concept never really got much traction in the west. Western people traded one dumb religion for another one and even to this day, they keep thinking the political system can be "fixed" with the right clever solution. Society can be "engineered" with the right people in charge, and other crazy things. Each western person imagines there's someone who actually knows what he's doing, but at the center of all the people who believe that, there's just a black hole--nothing

I think right now, we're in a fever dream time in the US. The society is dominated by people who make plans based on ideology or religious ideas and have zero feedback on their failure or any pragmatism. The liberal or progressive people seem almost impossibly stupid and fanatical. That became very clear during all the covid craziness. The coastal strongholds of those religious zealots are still reeling from choices they made and cities like New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco are in turbo death spirals of ideological stupidity. It's pretty mind blowing to watch or see up close.

Life or societal decisions based on pragmatism are pretty plain and obvious and also pretty hodge-podge and perhaps even appear contradictory and can also fail. When presented with a problem, a person can just do the best he can and make the best decisions possible based on limited information and ability to predict outcomes.

The public is too stupid to realize that though. It imagines there's some infallible person who knows better than them and can make better choices than they can. It's a childish perspective really. 

Corporate Sponsorship of the CDC

 A couple of days ago I heard some interesting info on the CDC.

50% of CDC employees go onto get jobs in pharma companies.

The CDC is a hybrid government agency that accepts "donations" as a charity... Of course pharma companies "donate" huge amounts of money to the CDC.

Types of People and their Property Taxes

Everyone is really a "type" rather than an individual, just like each domestic dog is a specific breed or maybe a mix of specific breeds that result in specific behavioral tendencies.

I noticed, for example, when we moved into my new neighborhood that my immediate neighbors are really very much like me in terms of the things we own and the things we do as hobbies or as a profession. That happened "accidentally" too. I didn't go around and interview neighbors at each place we might live, I just picked up on some pretty obvious cues about the things people owned, and the things on people's property.

For example, most of my neighbors have a farm tractor and/or other heavy equipment that they maintain and operate themselves. Lots of the neighbors have chickens or other farm animals and even sell eggs or produce from roadside stands, even though they are making high incomes from a job or business. A handful of the neighbors have bee hives and some sell honey. It's very common to hear some power tool running or chainsaws running as people work on projects around their properties. All that stuff signifies some underlying characteristics of the people around here.

Similarly, if I drive or ride my bike through a neighborhood of McMansions, the people there will all have similar stuff.  For example, many will have expensive cars like Teslas or Audis, plus expensive toys like jetskis or side by sides. Most won't have a tractor/heavy equipment. Most will have a fancy house with fancy landscaping they pay someone to do. All that stuff signifies underlying choices and life strategies and views.

When you look at a property tax map, the property taxes people pay match up pretty well with the "types" in each area. In a township sized area, of course there's a mix of "types" of people, but you could actually evaluate their voting record on property taxes, especially, and you'd really see which type dominates each area.

I think there's basically two concepts of "wealth" that span many different types of people. People think in terms of "assets" or "income" basically. Old money families, or a family that got a big lump sum windfall, or people who just pay cash for everything will all be thinking in terms of what they already own, that is, assets. People making a high income, or who at least imagine they do or will eventually often think in terms of payments and what they can "afford", that is, get a loan for. 

Put enough of each type of people in one place, and their outlook and community choices look start to represent their outlook. For example, asset oriented people whether they are Amish or old money types have similar low property tax rates so the roads in fancy old money areas with huge estates are shitty. The roads in my township, with its low tax rates are pretty shitty too. The roads in Amish neighborhoods are terrible.

By contrast if you go to nearby towns or neighborhoods of McMansions the roads and other infrastructure is "good" the school infrastructure is fancy and the property tax rates are also high--maybe close to double that in farmer/old money areas.

The asset oriented people are more self sufficient, generally, and miserly with respect to the community's projects, while the income oriented people are often comically unskilled and all their choices reflect that. The amish for example have their own schools, and old money people send their kids to private schools. By contrast, the high property tax school areas want to press everyone into supporting the expensive community infrastructure, including school infrastructure.

Another side effect of these tendencies is population density in the low property tax areas is substantially lower. High population density requires lots of infrastructure support, like water and sewer lines. If a community won't sign up to build water or sewer infrastructure, the underlying geology and soil conditions dictate the max population density.

Almost Everyone Dislikes the Civilization

There's an ocean of movies and TV shows that critique our civilization. I think The Matrix lays the critique out really clearly, the the same themes are present in Star Wars, or even a movie like Point Break. A similar thread runs through Lord of the Rings and even Game of Thrones.

The Jedi in Star Wars are basically the same as Neo in the Matrix. They can interact with the forces of the universe using their natural body and spirit and don't really need technology. Then of course Agent Smith in the Matrix is similar to Darth Vader. Smith is a henchman of the system itself, just like Darth is an agent of "The Empire", which is the stand in for our technological/bureaucratic civilization.

The Game of Thrones army of the dead and king of the dead is a pretty recent depiction of the same concepts that are also present in Lord of the Rings. The Orc Army and Sauron basically the same thing.

I think the movie Dune (at least the one directed by David Lynch) touches on similar themes and has a Neo type/Jedi type character. The concept there was a highly trained, selectively bred person could become superhuman basically.

Anyway, it's a widespread theme that something is pretty wrong with our civilization. The problem described in the prior post about how the system expands and demands a bigger aggregate price with every single attempt to escape natural necessity is really the crux of the problem.

The features of the "new model human" depicted in all those movies that critique this alien system are: he's all natural; he doesn't need technology; he's self sufficient and an individual.

I think the author/farmer Masanobu Fukuoka provided one potential real world version of that, or showed how that might potentially work in real life.

Anyway, I just wonder how close people are to bailing out on this whole civilization thing en masse. It always is happening at the periphery of every civilization, but when does it happen to masses? Like when do all the workers at amazon warehouses just bail? It's not hard to imagine that happening.

Old Timey Water Supply

In the pre-industrial US, most people in my area got water from wells that they dug by hand. Around here, it's trivial to do. Dig a hole. Once it starts to fill up with water by itself, you have a well. Line the well with bricks, or rocks and mortar, or concrete and it's a legit source of water. I saw two such wells in my lifetime. One was in the backyard of my old house. One was about a mile from my parents house when I was in middle school.

The well at my old house was the original water supply for the place. (The house was built in the 1830s.) The handpump for the well was no longer operational when I owned it, but it was pretty obvious how it had been used and built. Someone used some steel tool to dig a hole into the sandstone bedrock beneath the property--probably just a heavy steel rod with a pointy end. The hole was maybe 8 feet deep and maybe the diameter of a dinner plate. Then they formed a concrete pad to seal the hole closed but left an opening for a hand pump. At one point, the pump was in a shed, but I tore the shed down because it had rotted away over the years, and demolished the pump pad and filled the hole up with concrete.

Back in the old days, when they needed water, somebody would have gone into the shed and filled a bucket with the pump. It was probably a chore that took less than a minute per bucket, but to get lots of water for a bath or something would have been a pretty major hassle.

When I was a kid, those kinds of hand pumps were pretty common ine local parks. Some of them were in disrepair and some worked. I remember drinking from those in the summers when I was out running around with my friends.

The development of plumbing systems shows how "the matrix" really works. Back in the early 1900s at my old house, maybe 30 minutes a day would be spent on water related chores. The upgrades for that scenario are really obvious--move the pump into the center of the house, like in the kitchen. That saves time, but then it needs a drain and probably a more elaborate setup because the pump and the hole in the ground are probably pretty far apart. Once there's electric motors, it's possible to hide the pump away and run a pipe to it, then you can run the pipes all over the house, then you need drains, etc... Every step makes life easier (less labor) for the home owner.

However, every step grows the plumbing in the house and the associated industries. The original 30 minutes a day people worked to get water turns into no time at all for the homeowner, but into 40 hour work weeks for countless people grinding away forever in the matrix. The homeowner grinds away too so they can pay for the plumbing. How much does it cost to install all new plumbing in a new construction house these days? It's probably close to $50,000 for every plumbing system. Water and sewer line hookup fees in a city, or a well and septic tank in a more rural area, plus all the plumbing in the house, hot water, etc... Add in financing on that $50,000 plus $50 per year for maintenance and the total cost of ownership for pipes and faucets is pretty steep. In the city, add in the monthly water and sewer bills. In a rural area, there's regular maintenance on a septic tank and well pump replacements, etc...

California Implosion

There are several youtube channels dedicated to documenting the rapid decline of California cities like LA or San Francisco. One channel is "metal leo". He walks up and down streets in the city centers and shows all the closed and boarded up commercial properties and homeless people camping on sidewalks and in doorways. The rapidity and scale of the failure of those cities is mind boggling.

I saw some of that first hand when I was in LA for work a few months ago. The number of homeless people there is astounding. I was in a pretty nice suburb of LA, but many if not most of the side streets were makeshift homeless camps with tents, cardboard box houses and derelict RVs and other vehicles taking up all the parking places. Residential areas with nice clean, expensive houses were maybe one or two blocks away from that mess.

The rust belt cities collapsed because of two things: the main issue was de-industrialization, then "racial" problems in the 1960s turned large areas of cities like Cleveland or Detroit into burned out ghettos. California cities have a human toxic waste problem, both with the homeless populations and the governments which are loaded with insane, corrupt left wing 'tards.

CA cities also have a cost problem. All the funny money printing that funded the tech industry since the 1980s raised the cost of rents and real estate in CA to absurd levels. Plus CA taxes are the highest in the nation. It seems like the homeless zombie army, and the "investors" that own buildings in CA cities are going to turn them into the west coast version of the rust belt cities like Detroit. Once a city enters the doom spiral it takes very little time for it to completely crater.

Sports and the World of Lies

My family wasn't really into pro sports or college sports when I was growing up. We did watch some NFL games over the years, but I was never a super fan like some of my classmates. I'd watch some Browns games when they were good, but I didn't care at all about the other big pro sports in the US, like baseball---yawn---and I don't think I ever watched a single NBA game. As an adult I watched the NFL off and on for years. Sometimes I would get really into it, but eventually I just completely tuned out.

One of the things that killed my interest in pro sports was the doping scandals in cycling in the 1990s and early 2000s. I followed bicycle racing back then, mainly because I was doing local bike races myself. The sport was plagued by rumors of systematic doping the whole time I watched. Then eventually the reality of the sport spilled out into public in a pretty ugly way, all the details came out. That is the details of the medical procedures and mechanics of cheating tests spilled out into the news.

I realized pro sports was basically a huge medical experiment. Chances are really good that world class, or professional athletes in every sport are on some kind of medical program. There might be a handful of true "natty" pro athletes out there, but all the famous people are basically a prize cow that's managed and controlled by a team of doctors and trainers.

The very interesting thing about pro sports and doping is the reality of doping and the medical angle of sports has to be ignored and pushed out of the public consciousness. It's been a mystery to me for years why that's the case.

Sports is a part of the entertainment industry, and ultimately is all about selling corporate crap. It's as crucial to keeping the status quo in power as religion or politics. Why can't pro athletes or pro sports organizations acknowledge the importance of hormone treatments and medical programs? Why do they have to pretend it's all natural? It's really quite interesting.

The narratives of pro sports are basically folk stories. The whole pro sports industry reinforces and reflects the beliefs of the public who venerate athletes. The athletes are role models for children for example, that is the fictional character athletes portray are heroes and role models. The folk belief is good and admirable qualities of the athlete lead to success. Also, people believe the sports stars are basically blessed by the gods. People want to be like their heroes or want to make their heroes happy so they buy shoes they endorse, or drink sports drinks they sell, etc... The medical reality really clashes with that narrative.

Many people prefer to live in the fantasy land. Lots of fans insist, for example, that pro cycling today is "clean" by magic testing programs, and that the super stars of the sport are all natty even though they are faster than mega dopers of the 1990s up mountains in bike races. Fans regurgitate the same type of PR lies that were promoted about Lance Armstrong back in the early 2000s about contemporary star cyclists.

Special Needs Feds Want More Nuke Plants

Maybe 10 years ago I watched a couple of shills from the nuclear power industry on youtube. They discussed how cheap nuclear power plants are and tried to explain why none are being built anywhere in the US or Europe. The shill story is the industry is really super great and successful and only fails all the time because of government regulation.

I thought that argument was pretty interesting, so I read some papers and brushed up on the history of nuclear power and saw it was a history of failure and mega expense and cost overruns all the way back to the earliest days--way before the public strongly opposed nuke plants.

My personal conclusion was nuke plants are like the pyramids in egypt. Why doesn't egypt build more pyramids, since they're such a big tourist attraction? Why doesn't greece build more parthenons, etc... They're basically impossible to build now. Nuke plants were a stretch to build when the US was at its peak industrial might, now the country is fag land run by lazy kind of dumb ass people with phony credentials.

The US just can't build more nuke plants just like a fat, out of shape 40 year old guy can't run a 5 minute mile. Neither can Europe. France can't operate its existing nuke plants. It's really pretty bizarre to see dumb ass government officials push hard for this fail-o-rama. To me it seems like evidence that they are controlled by some AI program, or aliens or some shit because it makes zero sense.

They can (and will) throw any amount of money at the problem and it just won't happen. The special needs federales want to build ~~~~98~~~~ more nuclear reactors in the US, according to one of the dumbest and least competent feds, Jennifer Granholm. (link) The stupid bitch cited the recently built Votgle nuke plant in georgia as a success story. Just multiply that immense failure by 98 and that's what's going to happen.

There's no need to protest or worry about 98 new nuke plants in the US. It is not going to happen. They might manage to build another one, but that's about it.

What is going to happen instead?

Pretend the US dollar system isn't on its last legs and the status quo continues indefinitely. If the feds try to build say 10 nuke plants simultaneously a bag of home depot concrete will cost $500. A bag of sand will be $300 and a piece of rebar will be $50. A construction worker will make $10,000 an hour and a welder will make $20,000 and hour. Mexico will have zero construction workers or welders because they'll all be in the US trying to build nuke plants. Mexico though, in spite of having no workers, will be a communist utopia run by a San Francisco commie jew lady--they just elected one which boggles my mind.

Obviously, shit's too stupid to continue, and it won't forever.

Trump Verdict--Fake BS

I ignored the Trump trial in spite of google and other media companies trying to force feed me "news" about whatever that mess was supposed to be about.

Now media liars and government officials are warning over violent outcomes from trump supporters. "Yawn."

I hope people aren't stupid enough to act out violently in support of "Trump". This shit is so obviously contrived, I guess to destabilize the country and allow the feds and other government scumbags to crack down on all forms of dissent or alternative information.

They could execute trump with a firing squad and I wouldn't give a shit. The government is trash. I don't care which bozo is the president, the outcomes are going to be the same until the government is utterly destroyed and rebuilt. The system is corrupt. the government stooges are incompetent/and or puppets.

Hopefully people aren't going to get whipped up about "warp speed" Trump who allowed Fauci and a handful of zealots fuck the economy up and force people to take some experimental medication.

I think the trump administration was better than Biden, but just barely. Trump didn't start new wars and our taxes were slightly lower for like two years, but that's about it. The US is fucked 99 different ways and Trump or Biden aren't going to change problems that have been festering for 50+ years.

Crazy is Common

One of my wife's friends has been struggling financially for years even though her household income is at least $400,000 per year, well, at least they did make that much money until she got laid off from her most recent job making well over $250k/yr. A couple making $400k income is top 2-3% of household incomes if I remember the stats correctly, so it's rare for a couple to make so much money. However it's very common for them to be totally broke. They're typically as broke as people making way less money.

Back in the early 2000's I was fortunate to get a financial windfall. It was not enough money to retire on, but it was enough to solve a bunch of small financial problems. For example, I paid off my credit cards and auto loan. Once I paid my taxes on the windfall and paid off all the loans not all that much was left over. It was basically just a rainy day fund.

Also, I was able to move to a zero consumer debt lifestyle. That whole scenario showed me I was actually "poor". I really couldn't buy anything too impressive without almost totally wiping out my savings in one shot, like I could go buy a Lexus car with cash, but I'd be mostly broke after that.

That was really a great financial education. I started to understand that most of the people who were living a high consumption life style were just in debt and making payments. There are super wealthy people with very high incomes who can actually afford expensive cars and huge houses, but it's a tiny fraction of the overall population. The typical person you see at the grocery store with a $50k car is broke like my wife's friend in spite of a high income.

People are groomed to fall into that trap mainly by entertainment and advertising. Movies like "The Matrix" or "They Live" do a disservice to the audience by depicting the enslavement of humanity as a supernatural phenomenon. The reality is it's totally low brow and stupid. People are groomed into it from childhood and are too embarrassed to admit their daily desperation as adults. Also, people can't see all the traps laid for them.

The home improvement industry is one great example. My wife and I live in a kind of dumpy house on a large property. The house is clean, dry, warm in the winter and cool in the summer. The house is super plain and has no style or curb appeal. Some of my neighbors live in $800,000 houses. Now million dollar properties are not all that uncommon in my county as inflation is nuking the value of the US dollar. The typical mode of thinking about a house would lead me to conclude almost any home upgrade is "worth doing" on our house. I could invest a fairly modest amount into our property and double the house's value, but I'm not going to do that.

The taxes and upkeep cost for our small dumpy house are well under $10,000/yr. Almost any home improvement we might do would ultimately drive up "the value" of our home, so our property taxes would increase as would the cost to maintain it.