FHC’s resurrected blog : Let FHC eat cake !

KMZ kindly sent me this amazing Slate article as well as the bitter exchange between the author and Generation Debt’s author. I read something somewhat similar recently (in the NY times I believe) in which the author was comparing the lives of some poor redneck and a Congolese medical doctor. I particularly enjoy it as I spent my week in Paris with LL complaining about our all-too-relative poverty. Among other things my grievances included not being able to buy a new Smalto cashmere coat (you know with the one with velvet collar as it was fashionable this year), having to travel Business and not First (the bed is NOT horizontal and I’ll prove it), having balcony and not orchestra tickets for the Ballet and having to use (20 times in ten days) public transportation on many occasions (and we all know that in France public transportation = death + rape and therefore is hopelessly déclassé…yes death due to fresh immigrants’ anger is déclassé. Sorry…oh and saying “déclassé” is déclassé too). My motto seems to be “don’t talk to me about absolute poverty until I get my wide screen plasma TV, my apple laptop, my huge apartment like everybody else in Dupont and someone to walk my dog because in my family we do not scoop poop”. Quite simply FHC wants it all. I even snapped at LL because he disagreed with me that one of our life goals should be to be able to stay at the Crillon for our future bi-monthly shopping trips in Paris. For chrissake, there are 8 millions households that have more than a million dollar of assets in the world (or is it in the US?), everybody who is older than 22 in DC has at least a loft and some modern art, I am the only monkey without a sidekick and you would like me to cheer because I am not hungry, I whore myself for pleasure and not necessity and I have civic rights in a minor European country. Please, you remind me of Marie-Antoinette in her pre-beheaded period (her head was confiscated later on by mob rule as I previously explained to you LL). I am particularly uncomfortable with the part of the article in which the author claims that “To improve their lot, twentysomethings have to […] save more”. I was always taught that “saving” is filthy poor people vocabulary and certainly not catholic. Plus it is a Republican concept, only Republican believe that rich people are responsible for their wealth. You do not save capital, capital just appears (partly as a wedding gift apparently but I am gay) and anyway I am glad if I manage to break-even every year. Frankly, I prefer to live paycheck to paycheck than die at 30 victim of the blue sugar substitute with a 40K savings account. Being relatively poor in an absolutely rich society (in which even bohemian HAS to be bourgeois) takes a lot of creativity: I haven’t bought anything on e-bay for a month and a half and, as I mentioned in an earlier post (to the great stupefaction of Sushi who is young, naïve and innocent), I HAVE ONLY ONE PAIR OF JEANS. I am such a spoilt-brat, I should have gone to Yale.