'Rich People Things': A Satirical Look At 7 Things Rich People Enjoy (PHOTOS)

The idea of "Rich People Things" had never really occurred to me as a subject for a book, a column, or anything else. It was, indeed, something that my editor foisted on my maiden contribution to the then-fledgling website TheAwl.com. I was under the impression that, in writing up a New York magazine cover package on the grievances of the financial elite, I was engaging in a bit of confessional media criticism. Rich people, and their things, of course, entered into my little diatribe, but only as a means of highlighting the class-based myopia of the magazine's editorial directorate.

Yet once I was saddled with this column name-cum-mission statement, I began to realize how thoroughly American culture had become a storehouse of rich people things, broadly speaking. The pious market-themed sermonettes of a Steve Forbes or a David Brooks clearly -- nay, painfully -- fit the bill, as have institutions as far-flung as the Democratic Party, the higher education world, and the sporting scene. Below is a sample of excerpts from individual chapters; to experience the full text in its satirically illustrated glory, by all means head over to the OR Books webpage, which is the exclusive means of obtaining it, since my publisher Colin Robinson has his own separate anti-Amazon crusade, which most definitely should prevent me from joining the ranks of the Rich People.

Slide show text by Chris Lehmann and illustrations by Peter Arkle from "Rich People Things" by Chris Lehmann. Published by OR Books October 2010. Available exclusively from OR Books at www.orbooks.com.

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THE STOCK MARKET

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Stock market performance directly affects the economic well being of less than one percent of the US population, yet is uncritically taken as an ironclad reading of the economy’s overall health. “The markets” are anthropomorphized in daily press accounts as the final arbiters of policy success and failure -- expressing “anxiety” over reports of belated new banking regulations from the Obama White House and joyously rallying when they pick up the whiff of another bundle of tax cuts or a reduction in interest rates from the Federal Reserve’s Open Markets Committee. Indeed, just last week, the grim news that the U.S. economy had shed 95,000 jobs in September sparked a giddy upsurge in the market, since it portended more Fed-based efforts to stimulate investment conditions -- even though, of course, corporate leaders are already simply banking the cheap loans that the government has extended them rather than using them to increase the volume of new hires. This lazy endorsement of stock performance as a popular referendum on economic policy was one of the central myths of the great 1990s stock bubble, when the rush on tech stocks converged with a faux-populist celebration of mutual funds as a great social leveler. This was the age of the IPO-vested “Microsoft millionaire, “the folksy heartland stock pickers’ social known as the Beardstown Ladies investment club and James Glassman’s hallucinatory tract of perma-Bull mind cure, Dow 36,000. This was also the time when the stupendously oafish notion of privatizing Social Security gripped many mainstream economic solons, a measure that, had the Bush White House managed to carry it over in its second-term domestic agenda, would by now have the vast majority of the nation’s retirees toiling in workhouses.

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Stock market performance directly affects the economic well being of less than one percent of the US population, yet is uncritically taken as an ironclad reading of the economy’s overall health. “The markets” are anthropomorphized in daily press accounts as the final arbiters of policy success and failure -- expressing “anxiety” over reports of belated new banking regulations from the Obama White House and joyously rallying when they pick up the whiff of another bundle of tax cuts or a reduction in interest rates from the Federal Reserve’s Open Markets Committee. Indeed, just last week, the grim news that the U.S. economy had shed 95,000 jobs in September sparked a giddy upsurge in the market, since it portended more Fed-based efforts to stimulate investment conditions -- even though, of course, corporate leaders are already simply banking the cheap loans that the government has extended them rather than using them to increase the volume of new hires.

This lazy endorsement of stock performance as a popular referendum on economic policy was one of the central myths of the great 1990s stock bubble, when the rush on tech stocks converged

with a faux-populist celebration of mutual funds as a great social leveler. This was the age of the IPO-vested “Microsoft millionaire, “the folksy heartland stock pickers’ social known as the Beardstown

Ladies investment club and James Glassman’s hallucinatory tract of perma-Bull mind cure, Dow 36,000. This was also the time when the stupendously oafish notion of privatizing Social Security gripped many mainstream economic solons, a measure that, had the Bush White House managed to carry it over in its second-term domestic agenda, would by now have the vast majority of the nation’s retirees toiling in workhouses.

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Comments

[tooncesrocks]

05:42 AM on 10/25/2010

intelligence tests are the joke of the modern era, and the authors attempt to defend this corporate tool was pretty pathetic... I'd suggest that anyone, including the author, do a little research on the topic outside of the publications by those within the intelligence testing industry.

[steveforreal]

03:23 PM on 10/20/2010

The writing was over the top, yet a striking and attractive departure from the McArticles that currenrtly populate the public domain.

[tinka]

02:13 PM on 10/20/2010

Rich people love to target the democrat party for what’s its not. Point well made.

[clydicus]

02:03 PM on 10/20/2010

This article should be titled "Things Chris B. Lehmann is bitter about".

[Dana1982]

12:04 PM on 10/20/2010

I'm just glad I escaped the trap of being rich. Why concern yourself with the stock market, or 401K? I get my news from Comedy Central and network with people via Facebook and Twitter and I'm doing just fine.

[mahdeealoo]

05:13 PM on 10/20/2010

...and so do the rich that live modestly, not wearing their money.

[pawletto]

11:41 AM on 10/20/2010

Will someone please correct the off text display in these? Huffpost editor???

[rivera151]

09:29 PM on 10/19/2010

That is pretty funny that they cross out the donkey to the limo when the paragraph goes onto explain that there was upward redistribution! Maybe thats because when the government gets involved the well connected (ie rich) get richer! Ya Bush was no better but thats why I vote Libertarian

[caroline gray]

08:35 PM on 10/19/2010

Hmmm only thing on there I recognize from rich people likes is iPad, which isn't necessarily a rich person thing.

[DanSc]

03:54 AM on 10/20/2010

You never see iPad in the hood or on the rezervation. A $500+ quazi-computer is definitely a rich person thing.

[Souris9]

10:49 AM on 10/20/2010

That's funny!

[Samuel Perry]

03:49 PM on 10/19/2010

Ayn Rand never once looked that good or that happy.

[Colonel Ingus]

03:15 PM on 10/19/2010

This guy's a bad writer. His primary concern seems to be showing off his extensive vocabulary.

[tundramonkey]

07:36 PM on 10/19/2010

Take your time and google the words you don't know. Sound out the long words out loud if it helps you. You will get it if you keep trying! English is a difficult language for many people.
Not many people are prepared for the truths that this author revealed. Be sure to have a counselor or clergy member handy for when understanding finally dawns.

[endthefedreserve]

05:23 AM on 10/21/2010

Good one tudramonkey. This is all due to English not being our national language.

[Dustin Thomas]

02:46 PM on 10/19/2010

I'm surprised bidet's are not listed.....

[MihaelaM]

04:35 AM on 10/19/2010

I have nothing against Ayn Rand but rather people who see her work in black and white. It IS possible to agree with some of her teachings and not all of them.

[crimghost]

12:33 PM on 10/19/2010

definitely! why not? I do.
The govt in Anthem is exactly what we're avoiding by putting an end to the ultra conservative trend that the Tea Partiers (otherwise known as apologist republicans of post '08) are.

[MihaelaM]

04:24 PM on 10/19/2010

Thanks CrimGhost, I have heard of Anthem but now I just might read it.

[Steve Shartwel]

02:18 PM on 10/19/2010

I still maintain that Ayn Rand had a debilitating lack of brain. Her work is not black and white, it is simply stupid. I have tried reading several of her books on multiple occasions, but each time found that I could not get around that fact that I was wasting my time, and pretty soon my brain would be just as mush and absent as hers must have been to write that crap.

[MihaelaM]

04:14 PM on 10/19/2010

While I agree she is by no means a good writer (I particularly hated the way she portrayed the architect), I did find some interesting thoughts in her work. It's not her work that is polarized, it's the opinion of people towards her. I feel there are far worse philosophers and writers out there.

[robertschrader]

11:42 PM on 10/18/2010

Wait, is this supposed to be ironic? Based on the quality of this person's writing, I have a really hard time believe he's not a bored trust fund baby who launched his career thanks to Daddy's connections.

[lazercat2008]

07:50 PM on 10/18/2010

Making us pay for their Yachts?

[Crystal water]

07:46 PM on 10/18/2010

Money, money, money
Must be funny
In the rich man's world
Money, money, money
Always sunny
In the rich man's world
Aha-ahaaa
All the things I could do
If I had a little money
It's a rich man's world