I really miss Terry Pratchetts wonderful take on the world. Made me furious and sad when he died and that beautiful mind being stolen by dementia- there really is no such thing as fair🥺
I think it might be better that he isn't here; can you imagine what he would think of the current world we're living in? On the other hand, can you imagine the books he would write if he were?
Because I care, and it’s s great quote, here’s your image with ALT-text. It took me longer to type this that it did to add the ALT-text, and I’ll explain in the next reply.
All I did was to save the image to my photos, then click and hold to select all the text in that saved image and then choose “copy”. In my reply I uploaded the image from my photos and then pasted the copied text into the ALT box, adding a few words for clarity.
iOS and MacOS have OCR built-in, which is what made this copy-and-paste possible. I can’t speak to other devices, but I’d imagine most have similar capabilities.
Goodness, that was a great series. He was finally able to afford some boots. Eventually. I loved the witch and Death books the best. RIP Granny Weatherwax.
Wow! Did someone get ahold of my medical records? I couldn’t afford root canals…had 5 teeth pulled, now can’t afford implants (missing teeth are a “pre-existing condition & not covered). Couldn’t afford mammogram…had breast cancer, and I’m now 5 weeks post op spinal fusion surgery!
Thanks, me too! I’m doing great now, but 8 surgeries in 3 years is enough for me. I told my kids I was tired of being broken and they said I wasn’t broken, I was unkillable! We will go with that for now! 😂
would it not be worth considering say saving 5 dollars for 10 months to buy the good ones - or is there a follow-up to the Boots theory that goes into inflation
This is something that I constantly tell my kids. It is very expensive to be poor. You can't get discounts for paying up front, you often have further from home to work costing more in transportation, you can't get quality when living pay cheque to pay cheque etc. All these things tax the poor.
In India & Pakistan there's a saying, "Mhenga ek bar, Sasta,bar bar"* which translates roughly as "Expensive one time, Cheap many times", exactly what the quote says
* Apologies for poor transliteration & translation
The dems should this example, or ones like it, in their messaging to turn voters back to them. It should resonate with many. I am certainly one that it does. I learned this lesson in high school but with a purse instead of boots.
This is so true. I used to drive garbage truck and poor people often had more garbage than their more affluent neighbors. The things that they could afford have become so cheaply made that they are practically garbage to start with. Walmart's business plan! Obscene and killing the planet.
Well, the economy has to make money, and they sure don't make money on those that profit from the economic system. So the 90% have-nots pay the money. It's called trickle-up and it's the only way the capitalist system will ever work. You can't change the system from within, simple as that!
“He earned thirty-eight dollars a month” gives you an idea of the economy this story is set in. Even the cheap boots are expensive, relatively speaking.
oh they are, I was just talking about how the "cheap" stuff we bought ten years ago is now twice as expensive and an even cheaper version has replaced the same price point
Also those 38 dollars are discworld dollars, right
Ankh-Morpork dollars, yeah. It always struck me that he’s talking about over 25% of his monthly income, and that’s the cheap option. That would be like the median American paying $900 USD. So Vimes was REALLY impoverished at this point in the story.
My bank has a ‘monthly maintenance fee’ of 12 bucks a month it charges if you haven’t made a deposit of over 250 and haven’t maintained a balance of over 1.5k.
So, literally, only a fee for the incredibly struggling.
Been there... it's just the beginning. If you can't afford to register, insure, or maintain your car, it may get impounded, and you can't get to work. It all falls down very quickly. Tow fee, impound charges can be many hundreds of dollars. Lots of times more than the car is worth. Now what?
I had to have all my teeth pulled and get dentures after a bad medication reaction. Once they did all the work we discovered I needed implants to hold the dentures in place due to small/shallow gums. I didn't have $20K, so I didn't get them. As a result, my gums and the bone under them have receded.
Love Terry Pratchett. Making good purchases is one of few things you can do when poor, but it can be hard. Same goes for businesses actually. Hard to afford good investments when liquidity or credit dries up. It’s expensive to be poor.
This was cars for me for 20 years. Couldn't afford a reliable one so I had to get POS cars, try to save for a good one, but they inevitably die and I have to use the little I saved getting another POS. Then continue the cycle until literally last week
Hell, rich people often buy stuff with others’ money too. Just look at Twitter. Elmo ”bought” it for $44B, but whose money was it? Not his. Some bank loans, some from foreign powers, then he saddled Twitter itself with the loans (and interest). How much did he himself pay?
I feel the same way about new technology and solar energy. Folks with money can afford to invest in the solar panels and cut their energy bills down. Retirees on a fixed income are trying to adjust to a older bodies that don't keep us warm anymore & a world of extreme weather patterns.
Here in Norway those who bought electric cars got: no VAT, free parking, free charging, drive in buslane, no tolls, and Tesla became the most popular THIRD car for people living just outside Oslo. If you bought it with your house loan you also got the benefit of tax deduction
Been saying this for years. Walmart stuff is cheap but a lot of it is crap that will breakdown faster than quality items that are just too much of an initial investment. Also, if a wealthy person buys a home they pay cash. Poor end up with a mortgage, 30yrs of debt, and pay 3xs the initial price.
So true...When my kids were little I drove school bus. One of the students asked me if I wore the same pair of pants every day and I said, "Yes but I wash them every night"...
You should! It's the perfect mix of comedy, sincerity, social commentary, and imaginative fantasy.
The first 3 books are a bit meh, but not bad. Mort is where they start getting good, and once you hit Wyrd Sisters and Guards! Guards! they're some of the best books you'll ever read.
You absolutely should. Various sub-series in it, but I would start with The Colour of Magic (the first book). If that doesn't quite click with you, skip on to Mort. Mort is an excellent introduction, and it centers around one of the best characters in Discworld: Death.
George Orwell does pretty well in Down and Out in Paris and London, whan he describes the unmitigted disaster of a beetle falling in your milk which is the only thing you'll consume for a long time. A problem that you'd shrug off if you have money becomes a catstrophe.
And they gave me some food
And they didn't charge me
And they gave me some coffee
But they didn't charge me
And when I was broke I needed it more.
But now that I'm rich, they give me coffee.
B. Folds
We are taught how to be consumers from the moment we are born. We look at the price instead of the value we will have. I have many items bought "last century" that I still have.
Ugh same with toilet paper. I remember having to choose between food and toilet paper because I had to spend 5 bucks on 2 rolls of paper because I could never afford the dozen rolls for $10.
I'm working class and surviving - and this is the quote I always use when my husband is fighting me on spending the bit extra on good boots, jackets, etc. We were so used to living paycheck to paycheck, and now we're better off but can't always escape poverty mindset.
Husband co signed new car loan for a friend because the interest rate they were going to be charged for a used car made the used car more expensive than a new car with my husband's good credit rating. Friend had "bad" credit because he was "poor". Yes, very expensive being poor.
Elon can never be sure if someone is really his friend or if they are friends with him for the money. It is a curse that has always been with him since he was a child.
That was a great book. I read it years ago. It’s a big reason why I don’t hire a cleaning service to help with housework. Even though I’m 68 and in pain most of the time, I can’t get past the guilt
That’s true. It’s about priorities isn’t it? Which really surprises me when poor people eat junk and prepared food rather than basic but cheap and nutritious food you cook at home.
Yes, this! And poorer people pay higher interest on loans, and have student debt and car debt and mortgage debt so they end up paying more than rich folks for EVERYTHING.
And leads to the inevitable coarsening of people and society. This is one problem with income inequality and why it can’t persist in a time of transparency and global communications and why it is an immediate concern
My sister thinks buying in bulk (at lower unit-cost) is EXPENSIVE, while at the same time she thinks places like Dollar General are cheap because single-item prices are "lower". She's paying 2-3 times as much per fucking item!
Read. More. Pratchett! The man was wonderful and had a great sense of humour! Yes, little bits of his humour haven't aged well like the fatphobia and other small things. But he was really progressive and just a cool dude! Like Granny Weatherwax is my favourite character in fiction ever! Love her!
Tired to make this argument on my property tax assessment. My clay tile roof will outlast multiple asphalt shingle roofs, making it the cheaper roof in the long run. They were amused.
I remember reading this years ago and TRYING not to be caught up in buying what’s cheap, and trying to buy what will last. I’m not always able to pull it off.
And this is exactly why when people say “pay back what you borrowed!” on student loan forgiveness it drives me nuts. Like buddy, we already have, multiple times over. We’re paying 2-3x or more what your parents paid for your education..
Pick yourself up by your bootstraps. Stop buying coffee at Starbucks. Allow your entire generation to take advantage of cheap schooling and home prices, and then slash the funding to give yourself tax breaks. It's doable if you are willing to work hard.
Yes- I'd add that the person telling you you're going to slow is riding a motorized scooter. The last race they ran was a 5K 30 years ago where they came in 17th place and won a 4BR ranch for $21,000 that's now worth $415,000.
Except now, the more expensive boots don't last any longer than the cheap ones, they just cost more because you'll pay more to look like you can afford to pay more.
Congress must create a non-profit banking system within federal post office buildings. Low-income and homeless need this kind of service. Banks charge fees that often hurt people who accidentally overdraw and monthly fees for accounts. Democrats should take this matter seriously.
I like this, but in our time the global marketplace has skewed toward the cheaper the better, so that even the expensive brands aren't up to the quality that they used to have. Not very much difference between Target and Neiman Marcus.
The book is Feet of Clay, if anyone's interested. I love this man's writing and I CANNOT recommend it highly enough. He touches on so many social topics relevant today. Trans rights, women's rights, the idea of justice...
Yeah, you're right. Feet of Clay was the one where he could tell where he was anywhere in the city by the feel of the cobbles under his boots. I don't know why I get those two confused. Maybe it's time for a reread.
I always do the same. I still cringe at the times i have recommended someone to start from the first book. Periodically i call those people and beg them to start from Guards! Guards!😂
I started with The Light Fantastic, which I did not know at the time was a continuation of Color of Magic. Needless to say I was very confused, but I stuck with it. And the rest is history.
society summed up in one simple idea.
A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that’d still be keeping his feet dry in ten years’ time, while the poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet
Show me a pair of 10-year old boots on a real worker and I'll show you a liar. The reason expensive boots last longer on rich people is because they don't do any hard work. Those boots might last 2 years on a hard worker ... maybe.
It’s the same with everyday items, if you can afford to buy the bulk sized packs or deals it works out cheaper in the long run. An example is my dogs food. 700gr bag is £7
14kg bag is £70.99 which is £5.07 per kilo. Which makes 700gr £3.54 so I can save money if I can afford the initial £70.99.
But finding quality is tough anymore. Now we have a choice of low quality cheap shit, or low quality shit with an expensive logo. Finding high quality shit costs you more than the tag price, you also have to pay transportation costs to track down the high quality items.
This is what I see on an almost daily basis with the poor in Thailand. The example I use is ordinary plastic items used outside in direct sunlight versus the same items that are UV stabilized and last 10-20 times longer. The UV stab items are maybe three times the price but out of reach of the poor.
Totally true. My $100 plus work shoes never lasted more than a few months. My $300 shoes are five years old and still battered but fine- for making sculpture. But it really hurt to buy those better boots.
The one and only pair of shoes I bought that were expensive are for work, fabricating sculpture. And they outlasted all the other inexpensive pairs by years.
Checks out. The same goes for any wardrobe item these days - I have several good shirts that have lasted years, and others that didn’t survive 2 wash cycles.
Add to that the scandal of goods and services being more expensive if you're poor, eg. pre-payment meters, high interest loans etc. Also if you're very rich, you get given stuff for free
Irrelevant to your (or rather, Sir Terry's) point, which is solid... there's also the problem that the modern consumer culture of planned obsolescence has made it so that it's often impossible to buy better quality. All you get for more money is extra useless features. More stuff that can break.
Comments
Accessibility is love.
I call that the Poor Person's Fee.
I'm here for a good time not a long time.
* Apologies for poor transliteration & translation
Each book is filled with social criticism insights without preaching. Entertaining and thought provoking.
He was a wise, wise man. And funny as hell. And the best satirist of the late 20th/early 21st century.
And the good boots? 100 bucks, minimum.
Also those 38 dollars are discworld dollars, right
I wish to christ I had back all the overdraft fees I paid over my lifetime.
Fucking pirates.
So, literally, only a fee for the incredibly struggling.
I know it has been for me.
More difficult to get around - but cheaper.
Credit - An economist
Also Douglas Adams, the Shoe Event Horizon:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nEI19kJ5GfU
The first 3 books are a bit meh, but not bad. Mort is where they start getting good, and once you hit Wyrd Sisters and Guards! Guards! they're some of the best books you'll ever read.
When you are rich, the bank pays you to do exactly the same thing.
And rich people often eat for free.
That's just the way it is 🎶🎹
B. Hornsby
And they didn't charge me
And they gave me some coffee
But they didn't charge me
And when I was broke I needed it more.
But now that I'm rich, they give me coffee.
B. Folds
They gouge prices to the moon, and then pit us against each other over who’s to blame for it.
We’re all just NPCs in their game - and this play through is f*cked. All that’s left is to wait around for the hard reboot.
who had more than one pair?
It goes into great detail about how and why being poor is so expensive.
https://www.amazon.com/Nickel-Dimed-Not-Getting-America/dp/0312626681
You’d take a key to a shop and put money on it.
You could only pay for what you used.
If you could put £50 on, you’d pay a fraction of what you’d pay for electricity compared with if you could only put £10 on.
20th century economic principles no longer apply in the 21st century.
...and we're not even close to reconciliation or acceptance.
First, companies keep "buying my debt," which is a shady scumbag business practice to begin with.
Second, those idiots agreed to pay for my print journalism degree in 2006 when it was clearly a dying profession.
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/72745-the-reason-that-the-rich-were-so-rich-vimes-reasoned
A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that’d still be keeping his feet dry in ten years’ time, while the poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet
14kg bag is £70.99 which is £5.07 per kilo. Which makes 700gr £3.54 so I can save money if I can afford the initial £70.99.