YA Author Amy Koss In Bizarre LA Times Op-Ed: Wealthy People Suck!
Some people are determined to demonize people with money -- and especially wealthy people who buy things other than a single pair of cardboard shoes to shuffle around in (just the thing to go with their thrift-store sackcloth and ashes).
This time, it's Amy Koss, a YA author demonizing the rich in a bizarre, meandering, virtue-signaling LA Times op-ed.
The headline:
"If you're spending $100,000 on a handbag, you better be someone's fairy godmother."
Writers actually don't write the headlines. But here's a bit from her piece -- which starts out with somebody helping her when she felt faint at an event:
I wanted to be her fairy godmother and, with the sparkly ping of my magic wand, make all her dreams come true.Alas, I have no magic other than good intentions and, of course, that other magic power: money. It would've been tacky to dig a crumpled $10 bill and a handful of change out of my purse to give to my good Samaritan, wouldn't it? But a $1,000 bill would've been nice. Do $1,000 bills even exist?
People help you to be kind. It's how we show humanity to each other -- which happens to elevate us and make us feel connected in the process.
Paying for it afterward turns it into a transaction.
If you are a person who makes an effort to kind things for others, it seems you would recognize this.
I really don't get this weird, expressed-in-an-op-ed longing to provide payment to kind people.
But, wait -- there's more!
She veers from wishing to the world that she could shovel money at a kind person to sneering at a man who has money:
He originally designed his monster house with an eight-car garage to accommodate his snazzy vehicle collection, but he has since downsized the car park in deference to neighborhood complaints. The master bedroom, however, will still be 1,200 square feet, and the house itself, 6,000 or 8,000 square feet, I can't remember which (and does that include the pool house?).He's free to do as he wishes with his money and the land he bought, even if what he's building looks like a mini-mall and has wiped out what used to be four lots of trees and deer and butterflies. I assume he picked our modest neighborhood to construct his behemoth so he can look like a lord among serfs. And that too, is his right. But now that his garage will fit just six cars, maybe he could sell the other two and use the money to fund an elementary school lunch program, or pay the annual salary for a school librarian in his new neighborhood. He could, if he wanted to.
She doesn't know what this guy does or doesn't do. She just assumes he's an evil mofo because he's got money and is putting up architecture she finds distasteful.
But wait -- on to the evil people who buy expensive handbags:
The mind boggles at what the rich could do, if they gave the least damn. I paged through a fashion magazine recently and was gobsmacked by the price of handbags. Actual people must pay those prices for a purse, or the purses wouldn't exist. That means there are people who think those prices are reasonable....I know that compared with many people on Earth, I am rich enough to make strangers' dreams come true. And I'm hardly the first to sting with shame over my own comfort and unearned luck, my own two shirts. I like to imagine that I'd be infinitely more generous than I am, if only I had more to spare. I like to believe that after I bought myself a few absurd handbags at $100,000 a pop, or erected a grand garage for my fleet, I'd grant wishes at will. But I too am human.
And what did I do for that sweet stranger who took care of me last week? Did I turn a pumpkin into a carriage and have her whisked off to the ball of her choice? Not even metaphorically. I just thanked her, went home and wrote this op-ed.
I'm merely hostile, not violent, but this woman makes me almost wish I were the sort of person who went around slapping people.
Meanwhile, the Birkin Bag (which can cost $60,000 to $200,000 in some editions) is a better investment than gold, as reported by Tara John in TIME in 2016.
Quote from the piece:
According Baghunter, an online marketplace for buying and selling handbags, the Birkin bag outpaced both the S&P 500 and the price of gold in the last 35 years-- a time period chosen to reflect the date when Birkin bags were first produced in 1981. They say that the annual return on a Birkin was 14.2%, compared to the S&P average of 8.7% a year and gold's -1.5%.
And...finally...on to a comment on Koss's piece at the LA Times:
PeterLawrence
Strange article. Kept reading hoping to discover the point of it, but never did. Hate when that happens.
The woman is both ignorant and stupid.
"Do $1,000 bills even exist?"
Easy to look up. Also easy to find out why the Fed has confiscated all bills over $100.
"He's free to do as he wishes with his money and the land he bought, even if what he's building looks like a mini-mall and has wiped out what used to be four lots of trees and deer and butterflies."
Puke. Obviously she doesn't really think so. I suppose it's OK when it's more than one house, or a mall where she shops?
Wealth envy is ugly. It results from the personal and public delusion that the market lies, that the object of envy really stole money rather than earned it.
Money is not cash, and I would drop any "adult" desciption from anything she writes. Here's more she doesn't know.
Radwaste at November 7, 2017 12:11 AM
When people with the attitudes of Ms.Koss take power, the result is countries like Zimbabwe and Venezuela.
Wfjag at November 7, 2017 2:15 AM
"And what did I do for that sweet stranger who took care of me last week?"
At the risk of using a hackneyed phrase, you "pay it forward." You help out the next person you encounter who needs it. It doesn't require $1,000; small acts of kindness, at the right moment, can be worth far more.
(But I expect everyone here knows that already. Perhaps I should comment at the original article.)
Brad R at November 7, 2017 3:37 AM
People like that never consider where the house came from. Maybe she thinks it's tacky and ostentatious, but probably thousands of people earned some part of their living building that house. The architect, the people who cleared the land, the people who built the equipment used to clear the land and produce the lumber and steel and bricks, down the the guy who swept up, all these earned by producing. i expect they are all happier earning by doing real work than by receiving charity.
iowaan at November 7, 2017 5:42 AM
Brad's answer is the perfect one.
Amy Alkon at November 7, 2017 5:56 AM
This woman is an idiot. I took a moment to Google her to see if I knew any of her books bc I have daughter who reads that YA garbage, much to my dismay. It's seems like this isn't her first piece in the LA Times. She also wrote a long screed comparing Amazon to the devil. Now, you would think that someone that opposed to Amazon would live by their own principles, but alas no...Ms. Koss's works are still available at Lucifer's website. This is why people hate the Left so much. One rule for you, another rule for them.
http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-koss-the-devil-as-amazon-20170604-story.html
Sheep Mom at November 7, 2017 6:17 AM
Envy, it is said, is the only one of the seven deadly sins that isn't any fun.
Yes. Pay it freaking forward, for heaven's sake.
Visiting our son's family, I discovered their neighbor had been widowed about a week earlier. So I raked her front lawn. No big deal. Ideal midwestern autumn day. At my age, raking leaves counts as vigorous physical therapy. So, no big.
But it was to her, she said. It was "special." I actually felt guilty, over thanked for so little. But I guess it helped.
I could have been spending my time railing about the wealthy or something more relevant to our world.
Richard Aubrey at November 7, 2017 6:42 AM
" It would've been tacky to dig a crumpled $10 bill and a handful of change out of my purse to give to my good Samaritan, wouldn't it?"
So 'good' of her to not even do a small gesture of giving to one who helped her. And make it sound noble.
"maybe he could sell the other two and use the money to fund an elementary school lunch program, or pay the annual salary for a school librarian in his new "
His property taxes alone probably does pay for them both. If he had built the larger place they might be hiring an assistant to the librarian.
Joe J at November 7, 2017 8:23 AM
Ms. Koss's article seems kinda like she had nothing to write, but had a deadline, and just kept typing until she got to the required word count. Freshman English profs must see this kind of stuff all the time.
bkmale at November 7, 2017 8:56 AM
She kinda has a point. I note that almost all democrat politicians are very wealthy, and they all suck.
dee nile at November 7, 2017 10:01 AM
I took a moment to Google her to see if I knew any of her books bc I have daughter who reads that YA garbage, much to my dismay.
________________________________________
Um...what do you mean by saying that YA = "garbage"? YA only means "young adult."
Just because a LIVING author writes for teens doesn't automatically mean the books are trash. Even romance writers who aim for teen audiences almost never get referred to only as "YA" authors by critics or librarians - that would be too dignified.
lenona at November 7, 2017 10:42 AM
I wonder how the people living in studio apartments feel about the way this lady spends her money?
lujlp at November 7, 2017 11:16 AM
My Merkin bag is a much better investment than her Birkin bag.
Donald Hump at November 7, 2017 12:43 PM
If she's so worried about how the rich guy should be spending his money, maybe she should lead by example and not by stupid commentary.
Daghain at November 7, 2017 2:51 PM
When you buy a toaster for $50, what part of that payment goes to the owners of the toaster company? About $1. Those greedy bastards.
Wealth under capitalism is almost entirely earned. The exception is political graft and corruption.
http://cafehayek.com/2014/10/more-than-one-perspective.html
=== ===
[edited Yale economist William Nordhaus looked at the non-farm U.S. economy over the years 1948-2001.
He calculates that successful innovators capture only about two percent of the value to society of their innovations. The other 98 percent of the value is passed on to consumers rather than captured by producers.
=== ===
Andrew Garland at November 7, 2017 6:23 PM
Is it any wonder that the tax reform bill is so horrible, with these kind of people yippin' and yappin' at Congress?
mpetrie98 at November 7, 2017 7:52 PM
First, briefly, my general reaction: "Don't project your insecurities onto me. What I do or don't do for others is none of your goddam business. Get over yourself."
Second, let me just pick on this one sentence, because this is fun: "...wiped out what used to be four lots of trees and deer and butterflies." Now, of course trees, deer and butterflies are all things generally found in nature. But let's substitute some other things often found in nature into the sentence, and see how it reads: "... wiped out what used to be four lots of snakes and poison ivy and cockroaches." See, isn't that fun? And it's a game that anyone can play.
Cousin Dave at November 8, 2017 3:11 PM
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