I sat in my co-worker's new 2011 F250 Super Duty Power Stroke Turbo Diesel XLT the other day. I like Joe, we goose hunt every season, but man, I question his economic decisions.
He told me a few weeks ago he bought this new truck and I immediately asked why. He replied, "Why not?" Really, there's not much else to blog about when you get an answer like that, as it tells you everything you need to know about why consumers engage they way they do in their acts of consumption. But I will blog on.
His old truck was fine. With this new truck, he says, you can't even feel the trailer behind you. I thought to myself, so fucking what if you can feel the trailer behind you?
His old truck was fine. With this new truck, he tried to show me how his iPhone, that wirelessly docks to the in-dash radio, is able to stream an Internet based music subscription service to the speakers. He asked me to give him a song. I told him Dimension Zero's Silent Night Fever. He spent seven minutes trying to find it on-line via the iPhone and it didn't work. Came back with some jazz. We gave up.
This truck is over $40,000. Yeah, he traded in his fine old truck to offset some of the cost, but really, he's at least another $20 grand in debt...just so he doesn't have to feel a trailer and can steam down some music. OK, maybe there's more to this story. Maybe a big diesel truck is a babe magnet. In any event, I just can't see how I'd ever, ever, spend that kind of money on a truck. Granted, I'm four standard deviations from the top of the consumer bell curve, but damn. If our economy is based on this kind of spending, well, I guess I should just be glad there are tens of millions of other Joe's out there doing the same thing.
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