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Tip of the day: If you propose to somebody, don't do it on a jetty
By adamg on Wed, 08/11/2010 - 5:41pm
You don't want to start things off on the rocks, because in her excitement, she might drop the thing and you'll never see it again.
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Where do I rent SCUBA gear
Where do I rent SCUBA gear and a metal detector?
Nine. Thousand. Dollars.
Many of the families I work with make less than that per year.
I had a brief ick reaction to
I had a brief ick reaction to the idea of spending that much on a ring, but didn't want to say it. However...
$9000/yr will only about cover the minimum MA-mandated health insurance for a family. There's also rent, food, transportation, utilities, clothing, misc. school supplies.
If the family is receiving substantial public assistance, however, then their work income number is not so meaningful for comparison to the cost of something, except for exaggerated dramatic effect.
Not work income, in most cases
Almost all my families have MassHealth and subsidized housing. For many, their income is, say, $500 a month from DTA or $300 a month from child support or $800 a month from SSI. Others work and have work income of four figures a year and get MassHealth. Some do pay rent. I have one family that says they were raised to believe that any sort of public assistance wasn't right to take, so they have three nuclear families living in a tiny 3BR apartment so that the rent is $400 per family, which is most of this family's income.
Clothing and school supplies? Those they usually get through Cradles to Crayons and the place that provides school supplies each August in the distinctive-looking backpacks that scream "hey, I'm poor" when you see a kid walking down the street in them.
Welcome to the real world....
....where some people make more than you make. When you look at cops that make $100-200K/year, it puts things more into perspective.
I wouldn't spend 9 grand on a ring, either, but hey, that's just me. My wedding ring cost $17.50+tax. ;-)
No, YOU look at the real world!
Where you see people every day whose kid has a school project and the school doesn't provide the supplies and sends these things home as homework and the family has no money because they're barely able to provide rice and curries to keep everyone fed, so they're going to keep the kid home from school the day the whatever-fair is. Or a single mom who doesn't sleep because her special-needs child gets out of bed and raids the fridge and gets into the cabinets and plays with knives, and lockboxes and padlocks that this kid obviously needs because of disability aren't covered as medical supplies.
This is my life every day. And I usually have the money in my wallet to buy many of the things these families need, but ethical codes don't allow me to personally help my families financially, and there's no organization that will provide these things that don't fall into categories like food and clothing and child items that are normally lying around in a charity warehouse, and there's especially no charity that will provide them when the kid needs them the next day.
And then you hear about people who have an extra $9000 lying around and use it to buy some damn ring.
a big chunk of that value...
... is most likely the 1-carat diamond that was in it, and boston.com reports that the diamond had been passed down. so, perhaps a little less ick?
Yeah, still...
I think if I inherited something worth several thousand dollars, I'd sell it. Can think of a lot of better uses. I could start a fund for the mom of one of my kiddos who got a full-ride to college but can't afford books and fees.
Wedding Rings are a waste of money.
I always wondered how much money there would be if every woman and man in America sold thier wedding rings. When you think about it the rings really have zero worth.
The value of diamonds, and
The value of diamonds, and much of our current wedding traditions involving jewelry, have been engineered by the diamond cartel.
Diamonds do have some industrial application, such as for cutting. But diamonds for industrial application can be manufactured by Russians, when you don't have the cartel pushing people to the natural diamonds that it controls.
Pretty much
I'm not one to knock symbolism if it's meaningful to people. But really, the $9000 wedding ring doesn't symbolize commitment and neverendingness and whatnot any more than a reasonably priced one. It might signify greed and tastelessness though.
Also, I don't get the value placed on gemstones and stuff. Basically no utilitarian value. Like, why is said diamond worth more than most cars? Yes, hard to get to them, so the labor factor, I get that, but still, demand has to be present for the price to be that high. Why are people willing to pay the thousands of dollars for them? Metals at least make sense in terms of durability and shininess and all that, and there aren't (to my knowledge...) metals on the mass market where a normal plain band ring would be thousands of dollars. Why is a diamond thousands of dollars more than a lab-created diamond or a hunk of glass?
Simple supply and demand.
People like the stuff so they will pay for it. Imagine paying $150 million dollars for a Jackson Pollack painting? I mean, thats a man made item even.
$150 million dollar "painting"