<p>That car does look cool. What will all these engineers with “downward mobility” (if they had wealthy parents) think of next! :)</p>
<p>Sign the Tesla motors petition, barrons, sevmom and everyone else [Tesla</a> Motors White House petition passes 100K signatures ? a small win for electric cars? | VentureBeat](<a href=“http://venturebeat.com/2013/07/02/tesla-motors-white-house-petition-passes-100k-signatures-a-small-win-for-electric-cars/]Tesla”>Tesla Motors White House petition passes 100K signatures — a small win for electric cars? | VentureBeat)</p>
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<p>jym, At $62,000 + , I don’t think I’ll be buying a Tesla any time soon. Unfortunately, I am not part of the “wealthy elite.”</p>
<p>The punch line – and she stepped on the ball – comes from the movie Auntie Mame. Her nephew, Patrick, is engaged to Gloria, a rich, shallow, “Upper Richmond Girl” who lives in Connecticut ands talks in the sterotypical nasally rich Eastern prep school girl voice. She tries to one-up Auntie Mame with a story of the dreadful things that had happened to her. Gloria tells a tale of a ping pong contest, where it was just dreadful, because she stepped on the ball and the supply cabinet was locked so she couldn’t get another. “It was dreadful, just dreadful.” Her equally shallow rich parents find the story quite amusing. The movie has lots of great addle headed rich girl quotes. When Gloria admires Auntie Mame’s apartment and its books, she comments that books are awfully decorative. It’s a great movie. Needless to day, Auntie Mame finds a way to bring Patrick to his senses.</p>
<p>Peggy Cass as Agnes Gooch was hysterical</p>
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<p>I am part of the wealthy elite but I won’t be buying a Tesla any time soon either. I drive a 5 year old VW.</p>
<p>I do have a few fancy handbags though…</p>
<p>Are these fancy handbags old money handbags or new money handbags? Is there a tutorial on that so I would know the difference? Or is there no distinction at the handbag level? :)</p>
<p>I definitely want a tesla a to cart around my Alexander McQueen handbag.</p>
<p>sevmomn,
Apparently $62K is cheap for a tesla. Thats the bare bones model. Actually I thought they went up to 100K so $87,400 was a surprise [Model</a> S Options & Pricing | Tesla Motors](<a href=“http://www.teslamotors.com/models/options]Model”>Design Your Model S | Tesla)</p>
<p>Apparently they are coming out with models with entry price points below $40K. <a href=“http://www.topspeed.com/cars/tesla/index423.html[/url]”>http://www.topspeed.com/cars/tesla/index423.html</a></p>
<p>I drive an 8 yr old car. This is too rich for my not-blue blood.</p>
<p>I have three friends who own Teslas so far. One may be a one-percenter, the other two certainly aren’t. In all three cases, the big motivation was having an electric car (all three “fuel” off of solar panels). So for me, when I see a Tesla on the street I’m more inclined to think of someone’s environmental attitudes rather than their SES. Well, except for that jerk we saw driving one a couple nights ago, cutting in and out of traffic and making right hand turns from the left hand lane etc etc. </p>
<p>It’s a fabulous car, btw. :D</p>
<p>Dragging this back onto topic: just seeing luxury goods no longer really signals SES. Just like my friends went for broke on a Tesla, people will save up and buy luxury goods that they especially crave–there was a recent New Yorker article on a 20-something fellow who bought an extraordinary handbag for IIRC $10k, much to the admiration of his coworkers. </p>
<p>The big difference IMO between the wealthy elite students and everyone else from poor to the merely wealthy is how they feel about getting a job after undergrad. Sure, D1’s wealthy elite college friends want to find work…but if they can’t, there’s a family business where there’ll be some kind of position from which to search for something else. That’s been the thing that really struck D1.</p>
<p>Yeah, our best car right now is a 7 year old VW Passat. We are not poor but even if I had tons of money, an expensive car or Rolex would not be on my list. But if people want these things, that’s their business.</p>
<p>I stopped reading this thread a while ago but just saw the Tesla references - I own one and I love it! It’s far from perfect (regardless of what Consumer Reports says), but I consider myself a beta testsite, finding the problems, helping them to improve and hopefully in less than 10 years, enabling the cost to come down and the kinks to be worked out. It does stop traffic and turn heads, there’s hardly a day when I’m not stopped by someone so excited that I’m driving one and wanting to chat about it with me. And I love plugging it in when needed and bypassing the gas station. Oh yes, and it makes me so cool to my kids friends! (But I agree that this is off topic)</p>
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<p>Very true from working alongside engineering/CS graduates along with having plenty of family and HS classmates who ended up in the field. </p>
<p>The only things they tend to not accept IME are folks who disparage STEM nerds, the STEM*/technologically inept, and/or folks who can’t keep up with them intellectually. </p>
<p>Vast majority also tend to be minimalists on the aesthetic/fashion front. </p>
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<li>There’s some leeway for the STEM inept…it’s the only way I became part of their club in HS onward. :D</li>
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<p>There’s also the factor that engineering/tech has a bit of a skilled blue color vibe which many in the wealthy classes…especially old money and those whose wealth came from non-engineering/techie sources have some disdain for. </p>
<p>Not to mention the negative prejudices against STEM nerds are just as/stronger among them.</p>
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<p>Depends. The ones who are tend to spend most of their money on gadgets or technological components. </p>
<p>For instance, the spendy hardcore engineering/CS folks who build their own computers for gaming/academics/professional work could easily spend a few thousand dollars to spec out parts like special overclockable motherboards, RAM, graphical processor units, etc.</p>
<p>And that’s if they are building it themselves. </p>
<p>Also, I’ve learned that when we’re running short on time on road trips…it’s best to steer clear of any Apple Stores, Best Buys, Fry’s, Microcenters, Radio Shacks, etc, etc, etc…</p>
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<p>Well since I grew up middle class I guess they would be new money handbags.</p>
<p>cobrat,I think it is said too that even though society benefits greatly from engineering advances, most people don’t have the personal exposure to engineers that they do to people like doctors or lawyers. People enjoy the engineering and scientific advances but don’t necessarily relate to all that goes in to making that happen. Every educated person has had to see a doctor, possibly consult an accountant or lawyer, definitely has had professors but most people have not had to personally deal with an engineer.</p>
<p>That is funny about the Apple stores,etc. Some of that probably relates to what type of engineering the person is in. My civil engineering husband was always happy to go out of the way on road trips to look at bridges, dams, dredges, etc. , not so much to gadget places (thank goodness).</p>
<p>You vastly overstate the extent to which the wealthy, or anyone else, walk around “disdaining” others.</p>
<p>There is a psychological condition known as “projection.”</p>
<p>That’s the thing I don’t get either, cobrat. All the disdaining , disparaging issues you seem to have. I have been around a lot of engineers (FIL, H and both sons) and there was no disparaging of “folks who can’t keep up with them intellectually.” You must run with a tough crowd.</p>
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<p>What’s more funny is how Apple went from being heavily disdained alongside Windows as being computers/operating systems for computer/tech idiots in the estimation of most hardcore engineering/CS aspirants/majors during my HS/college years to becoming one of the darlings of many in that very same group. Some of those engineering/CS grads were themselves Apple haters back in the '90s…but by the '00’s were certifiable fanboys. </p>
<p>The main factors seem to be the combination of the powerPC with OSX…which they’d always love to point out is built on top of a variant of BSD unix as opposed to previous Mac OSes which had no techie cred among them. The move to intel made little difference one way or another. </p>
<p>While most of those road trip friends were EE/CE/CS grads, this obsession with computer/tech gadgets isn’t solely limited to them. An uncle who is a Civil Engineer was one of the earliest adopters of personal computers(pre-PC/MAC) in the 1970’s. There’s still some really old photos showing him and some of his kids playing on it. </p>
<p>I also have a bit of an computer/tech obsession. However, I don’t need the latest and greatest and due to a combination of regularly getting dumped systems from companies, clients, friends, CL and from the streets in my local neighborhood all free…I get far more than I need for my “fix”. </p>
<p>Last time I paid retail for a brand new computer was a Macbook Pro several years ago. It was for my mother. 
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<p>Note to self: Read more slowly when tired. No, no one is calling anyone an old moneybags.</p>
<p>Periwinkle- you are SPOT ON.</p>