They must be rich

Before the late 1980s there were things that if you did them or had them it was a sign that "you were rich." The more of them you did, the more "rich" you were. For example:


If you bought your cars new not used, you were rich.
If you had a purebreed dog.
If you traveled by air.
If you vacationed 3 or more states away.
If you had a second phone line.


We can add more and please do, but it seems that since at least 1990, there are fewer and fewer signs a family is "rich" like this. At least not like it felt then. To readers born after 1980 or so you probably can't feel quite what I am talking about the same way myself and a few of the other old guys here do.

Are there any kind of signs like this today that say, "he must be rich?"

Quote: AZDuffman

Before the late 1980s there were things that if you did them or had them it was a sign that "you were rich." The more of them you did, the more "rich" you were. For example:

I'd say more late 60's than late 80's
for the things you listed. In the late
80's it was a motor home, a cottage
on a lake, vacay's to EU, and sending
your kids to an Ivy League school.

Quote: AZDuffman

Before the late 1980s there were things that if you did them or had them it was a sign that "you were rich." T

If you traveled by air.

The Boeing 707 first commercial flight was from New York to Paris on October 26, 1958 with a fuel stop in Gander, Newfoundland. The first production 727-100 made its first flight Feb. 9, 1963.

My parents flew from New York to Paris for five days in March 1963 on tickets they won through work. They were decidedly not rich. I am curious if they flew on a Boeing 707 or if they had to stop for fuel in Newfoundland. They can't remember.

I think that the Boeing 707 had increased it's fuel capacity from the original 51,000 L to 80,000 L by the early 1960's, so that the refueling stop was no longer necessary.

Just wearing good clothes all the time used to be a sign of wealth. Today, it's not, so everybody dresses casual in fancy restaurants, etc., [unless management insists].

I've often talked about the Greenbrier in WV. That's a place still insisting, but I think it is just tradition.

Never tipping, never buying a new car, never buying a round being in the bathroom, wearing old clothes, complaining about tacos going up $.10, hates most other people he doesn't know, has a decent income, claims to live in Florida and sleeps in Ohio every night, he must be rich.

Quote: 1nickelmiracle

Never tipping, never buying a new car, never buying a round being in the bathroom, wearing old clothes, complaining about tacos going up $.10, hates most other people he doesn't know, has a decent income, claims to live in Florida and sleeps in Ohio every night, he must be rich.

Did you just hear him say "Miami" and assume?

Quote: AZDuffman

Did you just hear him say "Miami" and assume?

Hell no.

If you can't see the house from the front of the driveway.

Although if you couldn't see the house, you really didn't know what was back there.

I guess early TV influenced my notion of high end vacation spots. Italian Riviera. I think Hilton was the high end hotel. But there were some old NYC hotels and probably London whose names escape me now. If you had a doorman.

Anyone living in a penthouse.

Right the house you cannot see is the new thing the ultra rich do. A man wanted a mansion, but wasn't allowed so from the sky, it looks modest, but it's just the tip of the iceberg and the other 90% is all underground.

Quote: 1nickelmiracle

Right the house you cannot see is the new thing the ultra rich do. A man wanted a mansion, but wasn't allowed so from the sky, it looks modest, but it's just the tip of the iceberg and the other 90% is all underground.

If you can bring natural light into a home via fiber optics, and with new video walls, there may be a wealthy man's home in the future that completely is oblivious to the outside world. You just get in your car and drive out via a secure entrance straight on to a main highway.


In Oaxaca they had homes under the aqueduct that were built in the 1700's. Perhaps in the future such homes will be prized for their security and energy efficiency.