‘Luxury’ has a moral original sin because it is impractical and creates a sense of incongruity between the relatively rich and the poor. Thus, it is true that ‘luxury’ also carries a negative image. However, the rich do purchase luxuries regularly, with a few practical exceptions. This is because luxury items not only incur less depreciation, but their resale value often exceeds the purchase price over time. Think of luxury handbags or jewelry. To preserve or increase wealth, you must have an eye for luxury. This doesn’t mean you should live in luxury; rather, it highlights the challenge of maintaining your accumulated wealth unless you change your habits and attitude toward acquiring assets. - Joseph’s “just my thoughts”
Capitalistic thinking is not about domination by capital; it refers to financial thinking. The economy revolves around exchange. The performance of the counterparty corresponding to what I want to exchange is called ‘consideration,’ and a ‘transaction’ is the accumulation of added value by exchanging equal considerations. However, among transactions, this consideration is not relative but absolute; trading solely in one fiat currency as consideration is termed 'finance.’ When I obtain a loan, the bank lends me fiat currency (the bank’s consideration), but my obligation is to return the fiat principal plus the contracted interest. The consideration in this transaction is unidirectional, involving only one fiat currency. In contrast, when I buy shoes, the seller has an obligation to hand over the shoes to me, and I have a counterpart obligation to pay in fiat currency. Once these two considerations are exchanged, an industrial transaction occurs. However, as noted earlier, in financi...