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Looking at used basses is just so depressing lately...

#363
two fingers said:
What scares me the most (here in the states anyway) is the absolute lack of fear of going into MASSIVE debt among people under 40.

I simply can't even imagine buying a $500,000 house if I don't have half that to put down on it (at least). But I know lots of younger couples making RIDICULOUS mortgage payments. They also make $600 car payments on new Tahoes and Lexus SUVs.

Some of them are musicians. And these guys will FINANCE a drum kit or a $8,000 PA system for their band.

Their monthly payments must be INSANE.

Let me put it to you this way. PART of the reason houses are so expensive is people having a PAYMENT mentality. You get to the end of your month and there's $3,000 left. You think "Well, I can afford a $2,000 mortgage payment and still have money in the bank!" Next thing you know they're putting a transmission for their car (that isn't even CLOSE to being paid off) on a credit card because there isn't enough in the bank to cover it.

If we were only able to put a grand a month away in savings I would be losing my mind. And yet there is a HUGE percentage of people here in the US who.....

1).....slide into home plate every month BARELY making every payment, AND....

2) .....think they "deserve" another bass or a new car or a bigger house or a $10,000 Disney vacation and manage to somehow squeeze one more payment into their budget.

It literally makes my stomach uneasy to even imagine living that way.


Do NOT finance a bass (or amp or pedal or whatever music gear) especially if you already have one and don't make a living playing music. That is simply idiotic. Period. Dumb. Stupid. Ridiculous. Insane. Not very bright. Stop it. Put down your freaking computer mouse, or phone, or iPad and go for a walk while you give yourself a lecture on not being an idiot.

I haven't heard any economists or "experts" saying this. But I think PART of this inflation is due to people who only care about surviving another month having gotten back to zero (or close to it) in their bank accounts.

You do not "deserve" anything you can't pay cash for with the obvious exceptions of a shelter and food and the POSSIBLE exception of a car. Everything else, if you can't hand over the money for it, you can't afford it and shouldn't get it.


Before you light into me, I have been FLAT BROKE TWICE in my life. And I practiced what I preached back then. Once I slept on a friend's couch for two weeks. When I got my own place, I got a mattress from a family member who was getting a new one and put that sucker on the floor of my bedroom. My clothes were literally stacked on the floor. I used paper plates and a plastic cup I had gotten from a baseball game a few years earlier. I drove a 15 year old car with 275,000 miles on it and clawed my way out with ZERO debt. I've lived it.

Make a mortgage and a credit card a LOT harder to get, and enforce WAY lower caps/limits on them. It will hurt for a little while. But after a few years IQs will rise and we'll settle into better times.

/rant

Edited to fix multiple excited thumbs typos.
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I saw a piece on TV here in Australia the other night in which a young couple said that they could absorb the last 0.4% interest rate increase on their mortgage but they will be in trouble if it goes any higher. It went on to say this is the same for a quarter of all mortgage holders - this is at a bit over 2%. If we hit 5-6% I think that is around the historical average, it once hit 18%. And just recently we have been printing money, well "retiring debt", like billy-oh. Your are absolutely right on...
 
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#364
Outbush said:
I saw a piece on TV here in Australia the other night in which a young couple said that they could absorb the last 0.4% interest rate increase on their mortgage but they will be in trouble if it goes any higher. It went on to say this is the same for a quarter of all mortgage holders - this is at a bit over 2%. If we hit 5-6% I think that is around the historical average, it once hit 18%. And just recently we have been printing money, well "retiring debt", like billy-oh. Your are absolutely right on...
Click to expand...
its prevalent in the uk also the world on a whole has got so financially out of whack, i can foresee things getting worse before the end of the year, i've been out of work since 2019 but that is due to some health issues and other scenarios occurring here in my hometown east kilbride
 
#365
Ralf1e said:
Who restrung the nice blue one? What did it do to upset them that it deserved such a terrible job doing on it. Lol
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the only gripe i do have is there tends to be well here in the uk unsure if fellow lefties having same issues in Europe and the uk lack of left handed version basses and guitars , mean okay the argument may surface not so many southpaws to right handed players but this just seems to be a lame cop out for manufactures and it has to stop and people need to stand up and say no you will treat us lefty's equal and fairly
 
#366
John Keenan said:
the only gripe i do have is there tends to be well here in the uk unsure if fellow lefties having same issues in Europe and the uk lack of left handed version basses and guitars , mean okay the argument may surface not so many southpaws to right handed players but this just seems to be a lame cop out for manufactures and it has to stop and people need to stand up and say no you will treat us lefty's equal and fairly
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As a fellow UK detainee I can answer that. I was taught in college years ago that the USA has far higher number of lefties than we do in the UK. They even make feft handed can openers and scissors I was told. I can understand that as I was forced to become right handed myself from the earliest age by my mom who didn't love left handed daddy anymore. Such is life.
 
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#367
Ralf1e said:
I can understand that as I was forced to become right handed myself from the earliest age by my mom who didn't love left handed daddy anymore. Such is life.
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Same experience, different reason. And a put down as a kid was that I had a left handed brain. Maybe, but as an engineer I've come up with ideas that have left others speechless as to where the idea came from, so it worked. Not sure any more that that was a bad thing, just makes me who I am.
 
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#368
Ralf1e said:
As a fellow UK detainee I can answer that. I was taught in college years ago that the USA has far higher number of lefties than we do in the UK. They even make feft handed can openers and scissors I was told. I can understand that as I was forced to become right handed myself from the earliest age by my mom who didn't love left handed daddy anymore. Such is life.
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i tell you see some of the toxic abuse i got in school from teachers being left handed like i was the spawn of the devil and real nasty stuff being hit with leather straps and stuff, but no i will never conform from being what i am, we all need to stand up and say to the guitar manufactures, you will cater for us we will no longer be stood upon with the narrow minded elitism
 
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#370
Jeanpaulgoat said:
You only NEED one bass. It should have all the notes you need. If you cant make it sound right then try improving your technique through thousands of hours of playing. If you can be bothered with doing that it doesnt matter what you play anyway!
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Yeah I get that but its not a great experience just browsing anymore lol...You are right, only ONE needed.
 
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#376
Hmmm...
Used to be able to buy a nice second-hand USA strat for $500, any day of the week!
Wait, that was twenty years ago...

Used to be able to buy a second-hand Rickenbacker 4000-series bass for $500, any day of the week!
Wait, that was thirty years ago...

OK, I am over being depressed now :)
I need to bankroll all my depression energy for when the mortgage rates hit 20% again!
 
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#380
I'm seeing many basses for prices I'm not willing to pay. The good thing is that I dont have to buy anything, but the 'want' is still there.
If an irresistible price showed up, I'd be tempted but I'm just window shopping as I've fixed my prices as to what I'm willing to pay for what model.
I'm over amps and cabs.
 
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