Yes, the world is topsy turvy. But people wanting to have (or paying to have) a brand new bass pre-beat-up probably should have been your first clue.
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The world is topsy turvy
- Thread starter el jeffe bass
- Start date
I suspect many people define "rich" as "anyone who has one dollar more than me." This leads to angst, and sometimes bad economic policy.
Everyone stresses about money. There are plenty of folks in the top 1-2% for income who are effectively wage slaves and worried about inflation, retirement balances, cost of higher education and risky investments. And there are likely people in the top 0.1% for net worth that could never spend all their money, and are still stressed about it: how to hide it; how to pass it on to heirs; how to avoid paying taxes on it.
Those of us that live in the developed world, and have computers and and smart phones to discuss the finer points of expensive guitars, amps and pedals on TalkBass, are doing OK. And probably in the global top one percent. I am grateful I have the resources and time to (virtually) hang out with you all.
If I had made better decisions when I was young I would have much nicer stuff now. 
Yeah, I know someone worth 9 figures. His wife is so rich he had to sign a prenup to protect her. And he lives in fear that if he doesn't keep working it will all go away tomorrow. We get some weird survival wiring as we grow up, and for some of us, it affects our money/security pathways in a very unhelpful way.
Having worked for the what’s in your wallet company (which is their fingers BTW) , in terms of credit cards, what you post is accurate. I will dispute all credit usage is bad. For instance you need a car to get to work, or a house to live in. Odds are it’s going to be financed, but in the end if you are better off financially, it’s OK.
But to your point no debt is better than any debt, but renting a house/apartment, (considering that rent rise and mortgage payments don’t) until you can pay cash for one for most people is a nonstarter. Owning a home in time may build equity which can offset the cost of financing.
Just wait until the "Bass subscription" plans start!
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Pro Tier Plan: All features plus live performance and recording allowed without being sued ($50/mo)
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I am in this exact same boat. Finding all of my expenses have really ballooned and my disposable income is down to a trickle.
Just get this mortgage paid off and I will retire and take on as many gigs as I can.
I agreed with most of your post, except this 1st part. I've NEVER heard anyone say this ever, let alone 'many'. Trying to understand how it could even make sense, unless the 'guy saying it" is already 'rich' and won't /can't/doesn't want to admit it.
and, even the 2nd part doesn't make a whole lot of sense, unless.. well, trying to figure out how thinking 'anyone who has one dollar more than me." leads to bad economic policy.
Maybe just me.
If you think about it, Fender's (or any manufacturer) only 'customers' are their dealers, and when you're as big a customer as Sweetwater, often it can boil down to 'I'll get you 50 of the ___________________, but you got to help me out and take 20 of these _____________________' so they can move wood. I'd imagine something like that is at work here.
That wasn't really my point. There's debt that's unavoidable but it's important to realize that the debt dealers do not give us impartial financial advice. When we bought our first house together, we worked out what we could afford and that was significantly lower (like 25% lower) than what the bank was offering us. My having lived through the 90s UK housing bubble where bass and sax gigs were putting food on my table, there was no way we were going to buy more house than we could comfortably afford.
JazznFunk
Supporting Member
Very smart! Those are exactly the kind of loans that are forbidden by law here in the US, post-2008 - but were unfortunately very common before that. You are correct that people should know better than to accept the terms for a loan for $500k when the home they are financing is only $300k. Especially when the 'teaser rate' is super low, and resets within a year or 2 to a double digit rate. That's just greed all around, and why I personally think all adjustable rate mortgages (even modern ones) should not be legal. The draw back then was that interest rates were so low that they were basically giving away money, and people would sign those over-the-top loans to instantly have access to cash to use for other things in their lives, unaware of the pitfalls - or they just didn't care about the risks. I've always loved this speech from Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, which came out a few years after the 2008 crash, which dealt with this very concept:
In most cases, banks have a legally required fiduciary duty now to provide you with information about the loan product they are selling you (rates, amortization period, fees, etc) and can be punished by law for selling a high pressure mortgage with questionable terms. The issues present within that now-illegal model of extending finance do not mean that all credit is bad, or that all loans or banks are out to get you. But everyone should try to be as financially literate about their own situations and the products they are being sold before signing anything. We unfortunately are in an aggressively de-regulatory environment again where those in power are trying to remove safeguards and transparency at all levels of financing, banking, etc. to allow consumers to be manipulated and taken advantage of again, in the pursuit of more profits.
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Yep, regulations are there for a reason - they're written in the blood/red ink of the victims.
JazznFunk
Supporting Member
I often think back to what would have (not) happened if the Glass-Steagall Act had not been repealed in 1999/2000. 2008 would likely have never happened. The very regulation that was in place to prevent a crash of that stature was wiped away purely on the lobbying of CitiFinancial so their decidedly illegal merger of their retail and investment bank wings could happen.
The collateral damage was even worse than the direct damage to those who walked away from toxic mortgages and endured bankruptcy. The sheer force with which every person's greed up and down the line from Wall St to Main St affected EVERYONE indiscriminately once the house of cards came crashing down, except the ultra rich who stayed insulated from it all, was insane to watch from my perspective working in the real estate advertising side of things. I'd only been out of school for 5 years... barely getting established as a 'professional'... and I could never re-earn those lost years back. It seriously felt like the entire financial system was going to collapse.... and it would have without the bailouts. Everyone has their opinions on those, but the bottom line after spending years studying multiple books covering all sides of the collapse is that without the bailouts... it would have been lights out.
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It’s always been expensive. There’s plenty of posts here showing how prices don’t really change all that much once adjusted for inflation.
Fifty years ago, there was only one kind of P bass and one kind of J bass in the catalogs. The 1974 MSRP was $325 for a P and $390 for a J. In 1977 the prices rose to $425 and $505. The 1977 prices adjusted for inflation are $2292 and $2723. So today’s prices of about $1900 would be reasonable assuming income rises with inflation…which it usually doesn’t.
By comparison, pricing a basic Toyota Corolla from 1975 the MSRP was $2,711 (equivalent to $16,221 in 2025). The MSRP of a basic 2026 Corolla is $24,120.
This one?
There is contamination on the lower bout treble side edge. There are other fine scratches on various parts of the instrument that are not photographed. These scratches do not show well in photos, if at all. Does not come with any accessories.
The resources that we have at our disposal would have been mind boggling one hundred years ago. I try to remind myself often just how fortunate I am to live at this point in time. The lifestyle that my wife and I have been able to carve out is beyond my wildest dreams when I was young.
edited to say that I fully agree with you about being able to hang out virtually with this awesome bunch of people.
yup, that's the one. I originally missed the part about the finish contamination but my point about discounting a pre distressed instrument because of additional distressing being somewhat humorous stands. My post was never intended to do anything other than point out the irony of this. All that said I think that the JMJ bass is a very cool instrument that I would love to have, relected or not. but I would prefer NOT.
I agreed with most of your post, except this 1st part. I've NEVER heard anyone say this ever, let alone 'many'. Trying to understand how it could even make sense, unless the 'guy saying it" is already 'rich' and won't /can't/doesn't want to admit it.
and, even the 2nd part doesn't make a whole lot of sense, unless.. well, trying to figure out how thinking 'anyone who has one dollar more than me." leads to bad economic policy.
Maybe just me.
At the risk of further derailing this thread in the "Basses" forum, I'll add this bit and then exit. Most of you can skip right on to the next photo of a bass. (If someone really wants to continue this, and we don't run afoul of the mods, it could be taken to Off Topic.)
The definition I said "I suspect" was meant to be a light-hearted take on people's perceptions of "what is rich?" My observation is based on both interactions with people across the income spectrum on a personal level, and on the observed aggregate behavior of voters in the United States of America.
First, almost nobody thinks they are rich. Guys making $40K a year don't, gals making $80K a year don't, couples making $200K a year don't, nor at $400K. People making $1 Million US per year think maybe they've achieved "comfortable." I know, or have known, people in all these spaces, and they can all make a compelling argument about why they are just getting by, but definitely are not "rich." Maybe they live in San Francisco with an insane cost of living, or they have 5 kids, or huge debt service from a previous failed business. I would concede that Elon Musk probably thinks he is rich. So billionaires may be an exception to this general rule. But even they seem to behave like they need more money.
Second, everyone agrees that there are "rich" people. The guy at $40K thinks that those making $80K are rich. The gal at $80K thinks it's the $200K folks. And so on, right up the scale. So everyone knows that the rich are out there, but they aren't among them. When I've asked individuals to name a number that makes one rich, it's always more than they make, or have.* Sometimes it's just a little more, and sometimes it's a lot. So, yes, my shorthand of "$1 more" is just a way to express the absurdity of the pattern. It could be $20K or $50K, but the same attitude applies. And if that individual subsequently achieved that level of income or net worth, they'd move the goalposts. (I have seen this multiple times.)
Economic policy was a brief way to include things like taxation, central bank interest rate decisions, unemployment benefits, food assistance for the poor (oh, another term we'd have to define precisely. The USA has made this definition, but it's probably not what you think. Worth a quick google.) In the US and many "western" (a bad, but often used, label that would include most of Europe, but also Japan, South Korea, and others) nations, governments make policies that include value judgements about wealth redistribution. How many times have you heard a politician say, "The rich aren't paying their fair share?" So we, as governments, make decisions about what graduated tax rates should be, where financial assistance should begin, and so forth, based on definitions of rich and poor. And some of those decisions are counter productive, in that they drive unintended behaviors that are bad for the populace.
Wherever you are on the spectrum, remember that someone with more than you thinks they are not rich, and someone with less than you thinks you are rich.
If any of this conversation makes you uncomfortable, well... that's the angst I am talking about.
*Really, income is a bad way to look at this. Net worth is a much better measure, but it's subject to the same definition problem.
