tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7146512.post8975935222798970567..comments2024-03-12T22:31:46.500-04:00Comments on What Would Phoebe Do?: ShelterPhoebe Maltz Bovyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17996039330841139883noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7146512.post-17289369086757570462011-09-30T13:13:48.456-04:002011-09-30T13:13:48.456-04:00To my mother (or should I just call?) or, to my mo...To my mother (or should I just call?) or, to my mother and any other readers I might have:<br /><br />-Yes, it took less to buy this real estate Then than it would Now. But a) it was still out of the price range of most, and b) he and his wife nevertheless own this property now, and could sell some/all of it if they needed/wanted to. That's what makes the whole 'woe is me, I took out a loan for real estate, now I have The Debt' angle so off-putting.<br /><br />-In general, I prefer the term "luck" to "privilege" for something like a writer successful enough (assuming his income was the key factor, when it might have been his wife's, his own parents', who knows) to have nice real estate. The word comes to mind here because of the obliviousness - he manages to make buying up property so that his dog can run around on it, as opposed to so that god forbid other people could live on it, sound like he's the little guy. He's not.Phoebe Maltz Bovyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17996039330841139883noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7146512.post-57378116864719581032011-09-30T11:22:32.350-04:002011-09-30T11:22:32.350-04:00I agree with most of what you say, especially abou...I agree with most of what you say, especially about "shelter people" being thrown into the the same category or crate as shelter dogs. <br />One mitigating fact regarding the author's impressive real estate holdings is that he must have purchased both the townhouse and vacation home decades ago, when a whole townhouse in an iffy neighborhood in Manhattan and a whole house on demographically diverse (as compared to nearby Hamptons) would each have cost less than a one-bedroom apartment today. Since Lipsyte is old enough to have produced a son who's already published a book, he was around when prices were relatively low. He's been an established writer for a long time, his wife may have made even more money than he did--so, is using that sort of income a sign of privilege? Is success on its own necessarily privilege?<br /><br />E.H.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com