As usual some people try to look at a situation in black and white terms when 99% of all situations are far from it. If you're not living in a recycled cardboard box, completely solar with your own well and riding a bike everywhere, you're living in an 8000 sq ft home with three H2s and an oil-gusher in your backyard that drains into the fresh-water supply. Come on, give such extremes a rest.

It probably wouldn't take too much education in psych to find out that someone with the "trophy" house and "trophy" car shouldn't care what someone else thinks about them. Especially someone they don't even know. If they do care that much it probably smacks of a much greater insecurity, which in many cases was a likely cause for such *unnecessary* purchases in the first place. delta_flyer has made repeated delineations between owning/purchasing/using something because of need vs. owning/purchasing/using something for no good reason at all, which would probably be the definition of owning it to inflate ones' ego. Something I'm sure everyone does from time to time. One would hope such indulgences err on the less-destructive side, but such isn't always the case.

It would be nice if obese people would eat less fatty fast-food, since it ultimately raises my health insurance. The same can be said for cigarette-smokers. The H2 driver uses more of our oil supply, which ultimately drives up gas prices for *everyone.* So merely saying "I can spend it however I want," while true, ultimately impacts everyone. Nothing is without cost. My personal goal within that situation is to try to cost as little as I can.

By the way, "I should be able to enjoy that hard work as I see fit, without some self-righteous person passing judgement on me" doesn't sound very non-judgmental. Ironic considering the point you were trying to make. So if everyone is going to be judgmental no matter what side of an argument they fall on, hopefully I'll be on the less-selfish "waaaaahhh-I-want-my-toys-and-I-don't-care-what-it-costs-me-or-anyone-else" side. ;-)