August 24, 2006--Fanaticism LXXXVII: The Bust Bust

About a third of the people who go under the plastic surgeon’s knife earn less than $30,000 a year. This is astonishing considering that, even if you are lucky enough to have medical insurance, you need to pay cash to have your face lifted or tummy tucked. A halfway decent lift these days will set you back about $20,000. It used to be that only the rich and famous could afford to have “a little work done.” How then are all these lower-middle-class folks scraping together all this cash? Like everyone else who goes for a European vacation, BMW, flat-screen TV, or Hermes bag, according to the NY Times, they are borrowing the money. (Article linked below.) And the plastic surgery industry has risen to meet the demand by marketing their services as if they were in the consumer products business. Some doctors are even extending credit to their patients, allowing them to pay off their nose jobs in monthly installments as if they were BMWs. And if you think this is all just about vanity, think again. According to Laurie Essig, a sociologist who is writing a book about the economics of cosmetic surgery, “In a bosom-obsessed society where you think you can earn $20,000 more with bigger breast, is it insane to consider taking out a loan to have surgery?” Another way to think about the cost-benefit of a nose job is to amortize its cost over its useful lifetime. One Beverly Hills plastic surgeon estimates that if thought about it this way it costs only 30 cents a day and, unlike a car, you don’t have to get it serviced and it doesn’t have to be traded in after the three-year lease runs out. That is, unless you’re Michael Jackson. But here’s something no one is talking or worrying about. A decade ago we had the Dot-Com Bust when investors overextended themselves by investing in companies whose stocks were soaring in spite of the fact that the companies were losing money. Now we are feeling the roiling effect of the sub-prime mortgage industry collapse. With banks willing to lend money to anyone who walked through the door, not even requiring them to make down payments, with interest rates rising and incomes falling, the real estate market is in danger of also going bust. Thus, shouldn’t we be concerned that the same thing could happen to all those folks who went out on a financial limb by borrowing thousands to have their boobs boosted? What will happen when they can’t make the payments on their loans? Are we in danger of, forgive me, a Bust Bust?