@Medevil
Feelings (generally speaking) are mixed, very few people can actually have that lifestyle, all the others do their best to fake it.
I guess the most common sentiment is envy, mitigated by (false) morality.
A common approach is:
Person 1: You see that guy over there, he has a ....<name of a car> and a <choose flat/apartment/villa> ... in <name a known expensive> place.
Person 2: Really, I wonder how he managed to get that, he must be into <choose drug/mafia/corruption/or other similar item connected with the "dark side">.
Very few people realize that, with the, all in all very small in number, exception of actual criminals, football players, TV stars and politicians, life
is just (more or less
![:cheers:](http://reboot.pro/public/style_emoticons/default/cheers.gif)
), and that money is earned by working long hours, using one's brain, risking, and usually
it is deserved as compensation for the "other" things one misses, like a family life, some relax, sleeping all the hours needed, etc., etc.
The approach to the "born rich" is:
Ha, he is lucky, if it wasn't for his <father/granfather/greatgrandfather/other relative> (who was into <choose drug/mafia/corruption/or other similar item connected with the "dark side">) he would be asking for charity at the street corner,
he is a total moron.
The approach to self-made man is basically:
Ha, he cannot possibly have done all that
honestly.
To answer your other question, yes, German cars,
not Volkswagen ![:cheers:](http://reboot.pro/public/style_emoticons/default/cheers.gif)
but Mercedes, BMW and Audi have a somewhat more "luxury status" than other brands.
Basically because:
1) they are usually more expensive
![:cheers:](http://reboot.pro/public/style_emoticons/default/cheers.gif)
2) they are usually "better"
![:cheers:](http://reboot.pro/public/style_emoticons/default/cheers.gif)
(as compared to FIAT)
Only exception is maybe the Golf GTI that has been for now more than twentyfive years a "status" for youngsters.
Of course Toyota's
are actually better, but in Italy mostly minicars are sold with that brand, and Lexus are too high priced to enter the "contest".
If your question about lifestyle is about sexual relationships, the trend is:
- be a couple without marrying
- after a fair amount of years, marry nonetheless
- divorce soon after
We don't care much about homosexuals, there are civil laws that grant partners of "established" homosexual or heterosexual couples some of the same rights a married couple has, we don't care about marriage, we don't care about divorce.
Basically the idea is that everyone is free to do whatever he/she wishes as long as he/she don't bother
"me", it's at the same time a very "liberal" and very "selfish" society.
I would guess that Germans tend to sport (at least the "establishment") a somewhat more strict "morality", cannot say how much truly felt, as, judging from the way they behave abroad, I think that a great part of it is due to "obedience to the classic" (no mattter if actual Law or "morality").
At least for the time I lived in Germany, in Berlin - which I am told is somewhat NOT like Germany - and remember I was there in 1994/1995 when still the wall fall was recent, and the impact of easterners was high on society, I noticed a difference with Italy.
There was a greater gap between the new generation of youths and the "establishment", in Italy parents were more "large minded" and sons were less "provocative/disrupting".
jaclaz