Reply #3: Another volley in class warfare

[gratuitous]

This is an elitist, classist definition of value based on the consumerist definition of "value." I had a friend who spent some time in India. She brought back a stringed gizmo for another friend that had been cobbled together out of "junk." The strings were wires of varying gauges and thicknesses, the stops were carefully trimmed pieces of sheet metal, and keys cannibalized from a manual typewriter had been mounted on tabs on the stops. By plucking or picking the wires and holding down the stops, you could produce notes of varying pitch. A little tuning, and you had a serviceable musical instrument. Made from less than five bucks' worth of cast-off junk. And you'd never, ever see it in the home of an IRS agent or a congress critter. Which would be their loss.