Things that are just bafflingly expensive

my clothes are made of ideas and mustard stains

Renting a car to drive from Portland to San Francisco. (One-way, alas.) $450 for two days!

u got hosed

uh, I don't know about your college years but mine were emphatically NOT a weird mashup of visiting yr grandparents at the home and doing time

hey $40k only goes so far...

u got hosed

i save money to buy things by refusing to tip waiters

u hose waiters

WHAT A DICK

shakey mo how much do u pay your wife & mother in law?

I don't think I would have even considered buying a Kors shirt at all except that I happen to have a soft spot for paisley.

I think I've identified where you went wrong.

(btw my condolences on MPLSound and Lotusflower, better luck next time?)

I don't think I would have even considered buying a Kors shirt at all except that I happen to have a soft spot for paisley.

As I recall.

I just mean, you like paisley, you see nice paisley, it costs WHAT?!!! Oh, Michael Kors... whatever. This explotiative line of argument is unfortunately a major factor in human nature. I'll buy union made, I'll buy fair-trade, I'll refrain from buying frippery but I may not not get what I want , eh?

Too lazy to google for picture of Ian Paisley's head...

shakey mo how much do u pay your wife & mother in law?

um I guess if you got into the crude economics of it I pay my wife around 1/2 my salary to take care of our kid and keep us all clothed and fed. my mother-in-law refuses to accept any money from us.

I think I've identified where you went wrong.

(btw my condolences on MPLSound and Lotusflower, better luck next time?)

paisley park is in your heart, Dan

how much do you think it really cost to make that shirt and get it into a US store... $5? $10?

i mean dude

But it's more the basic economics of the, as you put it, "wildly speculative aesthetic market" that I find inherently repulsive.

IT'S CRAZY TO PAY A MAN 10 MILLION TO PUT A BALL IN A HOOP

hey if you have a detailed breakdown of Kors' economics by all means lay it out there. but yeah mostly I assume anything that's made in China costs like fifty cents, since its basically slave labor.

IT'S CRAZY TO PAY A MAN 10 MILLION TO PUT A BALL IN A HOOP

imho yes it is! but I am that rare species of male who has absolutely zero interest in professional sports. and that's another thread altogether...

shakey mo knows how much things are worth

mo knows

everything made in china was made by slaves and costs fifty cents

no, you aren't paying for just the shirt, you are paying for it being a michael kors shirt.

the michael kors people had to shell out a shitload to make sure everyone on earth knows how special that is; that's the labor and expense you're paying for. no, you aren't paying the kid in indonesia, but you are paying don draper DO YOU SEE

yes I do see and frankly that's the part I have no interest in paying for

(lol the only reason I even know who Michael Kors is at all is because I have had to sit through a few too many episodes of Project Runway)

shakey i cant tell if youre operating on a sub econ-101 level here or are just ignoring the way pricing is determined?

hey if you have a detailed breakdown of Kors' economics by all means lay it out there. but yeah mostly I assume anything that's made in China costs like fifty cents, since its basically slave labor.

― Wet Hot American Oil Spill (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, March 11, 2010 4:23 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i mean there is more going into the kors shirt than chinese dudes and some paisley fabric

xxp exactly

"IT'S CRAZY TO PAY A MAN 10 MILLION TO PUT A BALL IN A HOOP

imho yes it is! but I am that rare species of male who has absolutely zero interest in professional sports."

I have no love for sports either, but Charles Barkley says such crazy stuff he's worth at least $1million for that. Would love to see Leno booted after 3 months and show given to Sir Charles.

Shakey, that line of inquiry baffles me. Why speculate? It costs what it costs. For every stuck-in-the-19th century pseudo-Marxist who has a slim grasp of his labor theory of value, there are stuck-in-the-18th-century Smithians who can faintly grasp only the importance of capital. C'mon, can we at least get within a couple of decades of modern economic theory?

(lol the only reason I even know who Michael Kors is at all is because I have had to sit through a few too many episodes of Project Runway)

Real slavery^^^

sorry to be al 'markets 101' 'marx was incorrect 101' but, there is no such thing as 'surplus value'. there is no inherent, and therefore no "just" cost for anything.

things are worth exactly what people are willing to pay for them, and that's that, there is no other way of assigning a figure. oppression goes into the price, no doubt, but it's not like fixing the cost of a paisley michael kors shirt at 19.99 makes that problem go away. perhaps you have heard of wal-mart.

funny it took this thread to out me as basically anti-revolutionary, but there u go.

lol xps

Why speculate? It costs what it costs.

because, frankly, if that very same shirt did not have Michael Kors' stupid name on it, I would have been able to afford it. So I guess I'm just annoyed that he got a product made that I would have otherwise purchased, had his ridiculous industry not necessitated it being so expensive.

xp

that very same shirt wouldn't have even existed if not for Michael Kors

there is no inherent, and therefore no "just" cost for anything.

things are worth exactly what people are willing to pay for them, and that's that, there is no other way of assigning a figure.

lol why are you even bothering with this thread then...? which is about people not being able to understand why certain things are so expensive?

anything that's made in China costs like fifty cents, since its basically slave labor.

People in China can make a very healthy wage, enough live comfortably by their own standards and/or achieve their personal goals (like working for 2 years in a factory and then going home with enough money to buy their extended family the first home they've ever owned, for instance), and still produce products that are really freaking cheap compared to our domestic labor.

The only area that we can't make the Far East conform to Western labor standards is in hours worked -- typically the young people that leave their families to live in a city and work for a manufacturer are willing to work far longer hours that someone in America who's been doing that job all his or her life and wants to leave promptly at 5pm.

that very same shirt wouldn't have even existed if not for Michael Kors

eh this is debatable - I mean, he didn't sew it himself. its not like it was THE MOST UNIQUE SHIRT EVER or anything

lol why are you even bothering with this thread then...? which is about people not being able to understand why certain things are so expensive?

― Wet Hot American Oil Spill (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, March 11, 2010 4:32 PM (20 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

think hes explaining why 'certain things are so expensive'

just by knockoffs

I would and do

think hes explaining why 'certain things are so expensive'

yeah but his answer is just "because that's how expensive they are" which is, you know, not really illuminating

btw i already explained all this upthread:

anyway yall want me 2 blow yr minds

― max, Wednesday, March 10, 2010 2:20 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

shit is expensive

because

~~~people will pay lots of money for shit~~~

― max, Wednesday, March 10, 2010 2:21 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

I'll buy that things are "worth" what the market will bear, but contained within that is the acceptance that markets often fail, and some markets are more "rational" than others, and there is plenty of room for bafflement in why that happens or why that is.

because, frankly, if that very same shirt did not have Michael Kors' stupid name on it, I would have been able to afford it.

Which posits that you DID like it (however original it may or may not have been). It's the cost that mattered to you. It was sufficiently attractive to elicit your interest but not at that price point. Okay, but why the Michael Kors hate, then?

anyway yall want me 2 blow yr minds

lol MIND ... BLOWN

However rational markets are, there are plenty, PLENTY of ineffiencies in human interactions; enough to keep it all 'interesting'.

BTW, don't knockoffs in general increase the value of the original brand? It's basically free advertising, and asserting by its being a knockoff that the original had some ineffable goodness worth knocking off.

I'll buy that things are "worth" what the market will bear, but contained within that is the acceptance that markets often fail, and some markets are more "rational" than others, and there is plenty of room for bafflement in why that happens or why that is.

otm

Conceivably, however, Michael Kors 'stupid name' is no more stupid than your favorite vocalist's, or favorite producer's, or painter's or writer's - they all more or less made it - it doesn't make them objectively the best. Go and try to make that one, unique, utopian paisly shirt for yourself, hell, make a half dozen for future use, and figure out how much that would cost you.

Learning to be a slightly less than knuckle-headed consumer is something they really should teach in school. If you get bored you can always slake your thirst with fluoridated water.

Go and try to make that one, unique, utopian paisly shirt for yourself, hell, make a half dozen for future use, and figure out how much that would cost you.

considerably less I'm sure, altho lol will have to figure out wife's hourly wage rate for this work haha... but yes fundamentally its not Michael Kors per se that I have an issue with so much as it is the name-brand fashion industry in general. which just creeps me out.

more than blood diamonds?

www.sackcloth.com

the word worth sorta makes this discussion tricky - I mean, in 2006 a house in riverside, ca is 'worth' $1,000,000 (someone will pay it) and it is also not 'worth' $1,000,000 (it does not have the underlying value and the market will eventually adjust)

I don't buy diamonds - pretty easy product to avoid. I am, however, required to wear a shirt on occasion.

More than the music industry? The restaurant industry? Biochemicals? Temporary workers industry? The lingerie industry? The arugula industry? The screamo industry? The pipe filter industry?

i've been calling for screamo regulations for years now