Of course, my own trade tools are a mixed bag just as you describe, and for the same reasons. As are most tools that I see other tradesmen keep.
I just thought it was fun to imagine a scenario opposite to what puzzlegal described.
I don’t want to deplete my freebie count by clicking on the link so please expand.
You get a flat tire you replace it with a spare (natch), then ship the bad one off to get it repaired or replaced?
Yes, it sounds crazy but if you do a Google search for Bugatti Veyron tire change, you’ll find various websites that talk about this. This site mentions it, but it talks about the tires needing to be glued to the rims to work properly. So I’m not sure if the machine is needed literally to mount and dismount the tires to the car or it’s needed to mount the tires on the rims.
Is there such a thing as rich people health care?
I mean in some ways there are things money can get you.
You can see a medical professional without waiting.
You can hire the best medical team out there (if you get cancer you can get the best cancer hospital on earth rather than the in network one nearby)
You get a private room at the hospital
But at the same time, nobody makes solid platinum hip implants for rich people or has a luxury colonoscopy.
By and large it seems the rich and everyone else, at least in nations with UHC get the same health care. Only difference is the rich don’t wait in line, they can hire the best professionals and they probably have bigger hospital rooms.
Well, yes and no …
I would say that a boutique practice optimally would be effectively a small private hospital. Look, back in the day many towns had a small hospital of 10 to 15 beds, one operating theater and effectively one or two general practice doctors, enough nurses to staff, and orderlies to do the heavy lifting. The medical practices were that of the old Dr Kildare films - no fancy imaging other than xrays, if you needed to find something out, you scrubbed up and cut in.
If I were to be running a boutique practice, the clinic would be probably the same size, but with a CT, and MRI, a PET and an imaging theater set up to do upper and lower GI investigations, and less ‘clinically uncomfortable’ - there wouldn’t be all the same operating room stuff because it would be used just for GI stuff [the place I had one colonoscopy was in a private clinic and was not more operating roomish than the endoscope stuff, the gas passers station and the table, and the table was slightly padded]. Casting broken parts would probably be with the spiffy fibreglass mesh casts that allow for bathing, some of them are multipart so they can be removed for maintenance. There would be an on staff physioterrorst and they would probably have a pool for water therapy.I wouldn’t expect many actual beds for overnight stays, but I would imagine perhaps half a dozen rooms for overnight recovery.
[There is a hotel in New Haven near Yale-New Haven Hospital that has a floor that has a couple assigned nurses for people to stay in the hotel for a more comfortable recovery. We stay there the night before I have anything invasive done to be near the hospital so I don’t need to be up 3 hours before something. We don’t stay on the hospital floor, but they did let us know they had it when we booked an additional night post op when I had my throat cutting <parathyroid removal>]
A boutique medical practice for the very wealthy could also shell out the maintenance for a full-time staff of therapy dogs and cats, for example. Imagine recovering from surgery on a king-sized bed while kitties wander in & out to curl up and purr with you.
I just checked an on-line music store, and the most expensive electric guitar strings are about $40 a set, compared to the cheapest at about $5 a set. Which is a difference, but not the same range as real luxury items.
I suppose there may be some ‘artisinal’ ‘handcrafted’ strings available somewhere, but I kind of doubt it’s much of a thing.
Now I’ve got Ralph’s Old Man stuck in my head.
“You used up all the glue – on purpose!”
I imagine if you have enough money you can basically hire your own private doctor, who comes and treats you in your own home, at least for fairly routine stuff. Think Michael Jackson’s doctor who prescribed him whatever it was ostensibly to help him sleep. I seriously doubt Michael Jackson was going into the clinic to get those prescriptions. No having to actually go to to the doctor’s office for rich people, except maybe for tests that require large equipment like an MRI.
Actually with peanut butter, like so many other crap American foods, you don’t add things to make it “gourmet”. You take things out.
Peanut butter - hydrogenated vegetable oils - sugar = quality
Ketchup - high-fructose corn syrup = quality
Cake Frosting - Crisco = quality
I could think of a bunch more but it’s depressing.
Pony up a couple grand a year and you’ve practically got a key to your doctor’s house. Faster appointments, longer appointment times, sometimes direct access to the doc’s phone number, and some even do housecalls. You get some extra / more thorough screenings.
I’ve heard some hospitals have VIP suites for, well, VIP patients; obviously I have never experienced that myself :p. If you’re perceived as a big wig, you might well get more attention and cosseting from the staff than “the kidney patient in ward 3” or whatever. And if you wnat to see a Big Name Specialist, you might have sufficient clout to bring that person in with a simple phone call. In general, though, all else being equal, you and the “kidney in ward 3” will get the same level of medically-appropriate care, you just have fewer hoops to jump through.
And of course there are some things that insurance doesn’t cover, that someone with more cash could get. I ponied up about 7K for premium lenses when I had my cataract surgery. Someone with a lower income couldn’t have afforded that.
So, all in all, it’s a matter of access to better service, and perhaps better accessories, but the basic medical care should be the same.
In the UK, I’ve heard, if you can afford private care you’ll get (somewhat) nicer hospital rooms and you don’t have to wait as long for non-urgent procedures. I gather that in Canada, that sort of setup isn’t allowed (if you take the government-sponsored funding, you cannot ALSO take pay-for-service patients for the same procedures - someone can correct me if I’ve got that wrong).
A lot of that is going to depend on state law and what doctors can and can’t do. For example here in Texas, and in something like 9-10 other states, doctors can’t dispense medication. So even if say… Matthew McConaughey had his private doctor prescribing him something like propofol, McConaughey would have to go get it himself from the drugstore, as the doctor can’t dispense it himself- that has to be done by a licensed pharmacist.
This is a very interesting question. I have long maintained that there is space in the market for an high-priced baking flour. There are a few that are a bit upmarket, but I still see room at the top.
Looking around my apartment this morning, I suspect most disposable things do not go upmarket well. Chinet® is about it for paper plates, I know of no comparable plastic knives and forks. It would be hard to spend a lot of money on a coffee mug (excluding bling). Some electronic components (I am thinking memory cards) are sold as commodities. Same for some mechanical components (fan belts, air filters). Industrial products (sheet aluminum, concrete, bricks) don’t really count as they are not consumer products, but still.
A very good question indeed.
So you’re talking about “Rich Person” versions of stuff but would still be mass produced (maybe not factory produced, but made and packaged for resale without knowing who it’s for), i.e., not bespoke in some way?
Because I have seen everything foodwise, including “ordinary peanut butter” as mentioned by someone in this thread, come in an expensive version due to being organic, non-GMO, artisan, hand-crafted, small-batch, locavore, single source, farmer-friendly, free range, etc., etc.
I don’t know what kind of toothpaste Bill Gates uses, but you can be sure there are High End Toothpastes for those with the money and the desire to get them… I hear Neiman Marcus is in danger of going under, so someday you may need the Wayback Machine or some other Internet page archive to confirm the existence of “Swiss Smile D’Or” Toothgel, which they are selling for $119 for a 75 mL (2.64 oz.) tube, which is a “transparent toothpaste with 24-carat gold particles”.
Well, at that price it comes with a gold plated toothbrush, so maybe it’s unfair to say this is some kind of super-expensive toothpaste. Then again, they do not appear to sell “D’Or Toothgel” separately. You use the tube up, then what, throw the toothbrush away?
How about something like ketchup, which is so low-brow that most elitist types would turn their nose up at using it completely rather than invest themselves in some high-end version? … Or so you’d think. Behold, here is Sabatino Tartufi’s black truffle infused spicy ketchup! OK it’s not unaffordable to the average joe, as it’s $13.50 a bottle - a 10 oz. bottle! You can get a 32 oz. bottle of Heinz Ketchup from Amazon at $2.78, so that’s (13.50/10) / (2.78/32) = more than 15 times as expensive!
That morning, while still warm? Can’t be done.
I’m signing up for this…worth it at any price. [note: I have two feral rescue tabby siblings pinning my lap and right arm down as we speak. I’m not recovering from a medical procedure but it sure is nice] the meezer just wandered out, took one look, said “nah, I’m not sharing” and walked disdainfully away.
How about gasoline. Sure there are two or three (or more occasionally) at most gas stations, but is there really super-high priced rich people gasoline?
It’s called. ‘Jet fuel’.
Some people buy aviation gas for highly modified cars, dragsters, etc.
In my area, it goes for 3.50-5.57/gal 100LL
Kinda- organic with no added sugar.