Bullshit. I know what’s cool to me, and what’s not. Wanting nice things is cool to me. Frex, I got no problem iwth the humpty-thousand dollar gowns and such they wear at the Oscars and so forth. I consider that costuming for an important ritual event, much like the costumes of Balinese temple dancers or European court royalty. But a $12K suit just for hanging around? C’mon.
By that logic, ANY economic activity is acceptable – “And so when a plantation owner buys slaves, the slave shippers get money, wich they spend on their homes, which helps people who make bricks and furniture and such, and they spend it on their ships, which helps shipwrights … etc.” I have seen free market types use it to support modern slavery (not that I’m saying you support slavery). Hmmm … I think maybe we need to open a second front here on the Straight Dope to fight evil.
Hotels can be quite beautiful and marvelous too and serve a much better function for more people. Seems like a waste, just for one guy. Glad to hear it’s being opened up for public consumption.
I could give a shit how much you charge. If someone’s dumb enough to pay a gazillion dollars for your work, I reserve the right to think he’s a fool. Most of the really inflated prices for artwork has to do with the fact that artwork tends to be long-lasting and to retain value. If you buy a piece of artowrk for $1 million because you think you’ll be able to sell if to $2 million in ten years, you’re not really throwing money away. It might be more efficient economically to invest that money in the stock market, but as I understand it, the stock market will sometimes lose your money, whereas investment-grade art rarely does that.
I understand your need to believe your hoped-for source of income are great people. Probably some of them are. Probably some of them aren’t.
BULLSHIT! BULLSHIT! BULLSHIT! BULLSHIT! God, I bet that set off bullshit alarms in every Straight Dope household in the world. I’m sure that as a general rule, the better you are at something, the more likely your reward, but SURELY you aren’t trying to tell me that financial reward inevitably accompanies skill in the arts? Please tell me you’re not that ignorant. History is full of the story of great artists who died penniless and schlockmeisters who made millions.
Also tell all the people who worked their tails off to learn computer programming and related stuff and who are now serving happy meals and running cash registers in malls about the “non Lotto” aspect of working hard to get good at something.
No, I’m not. You just THINK I am because you think my interest in social justice comes from jealousy and bitterness. It’s an immature judgment arising from limited life experience. You’re like these Christians who go around assuming that atheist are grumpy, irascible people who live in a constant state of anger and hate because “they have rejected God’s love.” Um, no. Atheists don’t hate God any more than they hate Santa Claus or the tooth fairy, or any other supernatural being they don’t believe in.
And people who want social justice don’t hate rich people. As I said, I would like EVERYONE to be rich – does that sound like someone who hates rich people? What I hate is poverty, and what it does to people. I don’t hate rich people for not being poor. I’m completely with rich people on this whole “not being poor” thing. If this means some rich people have to be a little less rich, I’m completely cool with that – but that doesn’t mean I hate rich people.
Nah, you’re just sensing that you’ve stepped in it and want to get out before you sink any deeper. I don’t blame you.
I never said it wasn’t possible to win the lotto. It’s just not an extremely rare, millions-to-one occurence. What kind of fool goes around citing lotto winners as proof of social justice?
This is just too rich. Hypocrisy, thy name is Evil Captor.
In other words, you’re fine with someone spending $12,000 dollars for an article of clothing they don’t absolutely need and will wear only once, but spending $12,000 for an article of clothing they do need and will wear over and over again is NOT fine. Unlike Balinese temple dancing, the Oscars don’t intinsically demand an elaborate costume; there’s no reason the participants couldn’t attend wearing an ordinary suit or an evening dress. From an “economic justice” standpoint, your position makes no sense.
How is buying an expensive, hand-tailored suit, or a yacht, or a mansion, etc., equivalent to slavery? How is the tailor or the homebuilder being harmed?
As several other people have pointed out, buying “ordinary clothes” at your local shopping mall, clothes which owe their low prices to the fact that they were made in Third World countries where poorly-educated workers are easily exploited, is less economically just than buying a hand-made suit: the price of that hand-made suit refects the fact that the tailor making that suit is paid very well for his labors.
So-called “investment-grade” art has no more intrinsic value than a portrait of Elvis on black velvet. It’s just paint on canvas. How can you, a person who is supposedly so interested in economic justice, support a system that allows people to “waste” $10 million dollars purchasing a piece of paint-covered canvas to decorate their wall when other pieces of paint-covered canvas (or velvet, if you prefer) can be obtained at the local flea market for far less money and will decorate that wall equally well? How can you justify the purchase of an original Picasso or Van Gogh when high-quality prints of those paintings can be found at the local poster shop for a FRACTION of the original’s price?
And as for “investment-quality art” never losing its value, all I can say is that I have some tulip bulbs to sell you.
In this thread, you’ve shown no interest whatsoever in true social justice; all you’ve done is whine about how some people’s purchases which don’t meet with your personal approval are inherently wrong (although you’ve never been able to successfully articulate what it is that separates those purchases from other, equally expensive purchases you apparently DO approve of). You’re the one who’s been behaving in an immature fashion, not Yosemitebabe.
Then advocate and lobby for social policies that decrease wealth disparities and the harmful impact of wealth disparities, such as progressive taxation and universal health care. THAT supports social justice. Your criticizing other people’s private spending habits does not. All it does is create an atmosphere where everyone feels free to poke their noses into your own personal life and criticize YOUR “frivolous and wasteful” (in their eyes, not yours) purchases.
As long as Mr. Rich Guy is playing by the rules society has set and is obeying the laws of his country and paying his legally-mandated taxes, how he spends his money is no one’s business but his own.
He didn’t win the Lotto. He used a connection at the mill to secure a job a year later (14 years old) as a messenger for twice the pay. He spent his spare time memorizing all his routes and customers so that he could recognize them on the street. They began to ask for him by name. He was then promoted to telegrapher for $20 a week. He saved enough money to buy a ferry for $100. He established his customer base using the contacts he had made earlier, all of whom he had kept in touch with and had done favors for. He worked 16 hours a day doing everything on his own until he could afford to hire help. He dealt fairly with people and made people feel important. They repaid him with patronage.
Can you not see that chip on your shoulder, the one saying ‘being able to pay 12K for casual clothes isn’t fair’. Why are you wearing that chip, it doesn’t suit you, in fact it looks somewhat ugly, maybe you should try getting it removed?
WTF? Lighten up, dude. The OP is a “liar?” Don’t you think that’s a bit extreme? I don’t think he was “giving grief and envy” (somewhat odd grammer, but I think I get your point). He didn’t sound all that envious to me.
Like the OP, I don’t begrudge rich people their wealth, whether they earned it or inherited it. As long as they came by it honestly, it’s fine by me. I don’t really care.
I am somewhat annoyed by ostentation. And wearing $12,000 worth of clothes is nothing but ostentation. I wonder if it’s even possible. I mean, you can go to Brooks Brothers and have a suit custom-made for a couple of grand. Maybe a bit more if you really go nuts with the fabric. Shirts and shoes could add another thousand. But that’s pretty much as expensive as men’s clothes get. So I’m wondering what the hell the OP’s friend was wearing that cost $12,000. One would pretty much have to wear some ridiculous pimp suit made out of the fur of some endangered species. And to mention that (the cost of one’s clothes) to anyone is sheer, unadulterated, tasteless ostentation.
If anyone is lying here, it’s the OP’s friend. Nobody thinks that it’s normal to wear (or even own) 12 grand worth of clothes. Nobody thinks it’s nothing out of the ordinary to have that kind of money.
Evil Captor, I think artemis covered most of the points masterfully, (and I await with great curiosity how you respond to all these excellent responses from artemis), but I’d like to touch upon a few additional things.
First off, Hearst Castle was not, and is not a hotel. It’s just some dude’s house. Yes, it’s now open to the public, but it wasn’t always.
And it never would have existed had that guy not been stinking, filthy, obscenely rich. Much of what is in that house and on those grounds are beyond opulent. I mean really, who needs gold tiles in their swimming pool?
But it’s a beautiful place and for a modest fee you can tour it. And I’m glad it is in existence and I’m glad that some stinking rich guy pissed money away on his gold-tiled swimming pool. But everything you’ve said so far indicates that it’s a waste and probably should have never existed. And as someone who enjoys seeing beautiful things and enjoys the notion that they are allowed to exist, (even if I never get to possess them myself) I find that sad.
Where did I say that, exactly?
Surely. I am acutely aware of that. But I’d like to at least have that hope that sometime, eventually, occasionally, some of us artists will get more than a few beans for our art. And what you are saying is that it’s bad and wrong for a rich person to “piss away” a certain dollar amount on a certain luxury item, which means that you’d prefer it if the Randolph Hearsts of the world didn’t buy stuff from people like me, or anyone else.
And I’ve worked too hard to have someone else wish to have that limitation put on me. Most of us have worked too hard. The fancy button-makers of the world, the tailors of the world, the artists of the world—we’d like to have people buy our very fine products. But you don’t think we should get that opportunity.
You sound like a dog in the manger—you don’t see yourself ever getting a certain thing, so you want to begrudge every other person on the planet the hope of that thing.
I just have to step in here - I don’t actually have any $12,000 outfits.
However, I get the quarterly catalogue from Holt Renfrew. The have casual wear outfits that cost $20,000. They’re very nice (and trust me, they look TOTALLY different than a $20 outfit) - not something I need, but nice nonetheless.
Furthermore, I’m sure that many of you would condem me out of hand if you knew that have more than one $5,000 outfit. I assume you would do this without knowing what percentage of my annual income I donate to charity, or how many dopers I had sponsored on this site, which is fine. I don’t need people to approve how I spend my money - I feel pretty good about it. That being said, I don’t criticize people for paying $$ for fan-fiction, or anime, or porn, or really fancy cars, or meat, for that matter - it seems a touch hypocritical for them to criticize me (or the friend in the OP) based on their own priorities without recognizing that someone else has different ones.
I sew costumes and do a lot of fabric shopping. One day, I was at the local 2/yard hole-in-the-wall store, and saw entire bolts of this hideous, garishly-plaid, patched-together looking shit going for .25/yard because they couldn’t get rid of it.
Went to Nordstrom’s the next week and saw women’s shorts made out of the exact same shit on the New-for-Spring display. Price: 75. And these were *women's warm weather* shorts, they barely covered to mid-thigh and didn't even have back pockets! Coulda made my own fugly crap for a mere .50!
Had he said his friend was a woman, I could understand the $12,000 price tag.
It’s just that it’s really rare to see a man’s casual outfit run into those prices.
Not saying it’s not possible… just rare. Even Armani leather pants only cost like $5,000. (Only! ;))
Not only that, but caphis has stated that the 12K outfit is not even a suit!
The Economist had an article on fashion this year. There is also this article in Slate, which explains why outfits on the runways appear so bizarre. http://slate.msn.com/id/2094195/
There is something called haute couture, which I translate as, “Fashion Prototype”. Basically, it’s an R&D product from a famous designer.
(More deeply, H.C. is (1) something to display at fashion shows which, however expensive, produces editorial copy for Vogue et al that is cheaper than advertising. Also, (2) H.C. establishes Brand Identity: the point of making a $15,000 (or $100,000) dress is to create the panache necessary to sell the $35 blouse for $70 and the $60 perfume for $300.)
However. I thought this game was basically For Women Only. I am still puzzled. My current hypothesis is that Mommy is one of the 200 (1000?) Haute Coulture clients, and from time to time she suffers the embarrassment of seeing nothing appropriate for herself in Christian’s latest collection. So she makes do by buying something for Johnny.
Nah, couldn’t be.
yosemitebabe: Admittedly, the New York Times article on those shirts was from 1993. They’re probably more expensive now. (Furthermore, my point was that $300 < < < $12,000.)
Finally, let’s not forget that the OP was as much about cluelessness as anything else.
Alice: Re: Holt Renfrew: Please describe the most expensive outfit for a man that is not a suit in that catalog. Thanks, maybe we can dispel at little ignorance.
Oops, you’re right. That was Askeptic to whom I apologized. I hereby apologize to you as well — for my tone, but not for the substance of what I said. I think you should consider that a man who lives in a glass house ought not to throw stones. Even as you criticized your friend, your own circumstances were far above so many people. Everything you said about him, others below you could say about you. Even the charity thing. You spoke about how charitable you are even as you condemned your friend’s offer of charity as something rude and condescending. Did it not occur to you that those people whom you give money to might also have a sense of pride and dignity and see your donations in the same way you saw his? In short, what angered me most about you was not the way you saw your friend. That could be dismissed as simply immaturity. What angered me was your refusal to judge your friend and yourself by the same measuring stick. Nevertheless, I am not your moral judge, and you’re right that my opinion is worthless. I should have been less mean, but you opened yourself to criticism by opening this thread. At this point, you can take whatever, if anything, you want to from all this. You’ve heard all sides now. The moral decision that remains is yours and yours alone.
Obviously, that’s exclusive of shoes, wrist watch, jewelry or outerwear. I have no doubt that if I were to hunt around through my old catalogues, I would be able to find a more expensive outfit for men.
Actually, I think many people who go to the Oscars and wear expensive clothing are only “borrowing” the clothes from the designers, jewellers and so forth. They get a very expensive outfit which the TV commentators will commentate on, the designers get to strut their stuff at a high-profile event, and the teeming millions get to watch on TV. Everybody wins. There’s social utility here, it’s not just some popinjay in $12K worth of bling bling.
They don’t DEMAND the expensive clothes but you are just not paying attention if you don’t think they’re part of it.
My point was that the “economic justification” argument is meaningless because it justifies ANY economic activity, including buying slaves, contract murders, etc. An argument that justifies ANYTHING justifies nothing. In essence you are saying that buying a $12k suit is good because doing anything with $12,000 is good. I merely pointed out that this is a specious argument, or in Pit terms, it’s completely full of shit. Capiche?
The essential problem here is the deep and widespread poverty in the Third World. Another thread entirely. I’ve had a few go-rounds with free marketers who will tell you that slave labor and child labor is justifiable because the participants in these enterprises would be starving to death if it were not for these terrible jobs. It’s a sticky issue and something of a hijack.
There are quite a few business mags and wealthy investors who disagree with you on this point. Perhaps you can persuade one of them to give you an original van Gogh for ten bucks. As it is, your argument consists of pissing into the wind.
You are right that there is nothing intrinsic to the Van Gogh that makes it so valuable – just paint on canvas. It’s the social value that makes it expensive. For rhe record, I think that most of th time when people pay laege sums of money for art, they’re being foolish – but those wealthy investors would disagree with me, too, and point out that they expect to make money on the artwork. Since most of the time they do make money …
My only point was that there’s a marketplace for investment grade art, enough that people buy it as a secure way of parking their wealth. I’m sure there are some instances where people lose money, especially when taking a flyer on “riskier” artworks. Frankly, I don’t really agree with all these inflated prices for artwork, but I am not going to pretend this market doesn’t exist or function.
What? You say I’m not a true Scotsman?
Please, Mr. Artemis, explain to me how a $12,000 casual wear suit makes sense. How is it RIGHT? I’ll grant you, the individual in question has every right under our present system to buy and wear a $12,000 casual outfit, but under what conceivable grounds am I supposed to think it’s a good idea? Please, enlighten me, I’m such an unwashed mass and all.
I see nothing in my previous posts that requires a more nuanced response to that charge than: “Neener-neener-neener!” But I wasn’t accusing Yosemitebabe of behaving in an immature fashion. I was saying she has an immature viewpoint. She understands that people live at different levels of affluence in the U.S. and the world, and has come to realize that you can’t blame the wealthy for being born wealthy (hopefully she also does not blame the poor for being born poor.) This is one step. But there are more steps along the road. She apparently thinks that because you shouldn’t blame people for the level of wealth or poverty they are born into, that this means you therefore can’t or shouldn’t look askance at the social inequities that our current system creates, even when they manifest themselves as loudmouthed popinjays prancing about in casual wear that is worth more than many people’s entire annual income. Hopefully she will reach that point some day.
Once again, one has to be Ghandi to advocate more social equality. Poppycock. I do things along the lines you suggest already, specifically, I vote democratic and argue in a variety of forums, and in Real Life, for a single-payer, universal health care system not based on employment, a saner tax system and several other things you haven’t suggested. However, if all I did was was mock popinjays in overpriced casual wear, that at least would be a step in the right direction, even if it was a tiny step in comparison with some of the more constructive things I could be doing. The first step in the right direction still gets you going in the right direction.
Nah. We are all free to look at obvious frippery and mock the living hell out of it. That mockery alone will not get us very far, but the attitude behind it, applied in other ways, just might.
I’m not claiming that Carnegie dind’t work hard for his money or play the canny businessman – though I understand that he did some VERY NASTY things to get to the top, as well as the Horatio Alger stuff you seem to have bought wholesale.
Frex:
[qoute]However, the workers in his steel mills had a different view of this
man. They worked under inhumane conditions, sometimes 12-hour shifts on
floors so hot they had to nail wooden platforms under their shoes. Every
two weeks they worked a 24-hour day, then received one day off. The best
housing they could afford was crowded and filthy. Most died in their
early 40s.
In 1892, 300 hired gunmen were released on unarmed strikers at one steel
plant. The effect was so disastrous it not only stopped the organization
of unions in that plant, but stopped all unions in the steel industry
nationwide until 1936.
[/quote]
Lovely guy, really, I can see why you admire him so.
He wasn’t so much a lottery winner as a successful gangster, so I guess you are right. My whole point was that it’s VERY RARE that people go from the middle class to wealth, whether by sheer luck or by enormous effort. Guess you missed that.
?