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I have a hard time caring about billionaires paying too much for paintings.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
raziel2p 3y ago
I understand this sentiment, but I worry that the people ripping off billionaires aren't exactly giving back to society either. Sometimes I ponder about business opportunities catering to the upper end market, making things ridiculously expensive just to capture the super rich segment, and using the profits for good in society (somehow). Most people/businesses don't operate like this I suppose - they just want a yacht of their own, or to infinitely grow their business.
- guhidalg 3y ago
  Or we could, you know, just tax them and achieve the same thing.
  - raziel2p 3y ago
    Seems to not be working very well. I already vote socialist, what more can I do?
- saalweachter 3y ago
  I think the best you're going to do is to start some sort of workers-owned crafting shop that pays well, provides a pension, and has a company culture of doing just absolutely everything possible in house and with minimal automation. Machine the screws that hold the widgets together in house, laminate your own plywood from wood species chosen and grown and milled in house. The idea is to create a ton of good paying jobs that range from artisans and artists to mindless make-work, while creating a lot of cachet for finely crafted items with just absurd price tags.
  - iamacyborg 3y ago
    You’ve basically described Hermes and Loro Piana.
    - pavlov 3y ago
      There's a lot of small luxury companies around the world. Watchmakers in Switzerland, champagne houses in France, tailors in England, yacht builders in Finland... Even though the products are expensive, their margins aren't as insane as it might appear because the manual production truly is expensive and the workers are often lifers who are treated very well. A lot of these businesses do end up being absorbed by the big players like LVMH which grew into the most valuable company in Europe through decades of acquisitions. (The company's official name, LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, is itself suggestive of a merger between luxury players in unrelated markets.)
      - iamacyborg 3y ago
        Sure but I'm specifically talking about two examples that've done an incredibly good job of vertical integration. I can't think of a Swiss watch company that's operating it's own mines and metalworks, for example, or a British Saville Row tailor that also owns the herds and the looms to make the cloth it then turns into clothing. Both Hermes and Loro Piana on the other hand do this (LP is owned by LVMH).
        pavlov 3y ago
        Ah, I see. Some small luxury brands have local, very long-term supply chain relationships that effectively offer the same benefits. As in, maybe the hypothetical Finnish maker of bespoke sailboats buys all their wood from the same sawmill (ever since 1935 when the founders of the two companies went hunting in the forest where the wood still comes from). But of course only some materials can be sourced like this. A watchmaker and a mine are not in the same industrial league.
        saalweachter 3y ago
yieldcrv 3y ago
that sentiment dissipated for me when I was willing to acknowledge how financial services that are more universally respected are not fundamentally different from “billionaires paying too much for paintings” all markets have the same human behaviors in them, all markets have degrees of opaqueness that get taken advantage of the same way, all markets that have transparency have it in response to the same behaviors, all market participants are subject to a liquidity problem and sustaining a balance that grows faster than the issuance of the currency they use, which brings me to the next point: billionaires saving is worse for your life than billionaires spending. help people spend and your economy grows. this isn’t a trickle down praise, in fact its the opposite, assume it wont magically trickle down to you as motivation to personally help them spend with a 54% markup
BlueTemplar 3y ago
Excluding (super) rich people from society is only going to make things worse for everyone.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

I understand this sentiment, but I worry that the people ripping off billionaires aren't exactly giving back to society either. Sometimes I ponder about business opportunities catering to the upper end market, making things ridiculously expensive just to capture the super rich segment, and using the profits for good in society (somehow). Most people/businesses don't operate like this I suppose - they just want a yacht of their own, or to infinitely grow their business.

guhidalg 3y ago
Or we could, you know, just tax them and achieve the same thing.
- raziel2p 3y ago
  Seems to not be working very well. I already vote socialist, what more can I do?
saalweachter 3y ago
I think the best you're going to do is to start some sort of workers-owned crafting shop that pays well, provides a pension, and has a company culture of doing just absolutely everything possible in house and with minimal automation. Machine the screws that hold the widgets together in house, laminate your own plywood from wood species chosen and grown and milled in house. The idea is to create a ton of good paying jobs that range from artisans and artists to mindless make-work, while creating a lot of cachet for finely crafted items with just absurd price tags.
- iamacyborg 3y ago
  You’ve basically described Hermes and Loro Piana.
  - pavlov 3y ago
    There's a lot of small luxury companies around the world. Watchmakers in Switzerland, champagne houses in France, tailors in England, yacht builders in Finland... Even though the products are expensive, their margins aren't as insane as it might appear because the manual production truly is expensive and the workers are often lifers who are treated very well. A lot of these businesses do end up being absorbed by the big players like LVMH which grew into the most valuable company in Europe through decades of acquisitions. (The company's official name, LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, is itself suggestive of a merger between luxury players in unrelated markets.)
    - iamacyborg 3y ago
      Sure but I'm specifically talking about two examples that've done an incredibly good job of vertical integration. I can't think of a Swiss watch company that's operating it's own mines and metalworks, for example, or a British Saville Row tailor that also owns the herds and the looms to make the cloth it then turns into clothing. Both Hermes and Loro Piana on the other hand do this (LP is owned by LVMH).
      - pavlov 3y ago
        Ah, I see. Some small luxury brands have local, very long-term supply chain relationships that effectively offer the same benefits. As in, maybe the hypothetical Finnish maker of bespoke sailboats buys all their wood from the same sawmill (ever since 1935 when the founders of the two companies went hunting in the forest where the wood still comes from). But of course only some materials can be sourced like this. A watchmaker and a mine are not in the same industrial league.
        saalweachter 3y ago

yieldcrv 3y ago

that sentiment dissipated for me when I was willing to acknowledge how financial services that are more universally respected are not fundamentally different from “billionaires paying too much for paintings” all markets have the same human behaviors in them, all markets have degrees of opaqueness that get taken advantage of the same way, all markets that have transparency have it in response to the same behaviors, all market participants are subject to a liquidity problem and sustaining a balance that grows faster than the issuance of the currency they use, which brings me to the next point: billionaires saving is worse for your life than billionaires spending. help people spend and your economy grows. this isn’t a trickle down praise, in fact its the opposite, assume it wont magically trickle down to you as motivation to personally help them spend with a 54% markup

BlueTemplar 3y ago

Excluding (super) rich people from society is only going to make things worse for everyone.