October 1, 2008--Take Hermès For Example
After 9/11, when asked what ordinary citizens could do to help in the War Against Terror, George Bush offered a one-word answer—Shop.
Many took his advice and paid for their spending spree by running up huge credit card debt and taking out sub-prime mortgages. We know where that got us.
But in the fiscal territory in which we now find ourselves, with markets clogged and gyrating, it seems, in downtown New York at least, that many, mixing metaphors, are shopping their way through troubled economic waters.
Take Hermès scarves for example. With the stock market experiencing alternating record down and up days and most everyone worrying about having enough money to pay for essentials, some folks just gotta have more. And are willing to wait in line for hours for a sample sale, apparently a great place to scoop up bargains on rarely discounted so-called luxury goods.
This doesn’t sound all that rational, especially in downtown New York where banks and investments houses are disappearing every day and the people who work for them, one would imagine, should more likely be found waiting in unemployment office lines.
But when a New York Times reporter the other day spotted the Hermès sample sale line stretching around the corner on 18th Street, befuddled by this evidence of seeming denial, here’s a sample of what she heard:
One woman who refused to give her name since as she, with only slight exaggeration put it, was supposed to be at work at one of the city’s four remaining banks, “Even if the economy’s down, a sale is all the more reason to buy something nice.”
A Long Island woman said that shopping “makes you feel a little better—like maybe there’s some normalcy left in the world.” She revealed that since her husband’s construction business has ground to a halt, she was unlikely to seek that normalcy with a $2,000 jacket and would probably have to settle for a $300 change purse.
Perhaps sensing that some might ask what she was doing on that line when all around her was unraveling, she said, as if wondered out loud with something resembling moral qualms or is-that-all-there-is self-awareness, “What right do we have to be here?”
Not helping, the woman ahead of her in line shouted, “We don’t!” Though there was no evidence that she was about to give up her coveted spot. She had been in line for well over an hour.
Another, a former speculative investor confessed, “I used to buy Sirius stock to keep myself from buying Hermès scarves. Now my Hermès holdings are much more valuable than my [90 cents-a-share] Sirius stock.”
When I read that (linked below) I wondered why my broker never told me about this—I have a bunch of Sirius stock, which is worth basically nothing; but Rona has, I think, just one Hermès scarf.
You know who I’ll be calling first thing this morning.
Many took his advice and paid for their spending spree by running up huge credit card debt and taking out sub-prime mortgages. We know where that got us.
But in the fiscal territory in which we now find ourselves, with markets clogged and gyrating, it seems, in downtown New York at least, that many, mixing metaphors, are shopping their way through troubled economic waters.
Take Hermès scarves for example. With the stock market experiencing alternating record down and up days and most everyone worrying about having enough money to pay for essentials, some folks just gotta have more. And are willing to wait in line for hours for a sample sale, apparently a great place to scoop up bargains on rarely discounted so-called luxury goods.
This doesn’t sound all that rational, especially in downtown New York where banks and investments houses are disappearing every day and the people who work for them, one would imagine, should more likely be found waiting in unemployment office lines.
But when a New York Times reporter the other day spotted the Hermès sample sale line stretching around the corner on 18th Street, befuddled by this evidence of seeming denial, here’s a sample of what she heard:
One woman who refused to give her name since as she, with only slight exaggeration put it, was supposed to be at work at one of the city’s four remaining banks, “Even if the economy’s down, a sale is all the more reason to buy something nice.”
A Long Island woman said that shopping “makes you feel a little better—like maybe there’s some normalcy left in the world.” She revealed that since her husband’s construction business has ground to a halt, she was unlikely to seek that normalcy with a $2,000 jacket and would probably have to settle for a $300 change purse.
Perhaps sensing that some might ask what she was doing on that line when all around her was unraveling, she said, as if wondered out loud with something resembling moral qualms or is-that-all-there-is self-awareness, “What right do we have to be here?”
Not helping, the woman ahead of her in line shouted, “We don’t!” Though there was no evidence that she was about to give up her coveted spot. She had been in line for well over an hour.
Another, a former speculative investor confessed, “I used to buy Sirius stock to keep myself from buying Hermès scarves. Now my Hermès holdings are much more valuable than my [90 cents-a-share] Sirius stock.”
When I read that (linked below) I wondered why my broker never told me about this—I have a bunch of Sirius stock, which is worth basically nothing; but Rona has, I think, just one Hermès scarf.
You know who I’ll be calling first thing this morning.
posted by Steven Zwerling at
6:20 AM
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