$100k? Isn't that what Puff Daddy spends on champagne and "ho's" on a slow weekend? Burn the bag, or spend it on H and shoot it into your veins... whatever floats your boat, little Eastwood.
That's what I was thinking too. More consumption leads to more demand for production which keeps the average joe employed and paying for his mortgage and beer. On the flip side, when top 1% make more, instead of putting money into the economy they also send it overseas for higher returns and then it really bites the economy. So instead of $75M a year bonus payments for CEOs, it is better to raise the salaries of average joe's so that money remains inhouse and economy gets a good demand boost also.
The problem is that she wasn't doing this for hermes, charity, or the economy. Lets just assume that she could have resold this bag for 100k for argument sake. That means the actual bag is really just a pile of cash worth 100k. Once she burns in the name of art, there is nobody that is willing to pay her 100k for.... nothing. Now lets say jobs are created at hermes, money is given to charity, and she becomes the next kardashian..... That was not her intention. Her intention was to create art by burning a pile of cash that nobody can ever use again. If i see a dollar on the floor, i generally pick it up. If i was worth 365 million dollars, and i saw a dollar on the floor.... I would pick it up. I wouldn't rip it up and call myself an artist.
Are you sure? I'm pretty sure I wouldnt pick up the dollar if I was worth 365 million. I mean, right now, I wont pick up anything less than a quarter and I'm just an average joe. If I'm worth 365 million and I see $20 laying on the ground, I'm also probably not going to pick it up. I would say "let someone who has less money than me pick it up and enjoy it...whats $20 to me when I'm worth $365 million?"
Not really sure what the "art" part was. Was it supposed to be a statement about how powerful and pervasive marketing is - when a bag that probably costs $100 to make can be sold as "fashion" for $100k? She can do what she wants with it as long as it doesn't hurt anybody else. I think people get into a twist about it because of stories like the 8 year old kid who earned a paid trip to Disney World and instead gave it away to a fallen soldier's family. Or that recent story of a waiter who lost his car in a flood in Florida, and was struggling to get to work when a couple who were regular customers gave him $5K out of the blue to help him out. Some people probably see lost opportunities, though frankly some are pretty obnoxious in their opinion about it. But - it is her money. So she can do what she wants, within limits.
What's art is a very subjective thing. When I first read the article I thought it was dumb. Then I started to think about it, what she did is actually pretty cool. Girls fawn over that bag and it's a retarded price for what amounts to some leather, stitching and some metal. It's a pretty bold statement. And whatever her motivations were, I bet she generated much more than 100,000 to the economy than she destroyed when she destroyed the bag. There is a reason the Kardashians are paid $40MM/year. They generate way more than that for someone esle.
Yeah, she could have held on to the bag, filled it with lipstick, car keys, and Chiclets, and worn it to the next Academy Awards. Then, in 18 months it would be out of fashion and she'd just throw on to the pile of bags at the bottom of one of her closets. So yeah, she burned it and called it art. Or she could have worn it a few times and called it fashion. Either way, she got her utility out of it, so why be angry? Right now some of you fellas are wearing $175 "7 For All Mankind" jeans, and $129 New Balance sneakers, and you gotta fancy $279 Northface jacket in your closet... and if you asked some dirt farmer in India or China, he would call you crazy and insensitive for spending that kind of money on clothes. He could feed his family for 3 months on what you spent on some cotton to cover your butt crack.
Exactly, if people only knew the mark up that these companies sell their products for, its not 50% or 125% its hundreds and hundreds of %%% I know companies need to earn profits to stay in business, but most of the time I buy something its usually on sale, no need to pay top dollar for something that in a few weeks or a 2 months with be 50% off. That bag just carries a name, thats the real reason its 100k, in reality it probably doesnt cost no more than $1000 to manufacture.