Friday, September 09, 2005

Rules of Mankind

From today's Chicago Sun-Times:

"But if high gas prices don't faze you and you're in the market for a car, maybe you'd enjoy the Fine Motor Auction and Luxury Lifestyle Expo in New York this weekend.

A three-day ticket will run you $100, but you can bid on the Batmobile Michael Keaton drove in the movie (estimated at $500,000), or a 1969 Dodge Charger (only $50,000) that was used in promotions by the "Dukes of Hazzard" TV stars.

The auction organizers think a 1970 Plymouth Barracuda might bring $5 million, but if that's too rich for your blood, there will be booths selling cigars, fine wine, Swiss watches and other items living up to the "luxury lifestyle" part of the thing's name.

Keith Martin, publisher of Sports Car Market magazine, described the idea behind the event to Bloomberg News: 'Put sparkly things in front of people who can afford to buy them without thinking twice.'"


Mr. Martin, I think "put sparkly things in front of people who can afford to buy them without thinking twice" describes at least half of all consumption among the upper and middle classes. You should have a law of economics named after you. Perhaps I should construct a plot of sparkliness vs. demand, give it a snazzy name, throw in a few formulas with integrals, and publish it in an economics journal. It's a Nobel Prize winner for sure.

3 comments:

Ben said...

Oh dear god....where did all this spam suddenly come from? I think Jacob has something on his blog that blocks spam. Ask him how he does it.

Mike said...

It's easy for me - don't use blogspot's comments. That's the only explanation I can think of for how I've avoided it.

Anonymous said...

Blogger's getting nailed lately. I think they've implemented an option called "word verification" that will force commenters to type in a word shown on the screen (a CAPTCHA) to prove they're a real person. Check your admin options to see if you can activate that. It's probably the best you can do on Blogger right now (though it's a problem with every provider).