Where did you get a free motorcycle? 
[/quote]
$@#%@$!! :fume:
Dagnabit!! Old Man Hobbes beaten to the punch againâŚ
Your cat likes your bike. You better get a seat cover or sheâll have your seat (a convenient claw-sharpening facility) shredded in no time. Speaking from experience.
[quote=âRichardmâ]I have bonus money thatâs burning a hole in my pocket. My options for luxury items are:
- The guitar that I want. Even though Iâll be lucky to play it twice a month.
- An expensive hooker.
- A cheaper guitar AND a cheaper hooker.
- A comfy chair.[/quote]
In the spirit of helping you stretch your bonus money, I just noticed a pretty comfy chair at a good price at B&Q of all places. It is a black vinyl/leather padded chair. Could be used in the living room or on a covered patio. Reclines, swivels, and rocks. Padding is OK. Quality is not top-shelf, but for all of those features at a price of only NT $4,000, it seems a decent buy.
They are in a special display by the interior front entrance at the Shilin B&Q location.
Seeker4
[quote=âseeker4â]It is a black vinyl/leather padded chair. Could be used in the living room or on a covered patio. Reclines, swivels, and rocks. Padding is OK. Quality is not top-shelf, but for all of those features at a price of only NT $4,000, it seems a decent buy.
They are in a special display by the interior front entrance at the Shilin B&Q location.
Seeker4[/quote]
Thanks. I think I already bought one of those. I use it for the computer desk. I would like a Lazy Boy recliner. It doesnât swivel and would take up about half of my living room. So itâs probably not practical for Taiwan.
How much does a middle-of-the-road Lazy Boy run you these days Richard?
Cheap. Damned cheap. But I donât do windows.
What perspective? We are lucky? Born on the right side of the track are you? Perhaps my ancestors worked hard, won many wars and battles. Even my parents worked hard to make sure Iâd be fed and educated.
Perhaps which side of the track you or I belong to doesnât matter. Perhaps itâs
me
and no one else whoâs responsible for my succes.
My luxury items which consists of everything I have that not everyone can afford justifies that doesnât it? I deserve them donât I? Or else what would it justify?
When I was born, we lived in my uncleâs tool shed behind his house. My dad never bought a car that was less than 10 years old. In the mid- eighties, I won the first place at the Canadian junior freestyle skiing championship in Ontario. I was riding a pair of K2 410 I had bought used at a garage sale for 20$. Later that year I got my first pair of brand new skis sponsored by ELAN.
Despite that, 20 years later, Iâve visited 5 continents and over 15 countries. Some rich places and some poor places. I would easily fall into some kind of blinding pride for my own achievements and luxury items considering my little story here but I canât quite do it. Fair enough itâs nice to ârememberâ how good we have it but what does that do?
So again, what perspective should I maintain? Everytime I pay for a new watch, a better phone or a BMW, I only contribute to starving someone else? Thatâs how I look at it. Thatâs my perspective.
Weâve only got one life to live and our achievements can not be mesured with gold or diamonds. Nice self-pitty paragraph like this one and nice selfless thoughts donât seem to make a bit of difference either and I also want one of them bikes like yours. Itâs a vicious cycle.
I donât think Iâve ever seen one in Taiwan. But I havenât looked real hard either.
So again, what perspective should I maintain? Everytime I pay for a new watch, a better phone or a BMW, I only contribute to starving someone else? Thatâs how I look at it. Thatâs my perspective.
[/quote]
I donât know how true this is though bud. Who makes most of the stuff that richer citizens in richer nations buy? I think that by buying more we are in fact supporting the economies of those people making the stuff. The world is a very interconnected place these days.
Stop buying Nikes and who suffers? Nike? No way. Theyâll just close all their factories in Vietnam. And they are the people who need the money most. Buying stuff helps create middle classes in poorer countries. That is MY perspective. 
So again, what perspective should I maintain? Everytime I pay for a new watch, a better phone or a BMW, I only contribute to starving someone else? Thatâs how I look at it. Thatâs my perspective.
[/quote]
I donât know how true this is though bud. Who makes most of the stuff that richer citizens in richer nations buy? I think that by buying more we are in fact supporting the economies of those people making the stuff. The world is a very interconnected place these days.
Stop buying Nikes and who suffers? Nike? No way. Theyâll just close all their factories in Vietnam. And they are the people who need the money most. Buying stuff helps create middle classes in poorer countries. That is MY perspective. [/quote]
Nikeâs factory workers in Vietnam can not afford to buy the shoes yet Nike pays their wages. A car factory Iâd understand but running shoesâŚ
Pretty Ironic.
It was nice going home last summer and seeing that the home I grew up in now had a surround-sound stereo system and satellite system (and TiVo) to go along with the floor to ceiling television my mother had purchased in my absence. This is the same mother who refused to turn on the heat in the house unless the temperature stayed below 40 degrees Fahrenheit (maybe 5 or so Celsius) for at least two days because she thought it was an extravagant waste of money. Long gone are the days of huddling under a wool blanket with two pairs of wool socks and a cup of hot cocoa. Now sheâs got 500 channelsâŚwhata way to kill someone with reverse culture shock than 500 examples per second of how much culture sheâs missed.
Nice post, ImaniOU! Next time you go back sheâll have an a/c so you âcan feel like youâre in Taiwan, honey!â
[quote][quote=âhatchâ]
Nikeâs factory workers in Vietnam can not afford to buy the shoes yet Nike pays their wages. A car factory Iâd understand but running shoesâŚ
Pretty Ironic.[/quote][/quote]
I donât think this is ironic at all. Nike goes to Vietnam BECAUSE the workerâs wages are lower. They pay them more than if they worked for local jobs, but that doesnât mean they pay them enough to buy the products they make.
Is this a requirement, that any worker must be able to purchase the product he or she makes?
That means that everyone working for AU Optronics should be able to afford a 32" LCD TV? If I teach for Taipei American School, then I should be able to afford the TAS tutition for my son?
[quote=âjdsmithâ][quote][quote=âhatchâ]
Nikeâs factory workers in Vietnam can not afford to buy the shoes yet Nike pays their wages. A car factory Iâd understand but running shoesâŚ
Pretty Ironic.[/quote][/quote]
I donât think this is ironic at all.
âŚ
That means that everyone working for AU Optronics should be able to afford a 32" LCD TV? If I teach for Taipei American School, then I should be able to afford the TAS tutition for my son?[/quote]
I agree with you, jd, that âironicâ might not be quite the right word.
But to be fair to hatch, he did say that the reason he found this point interesting was that shoes are generally not thought of as luxury items like fancy TVs or private school tuition (or he mentioned cars).
There is no question that companies like Nike are raising the living standards for people in places like Vietnam with factory jobs that provide higher incomes than the workers were getting before Nike arrived. For me, anti-globalization proponents who ignore this fact are engaging in a sort of willful blindness that does more to make themselves feel better than it does to improve the lives of the poor in developing countries. Nevertheless, the fact that workers in these factories canât afford the shoes they are making does seem like decent reminder that global economic development still has a long way to go.
[quote=âjdsmithâ][quote][quote=âhatchâ]
Nikeâs factory workers in Vietnam can not afford to buy the shoes yet Nike pays their wages. A car factory Iâd understand but running shoesâŚ
Pretty Ironic.[/quote][/quote]
I donât think this is ironic at all. Nike goes to Vietnam BECAUSE the workerâs wages are lower. They pay them more than if they worked for local jobs, but that doesnât mean they pay them enough to buy the products they make.
Is this a requirement, that any worker must be able to purchase the product he or she makes?
That means that everyone working for AU Optronics should be able to afford a 32" LCD TV? If I teach for Taipei American School, then I should be able to afford the TAS tutition for my son?[/quote]
Imagine going to work for a company that builds airliners⌠or nuclear submarines! What do they cost these days anyway?
On a more mundane level, isnât there some kind of index for how long a McDâs employee has to work in order to buy a burger in different countries?
Iâm not sure about an index for how long an employee needs to work. There is, however, a âMcDâs indexâ that has long been a staple measure used by The Economist for tracking consumer prices and purchasing power parity.
I would call shoes a luxury item, as the cost difference from the lowest to the highest is huge. And some of us want da best.
Some people do spend a bundle on the shoes they sport. Someone just yesterday said something abut 10,000NT sunglasses. Shoes could easily reach that.
I do agree with you about the anti globalization freaks though. Oddly enough, these hippie birkenstock folk (danger: this has been a sarcastic gross generalizatuion, not meant to be taken seriously) are the ones who visit the poorer countries more often than not. Maybe they see kids putting together jumpropes (I have seen this in Taiwan) and feel bad that they have to do that, but they neglect to notice that the kids have shoes.
Anyone here spend any significant portion of their luxury budget on art?
Just saw a couple of these babies sell for US$590,400 yesterday.
kotv.com/main/home/stories.a ⌠1&id=77963
If some of us pool our money, maybe we can go in together on one of these? Put it up at Happy Hour venues? Bring some high culture to our lives?
[quote=âLorettaâ][quote=âjdsmithâ][quote][quote=âhatchâ]
Nikeâs factory workers in Vietnam can not afford to buy the shoes yet Nike pays their wages. A car factory Iâd understand but running shoesâŚ
Pretty Ironic.[/quote][/quote]
I donât think this is ironic at all. Nike goes to Vietnam BECAUSE the workerâs wages are lower. They pay them more than if they worked for local jobs, but that doesnât mean they pay them enough to buy the products they make.
Is this a requirement, that any worker must be able to purchase the product he or she makes?
That means that everyone working for AU Optronics should be able to afford a 32" LCD TV? If I teach for Taipei American School, then I should be able to afford the TAS tutition for my son?[/quote]
Imagine going to work for a company that builds airliners⌠or nuclear submarines! What do they cost these days anyway?
On a more mundane level, isnât there some kind of index for how long a McDâs employee has to work in order to buy a burger in different countries?[/quote]
World economy⌠the carrot, the rabbitâŚ
âWell it seems like the world is up side down yeah, it seems like my pockets were filled up with goldâŚand the wind is blowing coldâŚâ
Tom Waits
I like how the discussion went from listing what your luxury items are to what it means to be able to afford to buy them. Thatâs a reminder that will help keep things in perspective for me. Itâs nice to see someone who is as thoughtful and caring as hatch on forumosa I must say. Thanks buddy. 