$75 For Ice Cubes? The Absurd Things Rich People Are Blowing Their Cash On
127 replies, posted
[QUOTE]While most Americans struggle through this grinding downturn, a rarified few are doing quite well. Corporate profits hit [URL="http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/profit-share-hits-post-war-high-and-the-post-doesnt-notice"]an all-time high last week, [/URL]and businesses are keeping more of their loot [URL="http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2013/05/daily-chart-14?fsrc=scn/tw/dc/&?fsrc=scn/=tw/dc"]away from the taxman than ever before[/URL] (while wages, as a share of our economy, [URL="http://www.businessinsider.com/profits-at-high-wages-at-low-2013-4#ixzz2QARthkkT"]reached an all-time low[/URL]). The stock market is [URL="http://www.marketwatch.com/investing/index/SPX/charts?symb=SPX&countrycode=US&time=10&startdate=1/4/1999&enddate=8/14/2013&freq=1&compidx=none&compind=none&comptemptext=Enter+Symbol(s)&comp=none&uf=7168&ma=1&maval=50&lf=1&lf2=4&lf3=0&type=2&size=2&style=1013"]booming[/URL], and [URL="http://money.cnn.com/2013/02/26/investing/wall-street-bonus/index.html"]Wall Street compensation[/URL] has more than bounced back from the crash.
A small group of Americans is now sitting on more wealth than they could possibly know what to do with.
Consider a product selling in a gourmet store in New York's tony SoHo district. “Gläce Luxury Ice is a meticulously designed and differentiated ice brand specifically designed for use in premium drinks and cocktails,” reads [URL="http://www.deandeluca.com/glace-luxury-ice.aspx"]a pitch at the website of Dean and Deluca[/URL]. “Gläce Ice pieces are individually carved from a 300 lb block to ensure flawless quality and a zero-taste profile, never contaminating the essence of premium liquors.”
If you're so inclined, you can purchase a package of 10 of these fancy ice cubes. It'll run you $75 bucks, or $7.50 per cube (not including "Next Day Shipping to ensure freshness").
At the same time, New York's [URL="http://www.alternet.org/6-ways-7th-richest-man-america-has-screwed-poor"]much-abused[/URL] homeless population is [URL="http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/2013/03/the_nyc_homeles.php"]now at Great Depression levels[/URL], and according to a 2011 study conducted by the city, [URL="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/22/nyregion/city-report-shows-a-growing-number-are-near-poverty.html?_r=2&"]almost half of New Yorkers[/URL] (46 percent) are living below or near the poverty line (defined as making less than 150% of the federal threshold).[/QUOTE]
Source: [url]http://www.alternet.org/economy/you-can-buy-ice-cubes-750-each-new-york-city[/url]
[quote]The Gläce Mariko Sphere is a perfectly spherical 2.5" piece with a melting rate of 20-30 minutes. The Gläce G-Cubed, a symmetrical 2.5" cube has a dilution rate of 20-40 minutes. Gläce Ice pieces are individually carved from a 300lb block to ensure flawless quality and a zero-taste profile, never contaminating the essence of premium liquors and drinks.[/quote]
Hah, oh wow
As cynical as stories like these are, I think it's a true American success story when an entrepreneur can make a business that thrives on people having more money than sense.
They don't even look that special
[IMG]http://www.deandeluca.com/ProductImg/500/950198alt1.jpg[/IMG]
My automerge
If I suddenly got rich as fuck I wouldn't know what to buy. In fact I'd [I]still[/I] buy el cheapo things because I'm really hesitant with money.
[QUOTE=ionuttzu;41902726]They don't even look that special[/QUOTE]
Those look amazing, you must not be able to see the incredible artistry through your peasants' eyes.
[QUOTE=Raidyr;41902717]As cynical as stories like these are, I think it's a true American success story when an entrepreneur can make a business that thrives on people having more money than sense.[/QUOTE]
I wouldn't be so quick as to call such a thing a "success" story. More a sign that maybe rich people don't actually "earn" all their money and maybe they're no smarter than the rest of us. It just shows that there are a lot of people even in the upper classes who the education system has failed and that someone can thrive from something that contributes nothing to society.
[editline]20th August 2013[/editline]
[QUOTE=ScottyWired;41902730]If I suddenly got rich as fuck I wouldn't know what to buy. In fact I'd [I]still[/I] buy el cheapo things because I'm really hesitant with money.[/QUOTE]
Depending how I got rich I'd probably just want to keep living fairly sensibly and maybe donate a bunch of it to those butchered by inequality because one thing about rich people is they often just sponge the money from the value produced by those below them especially in large corporations.
god bless america
If I was filthy rich I would buy so much useless shite.
If you want to cool your drink without "contaminating the essence" of your liquor, just buy whiskey stones.
's much better than spending such a ridiculous amount of money on such a common item.
[QUOTE=JustExtreme;41902737]I wouldn't be so quick as to call such a thing a "success" story. More a sign that maybe rich people don't actually "earn" all their money and maybe they're no smarter than the rest of us. It just shows that there are a lot of people even in the upper classes who the education system has failed and that someone can thrive from something that contributes nothing to society.[/QUOTE]
But income is correlated with IQ.
If I was that rich, fuck the ice cubes, I'd have somebody handcarve me a glass out of the ice every time I wanted a new drink.
pip pip motherfuckers
[QUOTE=JustExtreme;41902737]I wouldn't be so quick as to call such a thing a "success" story. More a sign that maybe rich people don't actually "earn" all their money and maybe they're no smarter than the rest of us. It just shows that there are a lot of people even in the upper classes who the education system has failed and that someone can thrive from something that contributes nothing to society.[/QUOTE]
To be honest, most people, rich or poor, don't contribute to society in any meaningful or measurable way.
[QUOTE=JustExtreme;41902737]I wouldn't be so quick as to call such a thing a "success" story. More a sign that maybe rich people don't actually "earn" all their money and maybe they're no smarter than the rest of us. It just shows that there are a lot of people even in the upper classes who the education system has failed and that someone can thrive from something that contributes nothing to society.
Depending how I got rich I'd probably just want to keep living fairly sensibly and maybe donate a bunch of it to those butchered by inequality because one thing about rich people is they often just sponge the money from the value produced by those below them especially in large corporations.[/QUOTE]
Contributes nothing to society? The supply chain in this likely hires out 10-15 factory workers, a few 'artists,' an ad company, a web designer, shipping costs (and by extension the driver of the truck), a middle manager, and anyone else it actually takes. I'm not going to argue that it's a smart buy but it is keeping people employed. I doubt all of those jobs are being filled by super rich people, so even something as pointless as this has a positive impact as a small business.
And not every rich person comes from old money. Some people learned to use the system to get where they are. Is it fair to everyone? No, but if I found myself incredibly rich I sure wouldn't want to be told to give most of it away for the sake of class equality. That's a choice I would want to make, but not one I think should be forced upon me.
[QUOTE=JustExtreme;41902737]I wouldn't be so quick as to call such a thing a "success" story. More a sign that maybe rich people don't actually "earn" all their money and maybe they're no smarter than the rest of us. It just shows that there are a lot of people even in the upper classes who the education system has failed and that someone can thrive from something that contributes nothing to society.
[editline]20th August 2013[/editline]
Depending how I got rich I'd probably just want to keep living fairly sensibly and maybe donate a bunch of it to those butchered by inequality because one thing about rich people is they often just sponge the money from the value produced by those below them especially in large corporations.[/QUOTE]
They don't have to be smarter than anyone, they just have to be more motivated than a lot of people. As long as they never give up and are of competency, they can do anything. That's what separates famous/rich people from us peasants. Oh, and luck, can't forget that.
If I were rich I would order a giant ice bowl and fill it with alcohol.
Rocks on the ice.
[quote]At the same time, New York's much-abused homeless population is now at Great Depression levels, and according to a 2011 study conducted by the city, almost half of New Yorkers (46 percent) are living below or near the poverty line (defined as making less than 150% of the federal threshold).[/quote]
kind of like a big deal i think
i mean i dont really give a shit about ice cubes so
[QUOTE=thisispain;41902928]kind of like a big deal i think
i mean i dont really give a shit about ice cubes so[/QUOTE]
You mean you don't care that your ice cubes might be contaminating your drinks? What kind of human being are you?
[QUOTE=Wiggles;41902950]You mean you don't care that your ice cubes might be contaminating your drinks? What kind of human being are you?[/QUOTE]
the kind who buys cheap gin that already tastes contaminated
[QUOTE=ionuttzu;41902726]They don't even look that special
[IMG]http://www.deandeluca.com/ProductImg/500/950198alt1.jpg[/IMG]
My automerge[/QUOTE]
they look really cool, justifiable to spend money on
[QUOTE=Wiggles;41902950]You mean you don't care that your ice cubes might be contaminating your drinks? What kind of human being are you?[/QUOTE]
Shit, I've been thinking about this the wrong way. Time to get my priorities in order.
[QUOTE=Lambadvanced;41902909]They don't have to be smarter than anyone, they just have to be more motivated than a lot of people. As long as they never give up and are of competency, they can do anything. That's what separates famous/rich people from us peasants. Oh, and luck, can't forget that.[/QUOTE]
what separates famous/rich people is circumstance.
you never hear about the people who fail, and i bet you the number of people who fail vastly outnumber the people who succeed. all that differed was the circumstance. something as big as being born in africa, or something as small as getting an illness
This kinda shit's a waste of time, money, and Planet Earth's resources. The fact they cost $75 is an insult to the entirety of the human race, $75 dollars that could have contributed to the effort to stop our world from meeting a most terrible fate.
Yes there are people who have more money than sense, but money and sense should go hand in hand, for money is power, and with power comes responsibility, ergo the rich should spend their cash on growing some more fucking brain cells. Wouldn't be too far-fetched, since stem cell tech is advancing rapidly and we might be able to grow brain cells in a petri dish sooner rather than later.
Those with power are obligated by the very fabric of the universe to help those without, to give them power so that the weak can become strong and the simple can become wise.
[QUOTE=JustExtreme;41902737]More a sign that maybe rich people don't actually "earn" all their money and maybe they're no smarter than the rest of us. [/QUOTE]
money is finite. the more money a rich person has the less money everyone else has.
i dont call that a success story, why the fuck do i care that some asshole made a whole bunch of money?
[QUOTE=thisispain;41902992]money is finite. the more money a rich person has the less money everyone else has.
i dont call that a success story, why the fuck do i care that some asshole made a whole bunch of money?[/QUOTE]
You're confusing money with wealth. Wealth is not a zero-sum game.
[QUOTE=(~_^);41903035]You're confusing money with wealth. Wealth is not a zero-sum game.[/QUOTE]
wealth is a meaningless term
i was talking about money, which is a quantifiable concept
and is that... ian smith
[QUOTE=ironman17;41902991]This kinda shit's a waste of time, money, and Planet Earth's resources. The fact they cost $75 is an insult to the entirety of the human race, $75 dollars that could have contributed to the effort to stop our world from meeting a most terrible fate.
Yes there are people who have more money than sense, but money and sense should go hand in hand, for money is power, and with power comes responsibility, ergo the rich should spend their cash on growing some more fucking brain cells. Wouldn't be too far-fetched, since stem cell tech is advancing rapidly and we might be able to grow brain cells in a petri dish sooner rather than later.
Those with power are obligated by the very fabric of the universe to help those without, to give them power so that the weak can become strong and the simple can become wise.[/QUOTE]
woah woah
yeah, it's dumb, but i don't see why a rich person fun item is an "insult to the entirety of the human race," and why you wrote an essay telling us this.
[QUOTE=thisispain;41903068]wealth is a meaningless term
i was talking about money, which is a quantifiable concept[/quote]
erm, what?
[url]http://www.paulgraham.com/wealth.html[/url]
[quote][B]Money Is Not Wealth[/B]
If you want to create wealth, it will help to understand what it is. Wealth is not the same thing as money. [3] Wealth is as old as human history. Far older, in fact; ants have wealth. Money is a comparatively recent invention.
Wealth is the fundamental thing. Wealth is stuff we want: food, clothes, houses, cars, gadgets, travel to interesting places, and so on. You can have wealth without having money. If you had a magic machine that could on command make you a car or cook you dinner or do your laundry, or do anything else you wanted, you wouldn't need money. Whereas if you were in the middle of Antarctica, where there is nothing to buy, it wouldn't matter how much money you had.
Wealth is what you want, not money. But if wealth is the important thing, why does everyone talk about making money? It is a kind of shorthand: money is a way of moving wealth, and in practice they are usually interchangeable. But they are not the same thing, and unless you plan to get rich by counterfeiting, talking about making money can make it harder to understand how to make money.
Money is a side effect of specialization. In a specialized society, most of the things you need, you can't make for yourself. If you want a potato or a pencil or a place to live, you have to get it from someone else.
How do you get the person who grows the potatoes to give you some? By giving him something he wants in return. But you can't get very far by trading things directly with the people who need them. If you make violins, and none of the local farmers wants one, how will you eat?
The solution societies find, as they get more specialized, is to make the trade into a two-step process. Instead of trading violins directly for potatoes, you trade violins for, say, silver, which you can then trade again for anything else you need. The intermediate stuff-- the medium of exchange-- can be anything that's rare and portable. Historically metals have been the most common, but recently we've been using a medium of exchange, called the dollar, that doesn't physically exist. It works as a medium of exchange, however, because its rarity is guaranteed by the U.S. Government.
The advantage of a medium of exchange is that it makes trade work. The disadvantage is that it tends to obscure what trade really means. People think that what a business does is make money. But money is just the intermediate stage-- just a shorthand-- for whatever people want. What most businesses really do is make wealth. They do something people want. [4]
[B]The Pie Fallacy[/B]
A surprising number of people retain from childhood the idea that there is a fixed amount of wealth in the world. There is, in any normal family, a fixed amount of money at any moment. But that's not the same thing.
When wealth is talked about in this context, it is often described as a pie. "You can't make the pie larger," say politicians. When you're talking about the amount of money in one family's bank account, or the amount available to a government from one year's tax revenue, this is true. If one person gets more, someone else has to get less.
I can remember believing, as a child, that if a few rich people had all the money, it left less for everyone else. Many people seem to continue to believe something like this well into adulthood. This fallacy is usually there in the background when you hear someone talking about how x percent of the population have y percent of the wealth. If you plan to start a startup, then whether you realize it or not, you're planning to disprove the Pie Fallacy.
What leads people astray here is the abstraction of money. Money is not wealth. It's just something we use to move wealth around. So although there may be, in certain specific moments (like your family, this month) a fixed amount of money available to trade with other people for things you want, there is not a fixed amount of wealth in the world. You can make more wealth. Wealth has been getting created and destroyed (but on balance, created) for all of human history.
Suppose you own a beat-up old car. Instead of sitting on your butt next summer, you could spend the time restoring your car to pristine condition. In doing so you create wealth. The world is-- and you specifically are-- one pristine old car the richer. And not just in some metaphorical way. If you sell your car, you'll get more for it.
In restoring your old car you have made yourself richer. You haven't made anyone else poorer. So there is obviously not a fixed pie. And in fact, when you look at it this way, you wonder why anyone would think there was. [5]
Kids know, without knowing they know, that they can create wealth. If you need to give someone a present and don't have any money, you make one. But kids are so bad at making things that they consider home-made presents to be a distinct, inferior, sort of thing to store-bought ones-- a mere expression of the proverbial thought that counts. And indeed, the lumpy ashtrays we made for our parents did not have much of a resale market.[/quote]
[quote]and is that... ian smith[/QUOTE]
Yes
[QUOTE=thisispain;41903068]wealth is a meaningless term
i was talking about money, which is a quantifiable concept[/QUOTE]
What are you smoking?
Wealth and money are completely different concepts. This has been established for centuries.
Whatever costs the most is guaranteed to be the best.
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