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Neiman Marcus files for bankruptcy

reuters.com

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Re: Neiman Marcus files for bankruptcy

#241

Post by icedistilled »

chillacy wrote: post #218
chiph wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I took a shortcut through my local Neiman Marcus last year (I wanted a Five-Guys burger), and looking at what they had for sale and their prices, I couldn't help but think "Even if you're super rich, you'd be nuts to shop here." They had a black t-shirt with some rhinestones (presumably) on it for $5000. It was probably from some famous designer, but still .. $5000 for a t-shirt that had been gone over with a BeDazzl…

> probably from some famous designer I mean that's it in its entirety right? Otherwise by similar reduction, a Picasso is just some acrylic on canvas.

true, a picasso is just acrylic on canvass but it's not acrylic on canvass mass produced in a factory.

If Miuccia Prada herself sewed together a tshirt and painstakingly put on the rhinestones with much thought, then no one would be questioning the price.

Re: Neiman Marcus files for bankruptcy

#242

Post by toast0 »

johnvanommen wrote: post #222
stainforth wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why don't those landlords just lower their rents to meet demand then?

> Why don't those landlords just lower their rents to meet demand then? Keep in mind how the concept of an "anchor tenant" works. For instance, Sears had leases that were as long as 99 years long, with rates that were as low as one dollar per year. (No joke: https://www.denverpost.com/2019/09/26/kmart-monaco-evans-den... ) The way that the retail model was structured, back in the 70s and the 80s, was that the anchor…

Where is Fry's acting as an anchor tenant? All of the stores I've seen were freestanding. Often in light industrial areas, not a whole lot of people are going to Fry's and then stop by at the bus upfitter, cause it's right there and they might as well get a commute vehicle for the whole office.

Re: Neiman Marcus files for bankruptcy

#243

Post by Aunche »

owenmarshall wrote: post #224
stanfordkid wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True. But how much did the productive output of the average American increase? Can we really expect things to "always increase" -- including wages? To me this seems like an absurd idea. The end goal should be improving the median quality of life, through improving the efficiency of factors of production -- lower cost of goods... not through the expectation that the wages should arbitrarily grow linearly with GDP.

> But how much did the productive output of the average American increase? Around one hundred percent. https://data.oecd.org/lprdty/gdp-per-hour-worked.htm

They probably meant median productive output. Sam Walton and Bezos made their supply chains 100% more efficient. It’s not as if warehouse workers suddenly were able to lift 100% more weight.

Re: Neiman Marcus files for bankruptcy

#244

Post by paypalcust83 »

I can almost hear it: Where oh where will I buy a fluorescent fuchsia sports coat for $8000 now?

Amazon and similar are no good for luxury goods because of the lack of service that luxury shoppers expect. Perhaps they need to shift to an online-first model with video-conferenced personal shoppers who can browse store-like inventory while serving qualified shoppers who can concurrently navigate their wardrobe?

Personally, I like Neimy's, but not as a go-to retailer but as a once-every-twenty-years-buy-something-nice-and-crazy; their service is/was fantastic, they know their products/fashion, and their employees aren't/weren't like standard American retail salespeople. Ordinarily, I go to Salvation Army and Goodwill for outer clothing only, and eBay for new-but-discontinued b-stock or liquidated inventory of other clothing that I can no longer find.

Re: Neiman Marcus files for bankruptcy

#245

Post by ALittleLight »

seisvelas wrote: post #234
apsec112 wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your first child grows four inches and your second child grows six inches, you don't say that the first kid shrank.

Wow, this simple comment completely changed my point of view on this argument. What a beautiful, almost laconically effective analogy. edit: not being sarcastic, I just really admire effective communication (to whoever downvoted me </3)

I don't think it should have. Height is objective. I don't get taller or shorter based on other people's heights. Money isn't like that. If the amount of money in a system increases without a commensurate increase in the amount of goods and services, that could be decrease my purchasing power.

Another way of phrasing it: child 1 used to be the tallest. The other children grew and now 1 is the shortest. The objective height of 1 may have increased, but relative stature declined.

The figure to think about is purchasing power. How much stuff can you buy with your money, whatever the numerical quantity of that money is. Purchasing power has been roughly flat for the past 40 years for the middle class [1]. The economy is growing, but almost all of that growth is captured by the upper class.

Things that the middle class mostly spend their money on, healthcare, education, housing - has all been getting disproportionately more expensive too. So it's not just that the effective earnings aren't increasing, it's also that the things middle class families spend on are getting more expensive.

It's complicated to think about, but that's partly why you shouldn't trust pithy analogies that try to make stagnant income for the middle class seem acceptable. As the saying goes - for every hard problem there's an answer that's simple, elegant, and wrong. "Everyone is getting richer, just at different rates, like your children grow at different rates" is one such answer. In reality, your upper class child is gigantic, fat, and eating more while the other children haven't developed in years.

1 - https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/08/07/for-most-us...

Re: Neiman Marcus files for bankruptcy

#246

Post by igravious »

apsec112 wrote: post #206
igravious wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Income for this group did not shrink, it just grew more slowly than other groups Another way of saying that it grew more slowly than other groups is that it shrank .

If your first child grows four inches and your second child grows six inches, you don't say that the first kid shrank.

edit: deleted this chunk of my argument because as pointed out by dweekly Pew Research are already comparing in 2018 dollars.

What matters is that U.S. middle-income share of aggregate income fell from 62% to 43% – is this not the usual measurement? This is what people mean by "the middle class is shrinking". It doesn't matter if the average middle-income has increased, what matters in this context is the overall purchasing power of the middle class.

Even adjusted for so-called inflation you have to wonder does your 2018 $ go as far as your 1970 $ ? How would we measure that? How about we look at household debt? According to this site “In 1983, the top 5 percent had 80 cents of debt for every dollar of income, while the remaining 95 percent had 60 cents for every dollar. By 2007, after decades in which an increasing share of income flowed to the top, the situation had reversed. The top 5 percent had 65 cents of debt for every dollar of income, while the remaining 95 percent had $1.40 in debt for every dollar. The situation remains skewed today.” https://tcf.org/content/commentary/graph-household-debt-and-... – this suggests that a $ dollar does not go as far today and that today maintain a middle-income lifestyle the average family has to go deeper into debt.

( You'll note that according to the New York Fed total household debt has ballooned from a fraction of a trillion to over fourteen trillion from the '60s to the 2010's https://www.newyorkfed.org/medialibrary/media/research/staff... )

Re: Neiman Marcus files for bankruptcy

#248

Post by igravious »

seisvelas wrote: post #234
apsec112 wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your first child grows four inches and your second child grows six inches, you don't say that the first kid shrank.

Wow, this simple comment completely changed my point of view on this argument. What a beautiful, almost laconically effective analogy. edit: not being sarcastic, I just really admire effective communication (to whoever downvoted me </3)

What a dollar (or euro, or any currency) is worth changes over time relative to other currencies which is how we can get currency trading, correct? Not only that but a currency changes relative to itself over time.

This is the purchasing power of the currency over time. Here is a calculator for that: https://www.measuringworth.com/calculators/uscompare/ and here: https://www.officialdata.org/us/inflation

This gets called inflation. (People do argue about what inflation is and what they argue for depends on their economic ideology – there's the inflation of prices in a currency and the inflation of a currency itself through pumping more of it into the system, so-called quantitative easing)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inflation

Put simple, height is measured using a fixed or absolute measure (inches or centimetres or whatever) – a $ in 1970 is not the same $ in 2020, it's relative – but we know this intuitively anyway because when we look at old prices (for most things) they are way less.

Re: Neiman Marcus files for bankruptcy

#249

Post by dweekly »

igravious wrote: post #246
apsec112 wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your first child grows four inches and your second child grows six inches, you don't say that the first kid shrank.

edit: deleted this chunk of my argument because as pointed out by dweekly Pew Research are already comparing in 2018 dollars. What matters is that U.S. middle-income share of aggregate income fell from 62% to 43% – is this not the usual measurement? This is what people mean by "the middle class is shrinking". It doesn't matter if the average middle-income has increased, what matters in this context is the overall pur…

1. the Pew linked source you give shows numbers in constant 2018 (inflation adjusted) dollars. You seem to be saying in your comment here that the median family in 1970 was making $58,700 in 1970 dollars. It was $9,870 in 1970 dollars per the US Census: https://www.census.gov/library/publications/1971/demo/p60-78...

2: It's interesting to look at debt, but net worth gives a more complete picture as larger assets can offset larger debts. On this front things we're looking pretty rosy for the median US household up until 2007, when the Great Recession roughly halved household net worth and hasn't seen a recovery since: https://www.financialsamurai.com/the-median-net-worth-of-us-... - the "good news" is that things aren't worse than where they were in the 60's in inflation-adjusted terms. The terrible news is the truly astonishing racial gaps in household median net worth: https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/fiscal-fact/median-value-wea...

Re: Neiman Marcus files for bankruptcy

#250

Post by taurath »

Aunche wrote: post #243
owenmarshall wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But how much did the productive output of the average American increase? Around one hundred percent. https://data.oecd.org/lprdty/gdp-per-hour-worked.htm

They probably meant median productive output. Sam Walton and Bezos made their supply chains 100% more efficient. It’s not as if warehouse workers suddenly were able to lift 100% more weight.

Standardized pallets and forklifts can make them lift a hell of a lot more weight
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