My dad, a working class man, must have bought my mum jewellery from Ratners in the 80s, because I remember this scandal and how genuinely furious he was. I remember him saying to me words along the lines of "of course we know deep down that it's crap, but it's all we can afford so we kid ourselves that it's not". Ratner saying out loud that it was crap was destroying people's private delusions, which is all some people have. It was idiotic of Ratner to say it and I don't blame the newspapers for printing it at all.
A man who destroyed his multimillion dollar company in 10 seconds (2018)
451–460 of 499 posts
Re: A man who destroyed his multimillion dollar company in 10 seconds (2018)
#452Re: A man who destroyed his multimillion dollar company in 10 seconds (2018)
#453Earlier quoted context omitted.
Denim killed denim. For a time, I could buy jeans that fit. That's now all but impossible. Skinny jeans doing much of that. Prices and fabric quality have gone, respectively, through the ceiling and floor. I'm approaching a decade denim-free, having broken in my first pair sometime in the 1970s.
I think the sizing issue is due to vanity sizing, a lot of brands label their denim jeans the wrong size. The so called size 36 or 38 are probably actually 38 and 40 respectively. A few international brands like Levi's don't seem to do vanity sizing.
Not just that. Leg diameters are far smaller.
Baggy in the waist, cannot get my thighs in.
Re: A man who destroyed his multimillion dollar company in 10 seconds (2018)
#454Earlier quoted context omitted.
Zoom out from specific circumstances and it seems like human misery is fairly constant. Whether you're scrambling around the forest looking for berries and killing things to eat with pointy sticks or working an office job living in a suburb – I don't really think your emotional experience really changes all that much. I think your misery and delight are driven by the best and worst things in your life and it doesn't…
My standard counterargument to this is to look at animals. We know that treating animals better lead to happier animals. Poorly treated and well treated animals do not converge to the same happiness level. I think there are a few key things that drive happiness. Secure food and shelter. Short commute. Nature. Being able to walk away from toxic jobs and relationships.
> treating animals better lead to happier animals
Treating animals fairly lead to happier animals.
Transform your puppy in an spoiled human baby clothed in expensive ribbons or giving vegan food to your cat will not make it happier necessarily (not to mention the neutering clause in the small letter of the contract). Our definitions of better can difer from theirs.
Re: A man who destroyed his multimillion dollar company in 10 seconds (2018)
#455Re: A man who destroyed his multimillion dollar company in 10 seconds (2018)
#456I've always been amazed at how important it appears to be to lie about selling crap. I find that invariably, businesses who compete on price make it iff they say it's good stuff, even if everybody knows it isn't. Eg Holland has a number of cheap shoe chains. Schoenenreus and Scapino both breathe an air of cheapness, and one went bust and the other is struggling bad. Their direct competitor Van Haren sells exactly equ…
For what it's worth, I think Ryanair successfully markets itself as both cheap and poor quality. Whenever for example they announce they are considering charging passengers to use the loo, or in fact charging people to carry on a bag, it negatively affects their brand which paradoxically increases their presence in the minds of customers looking to fly in Europe cheaply.
I'm not sure if this is an urban myth or not, but I've heard many times they intentionally had a tacky looking website for years for this reason.
Granted their current website is fairly decent/usable.
Re: A man who destroyed his multimillion dollar company in 10 seconds (2018)
#457Earlier quoted context omitted.
Lululemon has a weak presence in many parts of the EU and we still have people wear gym clothes in their normal lives...
People wearing gym clothes in their normal lives in Europe? Really not as much as in the US.
I think you're wrong. Walk through working class neighbourhoods in Europe; Adidas track suits are the uniform for the un/under-employed.
Re: A man who destroyed his multimillion dollar company in 10 seconds (2018)
#458Earlier quoted context omitted.
I’m not so certain about that actually, I’ve certainly seen people making $20k that had more free money and recreation time than some people making $100k. Especially as regards recreation time. To be fair, making $20k was almost always a choice in those cases.
How were those people living? Are they single people in their mid 20s with no significant other or kids? Are they making enough to put some towards retirement? I guess if you're willing to sacrifice some things it could work. You're definitely not raising a family of 3-4 in a nicer neighborhood with that amount.
Ah, these people were living in a first world nation with functional social systems, so it wasn’t actually as hard as it might seem.
The neighborhood they were living in was generally fairly average, everything considered. But only one of them had one kid (also single parent though).
Not in a large city. But I’m fairly sure in that case the main downgrade would be the neighborhood.
Re: A man who destroyed his multimillion dollar company in 10 seconds (2018)
#459Earlier quoted context omitted.
You wanted to play the game, but didn't care to lookup the rules.
Well, I didn't have a choice back then to fly ryanair, they were the only flight that flew from where I was to my destination. I just assumed that they followed the same rules as every single other airlines I had ever flown.
Ryanair make their own rules, other budget airlines have started to follow them now too. As a precaution I never fly without checking in online before reaching the airport.
Re: A man who destroyed his multimillion dollar company in 10 seconds (2018)
#460Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Eg Holland has a number of cheap shoe chains. Schoenenreus and Scapino both breathe an air of cheapness, and one went bust and the other is struggling bad. Their direct competitor Van Haren sells exactly equally crappy shoes, and everybody knows it, but they are thriving, simply because the store feels like a proper high quality shoe store. Same in the US with Target and Walmart. They sell exactly the same discounte…
I've always noticed Targets to be cleaner, better lit, and have more employees available to assist than Walmarts. I also have read many times that Walmart forces manufacturers to cut quality to meet certain price points for products sold in their stores, whereas I haven't heard anything like that about Target. This makes me trust Target more, plus their website doesn't allow resellers.
Everything Walmart does, Target also does, and as impossible as this sounds, Target cares substantially less about its employees.
And walmart.com is built to be a marketplace, like amazon.com, so of course it allows resellers.
You can hate what Walmart is and stands for, but to find Target acceptable is inconsistent.