You could double your money in five minutes by buying a Birkin handbag at your local Hermès boutique and then flipping it. But getting your hands on the world’s most sought after purse is a lot more complicated than it sounds.

A basic black leather Birkin 25 costs $11,400 before tax at the Hermès store. Buyers can walk out and immediately give it to a handbag reseller like Privé Porter in exchange for $23,000 in cash. Privé Porter will then sell the Birkin on Instagram or at its Las Vegas pop-up store, possibly on the same day—box fresh, with receipt—for up to $32,000. All this for a bag that analysts estimate costs Hermès around $1,000 to make.

The unusual economics of the Birkin have upended the normal balance of power between shopper and store worker. At the Hermès boutique, it is the buyer who kowtows. Some of the wealthiest women in the world have brought homemade cookies to the store to cozy up to their sales assistant. They have offered tickets for Beyoncé concerts, trips to the Cannes Film Festival in a private jet and even envelopes stuffed with cash—all to get their hands on a Birkin. //

The Birkin turns 40 this year and is maturing into a phenomenon. To carry one is to signal that the wearer can afford to drop anywhere from $10,000 to $100,000 on a handbag. It appeals to the limelight-seeking Kardashians, who own extensive collections, but also to European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde, who is often photographed on her way to meetings carrying a Birkin. //

Shoppers seem to lust after the Birkin because it is rare, expensive and well made. There is no better status symbol for those who want to display their wealth. And the hunt involved in getting one might be the whole point. Wealthy shoppers tolerate waiting at the Hermès store in a way that wouldn’t be acceptable in other areas of their lives.

Trump War Room @TrumpWarRoom
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PRESIDENT TRUMP: "This is the party, the Republican Party, of common sense... We need borders, we need fair elections, we don't want men playing in women's sports, we don't want transgender operations without parental consent."

2:57 PM · Oct 15, 2024 //

Trump War Room @TrumpWarRoom
·
BLOOMBERG: Are those who claim your policies will drive up inflation wrong?

PRESIDENT TRUMP: "I had four years of no inflation."

🫳🎤

1:23 PM · Oct 15, 2024 //

Trump War Room @TrumpWarRoom
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TRUMP: "There are no tariffs."

HOST: confused

TRUMP: "No, there are no tariffs — all you have to do is build your plant in the United States and you don't have any tariffs. That's what I want."

AUDIENCE: applause

🔥🔥🔥

1:05 PM · Oct 15, 2024 //

Trump War Room @TrumpWarRoom
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PRESIDENT TRUMP: "What does the Wall Street Journal know? They've been wrong about everything. So have you, by the way... you've been wrong all your life on this stuff." 🔥

1:22 PM · Oct 15, 2024 //

Trump War Room @TrumpWarRoom
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Bloomberg News Editor-in-Chief John Micklethwait: Just for the record, The Economic Club of Chicago and Bloomberg invited Vice President Harris to a similar interview. She has declined.

12:52 PM · Oct 15, 2024 //

Karoline Leavitt @kleavittnh
·
Standing ovation and huge applause for President Trump following his interview with Bloomberg at the Chicago Economic Club!

The crowd absolutely LOVED it!

2:06 PM · Oct 15, 2024 //

Outerlimitsfan redstateuser
5 hours ago edited
Exactly. Which is why I chuckle when some on our side get so bent out of shape sometimes.

Trump sometimes like to use mean names and insults.

Those on the other side are trying to throw him in prison and assassinate him. //

Claudius54
6 hours ago edited
Trump is the Energizer Bunny!! Pennsylvania yesterday. Economic Club of Chicago today ... New York rallies, California rallies ... which threaten to tilt him the national popular vote ... and possibly wet blanket all the post-election lawfare that Marc Elias has in the works.

"Just to top it all off, Kamala Harris, who claims Trump is "hiding," was invited, but she refused."

She flat out just doesn't have the energy to keep up with him.

Sandy-like the beach I can be Claudius54
3 hours ago
The Energizer Bunny being hunted by Wiley Waltz. Vewy vewy quietly.

I'm over the left pretending like it cares about the human race when it consistently exhibits a disdain and sometimes hostile attitude toward it. All the venerated minds that the left holds in high regard, seem to think that humanity is killing the planet, chiding and lecturing us about our use of fossil fuels and claiming we've stolen the hopes and dreams of future generations. //

As Susie Moore reported on Sunday, Elon Musk and SpaceX are making huge advancements all the time, bringing humanity closer and closer to being a space-faring species. In an incredible display of technological advancement, SpaceX was able to catch a Super Heavy booster with "Mechazilla" arms. An engineering feat that will go down in history as one of the greatest achievements in space travel. //

Of course, there are people out there who are so shortsighted, they see these advancements as negatives. They see it as billionaires wasting money that could be used for other things like feeding the hungry, saying that if the world does end, then the only people who will be able to leave are the billionaires building these rockets.

Dr. Grouf @DGrouf
·
Government efficiency to billionaires it means taking from the poor and enriching the wealthy and their servants, which is what this sob is going to do, people keep getting poorer while these b@stards keep building their net worths and wasting societal wealth on flying rockets.

Elon Musk @elonmusk
I hope I am able to serve the people in this regard. It is sorely needed.
10:37 AM · Oct 14, 2024 //

Sci-fi author Devon Erikson put it beautifully in his post on X:

Devon Eriksen @DevonEriksen
·
This is what will matter 1000 years from now.

Not your politics. Not your stupid tantrums about who platformed who on some website. Not your incomprehensible desire to send NASA's entire budget to the third world.

This guy reignited the Space Age.

He spent his own money,… Show more

Instead of fighting over little patches of land, we will have an infinite 3d volume. Enclose it in steel, pump it full of air, spin it, and it's a habitat. Instead of scratching tiny scraps of metal out of the crust of one planet, we will break down entire asteroids and smelt them. Instead of drilling for hydrocarbons and turning water wheels, we will harness entire suns, split the atom, and eventually draw our fuel from the substance that makes up 99% of the entire universe. None of your local, temporal Earth politics matter compared to this. This is more important than pride parades and abortions, more important than tribal conflicts in eastern Europe and southwest Asia, more important than tensions with Russia and China. //

If the left truly cares about people like they say, or pretend they do, then with every successful advancement, every launched rocket, every person sent to space by a private company, they would whoop and cheer... but they aren't. It should make the left's ideological foundations morally suspect.

Jon from Richardson 75080
2 minutes ago
On the other hand, FOX News had a reporter reporting on striking dock workers. He asked the group how many were going to vote for Trump. ALL BUT ONE HAND WENT UP. The one guy who resisted was not going to explain why. //

Political-Paige
2 hours ago
Any mention of the fact that the ILE strike ended about 3 hours after DeSantis did a presser that he was sending in the FL Nat'l Guard to secure and "restore operations" in Florida's many ports?
He folded the paper tiger faster than an origami contest.

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) climate disclosure rule posts real problems for public companies. The SEC’s mission is to do facilitate capital formation and maintain market efficiency, but for the first time in its 90-year history, the SEC has injected political risk factors into its traditionally principles-based disclosure framework.

Leading up to the new rule, the SEC buckled under pressure from left-wing special interests to impose the first environmental disclosure mandate on public companies. If the SEC’s final rule is allowed to go into effect by the courts, it will be a financial disaster for the public markets. //

The climate rule will require most large and mid-sized public firms to report annual and quarterly disclosures that account for an endless range of climate risk factors. This translates to approximately 3,488 firms spending upwards of $628 million on direct disclosure costs and millions on indirect costs.

Consequentially, firms will need to expend great resources hiring climate scientists, ESG experts, lawyers, and accountants to properly prepare their disclosures for SEC review, neglecting the time normally spent on enhancing their market value.

Corporate boards will lose much of their discretionary decision making, forced to prioritize environmental risk factors over purely financial concerns. In its place, corporate boards must infuse speculative climate science to determine which climate risks warrant inclusion in their SEC disclosure.

With the SEC’s 12 new climate disclosure categories, investors will be spammed with a flood of confusing and potentially contradictory environmental data. This will undermine the ability of investors to navigate the actual meaningful risks in the markets or assess the health of a company. The doom and gloom of climate risks will imperil sensible financial analysis. //
As many as 25 state attorneys general have pursued two lawsuits against the SEC for exceeding its statutory authority and violating the major questions doctrine by promulgating climate regulation.

The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals was chosen by the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation to consolidate nine challenges into one case against the SEC. Soon after, the SEC halted the rule’s implantation to fend off its legal challenges.

The SEC is in the unenviable position of trying to defend the indefensible. //

Mandatory climate disclosures represent an undemocratic form of ESG policymaking that neither Congress nor the U.S. electorate actually approved.

Brother Mikey @BrotherMikeyX
·
"I will cripple you, and you have no idea what that means. Nobody does."

Harold Dagget, Chief Negotiator for the International Longshoremen Association, threatens to cripple the US economy with IMMINENT port strike.

In a recent interview, Harold explains the impact of what will… Show more
11:09 AM · Sep 30, 2024 //

Lest you think Daggett is a humble man of the people, here's a look at his cushy lifestyle:

Despite his eminent blue collar credentials, the union baron earned $728,000 last year from the ILA, plus another $173,000 as president emeritus of a local union branch, Politico reported.

He previously owned a 76-foot yacht, the Obsession, and has been spotted by his members riding in a Bentley, according to The New York Times.

Mr. Daggett can well afford a long, drawn-out strike, but many Americans will suffer greatly because of it.

Sunny @sunnyright
·
Taft-Hartley is federal law.

The president has decided he doesn’t believe in certain federal laws because they hurt his political allies.

The media has no follow-up questions.

Jeff Stein @JStein_WaPo
President Joe Biden: I don't believe in Taft-Hartley
Image
9:18 AM · Oct 1, 2024

anon-hldg veritas Wisco
11 hours ago
"The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office projects that deficit spending for fiscal 2024 will reach a staggering $1.9 trillion. This comes on top of the $7 trillion added to the federal debt under Biden, bringing us to the highest level of indebtedness in our nation’s history, surpassing the previous high during World War II.

"Biden’s insatiable deficit spending has not only lit the fuse on record inflation but has resulted in the highest interest rate hikes in a quarter century. The cost just to service our national debt has increased by $540 billion, or 153%, since Biden took office. Those net interest expenses represented 9% of federal revenue in 2021 and are projected to double to 18% in 2024 and rise to 23% in 2034.

"Massive federal spending along with failed economic policies under unified Democratic control of government caused inflation to climb to 9.1% in June 2022. Inflation is still sticking at levels well above the Federal Reserve’s target for reducing interest rates.

"In total, prices have risen nearly 20% since Biden became president, forcing families to pay more than $17,000 more per year, or $1,400 per month, for the same goods and services. Sadly, inflation has grown faster than income over the last three years, reducing real wages by 4% since January 2021."

"Op-Ed, Washington Examiner: Biden’s Cruel Economy," Washington Examiner, July 11, 2024.

"This Survey Says Consumers Are Fed Up. The annual poll from Forrester Research showed a third consecutive year of rising customer dissatisfaction with brands whose price hikes, smaller-sized products, lower quality services, and annoying chatbots."

"This Survey Says Consumers Are Fed Up," Inc., June 18, 2024.

For years, Argentina imposed one of the world’s strictest rent-control laws. It was meant to keep homes such as the stately belle epoque apartments of Buenos Aires affordable, but instead, officials here say, rents soared.

Now, the country’s new president, Javier Milei, has scrapped the rental law, along with most government price controls, in a fiscal experiment that he is conducting to revive South America’s second-biggest economy.

The result: The Argentine capital is undergoing a rental-market boom. Landlords are rushing to put their properties back on the market, with Buenos Aires rental supplies increasing by over 170%. While rents are still up in nominal terms, many renters are getting better deals than ever, with a 40% decline in the real price of rental properties when adjusted for inflation since last October, said Federico González Rouco, an economist at Buenos Aires-based Empiria Consultores.

The hard truth is that Harris has no plan. She thrust herself into the presidential race after tossing Joe Biden aside with full intention to coast to victory without having to define anything she'd actually do as president. Because of a compliant press, she's largely gotten away with it, but the truth always manages to slip out eventually. A Harris presidency would be a meandering disaster run by political insiders that bounce from one Democrat administration to the next. Americans can reject that or suffer the consequences.

One of her most galling claims is that she has "plans" to make the economy better. If that were true, why hasn't she done any of it already, as Trump said? Why did she vote for spending that made inflation worse, a very basic principle she doesn't seem to understand? //

But one of the things she's been saying was that Goldman Sachs had endorsed her "plan." //

Trump War Room @TrumpWarRoom
·
Kamala: "Goldman Sachs said my plan would grow the economy and his plan would shrink the economy."

The Goldman Sachs CEO said earlier today that Kamala lied about this.

6:46 PM · Sep 12, 2024

Republican Sen. Mike Lee (Utah) also weighed in on the BLS report, with thoughts similar to those of Trump:

This disastrous report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows what Americans have known for years: illegal immigration drives down the wages and jobs of American citizens, pushing out struggling families.

Statistics show that all of the job growth Kamala Harris and Joe Biden’s claim to have created has not been for American citizens.

It has entirely gone to illegal immigrants whom they have imported at great harm to our country.It appears that the primary beneficiaries of the Biden-Harris economy are illegal aliens. > The ones shouldering the burden of their suppressed wages, inflated cost of living, and migrant crime are the American people.

This is the most disastrous presidency of the last 50 years, a great betrayal of our nation.

Not to nitpick with Sen. Lee, but a strong argument can be made that the Biden presidency is the worst in American history.

On 2023-10-16, Marc Andreessen, (creator of Mosaic, the first graphical Web browser, co-founder of Netscape, and general partner of superstar venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz) published a 5200 word document, “The Techno-Optimist Manifesto 6”, proclaiming technology as the root of all human progress since our species emerged from the forager lifestyle and absolutely essential to the achievement of the human destiny now and in the future, here on Earth and onward to the stars. //

I agree with just about everything in this manifesto (can you guess my lone quibble?). I wish I’d written it. I wish I wrote so well. This is well worth your time to read and digest. We are engaged in a struggle for the future. Andreessen clearly identifies the enemy.

The Swiss are renowned for crafting the finest watches in the world, such as the Patek Philippe. The Swiss are now credited with inventing the most effective fiscal rules in the world, the Swiss debt brake.

The debt brake was enacted as a constitutional fiscal rule through referendum in 2001, with support from 85 percent of Swiss citizens. Like many countries, the Swiss have encountered recessions accompanied by unsustainable growth in debt. The debt brake was enacted to impose more effective constraints on federal spending and restore sustainable levels of debt. Over the past two decades, the Swiss cut debt as a share of national income roughly in half. //

Like a Swiss watch, the debt brake has several parts that are synchronized to constrain fiscal policies. The most important part is a rule that constrains the growth in federal spending to the rate of growth in potential output. This means that in the long term the federal government cannot grow more rapidly than the private sector.

Another rule is designed to stabilize spending over the business cycle. The federal government can incur deficits in periods of recession but must offset those deficits with surplus revenue in periods of economic growth. The rules cap deficit spending. If the deficits exceed 6 percent of expenditures, the excess must be eliminated within the next three annual budgets by lowering the expenditure ceiling. A compensation account is used to track deficits and surpluses over time. //

The debt brake has fostered fundamental reforms in the budget process in Switzerland. Before the debt brake was enacted, the Swiss relied on a bottom-up approach to budgeting. Each ministry proposed its own budget, and these were then aggregated into a total budget. Bottom-up budgeting is biased toward deficit spending, as each ministry lobbies for its own programs. The debt brake requires top-down budgeting. The finance minister is now required to draft a budget that conforms to debt brake rules, and that budget is then broken down into separate budgets for each ministry. //

The Swiss debt brake has proven to be the most effective of the new generation of fiscal rules enacted in developed countries. The reason is that it replaces discretionary fiscal policies with rules-based policies. ///

It only works for a moral people who have s conscience.

Both she and Joe Biden seem to think the role of the government is to open up the taxpayers's coffers and use the money in giveaways to buy votes. They don't seem to understand that it's the overspending that helped to kick off the inflation that has been crushing people. So, they keep proposing things that will only make things worse. //

Kamala Harris @KamalaHarris
·
Even if aspiring homeowners save for years, it is often still not enough.

My administration will provide first-time homebuyers with $25,000 to help with the down payment on a new home.
3:31 PM · Aug 27, 2024 //

Elon Musk @elonmusk
·
Replying to @KamalaHarris
Unless you increase the supply of new homes, this just raises the price by $25k and does nothing for affordability
10:10 PM · Aug 27, 2024 //

Adrianne Curry @AdrianneCurry
·
Replying to @KamalaHarris
and you havent done it now...why?

Why did you abuse everyone for four years?
9:14 PM · Aug 27, 2024 //

GotOutofCali
5 hours ago
There has never been a problem liberals won’t throw other peoples money at. //

Steprock
5 hours ago
The price of my home is up by nearly double over the past couple of years - I just checked yesterday. Right along with what Trump said.

Glad I bought when I did. The Lord was looking out for us and giving us open doors. 100% serious with that.

anon-pt3l Steprock
5 hours ago
Under her unrealized gain tax plan you would have to pay taxes on that increase. It’s unbelievable.

First, "fair share," as defined by whom? Rhetorical question — the Democrat Party, of course. Second, the Democrat Party is incapable of reaching peak wealth redistribution. The left will never reach a point where it believes it is finally robbing a sufficient amount of money from the wealthy to redistribute to the poor.

Never mind that the top 1 percent of earners already pay 45.8 percent of federal income taxes, and the top 50 percent of all taxpayers pay 97.7 percent, while the bottom 50 percent pay the remaining 2.3 percent. https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/federal/latest-federal-income-tax-data-2024/

"Fair share"? Seems to me that the bottom 50 percent of earners need to pay their fair share. //

While the left continues to preach the zero-sum-game mentality, or a "scarcity mindset"; the belief that there are limited resources, so if someone else has something you want, you believe there is less of it for you, conservatives subscribe to an "abundance mentality" — the belief that there is enough wealth, resources, and success in the world for anyone who works to achieve their goals.

Henry Ford famously wrote an autobiography, "My Life & Work":

As long as we look to legislation to cure poverty or to abolish special privilege, we are going to see poverty spread and special privilege grow.

Welker asked Vance: "How do you respond to that charge that Trump's tariffs would hurt the middle class?"

JD was ready with an answer — and more than eager to respond:

If you sit back a little bit, Kristen, there's this whole thing that Kamala Harris did at the convention where she made a bunch of claims about what would happen, and not enough ... reflection on what already happened, because Donald Trump already was president; he used tariffs to bring manufacturing jobs back to our country and I' think he'll do it again. He did it while keeping prices extremely low.

[I]f you go back to the Trump presidency, we had 12,000 factories that were built during Donald Trump's presidency, inflation never really ticked above two percent during his entire administration ... and was about one-have percent, most of the time. So when Kamala Harris says, 'If we do the thing that Trump already did, it's gonna be way worse than it was last time.' I just don't think that makes a lot of sense.

Why in the ever-loving world should Elon Musk use one red cent of his vast wealth to help improve Mid-Market? In case nobody informed you, Mr. Shaw, that's not his job. The taxpayers are paying some of the highest taxes in the republic, and they have every reason to expect that some of that money would be used to keep people from, well, shooting up and crapping on the streets. That's not Elon's responsibility. He doesn't owe Mid-Market, the Tenderloin, or the city of San Francisco a damn thing. But that's just like the left - sit around whining, waiting for someone else to do something.

Some years ago, one of my literary heroes, Robert Heinlein, wrote about situations just like this:

Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded — here and there, now and then — are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty.

This is known as "bad luck.” //

If I could offer any advice to Chiu, Shaw, and Gavin Newsom, it would be that they had better keep a sharp eye peeled for locusts. //

Brytek
4 hours ago edited
If they see locusts coming they will make the people in SF eat them instead of meat, that is how they roll.

Well, let's check in with Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo who was asked about this at the DNC on ABC. She was asked if she thought these new numbers could be a "potential liability for this [the Harris-Walz] campaign."

Greg Price @greg_price11
·
Follow
Reporter: Nearly a million jobs "created" since Kamala took office do not exist.

Raimondo: “I don’t believe it because I’ve never heard Trump say anything truthful.”

Reporter: "It is from the Bureau of Labor."

Raimondo: "I'm not familiar with that."

5:57 PM · Aug 21, 2024

Jeff Carlson @themarketswork
·
Follow
Replying to @greg_price11
I mean, holy crap...

This is the current US Secretary of Commerce.

To be unaware of this report that rewrote very jobs report the Biden Administration has trumpeted over the last year... speechless

If she's lying in such a bald face manner... also speechless
6:27 PM · Aug 21, 2024

US Oil & Gas Association @US_OGA
·
We are basically being governed by a High School Student Council who think they are in charge....

While JPMorgan Chase & Co. forecasters see a decline of about 360,000, Goldman Sachs indicates it could be as large as a million.

BREAKING: 818,000 jobs that the Harris-Biden administration claimed to have “created” aren’t actually there, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

This is the largest downward revision to employment in 15 years. pic.twitter.com/6ryjKs5kbK

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) August 21, 2024

On Friday in North Carolina, what Harris was proposing was $1.7 trillion in giveaways/spending which would cause more inflation, as well as price controls which would further destroy the economy. She doesn't understand (or care) what she did wrong the first time and she's promising to do it again (make it even worse). Are we supposed to believe that corporations suddenly decided to be more greedy under her and Biden more than Trump? //

All Harris cares about is making promises to get elected, damn the consequences of those promises.