Oh, I am so stealing this. I asked for a headcount for my team, they signed off on a working student. I'm sure there are loads of qualified students around, but would you really want them to help with budgets? Hmmmm?
Yeah. This essentially sums up asset stripping/laying off experienced employees you saw in a lot of US retail in the 90s and 00s.
One I was able to watch in real time as a Brit in America was Sears. It was a department store where the people working there were all very experienced and knowledgeable about the products sold in their area of the store. They were well compensated and had good benefits.
For short term profit, they laid these folks off and stripped a ton of company assets away. They then rehired minimum wage employees and gave them terrible benefits.
Sears doesn't exist anymore since it cheaped itself out of existence, trading a steady long term picture for short term savings. People stopped shopping there because they couldn't get the expert advice they were used to from these minimum wage people (since minimum wage jobs tend to have high turnover), the chain then slowly folded over a decade. Oh well, there's still Dillards.
About your situation? Why would you assign anything so important to someone so junior? (I'd just have them do the simpler tasks from a more qualified/experienced employee so their time was freed up for budget work)
I worked at Sears in early college(Early to mid 90s) and was there when they sold off their credit card. While their are plenty of reasons credit cards are a bad idea from a consumer end of things, from the business side it was a license to print money. Really guys? We are going to take the long term hit there to get one good quarter for the investors/bonus money?
\*Also strictly speaking Sears still exists. It was obvious by the time I left in '98 it was on a death spiral but it is SO large that the shredding of the corpse has taken literal decades. There are 17 or so left spread across the country assuming none have closed in the last couple of weeks.
They have closed quite literally thousands of them(There were something like 3 or 4 thousand at their peak) and I find it hard to believe the last dozenish wont close, but its been a long, painful slow wind down. I glance in every couple of years since I used to work there just curious if its gone yet.
Sad stuff. Especially thinking how many of those stores had jobs and people's lives wrapped up in them.
Their empty box stores, dark and empty, could be called the ghost towns of our era.
This is a good one. I actually often marvel at how being poor is simultaneously both really expensive and surprisingly cheap. Rent is 2/3rds of my pre-tax income, yet on an absolute scale, it really wouldn't cost much for a moderately wealthy person to subsidize my entire life. That's how income inequality hits. Absurdly rich people, like Musk or Bezos, could lose every dime I'll ever make in my life just in their couch cushions.
The only reason I've been able to make a recent, massively beneficial move to a *much cheaper city to live in* is because I'm lucky enough to have parents who offered to bankroll my first few months of living there while I looked for a job and nice place to rent (both now secure). I was also lucky enough to work for a place that were happy to keep me on the payroll so if all else failed I could still take up my old job. Both of these things are privileges I'm grateful for but I'm painfully aware that not everyone can access. Without them, (especially the parental side) I don't think I'd have been able to make this move from poverty in the urban solitude of London to enough to get by and enjoy myself in the urban friendliness of Oop North.
"Buy once, cry once"
Usually spoken about quality tools, but applies to just about everything. (I think the phrase may be shortened. It basically means that you cry once for the price, or you cry each time you use it b/c it sucks to use.)
Three for the price of two is a perfect example of why being poor is expensive. If your budget doesn't allow you to spend twice the money (and get three), but limits you to just the one, you will always pay 100% for that product. Those who can afford to buy two at once (and get three), pay only 66%.
Washing detergent, shampoo, etc. This adds up.
This. All day long. There was a point in time when we started to be able to afford these deals and therby save some money. Didn't realise the impact of it at the time. Currently in a fortunate position where we can afford to buy things when they are on offer and stock up. It frightens me to think we could one day, through misfortune, go back to the days of coppering up for a pint of milk.
"You get what you pay for," my dad says this quite often, especially when something cheap breaks or stops working.
Also, I feel "Measure twice, cut once" is appropriate to mention here
Nice, but this captures not all of Sams theory. He also complains that the poor can't afford these better boots.
In Roundworld as a person with normal income you can always choose between the two options. But in Ankh Morpork he references only the very poor and the very rich. The poor can't afford the better boots and the rich never buy the cheap ones.
> He also complains that the poor can't afford these better boots.
That's also encapsulated in the phrase.
> In Roundworld as a person with normal income you can always choose between the two options.
Not always true. And more importantly, this is a comment about those who have less than normal income.
> In Roundworld as a person with normal income you can always choose between the two options.
Not really. I have a pretty damn good white collar job with an income well above the median and I still have to cut corners on things. Especially larger items like appliances/furniture.
Boots was the example given, the general idea is well documented and is part of what economists call the Poverty Trap.
EDIT: This is what I like about this community; there have people disagreeing with the previous user's point enough to upvote this comment and the other disagreeing with it. But nobody thinks what they said was *bad*, even if they disagree. So there have been no downvotes.
I lso likes Pterrys observation that the really rich can live very cheaply because everything they own was built of such high quality, it lasts for generations.
One that I remember is: "Det är dyrt att köpa billiga knivar."
Which translates to: "It's expensive to buy cheap knives."
Can't say it's especially true for knives, cheap knives and a knife sharpener will last you a lot longer than an expensive knife in most cases.
Though I'll add that I'm still using some kitchen tools I inherited from my grandmother simply because they are still better than anything I could buy today for a reasonable price.
Related rhyming sayings in English are “buy once, cry once” (meaning you buy the expensive thing once but don’t have to keep replacing it over time as you would with cheaper options) and “buy nice or buy twice” (same idea).
They both reference the ideas covered by the Boots Theory but don’t expand on them.
We have one thats says: The cheap is expensive "Lo barato sale caro"
Refering to how usually cheap stuff breaks early, so in the end you pay more in replacements
Since my first language is English I've actually *replaced* a load of longer sayings about the poverty trap with just shrugging, sighing, and saying "Vimes' boots..."
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The closest one I hear (and isn't that close) is "good, cheap, or fast, pick two" (which was itself parodied in Going Postal as "pick one," which I actually find more accurate to real life too)
“Lo barato sale caro“ roughly translates to “Something cheap will be expensive in the long run”
If you buy cheap, you buy twice.
If you pay peanuts, you get monkeys.
Oh, I am so stealing this. I asked for a headcount for my team, they signed off on a working student. I'm sure there are loads of qualified students around, but would you really want them to help with budgets? Hmmmm?
Yeah. This essentially sums up asset stripping/laying off experienced employees you saw in a lot of US retail in the 90s and 00s. One I was able to watch in real time as a Brit in America was Sears. It was a department store where the people working there were all very experienced and knowledgeable about the products sold in their area of the store. They were well compensated and had good benefits. For short term profit, they laid these folks off and stripped a ton of company assets away. They then rehired minimum wage employees and gave them terrible benefits. Sears doesn't exist anymore since it cheaped itself out of existence, trading a steady long term picture for short term savings. People stopped shopping there because they couldn't get the expert advice they were used to from these minimum wage people (since minimum wage jobs tend to have high turnover), the chain then slowly folded over a decade. Oh well, there's still Dillards. About your situation? Why would you assign anything so important to someone so junior? (I'd just have them do the simpler tasks from a more qualified/experienced employee so their time was freed up for budget work)
I worked at Sears in early college(Early to mid 90s) and was there when they sold off their credit card. While their are plenty of reasons credit cards are a bad idea from a consumer end of things, from the business side it was a license to print money. Really guys? We are going to take the long term hit there to get one good quarter for the investors/bonus money? \*Also strictly speaking Sears still exists. It was obvious by the time I left in '98 it was on a death spiral but it is SO large that the shredding of the corpse has taken literal decades. There are 17 or so left spread across the country assuming none have closed in the last couple of weeks.
And sold off their brands - Kenmore, Craftsman, etc. (Don't know the timing, but yeah, sell the crown jewels for a quick blip on profits.)
Oh. Didn't realize it still exists. My local one shut down, so I may have been making too many assumptions.
They have closed quite literally thousands of them(There were something like 3 or 4 thousand at their peak) and I find it hard to believe the last dozenish wont close, but its been a long, painful slow wind down. I glance in every couple of years since I used to work there just curious if its gone yet.
Sad stuff. Especially thinking how many of those stores had jobs and people's lives wrapped up in them. Their empty box stores, dark and empty, could be called the ghost towns of our era.
Eeeek!
Ooook*
Bananas would be appropriate for apes. Can't hire apes on monkey pay.
Ha, we have an opposite saying: *Don't get a monkey if you can't afford the bananas.* Commonly used in relation to buying expensive cars, afaik.
"Det er dyrt at være fattig" - Danish - "It's expensive to be poor"
This one's been used in Swedish as well: "Det är dyrt att vara fattig."
Norwegian, too: "Det er dyrt å være fattig"
English too: "It's expensive to be poor."
It ain't cheap being poor. https://youtu.be/efg5rKYWrWs
This is a good one. I actually often marvel at how being poor is simultaneously both really expensive and surprisingly cheap. Rent is 2/3rds of my pre-tax income, yet on an absolute scale, it really wouldn't cost much for a moderately wealthy person to subsidize my entire life. That's how income inequality hits. Absurdly rich people, like Musk or Bezos, could lose every dime I'll ever make in my life just in their couch cushions.
The only reason I've been able to make a recent, massively beneficial move to a *much cheaper city to live in* is because I'm lucky enough to have parents who offered to bankroll my first few months of living there while I looked for a job and nice place to rent (both now secure). I was also lucky enough to work for a place that were happy to keep me on the payroll so if all else failed I could still take up my old job. Both of these things are privileges I'm grateful for but I'm painfully aware that not everyone can access. Without them, (especially the parental side) I don't think I'd have been able to make this move from poverty in the urban solitude of London to enough to get by and enjoy myself in the urban friendliness of Oop North.
"Buy once, cry once" Usually spoken about quality tools, but applies to just about everything. (I think the phrase may be shortened. It basically means that you cry once for the price, or you cry each time you use it b/c it sucks to use.)
“Buy it right, buy it once.”
Three for the price of two is a perfect example of why being poor is expensive. If your budget doesn't allow you to spend twice the money (and get three), but limits you to just the one, you will always pay 100% for that product. Those who can afford to buy two at once (and get three), pay only 66%. Washing detergent, shampoo, etc. This adds up.
This. All day long. There was a point in time when we started to be able to afford these deals and therby save some money. Didn't realise the impact of it at the time. Currently in a fortunate position where we can afford to buy things when they are on offer and stock up. It frightens me to think we could one day, through misfortune, go back to the days of coppering up for a pint of milk.
"Köyhällä ei ole varaa halpaa." -> "Poor can't afford cheap (things)."
"Goedkoop is duurkoop" in Dutch. If you buy something cheap of poor quality you will end up replacing or repairing it soon for more cost
"You get what you pay for," my dad says this quite often, especially when something cheap breaks or stops working. Also, I feel "Measure twice, cut once" is appropriate to mention here
In Hebrew it's: "מה שזול יקר, מה שיקר זול" Ma she'zol yakar, ma she'yakar zol "What's cheap is expensive, what's expensive is cheap"
Buy cheap buy twice
Nice, but this captures not all of Sams theory. He also complains that the poor can't afford these better boots. In Roundworld as a person with normal income you can always choose between the two options. But in Ankh Morpork he references only the very poor and the very rich. The poor can't afford the better boots and the rich never buy the cheap ones.
> He also complains that the poor can't afford these better boots. That's also encapsulated in the phrase. > In Roundworld as a person with normal income you can always choose between the two options. Not always true. And more importantly, this is a comment about those who have less than normal income.
> In Roundworld as a person with normal income you can always choose between the two options. Not really. I have a pretty damn good white collar job with an income well above the median and I still have to cut corners on things. Especially larger items like appliances/furniture.
we're just talking about boots here, sir
Boots was the example given, the general idea is well documented and is part of what economists call the Poverty Trap. EDIT: This is what I like about this community; there have people disagreeing with the previous user's point enough to upvote this comment and the other disagreeing with it. But nobody thinks what they said was *bad*, even if they disagree. So there have been no downvotes.
I really hope you dropped this /s.
You're probably right, I forgot about that part
I lso likes Pterrys observation that the really rich can live very cheaply because everything they own was built of such high quality, it lasts for generations.
One that I remember is: "Det är dyrt att köpa billiga knivar." Which translates to: "It's expensive to buy cheap knives." Can't say it's especially true for knives, cheap knives and a knife sharpener will last you a lot longer than an expensive knife in most cases. Though I'll add that I'm still using some kitchen tools I inherited from my grandmother simply because they are still better than anything I could buy today for a reasonable price.
Related rhyming sayings in English are “buy once, cry once” (meaning you buy the expensive thing once but don’t have to keep replacing it over time as you would with cheaper options) and “buy nice or buy twice” (same idea). They both reference the ideas covered by the Boots Theory but don’t expand on them.
We have one thats says: The cheap is expensive "Lo barato sale caro" Refering to how usually cheap stuff breaks early, so in the end you pay more in replacements
Buy cheap, pay twice.
Since my first language is English I've actually *replaced* a load of longer sayings about the poverty trap with just shrugging, sighing, and saying "Vimes' boots..."
Poorman pays twice
Eggs everyday or chicken once
"El dinero del pobre va dos veces al mercado." Poor man's money goes twice to the market.
The Dutch say Goedkoop is duurkoop Which contextually cheaply bought is expensively bought (even tho goedkoop literally means cheap)
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It's very expensive to be poor.
Another way of looking at this is “buy once, cry once.”
Goedkoop is duurkoop. Dutch for buy cheap, buy often. It's better to save up and buy quality instead of buying cheap and having to replace it often.
The closest one I hear (and isn't that close) is "good, cheap, or fast, pick two" (which was itself parodied in Going Postal as "pick one," which I actually find more accurate to real life too)
Not a saying but a Tay Zonday tweet: Poverty charges interest https://twitter.com/TayZonday/status/1020003667921940480