« What I wanna know is this... | Main | Are you sure you're registered to vote? »
25 September 2008
The rich are different from you and me
"Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me."---F. Scott Fitzgerald in “The Rich Boy,” 1926
The Swiss clockmaker Jaeger-LeCoultre is coming out with a watch with a touchscreen face. You press between the numerals 3 and 4 to lock your car, 8 and 9 to unlock it. That is, if your car is an Aston Martin DBS.
The watch is to be offered at $37,900 a pop, a mere trifle considering the $350,000 pricetag for the two-seater car.
Wonder if there's a market for the timekeeper-cum-car key trinket? Well, according to the Bloomberg article that introduced me to this marvel:
Sales of high-end models have shown the most resilience as demand for Swiss watches has slowed this year. Exports of timepieces costing more than 3,000 Swiss francs ($2,767) rose 15 percent in August after gains topped 20 percent in the previous five months.
Aston-Martin, just in case you didn't know, is owned by a consortium of Kuwaiti investment companies.
Posted by EDN on September 25, 2008 at 08:10 PM in Asides | Permalink
Comments
Way back in the bad old days of the 1970s NYC fiscal crisis, a friend said to me, "There will always be a carriage trade." In other words, you can't rely on selling Timex watches to vulnerable cubicle slaves but you can always hawk Jaeger-LeCoultre "timepieces" to the rich -- who will always be with us.
Posted by: Chiaroscuro | Sep 25, 2008 10:10:33 PM
The comments to this entry are closed.
