On 8/6/06, Michael Perelman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
.Three economists, Jonathan A. Parker and Yacine Ait-Sahalia from Princeton, together with Motohiro Yogo at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, tried to track the consumption of the wealthy by constructing an index based on domestic sales of luxury retailers such as Tiffany. Their research indicates that during the 1990.s, the average annual real sales growth of luxury retailers was a strong 11 percent. Unfortunately, their data stops at 2001. But looking at the domestic sales of individual high-end retailers since then, it seems sales have remained robust. For instance, Tiffany reported that domestic sales grew 9 percent in the year ended January 31, 2006, and 10 percent the previous year..
you don't understand. It goes like this: Reginald buys a diamond for Bitsie at Tiffany's. The diamond was purchased in Amsterdam, where poor, starving, diamond merchants were hoping for a sale. The increase in the demand for diamonds causes a price spike, which encourages an increased tempo for the war over diamond lands in Africa. The poor, starving, warlords mobilize, hiring more soldiers and diamond miners. . Trickle down. QED. -- Jim Devine / "In science one tries to tell people, in such a way as to be understood by everyone, something that no one ever knew before. But in business schools, it's the exact opposite." --- Paul Dirac [edited]
