jtoler_9 wrote:I understand what you are saying Chuck, The question I have is WHY? Why the negative emotion? Who cares? The saying, "Can't we all just get along" comes to mind. Why the division? User vs non user. Flipper vs non flipper. The list goes on and on. Do we like spyderco knives? I hope so we spend a crazy amount of time on this forum. That is the common thread here. We all get excited for that next sprint run. It's called a SPRINT dude. You gotta run to get one.
Sprints are "aquireable" if you're on the ball all right. No question about that. Still, the commentary here is mostly philosophical and I'd venture to say, about the present state of affairs. It's probably like banking. We know that bankers are greedy but we need their services. Doesn't mean we have to like 'em.
Oh and about the want vs. need thing, we also know that our "spyderdiction" makes our wants seem like need.
Jay_Ev wrote:Those people are on an equal level with the people who go to the stores after a disaster or emergency (hurricane, earthquake, etc) buy up all the water and then turn around and sell the bottles for $10-20 apiece. If people are willing to pay it, what's the problem, right? As was said earlier in the thread "Supply and demand, simple as that.". Either pony up or go without.
At least they turn around and sell the water. People who buy up two knives intending to put one in a safe are on an equal level as the guy who buys up more water than he needs and hordes it in his basement while others go thirsty. By your logic, an even lower form of life. By my logic, we're all equal.
Jay_Ev wrote:Those people are on an equal level with the people who go to the stores after a disaster or emergency (hurricane, earthquake, etc) buy up all the water and then turn around and sell the bottles for $10-20 apiece. If people are willing to pay it, what's the problem, right? As was said earlier in the thread "Supply and demand, simple as that.". Either pony up or go without.
Jay, with respect, it's not even close to the same. :)
gaj999 wrote:At least they turn around and sell the water. People who buy up two knives intending to put one in a safe are on an equal level as the guy who buys up more water than he needs and hordes it in his basement while others go thirsty. By your logic, an even lower form of life. By my logic, we're all equal.
Gordon
C'mon, you don't really believe that hoarding water after a disaster and hoarding a purely discretionary, possibly luxury, consumer item like a knife are on any kind of equal level, do you? :confused:
JNewell wrote:C'mon, you don't really believe that hoarding water after a disaster and hoarding a purely discretionary, possibly luxury, consumer item like a knife are on any kind of equal level, do you? :confused:
No. Water is more important. If I can buy it cheap after a disaster, I'm going to load up. If it's expensive, I'll buy only what I need and others will get some too. High prices ensure that the people who need it the most get it. Allowing prices to rise until demand just meets supply results in an optimal allocation of the scarce resource. The minute you mess with that mechanism, someone gets screwed. Now we're in the realm of politics and I don't think we want to go there.
gbelleh wrote:That's discussed here quite often. Buying up knives with the sole purpose of selling them for profit is generally not looked upon favorably by most forum members.
Well said, gbelleh! It really steams me when I see a Spydie being sold at an eye-gouging price--Sprint Run or otherwise.
:spyder: -Michael
"...as I said before, 'the edge is a wondrous thing', [but] in all of it's qualities, it is still a ghost." - sal
Jay_Ev wrote:Those people are on an equal level with the people who go to the stores after a disaster or emergency (hurricane, earthquake, etc) buy up all the water and then turn around and sell the bottles for $10-20 apiece. If people are willing to pay it, what's the problem, right? As was said earlier in the thread "Supply and demand, simple as that.". Either pony up or go without.
This thread has gotten more mileage that my pappy's old 1986 Plymouth Horizon (which got about 360,000 before ol' pappy finally kept going all Frankenstein on it). I think Evil D is right about the beating a dead horse thing.
How much money are the flippers making on Jester? Dyad Jr? R Nishijin? It's not automatic. Even the brown Mili XHP hasn't gone up all that much and it has been a full year.
Jay_Ev wrote:So only the wealthy deserve the water? People of lesser means have to go without? I disagree. Everybody is important. Not just the rich.
OK Keep the price normal after a disaster. Now the guy who is first in line gets all of the water. You're telling me that he deserves it most? Or you're going to appoint some bureaucrat to determine who is worthy and how much each person gets? Welcome to the USSR, where no one had squat and spent all day waiting in line. No system is perfect, but at least capitalism harnesses fear, greed, and envy for the good of society. It's efficient, which is about all you can hope for when it comes to human organizations.
gbelleh wrote:That's discussed here quite often. Buying up knives with the sole purpose of selling them for profit is generally not looked upon favorably by most forum members.
SpyderNut wrote:Well said, gbelleh! It really steams me when I see a Spydie being sold at an eye-gouging price--Sprint Run or otherwise.
People have a right to do whatever they please with the knives they purchase. If they choose to re-sale them at a profit, not a thing wrong with it. If this exercise of the free market ultimately raises the price of highly desirable models, that's fine and it's the way things work. Ultimately Spyderco will be rewarded with higher returns for their insights and hard work. Free markets aren't fair and they don't have a conscience. That's part of why they work.
BTW, profiteering during a disaster on essentials (food, water, fuel) is highly illegal and will get you arrested if not shot. That is quite intentionally not free market and is not related to the topic at hand.
The Deacon wrote:Never have, never will. Figured out many years ago that, at least for me, business and pleasure don't mix. Looking at something that had started out as an enjoyable pastime as a potential source of income quickly took all the fun out of it and never generated enough income to make up for that.
This is the reason I would discourage speculation in Spyderco futures.
I'm not 100% sold on capitalism, generally speaking, but there's really not much difference MORALLY under the capitalist ethos between buying a knife that you believe you can sell for more later, and buying a commodities contract long (i.e., you're buying because you think it will be worth more later).
SENTIMENTALLY, of course, guys on these forums get bent out of shape about the market effects of these secondary-market sellers. But what they're doing isn't morally culpable, unless you also reject most forms of speculation for profit.
"If you can't annoy somebody, there's little point in writing." — Kingsley Amis
I guess I'm a dirty bottom feeding A#*##* who feeds on the misfortune of others. Here, I thought I was a faithful husband, and hard working father of 4 who sacrifices to work as an jr. high school teacher and doesn't make enough extra $ to feed my passion for Spydies. Yep, I buy extra models of Sprint runs and sell them for whatever the market will bear. I also sometimes find stuff at out of the way shops on sale that I know are sometimes worth twice as much online. I don't tell the store owner he could make more if he only spent the countless hours I do studying Spydercos and their pricing. Move over Joseph, Adolph, Saddam and Pol Pot you're gonna need to make room for me the evil knife flipper. Despite my pure evilness I sleep well at night (When my 18 month old isn't crying and keeping me up) and I look at myself in the mirror in the morning when I brush my teeth. I wish I was 20 lbs lighter and that I had more hair left on the top of my head..those things bother me, but for some reason my evil greedy capitalist nature doesn't. My 2 cents
Far better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure... than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much, because they live in a gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat. Theodore Roosevelt
