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On luxury goods

You buy a car from the store - the price is 30 000 EUR, let’s say.

You want to sell it immediately afterwards - the price is 25 000 EUR.

A new facelift hits the market (so the same car but with a different headlight design) - the price is 20 000.

Where did that 10 000 go?

My response - almost all goods that exist today are some version of luxury goods — ones which you buy just for the experience of buying something expensive - non-luxury goods don’t lose their value after they are sold e.g. Ikea furniture is the same price second hand, a piece of expensive hand-made furniture also. But almost all other furniture is at the luxury class.

There are even classes of goods, such as cars, for which all models are luxury.

Written on October 11, 2022

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