First, a reference to another article:
Be Wary of Imitating High-Status People Who Can Afford to Countersignal.
I think the above article was the best article I've read in recent memory. Side note: The writer is probably the
best example of a right-leaning (my description, he might disagree) writer.
For something that is supposedly luxury, it is insane to me that this
$1600 Louis Vuitton bag
costs $110 in material + labor costs. That is almost $1500 of guaranteed profit, a 93% margin.
Nerds at trading firms are out here fighting each other over pennies in theoretical edge and getting adversely
selected, while LVMH is
locking in thousands per unit, despite there being superfakes that authenticators cannot distinguish from
the real bags unless they can scan the built in RFID chips.
The existence for the need of the RFID chip for authentication proves that the superfakes are so accurate that
they are impossible to tell apart. All that RFID is proving is that someone has given an insane amount of edge
to whatever "luxury" brand they chose.
One retort to this might be, "these companies have high marketing and R&D costs, and can't sell many units", but
this is easily disproven by how LVMH (Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessey) has a market cap of almost $500 billion, and
the CEO has a net worth of over $200 billion. He must have sold a ton of "luxury goods" to do this.
It's widely studied in psychology and marketing as to why people buy from these brands (conspicuous consumption, clout chasing, status-seeking, "lifestyle"), so I won't explain why. All I can say is that instead of "Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt", Michael Lewis should've wrote "Flashy Boys: A Clout Chasing Scam".