comment review 03-24-09 the raincoat...

This matches pretty well with my observations:

24. Leo Linbeck III:

I think there is another interesting question: why does anybody buy a designer raincoat?

I’m with W that anyone should be allowed to purchase said raincoat if they choose. But just because you can doesn’t mean it makes sense to do so.

In my experience, guys in Brioni suits are simply playing a role: the successful, rich guy who possesses the mojo that allows him to make money. The logic is that money-making ability is some kind of black magic, a shaman’s gift that is mysterious and incomprehensible, the exclusive province of the übermensch. The rich, you know, are different.

So, if I want to be rich and successful, I need to snuggle up to such folk and act like them. I don’t want to actually work to get rich; that is so, well, plebeian. This is the logic of Madoff, Stanford, and dozens of other fellow-traveling fraudsters in the world of high finance. The key is to look rich, so as to attract suckers who think dress is a good proxy for success. That’s why they join Palm Beach Country Club, sponsor cricket test matches, etc.

But this is really about manipulating perception, and may have nothing to do with reality. Clothes, like it or not, do not make the man. The true test of success is action and its results, over the long run. But it’s easier to dress for success than achieve success.

Think about this: several clubbers have made the point that Buffett, Gates, Walton, et. al. can afford, and should be allowed to purchase, any damn raincoat they wish. But can you imagine Warren Buffett in a Karl Lagerfeld-designed raincoat? Or Bill Gates walking around in his office in an Zegna suit? Or Sam Walton wearing a pair of Bruno Magli loafers? (Sidebar: Sam Walton always drove a pickup truck. I read once that after Sam made his first billion, a friend asked him why he didn’t drive a better car, like a Mercedes-Benz. His response: “I’d look like a damn fool driving around in a Mercedes with my hunting dogs.”)

The point here is that these guys have nothing to prove. Folks know they’re rich and powerful, so why feel the need to project an image of wealth? The fancy dressers are often trying to make folks believe they’re more successful than they really are.

In the case of Franklin Raines, the raincoat was part of this act. He was a big-time CEO of a huge and successful financial enterprise. FM was making enormous sums of money so it could pay him enormous sums of money so he could spend enormous sums of money on a raincoat. He probably also drove an AMD Mercedes - after all, you often need to go 0-60mph in 3.2 seconds in Washington and New York. (And he didn’t hunt.)

But the fact remains he destroyed more value than he created. Much more.

A pound of dog feces is still a pound of dog feces, even if it is wrapped in a Louis Vuitton designer raincoat.

And it still stinks.

L3

Mar 19, 2009 - 6:04 pm