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These are women who were in the market for a wig anyway. In that culture, wigs are the solution to covering their own hair (required for married women) yet enable them to dress up or work professionally (try interviewing in a head scarf or whatever). I heard the manufacturer interviewed, and he said that his customers are just alert for a new look that is also conservative (fashion-wise, not politically) and not over the top. He had sold fifty of them as of a few days ago.

Remember the Jackie Kennedy pillbox hat? Naah… but I do. Became really big.

Comment by Ben Plonie on 10/27/08 at 9:48 pm

“...I heard the manufacturer interviewed, and he said that his customers are just alert for a new look that is also conservative (fashion-wise, not politically) and not over the top. He had sold fifty of them as of a few days ago.”

Bullshit. The guy wants to move wigs. Its not like he did market research. He figured he’d stroke their know-nothing politics while banking on her celebrity. I don’t blame him for his enteurpreneurship and resourcefulness. He saw a good thing and cashed in. I guess he felt the rationalization was necessary as the truth might be bad for business. As far as the frumiot are concerned, instead of spending that $695.00 on a fu*kin’ hair piece, why don’t they do Israelis a favor and pay their worthless parasite of husbands yeshiva tuition for a month or two and let the taxpayers off the hook for once?

“...A mere $695, roughly the equivalent of two or three haircuts in Los Angeles.”

Brad, I don’t know where you’re getting you’re hair cuts for 2 bills and change, but if you’re interested I can definitley direct you to several excellent barbers and stylists in LA who’ll give you good cut for $25.00 plus tip.

Comment by Shoded Yam on 10/28/08 at 11:43 am

Thanks for the cost-cutting offer, Shoded. I’ve actually been cutting my own hair for the past nine years. It’s free.

Comment by Brad A. Greenberg on 10/28/08 at 2:01 pm

I can’t argue with free, but how do you get the back? Do you duct tape the trimmer to the wall and rub the back of your head against it? I guess after nine years, you must have the technique down.

Comment by Shoded Yam on 10/28/08 at 4:59 pm

Shoded Yam
Why BS? Sure he wants to sell wigs but fifty wigs in a couple of months is not a big part of his life. The manufacturer has been established and advertising for years and years. His statement was just an advice not to read much into it, and if your typical non-reality based idea is that women in that subculture are so into politics they will adopt a politician’s hairstyle than you just don’t know any, like all your other notions. Anyway, you are stretching pretty far as always to wedge in some kind of criticism of Orthodox Jews. They pay cash for their lifestyle choices, and not at your or any taxpayer’s expense.

Comment by Ben Plonie on 10/28/08 at 10:43 pm

“..His statement was just an advice not to read much into it, and if your typical non-reality based idea is that women in that subculture are so into politics they will adopt a politician’s hairstyle than you just don’t know any, like all your other notions.”

So Madame Zelda, Whadya do? Look in your crystal ball? You’re understanding of basic marketing trends and precepts in the current culture is non-existant, and you’re embrassing yourself. If he’s selling the wigs for $695.00, the average per unit wholesale price can be no less than 1/3 of the retail price. Thats quite an outlay, even for an established business in an enviroment where credit is tight. Sarah Palin’s celbrity status will be short-lived. This gentleman understands that.He also understands that in order to turn a quick profit, he must strike while the iron is hot. Though your knowledge of the world is limited to that which you have gleaned from some half-assed website, as always you’d like to promote yourself as an authority. As per normal, there is nothing to substantiate this assertion other than Walter Mitty-like solipsisms.

“...Anyway, you are stretching pretty far as always to wedge in some kind of criticism of Orthodox Jews. They pay cash for their lifestyle choices, and not at your or any taxpayer’s expense.”

Since there behaviour is antethical to Israeli societal norms, one need not go to too much effort to come to the understanding that the haredi are not only parasitical in nature, it has made up a halchic mandate to justify it.

“They pay cash for their lifestyle choices”

Really you lying sack of shit?

Sect, Subsidy, and Sacrifice: An Economist’s View of Ultra-Orthodox Jews

“...The Israeli Ultra-Orthodox population doubles each seventeen years. With 60% of prime aged males attending Yeshiva rather than working, that community is rapidly outgrowing its resources. Why do fathers with families in poverty choose Yeshiva over work? Draft deferments subsidize Yeshiva attendance, yet attendance typically continues long after they are draft exempt. We explain this puzzle with a club good model in which Yeshiva attendance signals commitment to the community. Subsidizing membership in a club with sacrifice as an entry requirement induces increased sacrifice, compounding the distortion and dissipating the subsidy”

Eli Berman
University of California, San Diego - Department of Economics; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

Ruth Klinov
Hebrew University of Jerusalem - Department of Economics

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=226369

For anyone who would like to read the rest of the article, you must register first, but its worth the time if you’d like to gain an understanding of the real effects of this unsustainable and untenable state of affairs upon Israeli society.

“...In the years after Israel’s establishment in 1948, Europe’s Haredi community was so diminished by the Holocaust that no one objected to its protected status and state subsidies here. As the community thrived, however, many secular Israelis came to resent it as a burden. Yeshiva students are exempt from the military draft, and tens of thousands of Haredi men spend a lifetime of religious study on the public dole, even as they condemn the moral corruption of the society that pays the bill.”

http://articles.latimes.com/2008/aug/18/world/fg-yeshiva18.

As usual towel boy, your mouth is writing checks but theres nothing in the bank except an autographed photo of Meir Kahane wearing nothing but lederhoesen while chasing you with a feather duster.

Comment by Shoded Yam on 10/29/08 at 12:11 pm

That’s Rabbi Meir Kahane to you, pool boy.

I don’t know what you imagine your juvenile financial analysis has revealed to the world. You are such a spastic cornball.

You say that “the gentleman understands marketing” and I don’t, yet in your previous post you asserted that “Its not like he did market research.” You also contradicted both the manufacturer and what I said about the customers’ politics, yet he said that Hillary’s style was being requested when she was in the public eye.

A third to a half of fifty times seven hundred is from 12 to 17 thousand spread over several weeks. As a mid-sized business with a long=standing and reliable track record and cash flow I am going to guess that his terms and his credit and supply-chain are pretty good. We don’t know if he operates on credit or cash; we don’t know the terms to his suppliers; we don’t know if his outlay is half or a third; we don’t know his total volume or number of lines or channels; we don’t know his lead time. He might not even have to pay before he gets paid; he might get deposits for advance orders or backorders; he might not have to keep many wigs in inventory beyond the display pieces.

And as far as the short-lived hot iron goes, nothing goes to waste; human-hair wigs have the quality of being able to be recut and restyled and recolored after their initial design. He might have had a bump in his sales or just a reallocation in the styles. I assume that those customers were in the market for a wig anyway, not many are going to pay $700 for a spare fun piece.

Before dealing with the Israeli issue, the company is an American one and their customers are primarily American working and professional women, or at least spouses of working men. I couldn’t tell you if he sells into the Israel markets, and of course neither can you. And as I said, they pay cash for their lifestyle choices.

Now as to the Israeli haredim, no government subsidies are buying the women wigs. Your article states that sixty percent of haredi men attend yeshiva. That does not mean they are ‘on the dole’. It means they do live poor and frugal and simple lives. For one thing many of their wives work. For another, forty percent of the men also work. They are not on the dole either. Being poorer and perhaps less secular than even American yeshiva types, a lot less of them wear wigs than the Americans, and they wear them a lot less often, and they are far less picky about the quality. Your article primarily confirms what I said about the sacrifices they make for their values and speculates (weakly) as to why. It does not fit standard econometric models. But the reason is irelevant. Your article states that the draft deferment subsidizes them. That is a legitimate deferment agreed upon and built into the founding terms of the State. Without the cooperation of Agudas HaRabonim there would have been no State. Yet haredim are a minority of those who do not serve in Israel, and those are not growing beyond natural increase. On the other hand speaking of unsustainable and untenable state of affairs upon Israeli society the number of secular draft dodgers and fakers who additionally make their careers outside the country and send money outside the country is explodingyear to year, and includes the children of your lowlife of a Prime Minister, as well as your former disgraced bigmouth Defense Minister. Imagine that, a Defense Minister who did not serve! Sort of like Obama.

It is also worth noting although your pet sources never would that there are more Arabs in Israel than haredim, that they also are exempt from the draft, and that more of them are on the dole, even as they condemn the the society that pays the bill. Speaking of unsustainable and untenable state of affairs upon Israeli society.

Maybe if the secular public was educated to understand that the State exists only because of the identity and the sacrifice of the haredim they would have less resentment.

Comment by Ben Plonie on 10/31/08 at 1:29 am

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