Friday, October 29, 2010

The Wages of Wages

When it was reported, probably falsely, that Mukesh Ambani’s skyscraper house was going to require 600 servants, there was some degree of shock mixed with outrage. It does sound rather excessive, and yet how many of the shocked and outraged are themselves servants in a skyscraper all day long?

Posted by IOZ at 2:04 PM | email »
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26 comments:

Anonymous said...

Is there an emoticon for "ironic slow clap after a speech" yet?

2:18 PM
Leonard said...

The shock, if there was such, was about consumption and conspicuousness. One doesn't build a 27-story "home", especially one that looks like a heap of rubble, to live quietly and cheaply. The difference between this man's serfs and corporate serfs is not their indenture, but that corporate serfs are hopefully turning a profit for their masters.

3:21 PM
Anonymous said...

Heard a report on the radio that Clinton insiders are asking the D candidate for senate in Florida to drop out of the race because he's taking votes away from Charlie Crist.

Too fucking funny.

3:31 PM
fish said...

YOU MUST DENOUNCE WARD CHURCHILL!!!!

3:35 PM
Enron said...

Funny, when I first glanced at it I thought it was called Atilla.

3:38 PM
Anonymous said...

Doctor, this man is a prisoner of war.

So are you, nurse, You just don't know it

3:42 PM
Paul Alexander said...

When I was a young boy, I used to dream of living inside a Jenga house.

4:10 PM
Paul Alexander said...

When I was a young boy, I used to dream of living inside a Jenga house.

4:11 PM
Anonymous said...

Oh, fuck me, man! That kid already spent all the money, man!

6:50 PM
Cüneyt said...

Xanadu!

8:55 PM
Anonymous said...

Xanadon't!

11:54 PM
marcus said...

...Or people who work in skyscrapers with servants working for them.

He's spending money, creating jobs, isn't that what a good liberal-conservative loves?

1:06 AM
NutellaonToast said...

Sigh. I miss the middle ages. Sure, it was back breaking labor and you died at 45, but at least you got some fresh air.

1:13 PM
Anonymous said...

Did you know that the average homeless person breaths enough fresh air for 78,498 people each and every month? Sad but true.

1:23 PM
Anonymous said...

“We want to say, "'We exist,'" said Jonathan Erwin, 20, an architecture student.

4:22 PM
NutellaonToast said...

Well, it's their niche in this specialized economy. They take in the fresh air so we don't have to.

4:33 PM
Charles F. Oxtrot said...

I'm always impressed with how limber are their shoulders and elbows. Whenever I try to pat my own back, my shoulder and elbow say it's impossible. Somehow these brilliant liberals and progressives have developed incredible flexibility that's beyond my reach. Must be Bikram Yoga or something.

8:01 PM
NutellaonToast said...

Charles, if you're going to have a conversation with the voices in your head here, could you at least transcribe their end of it so that the rest of us don't feel so left out?

11:14 PM
Charles F. Oxtrot said...

What a NoTty thing to say. Are you Oscar Wilde?

It's not disconnected from the original IOZ entry nor from the thread's drift. Just think, NoTty. Just think. And yes, you're welcome.

1:00 PM
Nonny Mouse said...

CFO, you're an addlepated clown who has only ever been on target by accident, if at all. Everywhere you go, you display an astounding ability to attack people for ridiculous things they've never said or implied, while brushing off the waves of rejoinders by suggesting your genius makes you incomprehensible to mere mortals.

I suspect some sort of autism-spectrum disorder, where you simply can't gauge other people's intentions and meanings, especially in a text-only environment like this. You're welcome.

2:28 PM
TGGP said...

As with Leonard, I think the logic is something along the lines of Adam Smith's distinction between productive vs unproductive labor (though he also thought the latter could be quite valuable). A number of people adhere to ideologies that might be deemed "producerist", with Marxism perhaps the most sophisticated form. I think folk-ideologies almost always have a producerist component, although what actually qualifies as productive is in the eye of the beholder.

4:05 PM
NutellaonToast said...

I refuse to think too hard about anything on the intent, Foxie (Look at me using the diminutive suffix like a bad ASS).

And I definitely refuse to think about you.

1:47 AM
Charles F. Oxtrot said...

Addlepated? A trip back in time to the lingo of the 20s. Swell. You're a hepcat!

12:00 PM
mandt said...

Are the servants top or bottom?

5:46 PM
TGGP said...

As a child I could not understand what made the Paddlepuss addle-pated.

8:42 PM
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3:39 AM

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