• RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world
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    3日前

    Pet rocks.

    And every ridiculous “must have” Christmas toy craze.

    Nowadays people spend their money on sensible crazes, like Stanley Mugs.

    • BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today
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      3日前

      Years ago, the Ticket Me Elmo dolls were the hot Christmas gift, and nobody could find them. I happened to walk into Target after they had just set up a new display of their newly arrived shipment. I bought 10 them for about $30 each, and sold most of them for $150-200. The final one finally went for about $80 just before Christmas.

      Paid for ALL our Christmas gifts.

        • BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today
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          Do you intend to sell your house for what you bought it for? If you make a profit on your house, are you a scalper?

          Tell it to Wall Street. Supply and Demand, it’s what our entire economic system is based on.

          • Don_alForno@feddit.org
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            If you make a profit on your house, are you a scalper?

            If I had never intended to live in it and just speculated on rising prices? Yes. Take your fair share and leave some for others. Your entire reasoning is why the world is such a shithole.

          • RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world
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            Because you don’t buy ten houses thinking you’re gonna deliberately fuck ten other people out of way more money than each house is worth because you wanna make a bunch of money. You’re no better than Ticketmaster or Blackrock driving up prices on housing and entertainment making them big bucks while fucking the regular person. Do you like Blackrock and Ticketmaster? Gonna engage in some gymnastics to tell is why it’s all Ok?

            • BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today
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              This is why Sociopathic Oligarchs rule the world. The first time a regular guy gets a chance to make money, everybody jumps on him. Before you get mad at me for finding a way to afford a decent Christmas for my family, get mad at the parasites who are working everyday to take away your medical care, your workplace protections, etc.

              I found a way to separate people with more money than sense from a small amount of their treasure for a change. MAGAs do it every minute of every day. I’m not going to apologize for exploiting people with money, just like they do to the rest of us every fucking day.

                • BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today
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                  People buying toys for 20 times their price are not “fellow working people.” I’m not worrying about taking their money.

                • Dumpdog@lemmy.world
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                  I kinda want to say something about class solidarity here, but I also kinda want to do a pisstake…Actually, this might incorporate a bit of both. The Oligarchs are creating pissdown economics. Us Proles are getting the “benefits” of pissdown economics - Scalpers. I am not gonna shit on BarneyPiccolo’s way of making a few bucks from the pissdown economy that one country perfected (with the help of a voting majority of the population).

            • Dumpdog@lemmy.world
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              3日前

              I agree with your comment, but like I commented above. There is a difference between contributing to a broken system that exploits human necessities and surviving in a system. Ticketmaster has buying power, a corporate landowner has buying power. Not too many of us think Blackrock and Ticketmaster are good for humanity. Barney here buying a few Elmo at Christmas is actually showing people there is a problem without killing anyone (by taking away housing, food, arable land). Maybe people aren’t pointing the finger at the people responsible for this broken system.

        • Absurdly Stupid @lemmy.world
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          3日前

          Why is it not okay to be a scalper? What do you mean by “not ok”, should it be frowned upon by others (like pooping your pants) or do you mean morally wrong (like a sin) or a crime?

        • Dumpdog@lemmy.world
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          3日前

          Hear me out before you downvote a devils advocate opinion…I think all the downvotes on this comment are from concert ticket buyers, GPU buyers, Christmas fad toy buyers, and other victims of duopolies or false scarcity in the market (effectively monopolies?). Its not the “scalper” that is continuing to fuel the broken system, it is the corporations who promote false scarcity.

          I get the anti-scalper sentiment, but I don’t think BarneyPiccolo should be downvoted for making a few bucks on Elmo. It’s a case of hating the player and not the game. In this case they are not an arm of corporate interests buying up needed resources and holding them hostage, they are a victim in an unfair game that promotes scalping. This would be a different scenario if they were buying up necessities like toilet paper (shitty reference here), local affordable housing, or agricultural land.