The Handbag Wars! - Has The FTC Lost Control?
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- čas přidán 27. 04. 2024
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Lina Khan's Federal Trade Commission is suing to block Tapestry's $8.5 billion acquisition of Capri Holdings, saying the deal would harm consumers by reducing competition and raising prices in the affordable luxury handbag sector.
Monday's lawsuit challenges the proposed deal that would have Tapestry controlling Coach, Kate Spade, Stuart Weitzman, Michael Kors, Versace and Jimmy Choo.
According to the FTC, the acquisition could have a negative impact on the millions of American shoppers who now benefit from the head-to-head rivalry between Tapestry and Capri, as well as on the roughly 33,000 workers employed by both companies worldwide.
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Lina Khan decision to ban noncompete clauses for U.S. workers, I believe is of more importance.
Don't you think corporations have lost control of noncompete clauses ???
With Brilliant, I was able to take a course in statistics, coming to a greater understanding of the wage and productivity gap between workers and employers. Thanks to Brilliant, who didn't sponsor this CZcams comment but should, for helping me understand the complex math of "Tax the Rich~"
I love your humor :D
Speaking of brilliant, there's that skit. Hilarious. Brilliant casting; getting Ms Streep for even a day's shooting is quite a coup, of course. And she looks so young!!
Amazon and Walmart are daily crushing smaller competitors and Mom & Pops across America, via the most brutally predatory practices imaginable, but sure, Lina, let's go after the makers of "a HANDbag"?!?
@@moviemusicmash4899 I didn't realise that the FTC actually made the law in the USA ... which is precisely why this vote is being disputed. It is surely outside their jurisdiction. As is their mission creep in attempting to stretch the scope of antitrust legislation way beyond what the US law actually mandates. Either way, it was not Lina Khan's personal decision, was it ?
I can see a lawsuit for misuse of public funds incoming for all these wasteful vexations prosecutions which keep failing. Public bodies should not be making any prosecutions without reasonable expectations of success. Not running Mafia-style shakedown operations.
As a member of your 2% female audience the comparison of handbags to crypto was hilarious and very true! Glad to be here!
Here too 😄🌸
Amen!
One is real, the other is not.
Here too!😊
Hey fellow girlypops!
Thank you Patrick for being one of the most trusted news sources in fashion.
...and rap.
One of the most sartorially elegant channels on CZcams. Also, one of the funniest.
When you COULD NOT CARE LESS about the topic, but you click on the link anyway because the content creator is so darn good.
So true!
Crypto is life for men, handbags 👜 are like driving a Lamborghini for men. Most of us don’t go the 100k Hermes, but a YSL or Chanel says everything, without a word, to other women.
@lhourigan1 when I see women with expensive designer bags it usually tells me that they believe that carrying these bags give them a certain "status" which isn't too impressive. Btw most people who trade cryptos lose money.
@@lhourigan1 Cryptocurrency is a weird analogy because it isn't a status symbol nor is crypto worn and shown off in public. A better comparison might be a nice watch, though few men care about such things. Honestly, the best comparison might be the way lower income males like to waste hundreds of dollars on sneakers. There are plenty of available shoes that function just as well but cost much less. That's basically the same thing as wasting money on overpriced bags.
@@animalsarebeautifulpeople3094 Crypto was invited for crooks. I can't believe it's lasted this long. China was wise enough to ban it. Should have done that in the States. Instead we've embraced it - that's not going to end well. The stuff is worthless. In fact it's not even "stuff"; it's a figment of a computer's imagination.
Lol as a part of the 1.7%, I appreciate the subject matter :)
Me too!
You single?
I wasn't about to click away either! 😂
@@Mr-pn2ehjust don't
Same haha
🤣🤣🤣I like what you did with 'The Devil Wears Prada'.
that is likely the movie he used
@@AanthanurFabulous, Dahling!
@Anonymousthanks Almost none of the film does, although a glance might suggest it does.
I think the choice of that clip inclusion was a bit more subtle than at first glance. Banger of a move.
@Anonymousthanks She's called the devil
"accessible luxury" is a funny concept
Not everyone can drop six figs on a bespoke birkin, but you also can’t show up to a job interview with an aldi bag, so yeah… accessible luxury. all the talk about monopolies always depends on how you define a market, so they came up with accessible luxury for the best possible argument to block the deal.
@@ClimateKiller you can show up with a $60 bag, no luxury necessary
It's a market that derives its product's value from them being unaffordable, so competition for lower prices is weird.
A better term would be "Aspirational brands for poor people".
@@nieturI would say yes but by experience the designs on the cheaper ones usually suck like tacky or have horrible texture, smell, or binding. At the 60USD range though these are not generally a problem except the sublime designs don't often happen especially for bags that complement an unusual style.
@chrisguevara That's pretty nice, yeah they want higher quality they perceive but can't afford the luxury ones, so more affordable but decent ones appear.
I'm an attorney published in the field of antitrust. The major change in US antitrust that occurred in the 70 was because of courts, not enforcement. The 'consumer welfare' standard was applied beginning then. Before that, the concern was about harm to competitors, which really just resulted in 1) inefficient competitors constantly complaining of antitrust violations whenever they were outcompeted, and 2) the regular breakup of legitimately successful companies, especially in industries that tend toward oligopoly (like the auto industry).
The FTC can change their enforcement attempts all they want. That doesn't change the underlying law. Hence, the string of defeats.
That's enlightening, thanks.
Thanks so much for this. I am commenting to bump this post up.
Regarding "consumer welfare", the fundamental problem with the so-called fungibility of even moderately priced items is that they aren't. A consumer needs to test multiple products, not all of which can be returned (or even if they can, the consumer still has to eat the cost of the returning the items). This sheer cost to a consumer who is forced to switch from their tried-and-trusted product to another product in the same category is often very large, and can be infeasible, forcing the consumer to do without (if not the product in question, then something else that they would have bought if they hadn't spent all that money trying to find a workable substitute).
Any economic analysis that a court is doing ignores this friction. I wish they wouldn't, but would actually pay attention to genuine consumer welfare. It's not as if we aren't posting comments to these FTC proposals.
Nope corrupt corporate bought Judges
The problem is that one of the only way they define "consumer welfare" is by short term price. Which is an inaccurate measure in the long term.
Patrick interacting with movies. Another comedic addition.
Can't wait for the new episode of Breaking Boyle
@@MayhzonIrish Psycho
I think he may have chosen this topic just so he could use that clip. Patrick taking on the Ann Hathaway role is just too funny
Actually laughed out loud at it. Patrick is brilliant both as a commentator and as a comedian.
@@Mayhzon I think he's missed his calling.
That interplay with the scene from "The Devil wears Prada" was brilliant, and I don't mean the learning website.
Patrick's humour is as dry as I expect my Martini.
As a female viewer, I was genuinely excited to see the headline! Handbags are an industry worth a lot of money and very interesting to talk about in the finance space
Expanding from the rap business to women handbangs, now that's what I call diversification. Patrick broke new ground with this, very cool!
LVMH should be the one that got sued for anti-trust. Most brands in a luxury mall are owned by either LVMH or Kering. The ultimate illusion of choice.
So there's no choice? How come I never bought anything from those brands in my 62 years of living ? THE ONLY choice is LVHM? Sure.
Lvmh is not american
@@ms-jl6dlyou’re being purposefully daft
wtf do you mean "illusion" of choice? Are all the bags by each brand the same? Clearly not, as the brands are meaningfully different enough to be separate brands, they have different designers and so on, therefore there must be choice between options afforded by the brands.
@@acex222 No its about money. Like if you go to buy food, most brands will be owned by 3-4 companies but each company would own similiar brands in one category in order to give a sense of choice. They may be different but its about money and market power.
Patrick is on a roll with these videos lately! The edits with the Blue Sweater were excellent 😂
I thought it was rather awkward ;-) ;-)
As a guy I think the best comparison for handbags are watches. To some women or those not interested in the field, it might look the same for them as well. Same with handbags, some have better labor quality in it or something unique with it to differentiate it.
This FTC case is a head scratcher, the affordable handbag industry will just have consumers switch to something else rather than paying a higher price. Wouldn’t be surprised if it turns into another loss.
More focus needs to be put into consumer rights in the ever growing digital media space with music, video games, computer software, forced subscriptions to something like a printer, etc.
That's a really clever comparison. I can definitely see the same conversations happening in a watch video.
You'd definitely find the same "I'd never pay 150k for a watch!" and the video is talking about Fossil.
I think that if one company did manage to dominate all the current affordable luxury brands, and then shifted them to a slightly higher price, it would be difficult for anyone to take their place. Lower tier companies would struggle to make a product that is considered as good as the others, and even if they did, the audience would view them as inferior. I think that the inevitable result would just be that the price of this market space would rise to that new level, and it could take a decade or more before anyone manages to nudge it back down. How much that _bothers_ you is very subjective, but I think that would still be the reality.
Unfortunately $1000+ handbags and other luxury fashion items, there are no differences in quality or uniqueness. Just the brand tag.
DOJ antitrust just won against google's app store, FTC is suing apple over vendor lock-in, FTC discouraged Adobe from buying figma (and adding it to it's subscription softwares)
The antitrust enforcers are very aware of the digital monopolies and they're also going for them
Watches have alot more variety then hand bags
Now when it comes to eye wear, such as frames for prescription glasses or even quality sunglasses, the FTC seems completely unbothered that 80 some percent of that market is owned by one company.
Good point. And glasses are more of a necessity.
I bet Luxottica has made some pretty big campaign contributions.
Luxottica is an Italian company.
edit: And Essilor, the company they merged with, are French.
@kcgunesq There"s no monopoly still though, there's plenty of foreign competition.
@@tinyleopard6741 Not in any eye store around me.
Going after Ticketmaster was great tho.
and ending non compete agreements
@@grimaffiliations3671that’s not gonna hold up in court.
"Raising" salaries for managers as well. Some companies make an employee a manager and barely pay them above minimum wage.
If they're doing that then I would support that. They need to stop the criminal scalping & monopolization that goes on by these companies like Live Nation and Ticketmaster and the overselling that they do.
@@YourCapybaraAmigo_17yrsagoThey are, hopefully they can do something.
As a male with the (admittedly weird) hobby of making leather bags, I am deeply hurt by the idea that all handbags are the same :(
I make leather cellphone cases, want to merge? :D
That's honestly cool. How did you get into making leather bags?
@@randomtinypotatocriedMy bet is on an excessive availability of unused leather combined with curiosity. 😉
@@randomtinypotatocried leathermaking is honestly not that easy to get into. It's one of those hobbies that requires a lot of specific, somewhat expensive sets of equipment before you can get even started. You can't use normal sewing needles, you have to buy leather sewing needles. You can't just buy leather, you have to figure out what animal, how it was processed, how shaved down it is, and how thick it is. I wanted to make just one thing out of leather myself, and it requires a lot of information to even understand what you need to get.
'leather bags'.
for which body-part?
The blue sweater scene from the Devil Wears Prada might be one of the most savage take downs in movie history. It has lived in my head rent free for years now and I think about it whenever I compare similar clothing items and accessories.
Yes, in case you didn't realise, I am one of the 1.7%
Height of narcissism
wow, as one of the only women watching your channel, i really thought we had more of a stake in this channel
We do, CZcams analytics are awful.
Yeah =/
Yeah, I would have thought that as well. I was thinking 60/40?
Observing luxury retail trends is absolutely fascinating.
And yeah, we all have our “things” my wife couldn’t pick my 911 Turbo S out of a lineup, but could identify every well known handbag a mile away.
On the subject of not being able to block any mergers through litigation, while that's factually true, I don't think it necessarily tells the whole story. Several of these actions (Activision-Blizzard comes to mind as I followed that closely), while not resulting in a blocking of the merger, did end up resulting in concessions being offered to allay some of the FTC's concerns. These legal actions can often still have positive benefits, and many argue they're brought by the FTC with no intention to actually win (because they know they won't), but rather to get these concessions and get more benefit for consumers than they would otherwise get if they took no action at all. Arguable how effective they are, but it's food for thought.
Nah the FTC and Lina Khan is a laughing stock. The judge in the Activision case was incredulous at the government's arguments and called them Sony's lawyers not the FTC.
Her whole strategy is to "sue everyone regardless of merit of the case" and it's a waste of government time and money.
These lawsuits are not free. Time wasted on these giant frivolous lawsuits is time spent not enforcing regulations against the massive amounts of fraud in the marketplace.
Also, FTC's lawsuits got no concessions, as these were concessions Microsoft had offered before the lawsuit.
"Who let those people in?" I'm dying here!
As a 2% member this is quality content. I’m also a former handbag designer and brand builder. Choice and creativity seems to have taken a back seat to corporate conglomerates. Not a fan of where handbag markets have gone. Snake eating tail. This won’t go well if buyers are looking for creative solutions and designs. SMH.
"Now look I can tell you guys are already about to click away from the video...and I do agree with you guys that all handbags are the same..."
Me: okay Pat you caught me 😅
From a consumer's point of view several markets are turning into a low price, low quality segment, a high price locked in segment, and a big void in the middle. No amount of competition has for instance generated an affordable (sub $200) phone with long term updates and upgradeable parts.
@senzen2692 There are though. Some Chinese cellphones seem generally affordable and decent. There's price discrimination. On upgradeable parts, what do you mean? On long-term updates, that depends on the pace of technology, if you can expect an innovation soon there's not much point, people just resell their phones in a second-hand market, the only thing you often need to replace is the batteries.
In so doing there's price discrimination again, the actually poor get the second-hand phones or directly buy the older models or save-up for the decent models, while there's an entirely different market for luxury and business-class phone goods with its own second-hand market and older-model market for the middle class who either save up for these or buy the "generally affordable and decent" ones.
Regarding phones, many people do not understand the market. The largest issue with competitiveness between phone manufacturers is SoC. There's 3 manufacturers theoretically capable of providing those, none of whom provide upstream kernel driver support, which means providing long term software support is very expensive.
I think the secondhand market fills this niche more or less, but that definitely doesn't apply to all products
Xiaomi usual has good Phones under 200€/$ here in Yerp... 🤷♀️
IDK man, if anything phones is probably the only thing that is available in all shapes and sizes and price categories imaginable. But then again, I am not in the US. Most sub $200 phones where I live would give flagships from 2 years ago a run for their money at a fraction of the cost. Upgradable parts is not going to happen, been done and testing before, for better or for worse.
1.7% represent! 🤘😘🔥 When Birkin bags rival the price of home, that only grow in value, the politics and amount of money were talking about, there's more money than most realize being invested in them.
Daring to go deeper, Dear Patrick! Miranda would be proud, as are we.
As a male, not all handbags are the same. Some handbags will fit movie theater snacks, and some won't.
Males shouldn't wear handbags 🤮 🤡 put the theater snacks in your Jean pockets like a normal man
Males shouldn't wear handbags 🤮
I like how you think. 😂
This is entirely accurate, and obviously the ones that fit the most snaccs are the best handbags
Clearly the real competition problem in the handbag market is insufficient labelling - handbags are sold without specified capacities.
I guess I'm one of the 2% of women who watch your show. Here's a pointer about handbag identification that I learned from my dad (I was raised by my dad): There are some purses that are decorative, and some that have a purpose because they can store your entire apartment in them.
OMG cutting in clips from "The Devil Wears Prada" made my day! I am one of your 1.7%.
Hahah the cutaway scene @3:46 is brilliant I'm glad I didn't close the video
Thank you. I missed this first time. Funny stuff.
Exactly.😆 I was about to stop watching before that joke. I mean, I do like Patrick Boyle's contents, but this one was about just bags and rags.
Edit: Ok, after 6:37 the video became more and more interesting
me too!
As a woman who does not buy handbags, I HAVE watched my mom go through them znd there are some differences: how big they are how many pockets, whether they zip shut or you have to constantly pick up all the things that fell out onto the back seat of the car, and also how long they last. But she always bought hers from Target, so she probably wouldn't know any better than you what makes the fancy ones special.
I think part of the issue is that courts have become beholden to industry to the detriment of unions, employees and consumers. Mergers have the ability to increase economies of scale but we’ve seen massive industrial agglomeration that has led to little consumer freedom in a wide variety of necessary items such as telecommunications, ISPs, social media, agriculture, etc.
It is so good to see politicians care about the regulation of luxury items. How awful if these vital goods would get too expensive.
Being fair the current FTC is going through a lot of regulation and updating them accross the board. Microsoft, Apple, Contracts generally, and a number of other things have been or are currently under lawsuit for anti competitive behavior.
Some are stupid, some are great, but luxury items is not the sole focus of the FTC
If the FTC really wanted to be a hard regulator they would have their work cut out for them for the next 100 years, bec big biz has the nothing but get away with one thing or another over the past 60 years as it has bribed or convinced govt groups to look the other way or back off.
Honestly the most glaring lack of oversight is in the Care industries. Nursing home facilities and behavioral care centers, esp that focus on minors. For anyone who's followed this issue at all, as I do occasionally, the abuses and misconduct are shamefully rife. It's because criminal for-profit corporations are allowed to participate and run the centers and that right there should be a no-go from the start, but it isn't, because in this country nobody guards the gate. Really, they don't. It's always a crooked collusion between so-called regulators, Court officials sometimes even social workers and hospital workers and these types of places. I'm willing to grant that sometimes some of these workers honestly do not know better and thought these places were responsible, but I know sometimes they do know. A lot of exposes in lawsuits have come out regarding these facilities over the past ten years.
I'm fine with cracking down on various consumer goods I don't care about that, as long as they don't make that they're so focused but were their efforts are desperately needed are in healthcare and behavioral care. A little enforcement and a few simple regulatory changes could have huge ripple effects.
I have never met a person with the name Khan that could be trusted.
@@Deontjie I heard that Genghis fellow played a mean game of snooker and liked card games. Couldn't speak to his trustworthiness tho.
I'm the 1.7% female!
Sure, bro, sure.
So you are 98.3% male.
Same. But are we really :/ I have a mostly male mind tbh
👜👛💃💄👠
Reporting 🙋🏼♀️
I am part of the 1.7%! 🤣 Also… I didn’t get the memo about handbags. I do t think I’ve ever spend more than $60 for any purse.🤷🏻♀️
I just translate this to "imagine if Benchmade, Buck, Leatherman, and Victorinox merged".
So basically Freedom Group.
Patrick's acting chops are unmatched!
I Am Female, all handbags are NOT the same. I am offended!!!! Different handbags size and volume for different purpose. 😂
I am female but this lawsuit won't affect me. I purchase a leather handbag, made in the USA (hard to find that, but not impossible), and I use that handbag until it disintegrates. I am in my late '60s and on my second handbag. Handbags are all the same except for two things: carrying capacity and durability. Once you choose the capacity you want (wallet and comb, all the way up to entire home office and library), and the durability you want (cloth bags with construction that will wear out quickly, or properly constructed leather bags that will last decades), the rest doesn't matter.
The Economist doesn't make a compelling case that corporate consolidation is mainly caused by economies of scale. It merely makes an assertion with no real proof or accurate means of validation. In reality, businesses large medium and small make moves purely to deny or harm their competition all the time and think nothing of it. I've witnessed first hand how this can in some cases compromise products, harm consumers, and DESTROY markets.
No, I will not click away. This part of a larger issue about competition in markets. I am interested.
when you're part of the 1.7% 💅✨
Hey come on, that sweater wasn't lumpy at all!
Thanks for explaining the handbag lore I was really lost.
Why was Luxottica allowed to buy Essilor? There is no competition in the eyewear industry.
you know Zenni has been around for more than 20 years right? CostCo also has good prices on its eyewear
Lux needs smashed apart.
Warby Parker
The situation feels similar to luxxotica. While sunglasses are available at many price points, there is no middle point between disposable plastic sunglasses and a semi decent quality pair.
Luxxotica owns Oakley, ray ban and most of the prescription glasses frame brands.
Rayban aviators used to be available at convenience stores for $25 prior to ray ban acquisition and the price has increased significantly and the company enjoys a cushy margin on most of the pairs.
"I bet you cant offend all women and crypto bros at the same time?" Patrick: "Hold my diploma." :)
My gf is crazy about coach. I know about almost all those brands. Your comedy is so awesome
She’s not the one brother
Run!
Your lucky . Mine likes Chanel.
@@AA-il9pc virgin moment
@@AA-il9pcIf you compare their prices to Birkins, you would think she’s a catch.
This is eating into my Perun time Patrick....you are Friday, he is Sunday.
Oh well, double bubble for me.
Now. I presume this video is about rap?
One has moving pictures. The other just PowerPoint on steroids. Both rock.
Don't forget about Asianometry. 😊
FTC focus on anti-competitive mergers has always been selective and showy, effectively running cover for the predatory, market-narrowing acquisitions of preferred players. One small example is Starbucks' 2012 purchase of Teavana, a popular specialty tea brand with 379 teahouse locations and a convenient online service. Starbucks promptly gutted the quality and number of product offerings and soon closed the retail shops, retaining-for a time-a single line of bottled tea drinks (3 flavors).
The label then disappeared completely, and loyal customers still miss their favorite blends. Were they betrayed, or simply ill-served by three-letter bureaucrats? I don't know. This kind of thing is neither new nor uncommon, and there's perhaps nothing to prevent another similar enterprise from rising to fill the gap. No illusion should be maintained, however, that the interests of either corporations or government regulators faithfully align with those of consumers they're meant to serve. As much harm can be done (and hidden) in co-operative public/private arrangements as in those which appear to be adversarial.
Lena is action is a great direction, regardless of whether she's winning court cases or not. I think her head is in the right place.
On one hand, Patrick says that he doesn't believe the lawsuits pose any real deterrent. And then later he says that the lawsuits impose, what he sees as undue cost, on the business. Somehow failing to acknowledge from point A to point b that those costs, while they can be passed on to consumers, can also act as deterrents.
Furthermore, when a company says that a merger will be profitable because the synergies that exist between two brands or companies, often. What that means is that there are redundancies in the workforce. And upon the completion of the merger, a sizable percent of the workforce of the purchased company will be laid off.
I'm not sure if Patrick just happens to be ignorant about this particular topic of handbags or if he was just kidding, but manufacturing aside, there is still a very large retail and business operations footprint for any of these companies. From the c-suite right down to designers, artists, marketing, Operation, support staff CS/QC, etc..
I'm not necessarily advocating for this merger specifically, but as someone in the apparel industry I see how this can have a large impact on a lot of people within the industry.
Big Luxury Handbag is at it again
those brands do DEFINITELY have a meaningful market share. ngl, if you’re supposed to be finance man and you don’t realise the market that mid range luxury handbags has you’re being very silly. one of the BEST ways i feel to understand how these kind of fragmented monopolies impact consumers is in the makeup and luxury apparel industry. these dudes will monopolise these very small and specific markets in a way that clearly skirts the law
You maybe are missing the point if you're arguing that they have a lot of "midrange, luxury handbag" market share.
If you have to apply three different terms to describe clothing accessories, the definition is just stupid.
And even if you win that argument, you then have to argue that the market somehow doesn't compete with luxury and low price handbags? And fanny packs? And literally anything else that you can use to carry shit, even wallets? Good luck
👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼
The term luxury pretty much implies a monopoly forcing artificial scarcity and high prices on a given product. That has always been the point of 'luxury' goods...
@@derekcline950 i understand where you’re coming from, but these specific markets are huge. straight up. look around and see how many people have hand bags. i can confidently claim most of them would fit into the category of “accessible luxury” that the FTC is trying to assert. people who are buying handbags are interested in the brands that are in the same spheres as the brands they can afford. people who are buying handbags that are in the hundreds just aren’t buying hermes hadbags. it’s just not comparable. luxury handbags are like thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars. these are not connected markets
But there is no real barrier of entry for newcomers. The only barrier is the need to "build" a brand to attract buyers that do not want a bag to carry their stuff but just want to wear a brand.
Should these buyers be protected by antitrust regulators? This is the question. These people CHOOSE to be ripped off. It is want they WANT. If the price is less than what they can afford, they will just look for a more expensive brand.
I do think that it's fair to define a market based on the outcomes. If someone goes out looking for "product X" within a certain price range, and there is only one company that provides that product, then that would be a monopoly on that product, even if other, different products exist. If there are multiple providers of that product, and they consolidate into one, then that _is_ reducing competition within that market. Now whether this is "too much" is more subjective.
Also, it's fair to point out that a market like this one is not necessarily easy to shift. If the bags got more expensive, that does not mean that a different brand could easily fill the gap in the marketplace, because they would not only need to build up supply chains to produce those bags, but also design them, AND they would need to build brand recognition, which would be essential in the space. Basically, companies producing "bargain" bags at the moment would not have the wherewithal to launch an "affordable luxury" brand, and even if they managed it, the customers would be slow to accept them. That is a legitimate concern.
The FTC should not focus on price range or "luxury" but on quality. If people choose to overspend because they don't want a bag to carry stuff but just a brand to wear, then that is their own silly choice.
@@ronald3836 If it's a business, then whether their products are "silly choices" to you or not should not be relevant to their anti-trust status. If the market _exists,_ then it should be considered as a market, however little respect you might have for that market.
@@timogul BMW has a monopoly on BMW cars; not even Mercedes makes them! BMW should be broken up.
@@ronald3836 See, that would be an example of a facetious argument. As you point out, they already have competitors in the same general price range, selling equivalent products. Now, the question is what if ALL car manufacturers in that midtier luxury range, say $70K-150K, were all bought up by a single entity, so that nobody else was producing them, would that not cause some risk to consumers of those vehicles?
If they raised the prices by say 10% over what they had before, what would the market do about that? Would one of the even higher end producers like Ferrari step down to making some $70K vehicles? Could lower tier competitors step up to make $50K-80K vehicles that the market would be interested in? It would be tricky.
@@timogul My point is basically that the "luxury" (taken from "luxury brands") criterion is inappropriate to define the relevant market. Instead, the criterion "medium quality" (or whatever quality qualification one deems appropriate in this case) should be used. When this is done, there is probably no antitrust issue to be seen.
It feels so strange that Microsoft was once punished for pushing their own browser Internet Explorer in Windows. Nowadays when you buy an Android phone from Google for instance they only push you to use Google Search, Google Assistant, Google Play, Google Maps, Gmail, Google Drive, Google TV, Google Calendar, Google Images, Google Pay, CZcams, Google Fit, Google Meet, and of course, Google Chrome.
False equivalency as there is a healthy ecosystem called iOS. Over 40 computer programmers like myself have tons of experience in the trenches with Microsoft, not the surface level marketing that non-techies, and often younger folks, are exposed to. There was a time when the 70's-80's computer platform companies Commodore, Atari, Texas Instruments, Radio Shack, and Apple were dying or dead. Apple almost went out of business and the other companies are long gone. It was Microsoft DOS and later Windows and PC clones to run them on. Apple had a tiny sliver of the market and we were still working on Linux at this time. PC clones had vigorous competition hardware wise but for the operating system your choice was which version of DOS or Windows and whatever Microsoft bundled with it. Today there is healthy competition. Linux has 4 billion units via Android. iOS is extremely popular. Microsoft is still there but they have healthy competition. It's hard to remember back 25 years but to me it's like yesterday. Microsoft got away with murder, and fortunately we had Linux to save consumers. Apple recovered in part thanks to the choice Linux and Android returned to the market.
And cannot completely delete Facebook.
But Google has competition from Samsung, Apple and other companies, and Samsung and Apple pre-install their own browsers on their phones.
The problem with Microsoft was that Microsoft had an absolutely monopoly back then.
@user-hz6fj9xy4y Microsoft was forced by the EU to offer consumers a choice in what browser to install. Previously, using a browser other than Explorer was just not worth the excessive hassle because of all kinds of difficulties introduced by Microsoft by design to make the experience of using another browser miserable for the user.
@user-hz6fj9xy4y That is incorrect. To borrow from Wiki, because I'm not going to bother looking into the actual case law/opinion for a random CZcams comment: "The government alleged that Microsoft had abused monopoly power on Intel-based personal computers in its handling of operating system and web browser integration. The central issue was whether Microsoft was allowed to bundle its IE web browser software with its Windows operating system." I studied this case, and its predecessor, in my antitrust law class on the topics of tying and bundling...
British sarcasm is so sublime if i ever move from the US it will be there because the humor of the UK is able to make light of anything
Patrick is Irish.
@@69SunStTrue, though we British and Irish people have pretty much exactly the same sense of humour.
I've been to London - some truly great folks live there, but they aren't all this funny for sure. 😅
And the Irish even moreso. 😄
The British and Irish got their dark sense of humour from us Danes 🇩🇰.
A major reason deal sizes in tech have gone down is that investment has fallen quite a lot now that loans aren’t free.
Guess I'm in that 1.7% because I also agree that all handbags are essentially the same. 😂
I was down in Canal street chinatown one time with my wife years ago, and she was looking for a "reasonably" priced handbag, no more than $100, so the lady in the store had all these bags and I'll never forget, she goes..."you want prada?, I have, then she rips the fake label off and says, "you want it say gucci, I have gucci!" 😂😂😂 but it set in how fake it all is!, so we end up buying locally a lesser known brand full grain leather, made in Mexico for like, $150, which she still has to this day. at a certain level there's no difference.
There actually are a lot of differences but its in style and material, not company.
A leather handbag i had burned up in a fire but after 4 hours in the hottest part of the fire, my leather wallet and cards were still intact and the chips still worked.
You won't get that from a walmart bag.
You're right, Patrick. As one of your 99%, it's hard to get excited about this issue. Of course it took a lady FTC commissioner, Lina Khan, to recognize the situation.
I can tell you though that among the elite class of ladies in Indonesia, and I think we can presume in many other nations among the "noble" class luxury handbags are an alternative form of currency. They buy and trade designer luxury handbags as if they were stuffed with gold ingots. It's all about prestige and plain old showing off. As Red (Kate Mulgrew) in 'Orange Is The New Black' said, "Men are stupid. They don't notice anything important."
These are not luxury handbags. They are "accessible luxury handbags." That means inexpensive. Compared to Luxury Bags Coach and Capri are "accessible." For woman who have $400 to spend on a handbag. A dwindling market these days, as the middle class dies. THE FTC IS OFF ITS ROCKER. Let them merga and do One Thing well. Making $400 handbags.
@user-hz6fj9xy4y Yes I know. The leather is very soft, smells good, and look nice. And they last a long thyme. Coach in the 80's did not have a handbag for less than $1200. So the market has changed as folks have gotten poorer, and they are just trying to stay alive.
@user-hz6fj9xy4y It's not about the utility. That's masculine thinking. It's about showing off to other women that you're better than them and basking in their jealousy.
@user-hz6fj9xy4y You're thinking about utility but people care about art. Have you never had a stylish girlfriend before, or slapped by your mom for having clothes that don't complement each other making you look like a Christmas tree or a reindeer like Rudolph?
Thank you for sharing your subtle sexism with us, really added a lot to the conversation
No, the change was with Reagan-era nerds, judges, and appointees. Khan is returning to the longstanding tradition of market concentration being bad for its own sake, as well as harming workers, consumers, environment, suppliers, and/or progress. And prices have gone up (consumers hurt) by every major merger of the last 50 years, despite that being the "rationale" for allowing the mergers (scale should = lower prices).
The comparison between crypto currency types and handbags utility features and "crypto bros" to "women" as two comparable audiences - is the most funny comparison I ever heard! This joke is so awesome, you made my day!!!
My wife owns 16 handbags in which 9 of them are the same color.
Not surprising. Someone used to own 16 wives in which 9 of them are the same color.
@@davidl.e5203💀😭
My Mom goes through a handbag a year, but she usually just sorts through clothing stores and buys the one she likes that isn't expensive
I think that if you'd ask her, she'd said that they are different colors. How can you not see that this one is fuchsia, and this one is fandango.
@@av9823 All joking aside though, we all know that once you go into a particular hobby, there are increasing details only appreciated by the hobbiests and not others. We see this in wine, and art. The fine details they appreciate that the rest of us are lost about are seen as high art, that most clueless people would pretend to understand. But the same for handbags are considered frivolous and silly. Interesting isn’t it.
I frankly didn’t see the problem until you explained the case in detail. The FTC cases I’ve cared about have felt much bigger in scope and I was concerned when the cases fell through; perhaps now I understand why those cases were lost.
The feds always pretend they're knights in shining armor riding to the rescue of the common man. More often, they're hit jobs against disfavored industries or companies.
I work a door at an entertainment venue and need to check bags. These "accessible luxury" brands are the easiest to check. They are small, stiff and 99% empty! They're an accessory, not a bag.😊
Female handbag-purchasing subscriber here. The increase in price of these items and decrease in quality are real. Why is it less important for the FTC to pay attention to? Because of who the consumers are? 🤔
Right? If mens wallets started to be as low quality they'd lose it but if we say we want good quality bags for the price then it's "no one cares"
Agreed. Was wondering why @PBoyle downplayed the importance.
Because luxury handbags are not important for consumer welfare, it is a luxury good. Neither should the ftc care about competition for super cars for men. The test for monopoly pricing for luxury goods should be compared to the non luxury food version of it. You can always go buy a cheaper handbag as an alternative
@@nathanyee2161Honestly I think the FTC should care about both especially when those same industries do double dip in more "affordable markets" for the masses (it's how we end up with worse quality stuff)
@@PhotoJeticPoet You severely overestimate how much your average man cares about the quality of his wallet. "Does it hold my things without them falling out" is sufficient for most.
More of these! As one of your long time female followers I absolutely loved this video.
Up next… the FTC goes after the bottled water monopolies.
Nestle has been before congress over human rights violations so many times that they definitely have lawyer specifically for it at this point
no that would be anti semetic
@@ashishpatel350no one would see as such. Only idiots think of such things when we are taking consumer propection
More like, going after the slightly above average but not luxury makeup companies.
I'd be good with that. Nestlé has a *looooong* history to atone for
I wasn't going to click away because you were talking about handbags, I was going to click away because it wasn't about rap news. Come on Patrick, remember your core audience. People who want to keep up with rap news.
In a show I saw about rap music, someone said what was so great about rap music was that someone who couldn't sing could still cut an album. They said this like it was a good thing.
There are plenty of bags on the market without brand names. You buy them at Target. They are about $20-$40. This lawsuit doesn’t even touch women who need to be conscious about their purchases because we don’t buy these bags at all.
Patrick, Patrick, Patrick.. I may be a male audience member. But remember, I got to buy gifts, too!
Finally some hip hop handbag news
It's by no means just Amazon but ever since the online store debacles the FTC let through they are just a joke with no teeth. It's gonna take another serious depression for us to see an serious trust busting again.
Finally I'm in the 1%!!!
Ok, handbags from a woman's perspective. They're awful, almost all of them. They're supposed to match our shoes, some of them are tiny because that's what the occasion calls for and some of them are enormous when we go out with our kids and have to take all their stuff with us too. Some of them are a sort of regular size when we're going to work and we just need it large enough to take water, phone, book, etc. While a man has a backpack or briefcase type thing for his laptop, we have a thousand handbags because ✨fashion✨dictates that we must.
It's horrible.
"Fashion" is a euphemism for "women collectively." Women pretend they do this for men, but they don't, because we don't care. I think I could vaguely describe one of my wife's handbags because it's big and was used to carry stuff for multiple babies. Otherwise, I don't know because I don't care. At all. In the slightest.
Same with shoes. I absolutely do not give a single sh!t about women's shoes. I don't even notice them most of the time. Women get shoes to compete with each other.
Point is, ignore fashion and it will cost you nothing with men.
You are nlog-ing all over this comment section, calm down
Patrick I recognise the importance of handbags as much as the next guy. But we need more focus on rap news.
The crypto-handbag joke to start the video was great and honestly the comparison is extremely accurate. I really was thinking about clicking off the video until that bit came up lol
I love how this channel evolved over time.
The look on Patrick's face @3:56 is that of a man who has often suffered the consequences of laughing at the wrong time. 😳
hahaha didn't expect a cameo by Meryl Streep in a finance video
Hey Patrick, I would watch anything you put out. That would include but limited to “ competition of Icecream vendors in the arctic!” There has always been value in every video I have seen of yours.
I clicked so fast because it WAS about handbags.
Mr. Boyle can accessorize like no other.
Patrick! I am a 72 yo woman and I love your educational videos with doses of sheer brilliant humor. I typed Brilliant right before your ad! Spooky
*IM A BESPOKE TAILOR* of historical mens suits 1890 - 1940 and I can confirm - all handbags are the same, with ONE exception - HERMES which you should NEVER buy...!!!
Never give your money to a company that deliberately rejects sales and vets YOU the customer to see if YOU have bought enough of their other stuff to deserve their product.
Ah, the Ferrari model. If you haven't spent a million in the last few years, you can't buy the good stuff
@@paulhawkins6415 - I h4t3 it with a burning passion. Im very selective with my clients, Im ill I cant do much work so I need people who will understand as well as people who appreciate my ethos and style. But what I DONT do is charge €10,000 and make them buy lots of s**t first to prove they are worthy to weed out the less "deserving"
I charge €3k to €5k and say sorry to the people I dont feel I can work with and explain I am super limited in what I can make.
I clicked this story thinking it would have something to do with Hermes, I find the games they play to be extremely puzzling. But I'm even more puzzled that seemingly sane people continue to play along.
@@user-kpkxgtj - It "hacks" the human brain - we are programmed by evolution to value what is scarce. To search harder for food when there is none, to search harder for flint [to make tools] where we cant find any. We don't NEED so search for sandstone or basalt cos there is lots of it even though its incredibly useful.
Its a cynical trick - a Ferarri 250 GTO is legitimately worth a LOT of money cos it IS rare, there are no more being produced. A Ferrari you deliberately limit to 200 units is NOT legitimately worth a LOT of money cos you can make another 2,000. THAN making people buy your other crap to prove it is like the walking miles and miles to find the flint.
Hermes can make an effectively unlimited number of bags, they choose to sell a €2k bag for €20k or €40k by manipulation AND they get €10k or other sales out of you as well.
But do the likes of Patek Philippe not do just the same? (I agree it is a good reason to avoid them, though.)
I’m the 2% of your audience. Love your broad knowledge.
Accessible luxury is a oxymoron. “Expensive things of high quality are exclusively by the price” as said by the late great Karl Lagerfeld.
You’re an idiot. I’d say north of half of all “luxury” is actually garbage. 😊
its just luxury goods that arent as expensive and unnatainable as others, i think this is fine and good. people still like to have well made things that will last a long time and that werent made in horrible labor conditions (not that this is the case for all these brands, but having better worker conditions does increase cost) im pretty sure most people regardless of economic position have at least one thing thats considered a luxury item
Just 30 seconds into the video, it's already comedic gold!
I appreciate the handbag commentary and look forward to seeing how this dovetails with your plans to become CZcams's #1 hiphop creator.
Are handbags in any way connected to the rapping scene? I guess many prominent rappers or their significant others do like them tho. You are my favorite rapping YT news channel btw, you seem really knowledagble around the biz.
Glad to be one of the few handbag lovers who was already subbed to ya’! Please cover the Hermes lawsuit if you haven’t already.
As a man, there really are only two kinds of handbags... The small kind she will carry without complaints, and the big & heavy kind that you will end up carrying for her by the end of the day.
The merger that I'm watching right now is the Fred Meyer/Albertsons. I watched the Rite Aid/Walgreens merger happen and then all of those Rite Aid stores ended up abandoned. Hours are being cut already and not all Fred Meyer employees have protection from the union. The pharmacy, for example, isn't part of the union so we're on our own.
once again ...the depth of a subject that is deep...awesome!!!
Oh, please stop me from distributors of $19,000 bags. 😅
The handbag business is no joke. It seems that every luxury brand is jumping on the ladies handbag bandwagon. This obsession reaches absurd level as you walk around malls in places like Dubai and Istanbul and all you see in Gucci, Fendi and Chanel stores are handbags and/or women's shoes...
The standard for monopoly should be "ease of entry". The number of existing competitors is not as important as the potential for new ones to come in. Any number of existing competitors can all be complacent with big margins on a smaller cut. But that doesn't protect them against new upstarts. Conversely, a business that dominates because the public loves their products isn't a problem.
I personally don't think "design a handbag" is such a high hurdle that no one new could possibly enter the market. But then I'm in the 98% who doesn't know anything about them.
Patrick has taken his humor to the next level.
Also, I thought Kahn lost every single high profile case she brought as the head of the FTC so far, not just two?
She created hipster antitrust. Intentionally brings cases that go against Supreme Court precedent. Lawless regulator
Good early morning from Chevron Island, Qld Australia. Let's get into the weeds on handbags I guess...
1.7% checking in, sending the video on Neom to all my female friends because the members of my sex should not miss out on laughing for half an hour straight.
And all handbags are NOT the same, when you try to pay more to buy something that lasts and it doesn't, it sucks.