Business Conditions

Thoughts for 2012

Thoughts for 2012 As my father and I prepare for 2012, I keep coming back to one primary concern: Europe. My concern is not so much about whether or not specific countries default on their debt, the EU finds a way to muddle through somehow, or even if the currency falls apart.  My main concern […]

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Notes for 2011

The last few weeks of 2010, as I try and think about what we might expect from 2011, reading the headlines alternating between recovery and recession themed stories has been frustrating.  For every legitimate story evidencing the nascent recovery, there is at least one or more that cause me to pause.  Most recently, the holiday shopping […]

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Price and Quality, this weekend in Massachusetts…

This weekend I was in western Massachusetts, in an outlet store, and I stumbled across a perfect example of an issue I’ve been thinking about since I started working with my father: the trade-off between price and quality.  It was a chair very similar to the one in this image. It’s a knock-off variation of our […]

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Luxury Industries and the Internet

As we all know, last Friday was another bad day for the equity markets.  Most US indices lost just under 3.5%, triggered by the monthly payroll report.  Payrolls were up (and the overall unemployment rate was down, but this measure is pretty much useless unless you happen to be in politics), but nearly all the […]

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The industry and new ideas of Luxury

Over the weekend there was an excellent article in the New York Times about Town & Country and the new social trends it is adapting to under the able new leadership of Mr. Stephen Drucker.  If you have a client who has a computer, or iphone, and has heard of the Internet – you need […]

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Business and the Markets

This is somewhat of a departure from what I have written about in the past, but the recent trouble in the equity and fixed income markets make it difficult not to comment on.  After 2009, we all hope that 2010 will be better for our industry, and the days with 1 or 2%+ swings in […]

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