Posts Tagged ‘erosion’
“Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous”*…
… in the age in which we live: two dispatches…
First, from the realm of real estate:
Nantucket, MA, has long served as a sandy summer paradise for jet setters such as Joe Biden, Ben Stiller, Kourtney Kardashian, and former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, among others.
Take, for instance, one six-bedroom house on Red Barn Road that was listed as far back as October 2020 for $2,995,000. Four years and four price cuts later, the 3.8-acre property is now listed at $1.7 million. Even so, it is still sitting on the market after seven months.
The listing agent, John Arena of Raveis, says he has received plenty of calls about the house, which is now in foreclosure.
“People are lined up to buy it,” he insists, adding that the foreclosure has prevented him from properly showing the house.
Shelly Lockwood of the real estate advisory firm Advisors Living has a different theory on why it hasn’t sold: The very beach the house sits on is slowly eroding away.
As a result, she says, “It’s falling in the ocean.”…
“Buying in ‘Billionaires Isle’ Nantucket Is Now a Bargain: Homes Are ‘Falling Into the Ocean’“
Next, from the arena of aristocratic accessories:
Two Italian luxury giants pay just a small amount to produce handbags that retail for thousands of dollars, according to documents in a sweeping investigation of subcontractors.
Italian prosecutors in Milan investigated the LVMH subsidiary Dior’s use of third-party suppliers in recent months. Prosecutors said these companies exploited workers to pump out bags for a small fraction of their store price.
Citing documents examined by authorities, Reuters reported last month that Dior paid a supplier $57 to produce bags that retailed for about $2,780…
The relevant unit of Dior didn’t adopt “appropriate measures to check the actual working conditions or the technical capabilities of the contracting companies,” a prosecution document said, according to Reuters.
In probes through March and April, investigators found evidence that workers were sleeping in the facility so bags could be produced around the clock, Reuters reported. They also tracked electricity-consumption data, which showed work was being carried out during nights and holidays, the report said.
The subcontractors were Chinese-owned firms, prosecutors said. They said most of the workers were from China, with two living in the country illegally and another seven working without required documentation.
The probe also said safety devices on gluing and brushing machines were removed so workers could operate them faster…
The probe also extended to Giorgio Armani contractors, and the luxury company was accused of not properly overseeing its suppliers.
Armani paid contractors $99 per bag for products that sold for more than $1,900 in stores, according to documents seen by Reuters…
As Kevin Kwan observes, too often the allure of luxury is simply an escape from reality…
* Long-running television series
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As we head back to basics, we might recall that it was on this date in 2002 that a modernization of the classic Cinderella folklore, A Cinderella Story, premiered. Panned by critics, the film was a box office success, grossing $70.1 million against its $19 million budget, and inspired multiple straight-to-video films. Indeed, over the years, it has developed into a cult classic.
“To see a world in a grain of sand”*…
A stretch of your correspondent’s childhood “front yard”
John R. Gillis writes in the New York Times that to those of us who visit beaches only in summer, beaches seem as permanent a part of our natural heritage as the Rocky Mountains but shore dwellers know that beaches are the most transitory of landscapes, and sand beaches the most vulnerable of all. Today, 75 to 90 percent of the world’s natural sand beaches are disappearing, due partly to rising sea levels and increased storm action, but also to massive erosion caused by the human development of shores. The extent of this global crisis is obscured because so-called beach nourishment projects attempt to hold sand in place (PDF) and repair the damage by the time summer people return, creating the illusion of an eternal shore. But the market for mined sand in the U.S. has become a billion-dollar annual business, growing at 10 percent a year since 2008. Interior mining operations use huge machines working in open pits to dig down under the earth’s surface to get sand left behind by ancient glaciers.
One might think that desert sand would be a ready substitute, but its grains are finer and smoother; they don’t adhere to rougher sand grains, and tend to blow away. As a result, the desert state of Dubai brings sand for its beaches all the way from Australia. Huge sand mining operations are emerging worldwide, many of them illegal, happening out of sight and out of mind, as far as the developed world is concerned. “We need to stop taking sand for granted and think of it as an endangered natural resource,” concludes Gillis. “Beach replenishment — the mining and trucking and dredging of sand to meet tourist expectations — must be evaluated on a case-by-case basis, with environmental considerations taking top priority. Only this will ensure that the story of the earth will still have subsequent chapters told in grains of sand.”
– via Hugh Pickens
* Wiliam Blake, “Auguries of Innocence”
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As we wriggle our toes, we might recall that it was on this date in 1926 that the first civilian airplane bombing in the U.S. occurred. The Shelton Brothers Gang dropped three explosives on “Shady Rest,” the rural Illinois hide-out of Charlie Birger and his gang. The bombs missed; and the rival bootleggers resorted to “tank warfare,” attacking each other with armored trucks with mounted guns. The Sheltons succeeded in burning Shady Rest to the ground in January of 1927, effectively winning their war with Birger. Six months later, Birger was arrested (later, tried and hanged) for ordering the murder of Joe Adams, the mayor of a nearby town, whose garage was used to service the Shelton’s “tanks.”
Birger and his gang at Shady Rest
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