{"id":175,"date":"2006-02-03T12:24:07","date_gmt":"2006-02-03T16:24:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/ecclog\/2006\/02\/03\/mergers-and-acquisitions\/"},"modified":"2006-02-03T12:24:07","modified_gmt":"2006-02-03T16:24:07","slug":"mergers-and-acquisitions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ecclog\/2006\/02\/03\/mergers-and-acquisitions\/","title":{"rendered":"Mergers and Acquisitions"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/p>\n

One of my friends, an aspiring tai tai<\/a>, described Milan Station, this chain of widely successful, high-end second-hand boutiques, to me:<\/p>\n

In Hong Kong, there are these rich
\nwomen, er, I mean, mistresses, who aren’t given cash, but they are
\nallowed to shop all they want.  So, they go to LV, and buy a dozen
\nbags and sell them [to Milan Station] for cash.  The chain
\nhas done so well, it went public.  It’s really popular because people know the bags are new and not fakes.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

This story sickened me a little.  Partly, because it highlights
\nthe common social acceptance in HK and China (and other Asian countries
\nas well?) of the practice of having a pampered wife, and a younger
\ngirlfriend on the side (it harkens back to past practice of polygamy
\nand the keeping of concubines).  It’s so widespread that it has
\nspawned its  own little cottage industry.   <\/p>\n

It also disturbs me a little because I have friends who are preparing
\nto enter into the more legitimate of the two options.  I can’t
\nimagine trading fidelity for material comfort and to provide “face” to
\none’s family through a “good” match.  Why do some
\nof my friends expect $o much and so little out of marriage?<\/p>\n

It also forces me to ponder, how much of the luxury market is dependent
\non arrangements, such as this.  Each “arrangement” produces two
\ncustomers, the wife and girlfriend, who need to be kept happy with
\nshiny objects.  It’s enough to make me go off on one of those
\nfeminist\/Marxist critiques, but I’ll pass the baton on that point to one of you.  Any takers?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of my friends, an aspiring tai tai, described Milan Station, this chain of widely successful, high-end second-hand boutiques, to me: In Hong Kong, there are these rich women, er, I mean, mistresses, who aren’t given cash, but they are allowed to shop all they want.  So, they go to LV, and buy a dozen […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":121,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[186],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-175","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-legalese"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ecclog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ecclog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ecclog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ecclog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/121"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ecclog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=175"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ecclog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ecclog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ecclog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ecclog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}