Ricardian Trade Theorem Applied to Fashion

Presumably I am "cool" now. And the reason I am "cool" now is because I have this shirt that;

1. Should NEVER be tucked in
2. Has cuffs that should NEVER be buttoned
3. Has buttons that the top two should ALWAYS be left open.

I am also cool in that now I have jeans that look like somebody urinated on them and dragged them through dirt.

I am even cooler because I have new cologne that I didn't pick out and is to replace my Polo cologne that I've had since 1992.

And to top the newfound coolness with even more coolness, 90% of my hair has been chopped off for the short spikey, fresh out of the shower hair look.

So long Captain Jack Sparrow look.

Now, to most normal people I would look like a moron. And I do. I now look like all these 23 year old kids running around the ChaChi bars in the Twin Cities. And I concur, when I look at myself in the mirror, I say, "cripes, I look like a moron."

BUT OOOOOHHHH HOW WRONG I AM!!!

For it doesn't matter what I think of my new fashion.

Oh no.

All that matters is what girls think of my fashion.

You see, the Captain Capitalism Cadre of Friends (it's like Super Friends, but all guys) held a conferenza last night. And the conferenza was about changing the current strategy so that we may;

1. Quit running into so many damn religious chicks
2. Find future Babes of Capitalism
3. Do so with spending less time and money on it as now, seemingly, God has smiled upon us and all of our careers have just skyrocketed through the roof and we have not the time to be chasing futile targets.

And one thing we more or less all universally agreed upon was that we needed to change our style and clothes and image.

Of course, being a bunch of economist, mortgage, banker types sitting around a board room desk in DT Minneapolis on a Saturday night conducting a conferenza, fashion is not exactly our thing. Oh sure, we have suits, but outside that we have no cool clothes. We have dated hair cuts. And I seriously do have Polo cologne from 1992. I am looking at it right now.

We have no freaking clue what is in or hip.

But I do have a clue about the merits of Ricardian Trade Theory.

For yes, we in the Captain Capitalism Cadre of Friends may be clueless about image and fashion, but we are smart enough to outsource that decision to people who aren't.

And how could this cunning plan possibly fail?

We pay the Swiss to make our chocolates.
We pay the Japanese to make our cars.
We pay the Chinese to make our electronics.
And we pay the Irish to make our whiskey.

Why not pay somebody who isn't an economist to make our fashion decisions for us?

Thus, today, two fashionably savvy girls at my office were kind enough to take the raw and hopeless material of a banker, a mortgage guy and an economist and transform them into new and refined products of pure and total hotness.

However, whilst my cadre o' friends were hesitant to spend the money on clothes that were seemingly putrid and haircuts that literally came out of a book, I threw caution to the wind and COMPLETELY outsourced all decisions to the women.

The assistant/sales person helping us at the clothing store with the BOOMCHICABOOM music would come up and ask me what I thought about the shirt I had just put on and I would say, "Ask them what they think."

The salonist asked me what hair cut I was looking for. And I said, "Ask them what I'm looking for."

And when the perfume sniper at the anchor store asked me "What cologne do you like?" I said, "Ask them what I like."

So by the time the day was over, I had some new duds, practically no hair, new stench and a shirt that is so tight that I have a hard time scratching my back.

Thinking that all I did was waste about $300, or 1/2 the annual earnings of a Sudanese, on pure fluff, and recalling the last time I followed the advice from women, it resulted in utter chaos, I was not expecting any results.

Yet, all of 5 hours later, I just met a girl pursuing a degree in finance who would like to go dancing. And, I am being completely serious here, every 20 something girl I have ran into today is responding more positively, where they are actually smiling at me, borderline, dare I say, checking me out? Perhaps even flirting with me?

Alas, perhaps all economists should outsource image management.