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If you’re an American who has ideas either way about social security, check out my article on Misanthropy Today on the topic. I think it’ll change your mind.

I received my order from Dollar Shave Club today. I was eager to see how this product was and write a review because if more people focused on making just one product really good, affordable and accessible (like Netflix with movie rentals) it could really take the consumerism out of necessary consumption and remove some of the marketing mystique that itself makes products so expensive.

If you don’t know what Dollar Shave Club is have a look at this video:

The Package

Here is the envelope I received in the mail: 

I ordered the Humble Twin blade, which costs $1 per month plus $2 shipping and handling. Very good deal.

This is what comes inside the package:

The Review

The handle part is very well made and feels firm, not light and flimsy like I worried it might be.

The twin blades are very small in height, though I don’t mind that really as size isn’t important really as they are the same size in width. The first test I did was to try to shave some stubble without any water or shaving cream. A very sharp razor can do this somewhat. This worked ok on certain parts of my face but not on others. Then I added some warm water. Worked a little better on certain parts of my face (cheeks and neck) but not so well on the chin or upper lip. With shaving cream the razor worked fine, but does need to be rinsed often.

I’ve used shitty disposable blades, and the razors from dollar shave club are not these. They aren’t Gillete Mach5′s either though, at least the double blade isn’t.

I think this is where their business plan becomes clear, and I don’t mean that they are doing anything dishonest, but I think they want to get people in the door with the Dollar Blades, which are usable but not great, and then have them upgrade to the 4X, which costs $4 more for only two additional blades but one less cartridge per month, or The Executive which has 6 blades for $9 per month but you only receive 3 cartridges.

Here is the cost breakdown:

The Humble Twin

$1+$2 S/H= $3 = 5 cartridges, 10 blades total= 10 cents per blade

The 4X

$6  S/H included, 16 blades total, 4 cartridges= 37 cents per blade

The Executive 

$9 S/H included, 18 blades total in 3 cartridges= 50 cents per blade

Clearly, the best value here is the Humble Twin, though I don’t think it will work for many. The next best value is the 4X, which I think i’ll upgrade to.

Dollar Shave Club is such a great business idea because we all need razors and we all think they are more expensive than they need to be.

So how do they make money??

How Dollar Shave Club Makes Money

I’d imagine their business costs look like this:

The Humble Twin

• .60 cents FOB Los Angeles Port from Guangdong, China for the entire package, including the insert and envelope.
• 30  cents for shipping to their fulfillment center(s), overhead and labor (order processing, packing, shipping) per package.
• $1.50 for shipping to your door (rates for the 3 oz package are here  at $1.95 though this was shipped through a company called Endicia which offers volume rates for businesses. Judging by discounts my company receives on shipping a similar volume, i’d say my estimate is close)

So on the Humble Twin, Dollar Shave Club is only making about .60 cents per order, but if you consider that hundreds of thousands of people ordered it, even if we consider this a loss leader they are still not losing money. Let’s say 500,000 people ordered this.  500,000*.60=$300,000, per month. That this is a reoccurring subscription product $300,000 per month works out to about $3.6M per year in profit. Not too shabby.

Ok, but this isn’t really where they make the money.  The real money comes on the upgraded models.

The 4X probably costs an additional .25-.50 each to make not just because it requires more materials but because they order in far less volume than the Humble Twin, which we will now probably file under the Marketing line in the P&L and not the Cost Of Goods Sold. That said, they’re pulling in an extra $3 net profit for each one, which more than covers the extra cost.

So let’s say that the Executive costs $2 each to make, $2 dollars to ship.  They’re pulling in 5 dollars profit on each Executive razor set, each month.

So Then:

If Dollar Shave Club can convert 50% of the 500,o00 to the 4x,  25% to the executive, retain 12.5% at the Humble Twin level and lose 12.5% per month their business now looks something like this:

250,000 (4x)*$3= $750,000/month net profit

125,000(Executive)*$5= $625,000/month net profit

62,500(Twin)*.60= $37,200 net profit per month

————————————————————————–

$14.2 Million Net Profit Annually 

As you can see, they really aren’t in the business of selling dollar razors.

I hate to make this in any way political, but sometimes people need real life examples and this a small example of why capitalism breeds competition and innovation and why it helps everyone win, especially the average joe and the average small business owner with a good idea.

Imagine if the government made laws that razors, since they’re dangerous (can spread disease and cause injury)  must only be made by companies with certain certifications, expensive certifications that only a large factory can bear. While this might sound like the government is trying to help you stay safe, most likely it’d be the big razor companies behind such legislation. And how does legislation happen? One news story is all it takes sometimes. Would it be beyond the realm of possibility for a big company to hire someone to fake an injury and cause an infection in order to push such legislation? When we’re talking about billions of dollars? I don’t think so. This is why collusion between government and industry is such a problem.

Full Disclosure:

I’m in no way being endorsed by Dollar Shave Club, though if you click any of the links pointing to Dollar Shave and sign up for the service, I will receive a free month of razors. If you knew what pathetic facial hair I have you’d think it was an insult for a man like me to have to pay for shaving, so yeah, go ahead and sign up. 

This is the trailer of a Joan Chen movie called “Xiu Xiu The Sent Down Girl”. It’s a beautiful movie. It’s about the cultural revolution in China.

What do you call those twenty years of idealistic fascism in Chinese? 文革 (WenGe).

Leave it to China to make something complex simple and something simple– complex.

How do you say “I’m Sorry” in Chinese? 对不吃 (Dui Bu Qi) which doesn’t mean i’m sorry at all but rather “Don’t Stand Up”  or “Don’t Rise” or “Don’t Get Up” (i.e. Stay Calm).  So the cultural revolution translates roughly to “Text/Culture/Society- Strengthen/Leather” and I’m sorry is “Don’t get up”.

Gotta love the Chinese language!

So the movie is about a young girl, Xiu Xiu (shoe-shoe) being “sent down” from a rich elite family to live on a farm— this was a common way to punish and humiliate the rich and elite during the 文革.  Oh you’re a fancy doctor or scholar eh? Here grab this shovel and move that cow shit from this pile to that one over there. Oh yeah, also you’re daughter is in some other backwoods province probably being raped by feral countryside soldiers. Also sing Red Songs while you shovel the shit.

This part of China’s history is a great lesson for all people at the kind of horrors and evil that can be done in the name of socialism, equality and egalitarianism. And like most fascist systems throughout history, it’s not such a bad system if you’re on the right side of the gun.

If you’re wondering about the background score here, it isn’t in the movie but does fit the movie pretty well. It’s “The Greatest” By Cat Power. Here are the lyrics:

Once I wanted to be the greatest
No wind of waterfall could stall me
And then came the rush of the flood
Stars of night turned deep to dust

Melt me down
Into big black armor
Leave no trace of grace
Just in your honour
Lower me down
To culprit south
Make ‘em wash a space in town
For the lead
And the dregs of my bed
I’ve been sleepin’
Lower me down
Pin me in
Secure the grounds
For the later parade

Once I wanted to be the greatest
Two fists of solid rock
With brains that could explain
Any feeling

Lower me down
Pin me in
Secure the grounds
For the lead
And the dregs of my bed
I’ve been sleepin’
For the later parade

Once I wanted to be the greatest
No wind of waterfall could stall me
And then came the rush of the flood
Stars of night turned deep to dust

Tonight I had an idea that I just can’t shake.

The other day I wrote on my other blog about people Getting Bored Of Facebook.

 I wrote this: 

But really, all of the above (a bunch of things about Facebook that make it terrible)  is pertinent, and should be taken to heart, but the main reason that Facebook sucks so much is the same reason that Myspace, LiveJournal, WordPress,  Reddit, Blogger, Geocities, etc etc etc etc all came to suck when they were once wonderlands of creativity and information (and often times friendship and romance):

Because the barrier for entry is so goddamned low; everyone can do it, and can do it poorly. And if they had anything at all to say or share they would’ve done it with the more difficult tools available before, but they didn’t because they didn’t have anything to say or share.

Yes, i’m suggesting we all go back to blogging.

nerds nerds nerds

Resources: 

Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten is $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:

• The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.
• The fifth would pay $1.
• The sixth would pay $3.
• The seventh would pay $7.
• The eighth would pay $12.
• The ninth would pay $18.
• The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.

So, that’s what they decided to do. The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve. “Since you are all such good customers,” he said, “I’m going to reduce the cost of your daily beer by $20.” Drinks for the ten now cost just $80.
And so:
And so:

• The fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% savings).
• The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33%savings).
• The seventh now pay $5 instead of $7 (28%savings).
• The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% savings).
• The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% savings) .
• The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% savings).

Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to drink for free. But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings.

“I only got a dollar out of the $20,” declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man,” but he got $10!”

“Yeah, that’s right,” exclaimed the fifth man. “I only saved a dollar, too. It’s unfair that he got ten times more than I!”

“That’s true!!” shouted the seventh man. “Why should he get $10 back when I got only two? The wealthy get all the breaks!”

“Wait a minute,” yelled the first four men in unison. “We didn’t get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!” The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.
The next night the tenth man didn’t show up for drinks, so the nine sat down and had beers without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn’t have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill! And that, ladies and gentlemen, journalists and college professors, is how our tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore. In fact, they might start drinking overseas where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.

David R. Kamerschen, Ph.D.

Professor of Economics

University of Georgia
For those who understand, no explanation is needed.
For those who do not understand, no explanation is possible.

Above:  A sick man who likes both cofffee and women in swimsuits.

Always eager to be on the avant-garde of  not minding their own business, officials in the city of  Westminster have wasted city money stripping Westminster of its only quirky  identifying trait: Bikini Cafes.

You can find this story here

Donut Enthusiast and Police Officer Tom Dare is quoted as saying:

“A lot of these places want to be legit, but how do they compete with these other businesses? It’s almost a chain reaction, where one business tries to one-up another.”

Businesses one-upping one another…. well this is a new low in the business world. I’m glad the brave Offficer Dare is on the case. What’s at stake here is immigrants enjoying a very scaled down version of what they enjoy in their native countries in Cafes that, frankly, nobody would end up in accidentally. These are not attractive places for children, teenagers or– well, anyone who isn’t a Vietnamese-American man.

UC Riverside Professor Lan Duong puts it into perspective:

“It’s not about ogling women per se,” she said. “It’s about the camaraderie.”

But what if it is about ogling women? So what?

The article goes on:

Chanh Do, a 57-year-old engineer from Orange, agrees. The subdued Mai Tay Hien off Bolsa Avenue is where he spends his happy hour. Almost each day for more than two decades, he has taken a seat at the far end of the counter to read the newspaper, drink coffee (black, with sugar) and smoke Marlboro Lights.

“Here, it’s time to relax,” Do said. Everyone there knows his name and knows not to sit in his seat.

The article ends with the triumphantly for writer Nicole Santa Cruz, likely a do-gooder herself. Regarding Chanh Do  at cafe Mai Tay Hien:

Waitresses — in sweaters and jeans — know his order.

Liberals, religious Conservatives and average do-gooders must remember that the separation of Church and State is  a two-way street. Churches must stay out of the government and government must stay out of the business of morality. We tend to agree with our government’s stance on moral issues because the government does a pretty good job of gauging the morals of its constituents before it pulls shit like this, but even this is wrong.  If you disagree with enforcing Sharia ideals then you must also disagree with enforcing Protestant American ideals  if they are not in the spirit of the laws that we generally enforce. If we create a set of laws only so that we can enforce them selectively on certain groups then these laws are discriminatory and are unconstitutional and should be revoked.

I’m sure that Officer Dare and the rest of the dopes at Westminster city hall would respond that the constitution is not a suicide pact.

Guys like the one in the picture atop this page, walking into the bikini cafe: vote these Westminster city officials out.

Remember these are the same dopes who chose this as the font for our streetsigns:

Full Disclosure: I’ve never been to one of these places nor would want to go but I think they are legal and should exist for those who enjoy them. AF