Posh Tots

Continuing with the inequality theme from this morning, on last night's Daily Show I learned about Posh Tots, a company that will sell you, among other things, "luxury playhouses" like this lighthouse bedroom set for just $14,500. The more frugal family might want to invest $6,799 in a sassafras castle playhouse or the $8,299 victorian mansion playhouse. On the other hand, if the hedge fund really did well this year, for the low price of $38,000 you can have sophie's magical windmill playhouse:

A PoshTots Exclusive! This exquisite windmill is sure to inspire dreams of fancy and flight. Crafted entirely by hand, it features a reading loft, charming windmill blades and an outdoor deck with hand rails. Interior flooring is maple wood vinyl and interior walls have wallpapered graphic panels. Exterior walls are a Douglas fir structural frame with bead board siding. The roof is made of Douglas fir structural trusses with exterior plywood sheeting and cedar shingles. Interior features include a loft with decorative hand railing, ladder, wood trims, operable windows, storage hideaways, concealed ventilation, bay window with reading bench, LED decorative lighting and upholstered cushions and pillows. Exterior features powder-coated metal planters, powder-coated metal flower motif and a second level deck with exterior hand railing. Playhouse measures 12'H x 6' x 8' (11' x 15' with decking). Please speak to a design consultant for custom options and shipping information. This item is custom made especially for you upon order.

Ah fancy and flight.

Comments

I think you learned about that on the Colbert Report, in the kiddie version of "Colbert Platinum."

Posted by Steve | October 12, 2007 2:46 PM

What about Fort Bethesda?

http://www.poshtots.com/catalog/Play/Luxury-Playhouses/Fort-Bethesda/2201/2755/product_detail.asp

The closest your children will ever get to serving their country in the armed forces, this creatively detailed play structure will inspire little imaginations to explore.

Posted by a | October 12, 2007 2:52 PM

Personally, I think there isn't nearly enough public disgust at such gaudy materialistic indulgences. Instead, the focus seems to be on (a) how awful it is when the poor own shiny things and (b) how to market them to the masses (contradictory attitudes, I admit, but no one said the culture was rational).

Posted by Tyro | October 12, 2007 2:54 PM

I'm begging you, please, delete this post before my wife sees it and clicks the links.

Posted by Al | October 12, 2007 2:54 PM

I forgot to mention: Fort Bethesda is a bargain at only $54,350.

After a hard day lobbying for defense contractors on the Hill, retire to your Maryland estate, where you can enjoy some quiet time with the kids in the backyard.

Posted by a | October 12, 2007 2:55 PM

See? The Frosts could have insured their whole family without resorting to government welfare, for the cost of just one or two childrens' toys. Their priorities were way off.

Posted by old guy | October 12, 2007 2:55 PM

These wonderful toys might be the incentive poor people need to stop being poor, and start being rich. Just think of how happy poor kids could be, if their parents "chose" to be rich!

If you don't want to poor kids to enjoy toys like this, you hate poor kids, and you're likely an unamerican communist who won't even wear a proper flag pin when you go out in public.

Posted by Typical Republican | October 12, 2007 3:04 PM

So there's this company out there marketing playhouses that cost somewhere between the price of a horse and the price of a pretty nice car. OK, they're a bunch of douche bags, but does that really advance the argument about inequality?

Would your perfect world of outcome equality exclude the not-totally-necessary big-ticket items? Does that mean I can't buy that flat-screen I've had my eye on?

Posted by southpaw | October 12, 2007 3:07 PM

MY, please move on to your investigative report on My Super Sweet 16 on MTV.

I recall hearing that it even has a Bush donor scandal angle (defrauding company to spend on 16yo's Beamer).

Posted by bob | October 12, 2007 3:13 PM

Nothing beats around 10 empty packing crates, around 6 old sheets, a chair or two, a dry basement, and 5 siblings.

Anyone know what's good for lumbago?

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | October 12, 2007 3:13 PM

I don't think anyone needs more than $250,000 a year in salary. Anyone who earns more than $250,000 a year should have every dollar taken and it should be redistributed to someone who earns less than $50,000/year.

Posted by Mick Jones | October 12, 2007 3:13 PM

HAH! That's way better than arguing with Megan McArdle Randroids that we should increase taxes 'just because' (while she argues that the rich are often very nice in person).

max
['Well done.']

Posted by max | October 12, 2007 3:14 PM

OT STOP PRESSES OT STOP PRESSES OT

George W. Bush has molted and discovered his inner Jimmy Carter:

"We have lost sight of what it means to be a nation willing to be aggressive in the world and spread freedom or deal with disease. And we have lost our confidence in the ability to compete internationally."

-----------
We now return you to your blog already in progress.

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | October 12, 2007 3:34 PM

So someone found a market for expensive playpens? Who cares? I assume someone is building them, so those playpens provide some types of jobs for the "unequal." I suppose you would rather have the buyers of the playpens just give the money to the "unequal" instead of using it in the marketplace? People overpaying for children's toys doesn't keep the "unequal" mired in inequality. That's apples an oranges. Now if the children who use those playpens later get into colleges despite having lousy grades just b/c the parents can afford things like those playpens, then you have an argument about inequality. Right now you just have the Nieman Marcus catalog.

Posted by Carlos | October 12, 2007 3:35 PM

Now compare with the sad lot of a son of a liberal father. When my son was ca. 10 years old, I purchased a box of big nails, and then in the nearby public forest I nailed together a little table, two little chairs and a very little shack, where we could barely fit in. Everything was terribly crooked and misbegotten, and after one seeson it started to rot and was literally crawling with snails. But we had fun for a couple of weeks.

And this is why expensive custom made toys are better. You can get the same fun for the wee ones spending several dollars only, but it takes a lot of time. Time that you have to spend with your kids. If I had a gazillion, I would happily avoid that drudgery...

On the second though, part of the fun of the misbegotten crooked shack was that it was secret. Some place in the woods where nobody else walked (or so we could think). But this could also be arranged in a 1000+ acre estate. So, gazillions are better.

Posted by piotr | October 12, 2007 3:51 PM

The problem with these expensive playpens is not simply that they represent the wretched excess of the wealthy, its that the wealthy are using these playpens to raise spoiled brats who will become tomorrows insufferably self-entitled douchebags.

Posted by Spike | October 12, 2007 3:52 PM

What's interesting about these extravagances is that they're not expensive at all, if you're really wealthy. There is such a disconnect between the incomes of the super-wealthy, and the price of just about anything (including uber-luxury items), that money can't possibly have any meaning for them anymore. Those $8 million Chelsea apartments with the car elevator would be the same expenditure for them as a meal at Applebee's would be for me, and I'm happily ensconced in the upper middle class.

Posted by Rich | October 12, 2007 3:52 PM

Spike hits the nail on the head here. My wife spent the last 3 years working at a private boarding high school teaching these self-absorbed brats and its just amazing the sense of entitlement most of them had. Most had never really had to work for anything and their transition to high school (and the idea of accountability) was brutal. Don't even ask how most of them did when they got out of the coddling they received at the high school (even though most were still well cushioned by their parents wallets).

I don't mind rich people so much, it's their kids that I can't stand.

Posted by Doug-E-Fresh | October 12, 2007 4:14 PM

Of course the great joke will be on the rich guy who buys one of these since his kid will be happier just playing with the giant cardboard box it came in.

Posted by Eric K | October 12, 2007 4:19 PM

"Please speak to a design consultant for custom options and shipping information. This item is custom made especially for you upon order."

Not unlike temperature v. windchill, what we learn here is that its not the price of the toy that really gets you. Its the price of the "design consultant."

Posted by olaf | October 12, 2007 5:07 PM

George W. Bush has molted and discovered his inner Jimmy Carter:

"We have lost sight of what it means to be a nation willing to be aggressive in the world and spread freedom or deal with disease. And we have lost our confidence in the ability to compete internationally."

Hey, you got a link for that? I'm curious what President Fuckwit is trying to say. Of course, the worthless shitstain probably doesn't really know himself.....

Posted by sglover | October 12, 2007 5:32 PM

The problem with these expensive playpens is not simply that they represent the wretched excess of the wealthy, its that the wealthy are using these playpens to raise spoiled brats who will become tomorrows insufferably self-entitled douchebags.

Why is it that I think "Paris Hilton" when I look at these playpens?

On a marginally related note, isn't the thought that other kids will be there part of the attraction of the school or city playground or tree fort? Sounds kinda lonely, these pampered kids clambering on their own private play condos. Good training for tomorrow's corporate sociopaths, though!

Posted by sglover | October 12, 2007 5:38 PM

Coincidentally, $14,500 is just about what my parents' house cost back in 1961. Not sure what that means, but really... what ever happened to cutting a door in a refrigerator box and playing that way?

Posted by David | October 12, 2007 6:39 PM

The terrorists have already won.

Posted by Neal Murray | October 12, 2007 8:41 PM

I fondly remember the tiny little playhouse my father cobbled together out of plywood in our backyard. I'll have to remember to thank him for that, the next time I talk to him.

Posted by Anthony Damiani | October 12, 2007 9:05 PM

"See? The Frosts could have insured their whole family without resorting to government welfare, for the cost of just one or two childrens' toys. Their priorities were way off."

The Frosts could have insured their whole family with a low-cost, high deductible insurance policy before their kid got hurt with some of the money they spent on their three cars and two properties. Shit, they could have also saved a few bucks and shared the benefits of racial diversity with their kids by sending them to public school instead of private school.

Posted by Juan | October 13, 2007 2:45 PM

…exquisite windmill is sure to inspire dreams of fancy and flight.

Fancy, flight and miniature golf courses.

Posted by Polly | October 13, 2007 7:22 PM

"Shit, they could have also saved a few bucks and shared the benefits of racial diversity with their kids by sending them to public school instead of private school."

Hell, they could not have had kids at all! Choices have consequences.

Posted by aaron | October 13, 2007 9:02 PM

Too bad the writer doesn't realize that Posh Tots also gives away plenty of items to those in need!! Yeah things are expensive, but it is something that has created jobs, not taken them away!!

Posted by charles | October 16, 2007 11:35 AM