When I picked up boots from Thursday earlier this year, I saw their collection of casual shoes up close and loved them. I finally went back last week to pick up 2 pairs. Still real leather so they need a bit of a break in, though. I decided to avoid the traditional brown/white combo due to how popular they are and the deep blue stands out quite well. The white suede looks good and feels really comfortable, albeit almost a bowling shoe style 🤪. Their linen shirts were a tad long in the sleeves for me but with a bit of tailoring it could be a decent $100 shirt + tailor fees.

While I'm not going to delve into the pros and cons of any economic or political system in this post - and I encourage others to refrain from doing so - I had a recent conversation on this very topic in which I expanded on the original concept after explaining its origin and felt that there are, in fact, a number of lessons to be learned from it. Originating from a series of fantasy novels by Terry Pratchett, the 'Boots Theory' of socioeconomic unfairness, as generally stated by Captain Samuel Vines, is that the wealthy are wealthy because they can afford to spend less money. His example was a pair of boots. A pair of quality boots that would last a man 10 years might cost $50, which a wealthy man could afford to buy. A cheap pair of boots, however, might only cost $10, which a poor man could afford to buy. However, when the cardboard started to break down, the poor man ended up with wet feet and needed to replace those boots every year. So, after 10 years, the wealthy man has spent $50 on boots while the poor man has spent $100 - and still has wet feet. While this illustration may or may not have been literal in that fantasy world, it can certainly be taken figuratively in the real one. Quality items typically last longer than inferior ones. However, the expansion I made on the topic - still figuratively centered around boots - is that the original illustration, while elementary, is actually also underselling the point. You see, it ignores the factors of time and redundancy. Following the original illustration, a wealthy man can afford to buy five pairs of quality boots in different styles and/or colors - along with higher-cost maintenance products to accompany them. For the sake of argument, let's say that adds another $50 - bringing the grand total to $300. This allows the wealthy man to rotate his boots, making each last much longer than if they were worn every day. A wealthy man also has the time to regularly maintain his boots - especially the ones he isn't wearing, giving them time to rest and dry. As a result, that wealthy man could expect to get well over 60 years' worth of boot wear out of that $300. Meanwhile, the poor man can only afford one pair of cheap boots at a time and has neither the extra time nor the energy to keep them properly maintained. As a result, for him, we are back to the original calculation, plus a little extra cost, averaged out to each year, for things like patches, broken laces, and the emergency replacement pair of boots from time to time ahead of the expected 1-year lifespan - bringing the poor man's annual cost up to, say, $15. This means that after 60 years, the poor man has spent three times the amount the wealthy man has spent on boots.