Of Boxers and Bicycle Tires

I'm a boxer-brief guy. I wear knit boxers on occasion but prefer a snug fit. You kids might not appreciate this, but there was a time when such undergarments were not only new but considered something of a luxury and were available only at snooty department stores at prices of up to $15 per pair. While teaching in China in the late 1990s, I had the chance to visit a major source of these and other textiles and scored more than a dozen pairs of shorts for about $2 each. They served me well for nearly 10 years, but I had to retire all but two of them in the last 10 months. While in Thailand for the better part of the last two years I began to restock, but sizing issues were too often problematic. Now that I'm back in the States, I can appreciate the recent sea change in men's undergarments. Americans can now buy quality boxer-briefs and the like at discount retailers for less than what I paid in Hong Kong in 1997.

We can discuss the true "cost" of anything assembled under less than humane conditions and sold by companies that might employ illegal immigrants, but if cheap boxers are not the result of textbook comparative advantage then the global trading system will ultimately be rent apart by protectionist forces in search of a "better" way.

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My "bicycle tire" story suddenly doesn't seem as interesting as it did when I titled this post. Let me boil it down thusly: 1) got a new tire, 2) realized when I got home that it was on backwards, i.e. the tread was facing the wrong direction (markings on the sidewall indicated <--REAR/FRONT-->), 3) brought it back to the French manager/bike tech (turns out the sporting goods store is part of a France-based multinational), 4) guy originally denied there was a problem but finally relented; moment was needlessly tensed by my friend making snide, Tour de France-related comments over my shoulder, 5) picked up bike two days later (after the "killer" heat wave subsided) to find no change to tire or bike, 6) was not able to hide my displeasure, 7) guy's English began to fail him but insisted that A) tire had originally been installed backwards and B) tire was now correctly installed, 8) I countered forcefully that I was not insane and that contentions A and B could not both be correct, 9) finally quit arguing to return home and do what I should have done days before: consult the tire manufacturer's website, 10) turns out the tread faces forward when used as a front tire and rearward when used as a back tire, 11) local Franco-U.S. relations have been slow to recover.