I have long used the more British term ‘braces’ because that is what they were called in my college and army days. Most people now-a-days call them suspenders.
The issue is that my pants, Dockers, cost only $40 on sale at Macy’s, online, while the six buttons to hold them up cost $5 each to sew on at the cleaners. The six actual buttons cost a total of $3.00 at the sewing supply store. That seems a little weird. $33 work on a pair of $40 pants.
Most importantly this weirdness is due to the times we live in. Manufacturing the pants, anywhere, is about 95% machine work from making the fabric to the cutting to the sewing. There is a little hand work and a little time for inspectors inspecting and engineers repairing machines.
The whole point is that machines are highly productive and semi-skilled labor in San Francisco is very expensive. That is where modern commerce has brought us.
That is good. Why should humans do any work that machines can do? The religious Armageddon folks that are so prominent around the media these days say there won’t be any work left for people as machines get smarter.
I say that is nonsense having lived in the hippy era where nobody had to work, but the hippies invented thousands of jobs and dozens of new industries to keep busy. See my earlier blog.