Who Profits?

 

    

 

Years ago when I was in college I disliked business, businessmen, and profit making as much as any modern Democratic Socialist. 

Deep down I must have been jealous since I thought I had so little and they seemed to have so much. Somehow, it never occurred to me that my college education was being completely paid for by a scholarship from my father’s employer, the Bulova Watch Company.

It would take years of life experience for me to understand the value of profits and profit making. Here are some personal anecdotes.

I met my future wife Linda in my senior year at Fordham college. We dated throughout the next year while I took courses for a master’s degree in history at Columbia University, and she completed her last year for a BS degree in Nursing at Cornell’s nursing center in New York city.

By the time she graduated, we began to discuss marriage. I had been offered a job at Cardinal Hayes high school in the Bronx, and a nurse could seemingly get a job almost anywhere. To be Bonafide, I knew that I could not propose without a ring.

So, one day I cashed in the little savings account I had opened in grade school at St. Mary’s in Queens.  Over the years my regular nickel and dime deposits had grown to about $200. I took a subway to Manhattan’s diamond district on East 47^th Street, a street lined with jewelry shops manned by Jewish merchants. 

These guys were notorious and I expected to be overcharged or even cheated. They knew their business and I was totally ignorant.  But what could I do? So I put down my entire life savings to buy a decent looking ring with a small, flawed diamond. 

I suspect that the dealer made at least a 100% profit on the deal, but now I know that I was the one who profited most. Linda loved the ring, and accepted my proposal, and still wears it today, more than 60 years later. She knew instinctively that it was much more than metal or stone, but a sign of my love and commitment, just as I knew that her acceptance was a sign of hers.

We were engaged, but even though I had a job, I was broke. It never occurred to me that in order to leave our parents’ homes, we would need to furnish an apartment. Fortunately, presents from family members helped. In particular, my father offered to pay for a bedroom set.

One day Linda and I went to Mazur Brothers Furniture store, a long-established institution in White Plains not far from her home. A salesman, probably a Mazur, showed us a number of sets, and we settled on a sturdy cherry wood set that included a dresser with a large mirror, a bureau, and a bed with two end tables. I think the total cost was around $800, a large sum back in 1962. 

Once again, I suspected we were being overcharged but Linda liked the set, and that was that. Afterwards, she praised the salesman’s manner and presentation, but I grumbled that he was just out for a commission. Now I realize that while he and Mazur Brothers had profited from the sale, we profited infinitely more.

More than sixty years later, we still use it. The bed may show some wear, but the dresser, bureau, mirror, and end tables look new and still work perfectly. What a deal! Buyer and seller both profited. Even my father profited. He got rid of me and got six grandchildren in the bargain, all of whom loved him.

During our years of married life I can think of countless examples of how transactions turned out to be profitable for all parties concerned. The purchase of four homes profited not only sellers, but banks, insurance companies, real estate brokers, and movers, but we profited the most. That’s the American way, and I love it.

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Note: The image above is the Mazur Brothers storefront back in the 1960s. In searching for it, I came across a short obituary of Joseph G. Mazur, President of the company, who seems to have been quite a man.