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Pastimes : Don't Ask Rambi -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Rambi who wrote (62284)	3/23/2002 1:35:41 PM
From: Ish	Respond to of 71178

<<I thought this was a fascinating tidbit- their earnings were taxed, but before the law was passed, sexual services were legally declared "immoral." Not illegal, just immoral? Does that mean that you are free and clear with Caesar as long as you don't mind being immoral?>> When I was in Germany it meant that the ladies were able to stand along side the road outside of the small towns and not be arrested. In town they could be busted on a morales charge. Just outside of one small village there was a 3 story brick building with a sign that read Eros Center. It did business and paid taxes just like a WalMart. Fewer products though. And it was more of a rental deal.

To: Rambi who wrote (62284)	3/24/2002 10:34:45 AM
From: Michael Sphar	Respond to of 71178

While I eschew the issue of morality, this and subsequent responses do raise numerous questions that I shall attempt to address... First and foremost, the surprising statistics at the end of the article struck me. 400,000 workers performing on average three events per day! Ah, the diligence and efficiency of the German workforce. This results in aggregate to quite a sizeable number. Now assuming some necessary adjustments and qualifiers we can make some reasonable assumptions. First, I think we should assume that we are talking about a 5 day a week workaday business here, afterall we are talking about a business where there is profit sharing, work contracts, 40 hour workweek rules, etc. There must be time off for church and rest like everyday workers have in most civilized countries. So 1.2 million times 5 days a week equals 6 million events a week. And since the Europeans are known for their August vacation month as well as numerous state holidays, lets assume total time off for vacation/sick leave results in approximately two months a year of down time per worker on average. I'm trying to be generous here to get to extremely conservative numbers. So 6 million times 44 working weeks in the year would result in 264 million events. Quite sizable really. A 2000 census figure indicates there are 82 million official German citizens. We can estimate roughly half this number to be male. Lets put that at 40 million. Of these, some are too old to care anymore (perhaps 80 years is this threshold ?), and some too young. Lets assume under 16. Then there is the homosexual issue. In total we should probably trim our target population of potential clientele down to say 30 million. Clearly then, without factoring in infiltration from visiting non-German populations we have 264 million events to spread among only 30 million potentials per year. So about 9 times per year on average. Assuming a 20% dilution for non-Germans this would lower the count to 7 times a year for every average, normally sexually inclined German male between the ages of 16 and 80. A sizable number indeed. Now the question of representative sampling comes to mind. Is this sizable though German-centric statistic a representative sample of the rest of the world? I'll leave this question to the debaters but my inclination is towards the affirmative, at least in terms of propensity. Now back to the thread ideas. Given such volumes, I am led to consider the sheer magnitude of the monies involved. Someone mentioned Walmart here. Walmart is a common household name here in this country. So in order for it to grow, overseas expansion is a necessity. Here is a huge market which begs for the efficiencies and business acumen that Walmart can bring to the table (or bed) if you prefer. 264 million events, at perhaps $40 per, means we are talking about $10.5 billion in round numbers. And this from just Germany alone! Clearly we are talking about a market opportunity that even a Walmart would notice at either its top or bottom lines, not to mention management perks and training opportunities. The mind fairly reels at the opportunity here.