Tuesday, November 6th, 2018
Stephan: One could make the case that feudalism is the natural state of human cultures, a tiny nobility defined either by land ownership or, today, by wealth, a slightly larger aristocracy of less wealthy individuals and families, a small professional class who run the society for their wealth betters, and a vast peasantry once based on their owning only a little or no land, now men and women on hourly pay. And feudalism is closely linked with fundamentalist Christianity, a point almost always overlooked by commentators. The Vatican at one point was the leading feudal state.
America was founded by men determined to eliminate feudalism, and it worked until the rise of neoliberalism beginning with Nixon, greatly advanced by Reagan, and made blatant and explicit under the current gangster don, Donald Trump. I don't think most Americans have any idea of what the world of the uber-rich is like. A significant percentage of Americans could not write an unexpected $400 check. So spending $200 million to buy a yacht you use a couple of weeks a year is simply incomprehensible. Here is a tiny insight into that world.
The Qatari royal family owns the superyacht Jubilee, worth an estimated $290 million.
Credit: Balint Porneczi/Bloomberg
Of all the toys a billionaire’s money can buy, none is as decadent as a superyacht.
Frequently exceeding the length of a football field, the vessels are hugely expensive upfront, can cost tens of millions in annual upkeep, come with a crater-size carbon footprint and almost never go up in value. Yet the ultra-wealthy are sinking more and more into these floating palaces.
Taken together the 25 most valuable superyachts are worth more than $7.5 billion, according to the valuation service VesselsValue. Click on each vessel icon below to see more about the most-valuable superyachts and their billionaire owners.
Customers bought nearly 300 superyachts so far this year through mid-October, up from a total of 249 vessels for all of 2017. Industry observers have noticed that China’s rising crop of billionaires isn’t prominent among the superyacht-buying ranks. The combined retail value of superyachts sold last year was 2.6 billion euros ($2.9 billion), a 21 percent increase from 2016, […]
I worked for a Mr. Robert {Gordon or Gorden , I’m not sure which spelling is correct} many years ago. I was his maintenance man doing odd jobs like mowing lawns, trimming hedges, washing cars and other odd jobs like cleaning up after parties where the guests were people like the Governor, Senators, and representatives from the state of Florida where we all lived at that point in time. It was an in-between type of job for me, just to keep money flowing into my budget (not what I considered a good job). He owned two Rolls Royce cars, a small Mercedes convertible which was his wife’s favorite car, a station wagon for the butler to go shopping with, and two Mercedes for his two sons who traveled to Harvard in them. He owned a yacht which was so big that it could not fit into the Palm Beach harbor inlet, so he had to park it in Miami. It had a year round crew of 3 who all lived aboard the vessel, and maintained it. For lifeboats it had two “slingshot” boats that were very fast and had v-8 supercharged motors that took the occupants flying across the ocean. (no row boats for this guy). When I was given a tour of the house by the butler I saw the trophy room with all the heads of tigers, elephants, and other poor animals which had gotten in his sights and were gunned down. I also saw the golden faucets in the master bath which were kept gleaning by the house staff. I also saw the computer room which had a wall full of screens (for what purpose,I am not sure) but I was told that their yacht had a similar room so Mr. Gordon could do his work from his Yacht when he and his wife went on their yearly two month vacation every year. I eventually got fired because I could not produce a statement from a doctor after being very sick for three days with the flu. I told him since he did supply me with health insurance and I could not afford a doctor on the meager salary he paid me, I could not afford to go to the doctor. He di not care and that was the end of that job. It was quite an experience though to be up close to one of the Bilderbergers. He had so much money from his investment counseling business that he couldn’t find ways to spend it all, and could have been taxed a lot more without missing it. That is my point I am trying to make here: why should we not tax the rich more?
P.S. I meant to say did not supply me with health insurance.