The real trick, of course, is that none of that $136×10⁹ is going to end up in the hands of anyone else, because, being stock valuations, it never really existed in the first place.
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Hey Elon, hey Jeff, hey all y’all: this one’s fer you…
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Kasparov on oligarchs and big money and Putin.
Couple trillion dollars? Over the many years in power?
That mansion seems like a bargain.
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The moral calculations of a billionaire
After the best year in history to be among the super-rich, one of America’s 745 billionaires wonders: ‘What’s enough? What’s the answer?’
Wa Po
No paywall:
“Wake up, moron. YOU and your insatiable greed are at the root of our biggest societal problems.”
He responded to most of the personal emails, kept record of the occasional death threats and wrote letters to politicians such as Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) whenever they criticized billionaires in their speeches, because he couldn’t understand: What exactly had he done wrong? What rule had he broken? He’d been born to poor immigrant parents on the losing end of a capitalist economy. He’d attended public schools, taken on debt to become the first in his family to attend college, worked 80-hour weeks, made smart decisions, benefited from some good luck, amassed a fortune for himself and for his clients and paid hundreds of millions in taxes to the government. He had a wife of 57 years, two successful children, and three grandchildren who were helping him decide how to give most of his money away to a long list of charities.
“My life is the story of the American Dream,” he’d said while accepting an award at one charity gala, and he’d always imagined himself as the rags-to-riches hero, only to now find himself cast as the greedy villain in a story of economic inequality run amok.
And now came another series of emails from a stranger who ran a charity in New Jersey. She said billionaires were avoiding paying their fair share of taxes by using loopholes in the tax code. She said their legacy of excessive wealth was “burdening future generations.” She said Cooperman had no idea what it was like to live in poverty or to choose each month between paying rent or buying food.“She makes decent points,” Cooperman said as he read the email again, and it made him think back to a question he’d begun wondering about himself: In a time of historic inequality, what were the moral responsibilities of a billionaire?
Damn it feels bad to be a gangsta
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Amazon founder turned rocket-man Jeff Bezos wants to prove that, with enough money, you really can move mountains—or at least, in this case, cherished bridges. That’s according to local reports cited by Dutch News and Boat International which claim the city of Rotterdam will temporarily disable its historic Koningshaven bridge so a luxury superyacht rumored to have been commissioned by Bezos can make its way out to sea.
[…]
ETA:
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If you understand that the tax laws are specifically designed to give write-offs in the areas that only wealthy people invest in, it all makes sense. It’s completely legal. Our elected representatives only represent the ones who reward them heavily.
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I really with Cooperman and Bezos would learn something from Chuck Feeney:
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That would be nice, but I wish even more that they’d press for more equitable tax rates.
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I’m sure they’d do the same for any one of us if we wanted to move our $500mm Mega-yacht. Everyone needlessly piling on Bezos.
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Indeed. The law, in its majestic equality, etc. etc
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Heard about this just now in another place. And there are few news articles that have made me angrier in recent times. It’s a confluence of my (professional and personal) interest in heritage preservation and heritage politics and my visceral hate for superyachts that comes from moving to a place where they were quite common pre-pandemic. Floating conspicuous consumption.
Maybe that shipbuilder shouldn’t have taken the contract if they couldn’t deliver the yacht without destroying part of the commons? Maybe they should have found a way to mount the masts at another place after having floated out the completed hull? Just subcontract a dry dock somewhere. There are plenty of oil rig builders around the North Sea periphery that have the necessary cranes for such an operation.
ETA: it seems the bridge is a national monument. I don’t know how these are being administered in the Netherlands but in most countries this means the deciding agency is a national one, not a local one. If that were the case here, they could very well say no because they are not beholden to local interests. I doubt it will happen, but that would be fun. I can definitely not see a reason for them to say yes. It would set a dangerous precedent for heritage policy.
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I hadn’t even heard about the phenomenon of “shadow vessels” that operate as support ships for these mega yachts until reading that Jalopnik article. The world’s largest sailing vessel still won’t be big enough for Bezos to store his many toys, so there’s a 246 foot ship with a helipad, water slides, and a ton of storage just to follow the other yacht around. Disgusting.
Edit: this isn’t Bezos’ support ship but man, these billionaires are really desperate to have more storage space for toys on their yachts:
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Funnily enough it was exactly the idea of shadow vessels that ignited my burning hate for superyachts.
One day I was walking along the harbour of this unnamed northern European city and I saw a really cool ship at anchor. It looked like a research vessel. Small, sleek, with a helicopter, an a-frame crane and a lot of gear under tarps on deck. I eagerly googled the ships name to find out what exciting research had brought them to our port.
Imagine my disgust when I found out it was a superyacht’s shadow vessel and the gear on deck was nothing but a billionaire’s playthings. That was the day I learned about the concept and I am still surprised at myself about the depths of feeling I had at that moment.
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This megayacht reminds me of how Prof Appel made Cobra Island. He had a custom megayacht to withstand the seismic shocks from the islands formation.
This part of Bezos’ plan to make a private island.
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I’m surprised that they don’t have shadow vessels where the servants sleep.
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Better get that boy a tax cut NOOOOOWWWWWW!!!.
