The callow young gentleman in the middle of this line of celebrities (I guess, I don’t know who any of them are) recently celebrated his 18th birthday.
His daddy gave him a nice present.
The party came to a total of about $4 million. And for his birthday gifts? The birthday boy received a full loaded blue Ferrari, an IWC Portugieser Tourbillion watch and a custom-made painting from Alec Monopoly.
Whoa. I betcha Donald Trump is giving the whole family a great big tax break, too.
Welcome to the world of wealth inequity!
Hey, someone designed and manufactured that car. Someone made the paints, the canvas and the brushes.* I’m not sure what the point is. It’s probably that we plebs should be grateful for the masters’ occasional splurge. Incidentally, if the rich don’t pay taxes they have even more money to waste, thus encouraging spending-sprees. Perhaps if we scraped together some spare cash and gave it to them that, too, would Boost The Economy (TM).
*Before someone asks, the watch always existed. Watches aren’t made, they simply are.
Maybe I can change careers again. Vomit Bucket Custodian at a nice restaurant for Mr. Creosote’s philosophical heirs.
There will always be vomit buckets, once pure gluttony again becomes a status symbol. Once the food riots begin.
komarov @ 1
The people who made the car in Maranello, Italy seem to have been voting for Communists and the successor parties to the PCI (Communist Party of Italy) at least since 1984.
Remember back in the 1900s when capitalists went to great pains to convince people that killing the rich was bad policy? It worked, largely thanks to American ideology that tied capitalism to upward mobility and social darwinism. It fooled a lot of people for long enough; these boneheads are destroying their oligarch forebears hard work. Noblesse oblige don’t’cha know?
Y’know after a couple shooting sprees at events like that, America would discover its love of gun control for poor people.
Marcus:
Truth.
The world of wealth inequity is also the world of wealth iniquity.
Marcus & Caine — Already has. The 2nd never allowed black slaves to own guns.
Hey, it could have been worse! His parents could have spent money on booze, women, and movies!
I actually feel bad for the kid. It looks like he don’t want to be there, the “celebs” aren’t his friends or idols.
Turning 18 is supposed to be a happy thing: have a nice dinner with a few friends, have some wine or whatever, have your girlfriend do what she wants to celebrate your official coming of age.
you know I kind of feel sorry for that kid and all the kids who are spoiled in that way. It is their parents who are the most responsible and pathetic as if all that glittery crap has any meaning. what a thing to do to an innocent baby
that kid has a kind of lost look like he might find an OJ fun. (opium joint).
uncle frogy
unclefrogy (and anyone who expresses the same sentiment):
I certainly wouldn’t mind you feeling sorry for me for the same reasons — either now or when I was 18. What I feel is envious that I had no such opportunities in life.
PS Of course the topic is about the .1%ers, not about the poor kid who will have to cope with luxuries and opportunities denied to just about everyone else, and which the current milieu not only permits, but lauds.
I can sort of see feeling sorry for him, because he has no doubt led such a sheltered life that when reality hits he will not be prepared. On the other hand, he will most likely never encounter reality with all the money he can use to shelter himself.
The other thing is, I wonder if people like this have any actual friends. People might want to be close to him in the hopes that some of that money rolls their way, but actually liking the guy? The sort of friend who is brutally honest with you and lets you know when you screwed up? The sort of friend who will stick around even if you suddenly lose all that money? Just not sure. If Trump suddenly lost everything, ended up living in a tiny apartment with nothing at all, how many friends would he still have?
kestrel:
No doubt about it; of course he does. He’s just a human as anyone.
Thing is, people — especially young ones — mostly hang around with their peer group.
Pretty sure he will have by now acquired a sense about this, too.
(or: Different slant, same wrong emphasis. IMO)
John Morales @ 12:
Why feel envious? I totally understand that life is unfair and increased equality of opportunity is something we should strive for, but do you really envy the total package? We all have positives and negatives that seem to free us or limit us when we are young. Like, if you were given the option to relive your life but being swapped as a baby for Donald Trump, Jr, would you really say “yes, I would be better if I grew up in that environment”?
PZ – part of the broader point you graciously avoided is that if you actually needed a ferrari-made surgical device to save someone you were responsible for’s life we know you’d do anything it took. And nobody’d blame you because we’d weigh your decisions against our own values; it works even for this moral nihilist.
gorobei, you do know that this is not what I consider to be on-topic. But it is not irrelevant, so…
Nonetheless: I am envious because I did (nor do I have) the opportunities this lad has.
I understand its futility and its genesis, but I can’t deny it.
No. Most saliently, I am not him; my own predilections and aptitudes are my own — but the range of possible predilections and the degree of freedom to pursue them is far, far greater for the .1%ers than for the .999%ers.
I specified what I envied quite explicitly: opportunities.
Silly question. No.
Obviously, I am the product of my environment, as everyone is. I could not relive my life in the way your question presumes.
kestrel@#15:
That’s what bullshit is for.
(I am listening to Townes right now abd if you could imagine that in his delivery, I’d be so honored.)
I’ve heard of this dude (the father) before, he runs a huge personal injury law firm in San Antonio. Looks like ambulance chasing is still pretty lucrative.
I’m currently reading Jane Mayer’s DARK MONEY.
This guy seems like a lightweight.
He’s a symptom of the disease, an outgrowth of the disparity in incomes. He isn’t a causal factor, but he can certainly be despised as I stand here in my economically anxious hellhole.
I wonder what the kid’s CV looks like? Ya know, just in cas he goes job hunting.
Marcus #17: Fair point, the kid definitely can use the extra oomph in the fully-loaded Ferrari to save his loved ones from, um, needing to hail a taxi. And his IWC watch does tell the time, um, better, than, um, his Breitling or his Rolex.
No, this is not about spending your last penny to look after your family; this is about spending his gargantuan wealth in a way that tells everyone that such wealth means far less to him than it might to you.
Re: Ice Swimmer (#3):
Those ingrates. Never bite the hand that feeds you.
(Just in case: sarcasm)
“If Trump suddenly lost everything, ended up living in a tiny apartment with nothing at all, how many friends would he still have?”
What make you think that he has any right now? He has cheated everyone who has business dealings with him. Or were you counting al-Assad, Duterte, Erdogan and Putin as Trump’s “friends”? Even then the result would still be zero once he lost power.
Typical commie nonsense. This kid worked HARD to be born into getting everything he has. If the lazy whiners would quit spending their income from their three jobs on luxuries like fridges and entertainment to give their lives some joy, then maybe they could get off their asses and be born into wealth too!
I have driven a Ferrari once, years ago. It was an interesting experience. Extremely unwise (read: deadly) choice of automobile for an 18 year old.
I hope the boy survives his birthday present and grows up to be a better person than his parents. I am not betting any money on it. I need that to pay the rent.
Yet another rich kid, born on third base, thinks he hit a triple. Odds are, he will never feel the slap of reality, he will not feel the sting of hunger or poverty, he will never have to stand there and watch as his house is emptied by men in the pay of his creditors. His life of privilege will continue unabated until he comes to the end we all come to sooner or later. But we can’t tax junior or his daddy more than we’d tax the valet that parks his Ferrari or the jeweler who cleans his watch. Because somehow that would be Unfair. And besides, we want them to spend their money and make more jobs (by magic).
@DLC
That depends on how much of crook good ‘ol Dad turns out to be later in life.