I was amazed by how quickly Congress was able to jack open the nation’s checkbook and write a ginormous rubber check with the “Pay To: _________” part left blank.
Don’t get me wrong, as some econo-wag said, “everyone is a Keynsian in a crisis” – the way to keep the economy from sinking is by kickstarting it with an injection of cash. It’s like meth for your economy. It triggers a brief spending-spree (AKA: an economy) until the rich figure out how to mop it up and store it away. I actually would not object to their getting enough money from the public till, so that they could buy a new Lamborghini and some Mexican flake, except that’s not what they do; they just add a couple more digits to some balance, look at it in satisfaction, and continue their humble lives.
Lately, Anna has been on a kick of looking at high-end real estate: the $75 million mansions in Tahoe, and whatnot. That’s where some of the stimulus money is going to go and at least, briefly, there will be some churn as the real estate agents and home decorators get their slice. Back in the NFR days, I did meetings with some venture capitalists at their home offices, and so I have some experience wandering around in billionaire’s homes.
That’s a really lovely place and I got a bitter laugh out of some of the back-story: the people who built it ripped off Frank Loyd Wright: they had him design the whole place and then only paid him to “do the guest-house, first.” Then, when he was safely shuffled off, they “found” Wright’s unpublished sketches and built the main house to his design. Capitalists don’t just rip off the little guys, they rip off everybody because that’s how the game is played. And, we wonder “why is it that the country is run by crooks and thieves?”
The Wright-designed house is lovely (although I cringe when I see design features that were added to a design to make it difficult and for no other reason) but the $150million mansion in Tahoe is a soulless hunk of crap. It’s got hidden hot tubs and a whole floor that’s an exercise center with a massage room, sauna, jacuzzi, and full bar. But everything looks like it was decorated by a professional and nobody has ever actually lived there.* When I visited one billionaire, Accel Investments’ Joe Schoendorf, at his house in the mountains over Palo Alto, it was like walking into a high-end hotel. There was a lot of tasteful art but I immediately concluded that a nouveau riche asshole who’d own a house like that didn’t have the taste or interest to pick artworks. Now, I admit that would be fun, if I were a billionaire I’d be trying to figure out how to support lots of energetic and weird artists (I would definitely have a Banksy room if not a Banksy guest house) but the Accel lodge was the usual Frederick Remington bronzes of cowboys shooting Native Americans and bison and whatnot. To enter a house like that is to immediately begin to hate the owner. Although, there is something to be said for a 15,000 bottle wine cellar, namely: “I could shelter from the coronavirus in here, if I just had a few pallet-loads of Kitchens of India.”
That’s where the rich are riding out the coronavirus. Mom and dad can hunker down in the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed guest house (5,000sf) and we’ll be OK in the main house (50,000sf) Oh, yeah, and close that hospital in Kansas, it’s losing $400,000/month.
Here’s the rip-off: people who live like that are the people who told America “no Green New Deal.” Because there’s just not enough money for a Green New Deal. Then, when the stock market it threatened, they came charging out the gate with trillions of dollars in a bucket sitting on a flatbed with Steve Mnuchin on the back throwing handfuls of cash (to a select audience) screaming “one for you, one for me!” These are the same guys who said that the country cannot afford to re-tool its economy to get the fossil fuels drug dealers out of their pockets, and they just made a big mistake by admitting that was all a lie.
Yes, we need economic stimulus but it’s got to be in the form of preserving existing jobs, not firing everyone and shifting them to the “gig economy.” Back in December, 2017, I pointed out that the job growth in the US was in the “shitty job” sector [stderr] and, whoah, look at that: I was right. Having former university professors become Uber drivers is not “employment” it’s capitalism’s final victory over labor. By creating a vast, desperate, labor force, the wealthy can always play one low-paid laborer off against another, in order to drive both of their wages fucking lower. Andrew Carnegie, philanthropist, used that trick by bringing train-loads of black workers from the deep south to break Pennsylvania steel-workers’ strikes. It had the advantage of stoking racial hatred and division that could be used to keep labor from unifying. The game has changed since then: now, there’s an app for it; the new Carnegies don’t have to appear to lift a finger. Create a disaster so that everyone is looking for work, and – so long as the rest of the economy doesn’t crash and burn too, the gig economy is doing great. Oh, the rest of the economy is crashing and burning: here’s a bailout that’s bigger than that big project we told you “we don’t have money for.”
I know I sound like a broken record but why can’t these people cancel 2 aircraft carriers, half of the fleet of Zumwalt-class garbage scows, the F-35, the Air Force’s next fighter and bomber, and the nuclear upgrade? That would pay for the stimulus and then you’d have “former aerospace death machine engineer” as an Uber driver. As I pointed out in my piece about Rousseau [stderr] – a society’s success can be measured by how well it helps nurture and elevate those who experience social inequality; the aerospace engineers ought to compete quite effectively in the gig economy, right? What the capitalists are doing is the Harrison Bergeron maneuver: let’s make it so that there are only shit jobs and investment banker jobs. And there are no job postings for “investment banker” – you only get that job if you start with $100million in your trust fund.
The country is run by grifters and liars who think they are cultural elites but they’re more like Joe Exotic: sociopathic douchebags who’ll screw anything and anyone to get a little bit ahead in the world. What’s fascinating (to me) (and Epicurus) is that they never pause to enjoy the fruits of their grifting. You never hear, once, about “billionaire dies happy after making a monument to Bacchus out of 15,000 empty wine bottles from his mansion’s wine cellar.” It’s the “dies happy” part that’s missing. These grifters get happy from scoring another grift and maybe the worst of them genuinely hate poor people so much that they laugh when they put someone out of work, but otherwise their existence seems like a huge waste of time to me.
* $150mn estate in Tahoe: There is actually a “man cave” with an entrance shaped like a skull’s mouth, which is cool except it leads to, basically, a sports bar, instead of a bunker with an armory and controls for the robotic machine guns.
Oh, yeah: The Frank Lloyd Wright masterpiece ad completely omits to mention that it’s going to be underwater regularly in the nearish future. Funny how one might overlook something like that. Although it sounds like the lake is surrounded by rich people’s homes, so maybe the Army Corps of Engineers will come figure out how to drain it through a trailer-park or something.
Where is electricity coming from?
Are they drinking lake water?
Does their grocery store deliver?
Where is the sewage going?
What do they do with the garbage?
Does the help come in by boat or helicopter?
A couple of eons ago I commuted to college for a year with an architecture student. He was a witty guy, and he got to go on field trips to the new houses of the Rich and Famous of northwestern Arkansas. One of his better finds was the home/hotel of a newly- minted millionaire from the emerging turkey- processing industry. The poultry mogul had built quite a nice house, but of course it had to be furnished!
So he and the Missus went on a tour of Europe looking for furnishings. My friend theorized that whenever they saw something that looked classy, whether Italian Renaissance, English Tudor, Spanish Spiffy, or whatever, they bought one and had it sent to Springdale, Ark. And then they arranged artwork, furniture, furnishings, etc. apparently completely at random throughout the house to signal Maximum Classiness to visitors. My friend was not that impressed…..
Ha! They can call it “risingwater”
why do so few of these excessively expensive houses have machine shops? give me a $100 million budget and 50,000sq ft and there would be at least 3 lathes. wait 4, i want a jewelers lathe too.
having met a few people like that (family :\ ) i think there is something really messed up in their psyche. they’re well past the point where more money allows them to do anything new, it’s just more and more gratuitous consumption. it speaks to something broken in them.
maybe we should pass a law that once your net worth passes 2 million you have to spend a year in intensive therapy.
I must admit I have never seen the appeal of Frank Loyd Wright’s work and that place looks as uncomfortable as any of is other houses. Nice bathrooms.
Still it is nice way to say, “I’m rich i suppose.
For a modest little cottage, have a look at Viktor Yanukovych’s little pied à terre https://www.youtube.co/watch?v=qbZT6GbBovQ.
Of course he did have an entire country to loot.
dangerousbeans@#4:
why do so few of these excessively expensive houses have machine shops? give me a $100 million budget and 50,000sq ft and there would be at least 3 lathes. wait 4, i want a jewelers lathe too.
I wonder if they have a loading dock?
The guys delivering the Tormach CNC machine would have a heck of a time getting it down to where the health center used to be.
jrkrideau@#5:
For a modest little cottage, have a look at Viktor Yanukovych’s little pied à terre https://www.youtube.co/watch?v=qbZT6GbBovQ.
Of course he did have an entire country to loot>
Louis XIV wore it better!
Wait – are you saying there was corruption in Ukraine?
chigau@#1:
Where is electricity coming from?
Are they drinking lake water?
Does their grocery store deliver?
You can’t say “no man is an island” when they live on an island!
Doing repairs and service work as an electrician I got to see a lot of living situations, a wide diversity of economic status, and a whole lot of weird stuff.
While I seldom got to work for the uber-rich I went to a lot of very well off people’s homes. Seldom did I talk to anyone who seemed well adjusted and happy. Damn near to a man they were angry, often racist (even as their help was all non-white), and usually very worried about getting ripped off by poorer people in very low denomination transactions.
At the same time they seemed very casual about handing out large sums of money to ostensibly wealthier folks for crap. Often buying things of very limited value. Homeopathy remedies at $1000 a week, financial advice ‘insider newsletters’ (one page weekly of bromides and BS) at $1000 a year, and designer furnishings and fittings that weren’t any better than stuff you can get for a fraction of the price at Target. Most of the later were best classified as eye-sores tarted up with a designer label and a huge price tag.
I know a lot about that last one because I’ve had to install both Target and designer light fixtures. For the later I had to get good with spray paint, epoxy and files to make the mis-manufactured $10,000 Italian light fixtures work at all. ” It can’t be defective … It’s imported from Italy. I’ll hear no more of that.” Yes Ma’am … !?! … fuck. What do I have in the truck to cobble this POS together with? Six hours, lots of assorted miscellaneous hardware, two tubes of quick-set epoxy and a can of black Krylon later it looked exactly like the picture on the package. She loved it. There is truly no accounting for taste.
Overall I’ve been impressed at how the working poor and well off are similarly unhappy with the poor being less disappointed. People with real money always seemed sad because they succeeded and still it doesn’t feel right. Most are, IMHO, desperately in need of a few real friends.
A good example was a surgeon the company served. The man has talent. Came from some money but hit big time when he got entrepreneurial running surgical and financial groups. They built a multi-million dollar home. The place was designed, as so many places are, around a dream. The wife’s dream. The dream was their extended family having huge group feeds and parties with relative staying overnight.
So you get a five car garage, huge entrance, a dining room that seats twenty-five, huge pool enclosure with commercial-size brick BBQ/clam-bake pit, commercial kitchen suitable for serving fifty, four guest bedrooms (each with their own bathroom), 800sf nursery for at least four infants tucked into an attic space, whirlpool hydro-massage with separate sauna (the one thing I wish I had) in master bath/suite, a Jacuzzi (of course) off master suite but near pool, and a dedicated video game room for the kids. Everyone was going to show up. All the kids and grands, and great grands. Food and drink for everyone. A good time had by all.
As far as I can tell, in the years I helped maintain their systems, none of it happened. There was a small, not very well attended dinner party when the house was completed. Then … nothing. The wife, very demanding and picky during construction, seemed disappointed that her dream never materialized. A few years later they divorced. She went down south to live with her mother and he moved all his stuff into the smallest of the guest rooms. The vast majority of this huge mansion, a monument to thwarted dreams and a lack of taste, was never used.
I’ve seen the same story play out several times. The family works hard, steps on a lot of toes, buys the dream, but the happiness and contentedness simply fails to rain down. I’m not foolish enough to claim the poor have it better. The poor work harder and pay more for everything. Being poor is not a happy life. But, generally poverty doesn’t (with the possible narrow exceptions for drugs, sex, etcetera) include getting what you want and being profoundly disappointed with only yourself to blame.
That is one of the sad ironies of our time. Look closely at Trump and his family. Do they seem happy. Contented? The smiles all seem forced. The laughter, what little there is, seems strained. They, unlike the Obamas, who seem genuinely happy to be in each other’s company, always look like they are walking on eggshells trying not to wake the demons. They all work so very hard, slaughter so many conventions and norms, claw and cheat and backstab their way to the top, and they are miserable.
The system they have created, and advocate, and wish to lock into power makes everyone miserable. Reminds me of the sociological aspects of baboon culture. A self-perpetuating violent hierarchy that terrorizes the underling and keeps the alphas paranoid and sick with fear of weakness and loss. It well serves none.
All the would-be Gatsbys are sitting around in their houses waiting for the other Gatsbys to call.
@ 9 Marcus
Louis XIV wore it better!
But he had a reason. Nobles at court at Versailles were not leading insurrections in the provinces.
Wait – are you saying there was corruption in Ukraine?
Well, no worse than the USA. In some cases it’s a joint effort.
It’s so *cosy*.
Is it a requirement that real estate agents use that word to describe a property, no matter how poorly it applies?
Curious Digressions@#12:
Is it a requirement that real estate agents use that word to describe a property, no matter how poorly it applies?
I don’t think it’s a formal requirement. It’s probably just a lack of originality; none of them know what a “thesaurus” is.
lorn@#9:
As far as I can tell, in the years I helped maintain their systems, none of it happened. There was a small, not very well attended dinner party when the house was completed. Then … nothing. The wife, very demanding and picky during construction, seemed disappointed that her dream never materialized. A few years later they divorced. She went down south to live with her mother and he moved all his stuff into the smallest of the guest rooms. The vast majority of this huge mansion, a monument to thwarted dreams and a lack of taste, was never used.
I know a stock trader who lives out in LA, who has a huge house like that – same reason – and he spends his whole life between the sushi bar down the street, his office, and his bedroom. Meanwhile, the rest of the gigantic house is a temporary residence for a friend of mine and his family, who have been homeless for 2 years because Wells Fargo screwed up their mortgage and foreclosed on their house, then sold it. (While the lawsuits grind on) So sometimes it works out. But often you just wind up with a huge wasted space.
What’s going on is that people are happy aspiring to something, then when they get it they discover that the aspiration does not match the reality – and they’ve already built the infrastructure for it. I think that a bit more introspection would have allowed them to avoid the problem, but if you’ve got the money, why bother thinking?
Curious Digressions @ #12:
It’s so *cosy*.
Is it a requirement that real estate agents use that word to describe a property, no matter how poorly it applies?
In the UK, in estate-agent-speak, cosy simply means too small, the same way as character means impractical features and in need of modernisation means in need of demolition.
@Curious Digressions and cvoinescu:
It does make me think there’s opportunity here, for a creative real estate agent. “This is the ‘plotting nook’ where the architect designed a dark but intimate little corner for the owner and his friends to meet and plan to blow up parliament with gunpowder. Now, if you’ll step over this way, I’ll show you the torture-chamber. It looks like a pantry today but it would be very easy to take it back to its original layout …”
These houses all need enormous organs in rooms with dramatic lighting and acoustics tuned to maniacal laughter.
Andrew Molitor@#17:
These houses all need enormous organs in rooms with dramatic lighting and acoustics tuned to maniacal laughter.
The skull tunnel entrance was close, but imagine my disappointment when I saw that the ‘man cave’ had a pool table in it instead of a perfectly restored Monarch 10EE metal lathe.