Husband gets several magazines delivered to the house, and I usually pick and choose the articles that appeal to me in The Economist or Forbes, and leave the rest to him. I wrote about my understanding of economics a couple of years ago in Blogoir, and my basic grasp is not particularly impressive. Or pretty. Ask my very patient accountant, who just last week devoted his valuable time to explaining the Alternative Minimum Tax to me. He kept looking up at my face saying, “Are you with me?” and I kept nodding like a bobble-head. Neither of us was fooled.
So it was a surprise even to me that I read this week’s Forbes cover to cover. The March 30th issue was devoted to stories about billionaires who have lost billions in our current global economic crisis. Some aren’t even billionaires anymore, just multimillionaires. As someone richer than poor but way poorer than the rich being written about, it was strangely comforting.
Like everyone else, I’ve watched my IRA of 25 years tank. I’ve seen people on our block lose their homes to foreclosure. It brings me no joy that I am better off than them. If I were to lose an arm, I would take no comfort in seeing someone who lost both arms. But a billionaire stuck with a $50 million jet because there’s no one to buy it; that might just make me smile.
What we’re living through right now, what do we call it? They called World War I “The Great War” before they knew to number them. Since we’ve already had The Great Depression, does that make this ‘The Great Depression, Open New Tab’? As my father once said when I asked him during Watergate if this was how Nixon would be remembered, “You won’t know until your children bring home their history books.”
What I do know is I’ll be thinking differently of L’Oreal, even as I color my hair with their new 10-minute Excellence To Go. Elsewhere in Forbes was a story about Lilliane Bettencourt, the 86-year-old heiress of the L’Oreal fortune, Europe’s richest woman with $13.4 billion. For years, she has been shamelessly fleeced by a much younger gay male companion. Her daughter, who is about my age, has sought involvement from the French authorities, saying the man is preying on her vulnerable, stinking rich mother, and if this goes on unabated, there will be much less stink for her to inherit when the final whistle blows. So far, the unsurprising response from the courts has been, “These affairs of the heart, they are so difficult to prove.” I’ll bet that sounded gorgeous in French.
It all made for a very satisfying read, and the travails of the uber rich left me feeling grateful. Sometimes more to have just means more to lose, as illustrated in one of my all-time favorite shows. Midway through season 4 of The Wire, Omar Little busts into Marlo Stanfield’s poker game and proceeds to rob all the cash on the table. Marlo protests with, “That’s my money.” Omar gives his philosophical half sneer/half grin and says, “Money ain’t got no owners, only spenders.” Indeed.
Daughter’s Fotos sing These Are The People In My Neighborhood
Work To Do art show
sassy
Joe Ades, the memorable Union Square vegetable peeler salesman, died in February.
This is his replacement
RIP Joe Ades, photo courtesy http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/03/nyregion/03ades.html