This Is My Idea Of Rich

[Madeline]

Arts - Connecticut - Man of Mysterious Bookshop Solves His Own Case - NYTimes.com

 

[Douger]

Are books edible ?

 

[Madeline]

Douger, "rich" implies an abundance beyond one's basic needs.

 

[Baruch Menachem]

I would counts books as one's basic needs.

 

[Zander]

He is doing what he loves, that is true wealth.

 

[editec]

Arts - Connecticut - Man of Mysterious Bookshop Solves His Own Case - NYTimes.com

This AM I took my dog down to the docks in Belfast.

Docked there were three boats, all OBVIOUSLY owned by the same people.

One was a wooden sailboat about 35' (you KNOW what it takes to keep a wooden boat in the water?).

The other was a motorized cruser built of the exact same wood (cherry? don't know, but BEAUTIFUL) ALSO about 35'.

Finally they had 8' dingey (exact same beaufiful wood).

Do you folks have any idea what it costs to have three such boats in the water all crusing the coast of Maine at the same time?

Rich?

Shit, folks, there a couple million dollars worth of TOYS there, and that doesn't include the enormous cost of maintaining and moving those toys, either.

Seriously, those three boats probably cost more than this boards combined annual incomes.

Few of us could even afford the frekaing dingey which I have NO DOUBT must have cost $ 10k.

It was OBVIOUSLY a one of a kind boat build specially to accomodate the other two.

But wait there's more...there was also a 16 foot motorized launch (could seat at least ten) built of the EXACT same exotic wood.

Conspicuous consumption much?

Now once about ten years ago, Johnny Carson docked in Belfast.

He's got some dough, right?

His boat looked like a piece of crap compared to these two boats and their floatilla of smaller launches.

Who owns these boats?

Beats me, but they've GOT to be billionaires.

No mere millionaire could afford such extravagance.

 

[Madeline]

Not my idea of "rich", editec. Anymore than gold faucets in every bathroom would be. You called it right -- "conspicuous consumption".

 

[editec]

Mad the owners of this floatilla of (truly mouth droppingly beautiful) boats have got to have more money than Croesus.


I'll bet the maintanance alone n those boats is well over a million a year.

And that is if one NEVER put them in the water.

They're WOODEN boats, Mad.

A matched quartet of matched WOODEN BOATS that are absolutely impeccably maintained?!?

Truly, one of the MOTU (masters of the universe) in in Belfast today.

 

[Immanuel]

I want to know, has he read them all?

Scanned the article, but missed it if it says he has.

Immie

 

[Madeline]

Mad the owners of this floatilla of (truly mouth droppingly beautiful) boats have got to have more money than Croesus.


I'll bet the maintanance alone n those boats is well over a million a year.

And that is if one NEVER put them in the water.

They're WOODEN boats, Mad.

A matched quartet of matched WOODEN BOATS that are absolutely impeccably maintained?!?

Truly, one of the MOTU (masters of the universe) in in Belfast today.

I guess, editec. And mebbe whoever owns them (BTW, ain't boats got some sorta registratiion so's you can tell?) feels just as much joy from them as the guy in the article has gotten from books. But I kinda sorta doubt that.

 

[Madeline]

I want to know, has he read them all?

Scanned the article, but missed it if it says he has.

Immie

I dunno, Immie. He owned a famous bookstore in NYC for mysteries and has a segment of a publishing house he runs dedicated to the genre. But has he read everything else he has collected? I dunno. Be fun trying, though, I am sure.

 

[MikeK]

What Editec has described are the trappings of royalty.

Conspicuous wealth is no problem in a wealthy nation provided there is no conspicuous or imminently conspicuous poverty to serve as a provocative backdrop. But the wealth distribution situation in the U.S. is very close to the stage where thoughts of barricades and guillotines will be increasingly common.

 

[diamond]

Books are not edible , but are felt.

 

[editec]

What Editec has described are the trappings of royalty.

Conspicuous wealth is no problem in a wealthy nation provided there is no conspicuous or imminently conspicuous poverty to serve as a provocative backdrop. But the wealth distribution situation in the U.S. is very close to the stage where thoughts of barricades and guillotines will be increasingly common.

Few Kings on earth have ever had the sort of wealth that our MASTERS currently enjoy.

The invitation was to describe our idea of great wealth.

I did so by describing an example of it that I happened to see yesterday.

Those boats would easily put ten people though four years at Harvard.

They are TOYS.

But you know, you might think me odd, but I don't begrudge the stupendously wealthy their toys.

In fact, I encourage those with great wealth to buy such toys.

I KNOW that their creation and their maintanance demands an army of working stiffs to build them and keep them going.

So, if ya got it , kids, SPEND it.

Either invest it into some productive enterprise that puts people to work, or spend it on toys because they ALSO put people to work.

Just stop GAMBLING it on debt instruments of dubious SOCIAL value, okay?

Thanks in advance for being rich and understanding that with great wealth comes GREAT SOCIAL REPSONSIBILITY.