Posts tagged as The Rich
The Other Miami-Basel Connection: Tax Havens Being Busted
The last few decades have basically been about (slowly, and sometimes poorly) chipping away at entrenched secrecy and exploitation by rich people and corporations. To the point where we at least know that certain things happen. For instance, this just in! "The United States attorney’s office in Miami accused Renzo Gadola, the head of RG Investment Partners, an investment-advisory firm in Zurich, of conspiracy to defraud the United States by helping wealthy Americans evade taxes from 2000 through this month." It's notable that Gadola was with UBS for 13 years, not just because "a former senior UBS private banking executive had worked as Mr. Gadola’s partner to help wealthy Americans evade taxes through Basler Kantonalbank." In any event, don't you worry about Mr. Gadola: "The fact that Mr. Gadola was charged with a criminal information and not indicted suggests that he may be cooperating with American investigators in their scrutiny of Swiss banking."
Goldman Sachs Wants You Regular Train-Riding Kind of People
Goldman Sachs has a new ad campaign for their Asset Management division! I'm not really sure why this is something they need to market. It's probably less true in asset management but in Private Wealth Management, certainly, they inherit their clients, and it's not like it's a tough sell to sign up a few more millionaires at GS. The company makes them money! And even though their clients don't like the firm necessarily, it's not like they ever leave with their money. For where? Wachovia? Anyway the new campaign is pretty funny because, in this iteration, from their website, there's a woman in cowboy boots—taking a train! (A very clean train, in a very clean station.) A woman who apparently used to sleep in something the poor people call "a bunk bed"? So yes, this is how they pimp mutual funds, to appeal to the aspirational set of the semi-average rich little people who, it appears, can also hustle in their own way into the big money tent.
There Once was a House in Nantucket
One-third of the houses in Nantucket are $1-million-plus, and these days, when you have a local economy that is based on the until-recently rich, you know they'll take you down with them. Good news (?) then that allegedly (?) the upswing is back on: "Wall Street vacationers are spending money freely once again, especially since July 4th weekend, when the super rich seemed to have finally returned, wallets open." Fortune's example of that? "That week, ex-Goldman Sachs honcho Jon Winkelried finally signed a contract to sell his property for just below the new asking price of $29 million — an island record and a figure that has some island residents shaking their heads in wonder: What year is it, again? Of course, when Winkelried put the waterfront property up for $55 million in 2008, that was an asking price no one took seriously then, either." We call that "bargain-hunting" but considering he bought it for like $7 million in 1999, you can call it some kind of return to the glory days of bloat, sure! Still, Fortune's conclusion that "optimism is rising" is pretty hilarious.
Nightmare Mayor Bloomberg: The First Rule Is Don't Tax the Rich
I was settling into this steady warm feeling about Mike Bloomberg in recent months but that has pretty much evaporated with his latest insane bit of pro-business mouthing-off. Plans for a 6% tax hike on people earning half a million per year and more is going to destroy New York City, says New York City's billionaire mayor: "I think it's the best thing that ever happened to Connecticut. I can't imagine why every hedge fund wouldn't pick up tomorrow and move. The first common-sense rule of taxation is, don't tax people that can leave." Yes, just tax the poor ones who can't. Bloomberg then went on to describe "legislation that would decrease the tax deduction for those who make at least $10 million a year" as "CRAZY." Really, he did! And then: "the Legislature had insisted on raising taxes on the wealthy," he complained, saying, "All of this stuff is going in totally the wrong direction." Bloomberg has always sounded the red alarm that corporations and rich people will flee the city-and yes, the city runs because of rich people! And some did go to New Jersey and Connecticut! But it wasn't without Bloomberg giving away the farm in concessions on their way out anyway. Does anyone really think the nutheads in Albany are going to do a great job designing tax proposals? Not really! Does New York City have to be a business-friendly city? Yes! But has Bloomberg lifted a finger to stop the New York City job loss at rich corporations? No-he won't risk offending them.
Abu Dhabi, Where The ATMs Are Filled With Gold
Well, there are some places where the Gilded Age lives on! Like the sorta-locale for Sex And The City 2 Abu Dhabi, where one of the fancier hotels now has a gold-dispensing ATM. This machine — which I guess could be alternately referred to as an "AMM," but never an "AMM machine" — keeps track of the current price of the precious metal (currently $1,245 an ounce) and offers dispensation in either small bar or coin form. The coins are even customizable. I wonder if the designs are at all similar to the ones laid down by those penny-stamping machines we see at rest stops? After all, it's nice to have souvenirs of fancy vacations!
Rich People From Rich Family Buy House
What kind of world is this, when a Page Six item begins, "Some people still have money to buy real estate." Well of course they do! And now is a fantastic time to buy. Especially if you are James and Whitney Fairchild, who old folks among us will remember as having one of the most fantastic wedding announcements of all time. (His second, I believe.) Let's look back! READ MORE
The Super-Rich Are Out; The Uber-Rich Are In
The New York Times, which knows from the super-rich, is now declaring them over. Gone are the days of the super-rich! "For every investment banker whose pay has recovered to its prerecession levels, there are several who have lost their jobs – as well as many wealthy investors who have lost millions." So... yeah, no, not really. I think however they are missing the point in the data entirely! What is actually happening is the creation of a smaller, richer and far more exclusive uber-rich class. READ MORE
The Real 'NYC Prep'
This account of New York City's private school graduations this season is delicious! First of all, there is a young person named James Englander Underberg. Which, ha! Play quarters all night and say THAT five times. Also there is Sam Sullivan, the wonderful student speaker at St. Ann's. READ MORE
