A hedge fund manager in New york recently took his bonus check, and purchased a $65 million dollar estate in the Hamptons with it. Paid cash. Purchased an adjoining undeveloped property and merged both estates into a single huge expanse. Then he bought a castle in England and is in the process of having the castle dismantled to be shipped and reassembled on the property in the Hamptons. Cost is expected to reach $80 million when its done in about 3 years. All that from just a one month bonus check out of a hedge fund.

The Mind Boggles. What's this guy gonna do for an encore?

And how did it do the past 12 months?
Also, what was his combined income for the period.

Are you boggled by his income or his "extrvagence"?

-- Modified on 8/13/2007 9:11:08 PM

I do not know the answer to your questions, RWU.

A relative in New York was one of several real estate agents involved. She relayed the information to me as just another bullet point in one of her usual letters.

I'm not boggled by his income at all. I am quite familiar with the astonishing numbers coming out of the Hedge fund markets, and I don't have a problem with it.

It's the extravagance. It's the disparity. It's the sheer incomprehensibility of the notion that a country which can produce such immense wealth for an individual, is so bereft of any sense of responsibility for its citizens as a whole.

We can find loopholes to allow hedge fund managers making as much as a billion dollars a year to keep it all, but we can't find a way to provide proper support for our troops injured while in defense of their country.

That's where my mind boggles, RWU. The sheer immensity of the imbalance in our country's priorities.

Was his name Kerry, Kennedy, Pelosi, Edwards or any of the other "I hate the rich" Demos? You are right it does seem whacky. But "DO NOT use money to measure wealth." While there are many "I hate the rich" and others living extravagant life styles and envied by many, the truth is that the people in this country don't know what poverty is. It is relative to what others have but it is also releveant to the times. What most people had for material wealth 50+ years ago would be considered by young people now to be total impoverishment even though people, at that time, didn't consider it to be. Tell all your rich liberal heros to shed their burden of wealth. It can easily be done. I hate to see them hunched over carrying the load they so object to.

I've heard elsewhere of castles being transfered stone-by-stone to the Americas.  

As for the size of his estate, according to Fast Food Nation, one guy owns half the private land in Idaho.  That's the man who developed the machine that turns potatoes into instant french fries, and who supplies them to McDonald's.

Doc himself seems to live pretty high on the hog. I think as a gesture of goodwill he should donate all of his wealth to the poor. Of  course it is much easier to offer up other peoples monies to confiscation by the government. Kind of a "do as I say, not as I do".

I bet he still doesn’t own the mineral rights to that land.

Check out the largest private land owners in the U.S.

While I could certainly think up much more productive uses for 80 mil, it is as they say, HIS money.

As far as government redistribution of wealth even in a capitalistic society…
I read an article some time ago, but I can’t find it, although there are several take offs on it seen by google. It was about how Wal-Mart has done far more to uplift “the poor” than any or all of the government programs,

That will be burnt slowly to death by a child with a magnifying-glass...

Considering all the "good" this man could have done with that money and STILL lived an extravigant life, he chose to consume it on his own whimsical endulgence... I hope he rots in hell! (assuming there is such a place!)

ideology, it's what's left over after the ideologies fall apart; and that given free rein, capitalists will gang up to establish cartels to fuck everytbody else just as quickly as Chinese politicians will; and the reason capitalism works so well in the USA is that the populist assholes (particularly the 2 named Roosevelt) are so willing to fuck with it when it gets out of line; and the reason it doesn't work so well other places is precisely because the politicians get in bed with the asset managers, and that is NOT what we want here.  

Yeah, there's a fine line between confiscation and regulation, but those of us with >90 IQs manage anyway, and I'm sure that includes most of us.  And sometimes (eg the situations of public danger) confiscation is necessary.

Envy doesn't accomplish anything, but neither does the sort of cons that are routine with securities,  Enron, defense contracting, etc.   The idea that business makes a man any more honest than anything else is a delusion - no matter where you are, you gotta compete, and that usually means going to the lowest common denominator.  If dishonesty doesn't carry a penalty, that's what we get.

Especially if he's from New York.

The rotting in hell thing is quite a statement for one such as thee.  Where did the nonviolent resistance mindset go?

Not that it's going to matter to this fellow, but he does have the well-deserved contempt of many who learn of his wretched excess.

Wonder if his transplanted castle will pass muster with the local zoning ordinances?

Seriously Doc, you know the story - private industry is quick to reward a good job.  the Government?  rewards a bad job.  The VA hospital system does a terrible job for the returned and injured troops... but instead of cleaning up the mess, they are now gonna throw MORE money at it!  Fire the incompetents (oh, that is right - cannot do that as some are union) and make significant rewards to those that perform well - you know, like we do in the ejukasional system....   oh right, we don't do that there either.... hummm.... never mind.

* Fuck 'Em If They Can't Take A Joke

there is for wretched excess.  Is it Art?  or is it Technology?

I dunno, and don't care.  It hasn't cost as much in a century as Dumbfuck Bush cost us last week in Iraq, nor can it touch the Pope's expenditures for art, either.

I'm thinking that if we want to shit on or otherwise crucify somebody for obscene waste, this fellow would be a piker next to politicians and clerics.