All the rich people are in a panic. They’re not as rich as they thought they were. Many of them will now stiff housekeepers, bellmen, waiters, drivers, and all manner of service people in the name of austerity. That’s the way. Some look at it like a party, where everybody gets to dress down and use the kitchen, fire up the Viking, watch some movies. Great Depression nostalgia, but with good wine. Sometimes, you just have to spend a buck. After all, it’s Christmas.
Many rich people don’t know a thing about money, except how to spend it. One guy I know said that it’s a good thing that rich people have money, because they know what to do with it. True enough, but many of those people haven’t a clue how to get rich, only how to be rich. And they love each others company, unless they invested with Bernie Madoff, which is like being in a club that practices cannibalism, only you don’t find out until its too late.
Bernie’s sales force was legion and none of them were on the payroll. They were just getting dividends, proud to say: The fund is closed. You can’t get in. But I know someone who knows someone. And boy, do they have money. That money was taken care of by Bernard Madoff, the rabbi of have some, get more. There were so many people clamoring to give their money to Bernie that the world was too small. There was more greed than planet. But the only people who got health insurance were his kids, who seemed to accept greed as the way of the world, as a virtue that trumped the other Cardinal Sins. The rest ate each other.
It all fell apart in China, where they'll eat anything but money. Money they burn, but only the fake stuff. The Chinese don’t understand the ephemera of money, the burden of money, the idea that money is something to turn over to someone else because you can’t do a thing but spend it. The Chinese like to see the money – on the table and into their pocket. Whenever I’m doing business with those guys I bring cash, which is going to happen more often since The Fed just lowered interest rates to zero, which doesn’t hurt the Fed too much, since the Chinese are the ones holding all the cash. And you can forget tips in China.
