The material question - A study in contrasts

[cjppjc]

Sorry I stole that title.

But the question of how much is enough is never asked.


http://finance.yahoo.com/news/billio...r-nyc-pad.html


Billionaire's Daughter Pays Record Sum for NYC Pad

Former Citigroup chairman Sandy Weill listed his 6,744-sq-ft apartment at 15 Central Park West for an astonishing $88 million in November, promising to donate the proceeds of the sale to charity.

Now comes news that Ekaterina Rybolovleva, the 22-year-old daughter of Russian billionaire Dmitriy Rybolovlev, is buying the condominium. Rybolovleva is currently studying at an undisclosed U.S. university and plans to stay in the apartment when visiting New York. According to a source familiar with the sale, she paid the full asking price of $88 million, setting a record for highest individual transaction in New York City history.




http://finance.yahoo.com/news/meet-c...161507712.html


Meet Charles Feeney, Cornell's $350 Million Donor

Nearly every profile makes note of how unimpressed Feeney is with what his wealth can buy him, noting that he flies coach, wears a $15 watch, and doesn't own a house or a car. When Miller asked him why he decided to give everything away, Feeney replied, "I simply decided I had enough money."

[cjppjc]

Re: The material question - A study in contrasts

http://realestate.msn.com/blogs/list...3-7bd59a102592


The rich are different.
What looks like a mansion to us is just too, too small, and rather than add a new wing, they often just tear down the whole thing and start over.

The latest celebrity to knock down a house is Elin Nordegren, the ex-wife of golfer Tiger Woods, who recently demolished her 17,000-square-foot oceanfront mansion near Palm Beach, Fla., so she can build a new home on the site. She paid $12.2 million for the eight-bedroom home in a gated community in February

[doom&gloom]

Re: The material question - A study in contrasts

http://realestate.msn.com/blogs/list...3-7bd59a102592


The rich are different.
What looks like a mansion to us is just too, too small, and rather than add a new wing, they often just tear down the whole thing and start over.

The latest celebrity to knock down a house is Elin Nordegren, the ex-wife of golfer Tiger Woods, who recently demolished her 17,000-square-foot oceanfront mansion near Palm Beach, Fla., so she can build a new home on the site. She paid $12.2 million for the eight-bedroom home in a gated community in February

one day she'll wish she had bougt farmland and orange groves instead.

[cjppjc]

Re: The material question - A study in contrasts

Maybe she will. But will she ever ask herself how much is enough?

I know this subject doesn't interest many here, because we are above the petty emotion of greed.

It would make a good catch phrase. Much like "Who is John Galt?" "How Much is Enough?"

[jk]

Re: The material question - A study in contrasts

Joe Heller
True story, Word of Honor:
Joseph Heller, an important and funny writer
now dead,
and I were at a party given by a billionaire
on Shelter Island.
I said, "Joe, how does it make you feel
to know that our host only yesterday
may have made more money
than your novel 'Catch-22'
has earned in its entire history?"
And Joe said, "I've got something he can never have."
And I said, "What on earth could that be, Joe?"
And Joe said, "The knowledge that I've got enough."
Not bad! Rest in peace!"
--Kurt Vonnegut

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/...-more-me-me-me

[doom&gloom]

Re: The material question - A study in contrasts

I quit working when I felt enough was enough. No more stress, just take it easy and enjoy what I do. I ended up asking the wife to go back to work for a couple years till I got the farming business in full swing, and she agreed (a bit reluctantly) so as to keep ash drain down. That should peter down in the next year as well.

Given the chance, why work all your life and die the day you retire when you can call it ealier and enjoy life.

[cjppjc]

Re: The material question - A study in contrasts

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/living-very-large.html


The latest project of Hyatt hotel heir Anthony Pritzker is a 49,300-square-foot building designed by an architecture firm in Paris. It involves a small army of specialized consultants and boasts amenities like a bowling alley, hairdressing area and gym.
The project, in the hills above Los Angeles, isn't a luxury hotel—it's a private home for Mr. Pritzker and his family.
The Anthony Pritzker home in Los Angeles. --Mark Holtzman for The Wall Street JournalFour years into the housing downturn, what little new-home construction remains is focused on downsized living. According to the Census Bureau, the average size of a newly completed single-family home peaked in 2007 at 2,521 square feet, capping nearly three decades of growth, falling to 2,392 square feet in 2010.

[cjppjc]

Re: The material question - A study in contrasts

http://realestate.yahoo.com/promo/yo...-on-homes.html

In a real estate shopping spree of epic proportions, the daughters of Formula 1 Racing boss Bernie Ecclestone have snapped up hundreds of millions of dollars worth of high-profile properties in the past 18 months. Tamara, 27, bought a 16,000-square-foot historic brick home across the road from Kensington Palace, where Prince William and Duchess Catherine will soon take up residence, for about $70 million early last year. Her 23-year-old sister Petra paid $85 million for a 57,000-square-foot Los Angeles mansion a few months later. Known as "the Manor,"

[jk]

Re: The material question - A study in contrasts

the big money is always protected. so the highest-end, most expensive properties will hold the most value.

[cjppjc]

Re: The material question - A study in contrasts

I fear the point I was trying to make is being missed. The story told about Joseph Heller is enjoyable. Now I don't want anyone telling people, how much is enough. I just think a dialog about how much is enough would be very useful. All change begins with the individual. Can I come to an understanding about money, and how much is enough?

Not that I have the problem in my own life with conspicuous consumption.

[GRG55]

Re: The material question - A study in contrasts

...Can I come to an understanding about money, and how much is enough?

...

Enough that you don't have to spend all your time trying to make enough money to pay the bills next month...but not so much that you spend all your time dealing with the complexity that too much money will create in your life :-)

[don]

Re: The material question - A study in contrasts

One advantage of our cross-country move was both a major purging of stuff - I gave an entire U-Haul storage unit of great books to a local used bookstore. I'm still feeling some pain on that one - and a stronger desire for simplicity and a "does it work" criteria for deciding if we need to buy more stuff in the new digs. Hope it lasts.

[jk]

Re: The material question - A study in contrasts

as Charles Dickens wrote, "Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pound ought and six, result misery."

[cjppjc]

Re: The material question - A study in contrasts

This thread could probably be updated every day without any trouble. This one stuck out. He is only number 4.



http://finance.yahoo.com/news/man-mi...015300955.html

The Man With a Million Acres

He's from Kentucky, makes his own bourbon, drives a Ford pickup—and flies in a private plane.

These are some of the few details that have emerged about Brad Kelley, 55, a deeply private billionaire who made his fortune in the discount cigarette business. Mr. Kelley, whose hobbies include breeding rare, exotic animals, very rarely gives interviews. He doesn't tweet or use email.

He is also one of the largest private landowners in the country, spending by his own account hundreds of millions of dollars on about a million acres—or about 1,600 square miles. The state of Rhode Island, by comparison, has a land area of 1,215 square miles. According to the Land Report 100, which tracks land ownership, Mr. Kelley is the fourth-largest private landowner by acres in the U.S., just behind Liberty Media Chairman John Malone, media mogul Ted Turner and the Emmerson family, headed by timber magnate Archie Aldis Emmerson

[subtly]

Re: The material question - A study in contrasts

Can I come to an understanding about money, and how much is enough?

Many years ago my grandfather commented on this. He figured if more money wouldn't change the way you eat, or dress, or the kind of car you drive...you have enough.