Content tagged with “wealth”

“ In 2003, a band of daring robbers proved that, sometimes, real life can be just like one of those totally unrealistic vault heist movies. ”

“ A random, bizarre will for a half-billion estate was ‘discovered,’ and no matter how ridiculous it seems, the court is forcing lawyers to adjudicate the matter. ”

“ Josip Tito, the former ruler of Yugoslavia, had a opulent luxury train built for his personal use. ”

“ A profile of a premier homebuilder in Manhattan and some of the projects he works on. ”

“ In 1982, a billionaire set a goal to give all of his (growing) fortune to charity. It took him 38 years, but he completed the goal, closed his trust, and he and his wife now live in a small apartment. ”

“ A wonderful documentary explaining the business of contemporary art, and the intersection of artists, dealers, collectors, auction houses, and art fairs. It’s a deeply odd mix of emotion, ego, and big business. ”

“ A new trend in art is the sale of encrypted files which are guaranteed to be unique and only have a single unencrypted copy. ”

“ An interesting model for defining what ‘wealthy’ means, and how wealthy you might feel at any particular stage of your life. ”

“This presumably refers to a person who has wealth equivalent to a billion U.S. dollars (as opposed to a billion units of some other currency). I went looking for some validation of this, but I didn’t find any explicit definitions. What I did find were a lot of contextual quotes indicating this was…”

“ A man in Wales was a very early Bitcoin miner. He has 8,000 Bitcoin in a wallet for which the only key is on a hard drive he accidentally threw away. ”

“ Although anyone can work to become a professional tennis player, the road is long and even a Top 200 player can expect to make about the same as an accountant. ”

“ An examination of the motives and economics behind the wealthy and their super-yachts. ”

“ Just before the Great Depression, a man left millions of dollars to the family that could produce the most children in the 10 years after his death. ”

“ A guy hardly anyone knew about set a record for the largest financial loss in the shortest amount of time. And he did serious damage to a couple of banks along the way. ”

“ A bizarre recounting of an almost mythical set of Ferrari F40s ordered by the Sultan of Brunei. It’s odd for both how carefully the F40 chassis are tracked, and for the absurd wealth and waste of the royal family. ”

“ In 1991, the CEO of a British jewelry company made some jokes about the quality of his company’s product and effectively destroyed it and his own personal net worth. ”

“ A good explainer of how art gets to auction, how that market is structured, and how people spend eight figures on a painting. ”

“ A comprehensive tour of a full-size Boeing 767 turned into a private jet. ”

“ Addiction may be a universal problem, but rehab is very different when you’re absurdly wealthy. ”

“ The convoluted tale of a missing car, and the guy who searches for it for a living. ”

“ In 1971, Iran threw itself a 2,500th year birthday party in the middle of the desert. It was undoubtedly the most expensive party in history. ”

“ A family lives in the decaying ruins of a hunting lodge in India, claiming they are royalty, and demanding their land back. How much of the story is true? ”

“ A travel agency for ‘ultra high net worth’ people reveals some of the absurdities involved with planning vacations for people with a lot of money. ”

“ In 2016, a single hedge-fund manager moved from New Jersey to Florida. He made so much money, and paid so much in taxes, that this move threatened to throw the NJ budget out of whack. ”

“ When wealthy people buy art as an investment, they often never even see it. Special facilities exist to store the art, tax-free, under their ownership. ”

“ A mysterious Bitcoin wallet has been dormant since 2015 and contained almost $1 billion. On election night, whomever had access to it suddenly moved all the money out. ”

“ An absurd and sometime hilarious account of a Qatari prince who sort of attended USC…or didn’t, but somehow came away with a masters degree nonetheless. ”

“ A teenager was denied alcohol at one of NYC’s most prestigious establishments, so he embarked on a dumbfounding sidewalk campaign to claim antisemitism and Holocaust denial. And somehow a hip-hop star is involved. ”

“ The middle-aged granddaughter of Roy Disney is surprisingly realistic about all the money she inherited and how that has charted the course of her life. ”

“ An enlightening interview with the head of a firm that recruits home staff for billionaires. ”

“ When you just consider income taxes, wealthy people pay a higher percentage in taxes. But when you consider all the other taxes – payroll, property, and consumption – the curve starts to straighten out. ”

“ Numerous studies seem to prove that the wealthier someone is compared to the people around them, the more antisocial behaviors they display. ”

“ Birkin bags sell for figures on the low end, up to $500,000 on the top end. Why this is so is a perfect example of exclusivity and branding. ”

“ A look into the psychology and drive of wealthy people who want more of everything, all the time. ”

“ Prevailing winds and historical poor sanitation have caused the east side of cities to be generally less wealthy than the west sides. ”

“Last year, I had lunch with a friend. She is very much on the Left, politically. I mentioned that I thought Bill Gates was a great humanitarian. She responded in a way that unsettled me (I’m paraphrasing). Sure he gives a way a lot of money, but we really need to examine how the world let someone…”