But there are those “Let them eat cake” moments which cause one to wonder what appropriate controls are and if people can be so stupid as to not understand how their conspicuous consumption looks.
Take the little plaything pictured with this story. It was berthed right next to our ship in Cape Town. It’s the private yacht “Rising Sun,” among the five most expensive in the world. Its value is in the $200 million to $300 million range. It supposedly has a crew of 50 and can accommodate about 50 passengers in splendor. It’s a shiny, gleaming example of excess in every sense of the word. Even the big spools that hold the ship's lines were heavily chromed.
It’s owned by Larry Elligson, CEO of Oracle, and David Geffen, one of the heads of Dreamworks. Now I don’t know how much these gentlemen contribute to worthy causes; it could be a substantial amount. I certainly praise the efforts of other corporate bigwigs such as Bill Gates and Warren Buffett and all they are doing to fight disease in the undeveloped world.
But this yacht is berthed in Cape Town, at a cost of several thousand dollars a day, and will stay there through the World Cup in June and July so its owners and their friends will have a nice place to stay during the games. There are several beautiful luxury hotels within a stone’s throw of where that yacht is tied up, by the way.
What kind of message does it send to bring this yacht and have it on display for several months in a country such as South Africa with all the abject poverty, AIDS, crime, unemployment, lack of adequate housing and a government struggling to meet all these needs? It’s one thing to have this yacht in Monaco or Bermuda or even Fort Lauderdale, but it’s another thing to bring it to Cape Town.
I think the owners of “toys” such as this would be wise to remember what happened to Marie.
2 comments:
Larry and David have invited me to fly down for the Cup in June, Bob, and I am offended by your comments about "wretched excess." The quarters for me and the 49 other members of the crew are nowhere near as nice as those luxury hotels you mention...
I was at a tech conference several years ago at which Larry Ellison was the keynote speaker. After making the audience wait for about 25 minutes, he strode down the center aisle between two "men in black" bodyguards and up to the podium. It was probably the biggest display of arrogance I'd ever seen. And with his keynote address, he unequivocally self-confirmed as the biggest jerk alive.
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