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The bad behavior of the richest: what I learned from wealth managers
The habits of the wealthiest mirror the supposed ‘pathologies’ of the poor. But while those in poverty are called lazy, the rich are dubbed bon vivants.
The bad behavior of the richest: what I learned from wealth managers
The habits of the wealthiest mirror the supposed ‘pathologies’ of the poor. But while those in poverty are called lazy, the rich are dubbed bon vivants.
We don’t hear much about laziness, drug addiction or promiscuity among the wealthiest members of society because most billionaires go to great lengths to seek privacy.
If nearly a decade interviewing the wealth managers for the 1% taught me anything, it is that the ultra-rich and the ultra-poor have a lot more in common than stereotypes might lead you to believe.
In conversation, wealth managers kept coming back to the flamboyant vices of their clients. It was quite unexpected, in the course of discussing tax avoidance, to hear professional service providers say things like:
“I’ve told my colleagues: ‘If I ever become like some of our clients, shoot me.’ Because they are really immoral people – too much time on their hands, and all the money means they have no limits. I was actually told by one client not to bring my wife on a trip to Monaco unless I wanted to see her get hit on by 10 guys. The local sport, he said, was picking up other men’s wives.”
The clients of this Geneva-based wealth manager also “believe that they are descended from the pharaohs, and that they were destined to inherit the earth”.
If a poor person voiced such beliefs, he or she might well be institutionalized; for those who work with the wealthy, however, such “eccentricities” are all in a day’s work. Indeed, an underappreciated irony of accelerating economic inequality has been the way it has exposed behaviors among the ultra-rich that mirror the supposed “pathologies” of the ultra-poor. …
American Coal’s Asian Savior Is a Fantasy
From Wyoming to China is too far, shipping is too expensive, and the product is too low-quality.
It’s a long way to Tipperary. And Qinhuangdao.
Fear not, coal miners of America! The U.S. military is coming to your aid.
The Trump administration is looking at using naval facilities or other federal properties to open up exports of thermal coal from the Great Plains of Wyoming and Montana to the energy-hungry populations of East Asia, Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke told the Associated Press in an interview this week.
In theory, that would solve a long-standing gripe of the U.S. coal industry: That state governments in Washington, Oregon and California are blocking their route to the ocean by refusing to approve coal terminals.
It’s certainly true that America has an extraordinarily rich endowment of the black stuff, which is at risk of becoming stranded as domestic generators, its main customers, switch to gas and renewables. The North Antelope-Rochelle and Black Thunder pits run by Peabody Energy Corp. and Arch Coal Inc. are among the world’s biggest mines of any sort, with the former turning out close to 100 million metric tons a year.
The trouble is, it’s a lot more than coastal liberals that are stopping Asian consumers from buying American coal. …
Adults ingest 2,000 pieces of plastic in table salt on average each year
IN THE MIX
Pass the salt.
There’s microplastic in that table salt.
A study published Tuesday (Oct. 16) in the journal Environmental Science and Technology found microplastics in more than 90% of the packaged food-grade salt—also known as table salt—for sale in stores. The team, from South Korea’s Incheon National University and Greenpeace East Asia, sampled 39 brands of salt harvested in 21 countries. Only three of the samples had no detectable microplastics.
Microplastics are virtually everywhere. Sea salt and lake salt are made by evaporating water and harvesting the salt that remains. Plastic waste flows from rivers into those bodies of water, so it’s no surprise that the salt contains traces of it too. Scientists have been finding microplastics in salt for years, including in salt from China, Spain, and eight countries in Asia, Europe, and Africa.
But the latest study goes a step further, finding that looking at where the salt was produced is a good indicator of how much plastic pollution is coming from that particular region. …
5 Movie Stunts That Went Horrifyingly Wrong
In the age of CGI, it’s easy to forget how many movie stunts are still real … and really dangerous to pull off. Things can go horribly wrong even when every single possible precaution is taken. And as you’re about to discover, some movies skip the whole precaution part and simply hope that the box office results are more than enough to cover any lawsuits. Look at how …
5. Kate Winslet Almost Drowned Making Titanic
We’ve previously talked about how James Cameron almost drowned the stars of The Abyss, and how he himself was almost claimed by Poseidon in the process. But a similar scenario arose when he was filming Titanic, because let’s be honest, making that movie was explicitly tempting fate.
The sequence of the ship sinking alone broke the bones and ruptured the organs of several actors, and Kate Winslet says she almost drowned. During one scene you don’t remember because it’s not one of the two famous ones, Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio are belowdecks and must outrun a big wave.
They encounter a gate and manage to get it open, but during one take, Winslet’s gigantic old-timey coat got caught on the gate and she was dragged beneath the water. She managed to wriggle out of the coat, but not before she reached the point where she felt like her lungs were going to burst.
Cameron downplayed the incident as an actress being dramatic, pointing out that Winslet got right back to work and commenting, “We simply let Kate think she was nearly drowning.” You know, for dramatic purposes. But Winslet said that she didn’t want to look like a wimp, and that the shoot was so excruciating that on some days she’d wake up thinking “Please, God, let me die.”
Winslet also had a fun time filming underwater scenes, as she was weighed down 12 feet below the surface of a water tank and given an air supply, but sometimes ended up sucking in water instead. And because she was wearing a dress instead of a wetsuit, she came down with pneumonia. By that point, it’s possible that she was actually praying for Cameron’s death, but that would be rude to admit in an interview. …
Magical mystery tour: a road trip through Mexico
Kicking off at a raucous Day of the Dead party, this odyssey takes in indigenous culture rarely seen by outsiders, with plenty of music and laughs along the way.
Down Veracruz way … a band plays a son jarocho dance in a square.
I’m lying on the grass in the churchyard in Huaquechula, a small town in the state of Puebla, central Mexico. I open my eyes and look up. A man dressed in eagle feathers is standing on top of a 30-metre telegraph pole banging a small drum, and four other men are climbing up towards him. When the four reach the top, they attach ropes to their ankles and lean far back, arms out, until they are upside down. Then the eagle-man starts to dance and sing.
Huaquechula’s celebrations for the Day of the Dead are a thing of legend (it falls on 2 November, but the festivities actually last a week). Every year, as well as staging aerial displays in the churchyard, residents build elaborate altars to those who have died in the preceding 12 months. In some houses the altar fills the entire main room. Queues of visitors file past before heading into the yard to consume vast quantities of food and drink. In one house I find an old man sitting like some model for a Diego Rivera mural beside his deceased wife’s altar. “Her soul came during the night and drank a little cerveza michelada,” he says happily, pointing to a half-empty glass of salted beer.
In the churchyard the flying men start spinning around the pole. As they do so, the ropes on their ankles unwind from the top and they gently fly down to earth. In some places this strange trapeze act has become something of a tourist spectacle, but not here: this is still part of an ancient communal catharsis. As they touch down, the big crowd gives a heartfelt sigh. The living men have flown like eagles, like the souls of the dead ancestors, and are now safely back down. Life can continue.
Huaquechula flying men.
But I’m not sure I can – continue, that is. I’m on a road trip across Mexico, heading east from Mexico City, then down the coast to finish at Los Tuxtlas biosphere reserve. Fermin, my guide and driver, is determined to show me places like this – real Mexico. In most places we are staying with indigenous people in their homes, seeing a side of Mexico rarely glimpsed by outsiders. The problem is, I feel very at home in Huaquechula, so much so that I never want to leave.
I tell Fermin I am going to settle here, wear a white linen suit and panama hat, and divide my time between learning to fly and drinking salty beer. …
A Chinese company plans to build an artificial moon, eight times brighter than the real one
FAKE (MOON) NEWS
This artificial moon balloon was part of the Mid-Autumn festival in Chengdu; in 2020, the city might be getting an actual artificial balloon.
There’s a certain joy in venturing outside at night and navigating by the glow of the moon. Sadly the moon is never quite bright enough to read a street sign, or to illuminate a sidewalk hidden under a tree’s shadow—but a Chinese space company aims to fix that.
Chengdu Aerospace Science and Technology Microelectronics System Research Institute Company (CASC) plans to build an artificial moon that would be eight times brighter than the real moon, reports Chinese newspaper The People’s Daily. The fake moon would actually a satellite, built to light areas between 6 and 50 miles wide, and would replace streetlights in the city of Chengdu.
The satellite is expected to launch in 2020, and Wu Chunfeng, CASC chairman, says testing has already begun.
Meanwhile, other groups are trying to make the world dark again. A 2016 study showed that more than 80% of the world, and 99% of people in the US and Europe, live in “light-polluted” areas, where the sky’s natural glow has been altered by artificial light from buildings and street lamps. Entire cities, like Flagstaff, Arizona and Ketchum, Idaho, are actively working to reduce light emissions at night. Both are certified “dark sky communities” by a group called the International Dark Sky Association, which offers dark sky designations to towns, parks, reserves, sanctuaries, and other places actively working towards a “more natural night sky.” …
Video Goodnesses
and not-so-goodnesses
and not-so-goodnesses
Hillary Clinton offers a very bad take on the Monica Lewinsky scandal, a prankster puts googly eyes on a statue, and the government looks to charge people for protesting.
THANKS to Comedy Central and The Daily Show with Trevor Noah for making this program available on YouTube.
Donald Trump theorized that Jamal Khashoggi might be dead as if no one had considered that before.
White supremacists might lack empathy, compassion and open-mindedness, but they’re getting enough calcium.
THANKS to CBS and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert for making this program available on YouTube.
It’s brother against brother here in the culture war, but what do voters care about more: shouting and pussy hats or health care?
As midterms approach, the parties are starting to roll out their platforms. Democrats are looking towards Medicare for All and Republicans are looking towards Voting for None.
We’ve been promised blue, pink, and red waves, but what about a clear one? As in, nobody is going to vote in the midterms? Allana Harkin and Mike Rubens went to real America (a Cowboys tailgate) to investigate.
THANKS to TBS and Full Frontal with Samantha Bee for making this program available on YouTube.
Donald J. Trump reads a book about his 2016 election win and other highlights of his presidency.
THANKS to NBC and Late Night with Seth Meyers for making this program available on YouTube.
CAUTION: Some language may not be appropriate for work or children.
Here’s me commentary on a man going head to head with a fierce plastic chair.
スキンシップタイム。小さい頃からあちこち触っているので、爪切りとかも割と大人しいのかもしれません。Physical affection time.Thanks to this time, nail clippers may become comfortable.
FINALLY . . .
L.A.’s Most Derided Piece of Public Art Is About to Light Up Again
Reviving the Triforium.
The Triforium was lit up for a special event back in 2006.
IN THE WINTER OF 1975, the Triforium had its debut performance in downtown Los Angeles. The artist Joseph Young, a muralist and sculptor, had designed the six-story tower as a “polyphonoptic” instrument, covered in 1,494 colored glass prisms that would light up in response to sound.
But the Triforium never quite worked as he or the city, which commissioned the work, intended. Its primitive, custom-designed computer couldn’t execute Young’s intentions; the sound came out wrong, and the lights rarely synced as they should have. Expensive and over-budget, from its debut, “it was a political pariah,” says Tom Carroll, who hosts a YouTube show called Tom Explores Los Angeles. Fixing the tower’s technical issues, keeping the lights in working condition—all that would have taken more money. Instead, the Triforium, mocked, derided, unappreciated, was left to slowly decline.
But there have always been those who loved the Triforium and believed in Young’s vision. For many years, Carroll, along with Claire Evans and Jona Bechtolt, musicians who built and run 5 Every Day, an app for fascinating things to do in L.A., had been dreaming of hosting performances at the space, a gesture to what might have been. In 2015, they threw a 40th birthday party for the Triforium, complete with a professionally made cake featuring the sculpture’s image. At this event, they discovered they had tapped into a current of passion for this underdog piece of art.
“People really wanted to see it turned on,” says Evans. …
Ed. More tomorrow? Probably. Possibly. Maybe. Not?