When the Rich could do more for the poor in the world

[TrevorW]

Millions of people starving in Somalia

and yet when is having too much money enough, makes you sick to the stomach when you think about

$5 billion yacht might actually be the bargain of the century


http://dvice.com/assets_c/2011/07/hi...auto-67147.jpg


If you thought the ultra rich were just wasting their money when they bought fancy bling, consider the case of this outrageous yacht built for a Malaysian businessman for a stunning $4.8 billion. Yes, that's billion with a "b". It turns out that he might actually have gotten himself an incredible bargain.
Created by the all time king of blinged-up tech Stuart Hughes, the Baia 100 History Supreme looks like a really nice luxury yacht. So why the nutty price that would probably also cover the purchase of a small landlocked European country?
The $5 billion dollar riddle starts to make sense when you read the spec sheet, and discover that History Supreme includes 100 metric tons of gold and platinum in its construction.
One big remaining problem is that if the owner ever decides to cash in part of his investment, he'll have to start melting down bar stools or something. Then there's that extra 100 tons weighing the ship down. One rogue wave and all your bling could soon be deep under the ocean.

[Octane (Humayun)]

Makes you sick in the gut, doesn't it.

H

[TrevorW]

H my thoughts exactly and I changed the thread to express that

[PCH (Paul)]

I'd like to know how you can make those types of calls actually. For example, how do you know he doesn't also give another $5bn to charity, - which would make him an ok guy in my book.

The thing is, we all seem to consider our own wealth level as the standard to judge others by. For example, what we have is ok and hard earned and not going overboard. But anyone who can afford 'outrageous bling' like this is labelled as 'making people sick to the stomach'.

Truth be told, for most of us, just living here in this lucky little corner of the world puts you in the top 5 to 10% (approx - just estimating) of the world's population wealth-wise. So how do you feel now, knowing that you make all the poor dudes in Africa and elsewhere sick to the stomach?

[TrevorW]

Paul I do my bit for Africa with my single income but I'd be damn surprised if the malaysian businessman would give the equivalent to charity considering that its 40 wealthiest are worth $36 billion and the country's two richest people, Robert Kuok and Ananda Krishnan, both again No. 1 and No. 2, are worth a combined $16 billion and account for 44% of the top 40's wealth. Personally I don't care how much he gives to charity this is a bloody waste of money IMO

[multiweb (Marc)]

If he can afford it why not? As for somalia it is ridden with warlords who collect UNICEF and Red Cross money to terrorise the population so giving money to Africa only feeds the beast.

[AstralTraveller (David)]

The fact that we need charity is the problem and most of the problem comes from a system that allows wealth to be so monopolised. The African I've known are not made sick in the stomach by the lifestyle of the average Aussie, they just want to share it. I think there is a fairly common sense of what is reasonable and that someone can plunder such resources on his narcissistic disorder is not reasonable.

[TrevorW]

I'm not saying if he's got money not to spend it on toys but excess is excess

look at these facts about Somlia

http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/...tatistics.html

average GDP 2001 was $512 per capita

$5 billion

would at least supply every person in Somlia with above average income for a year

maybe 69000 infant deaths would not occur annually if that happened

or do we do nothing

[leon]

Gees it doesn't look that big dose it, I thought it would be at least as long as a small cruise ship.

Hope it don't sink.

Leon

[multiweb (Marc)]

Originally Posted by TrevorW

average GDP 2001 was $512 per capita

$5 billion

would at least supply every person in Somlia with above average income for a year

maybe 69000 infant deaths would not occur annually if that happened

or do we do nothing

It is sad but we must do nothing. All money we inject in there in any form, any aid, food, medication gets in the wrong hands and makes the problem worse. I've seen it first hand.
Save more kids and they'll hand up in militias trained to kill other innocent people. That is the reality in those countries.

[TrevorW]

I cringe even shed a tear at the thought that we must let innocents die for the sake of the greedy, even with all their power the US and UN have acheived little to resolve the issues in this country in the last 20 years

[ballaratdragons (Ken)]

Originally Posted by TrevorW

I cringe even shed a tear at the thought that we must let innocents die for the sake of the greedy, even with all their power the US and UN have acheived little to resolve the issues in this country in the last 20 years

Not picking on you Trevor, but your attitude and comments in this thread are completely contradictory to your signature: (DILLIGAF).

Just an amusing observation

Obviously you DGAF!

[pgc hunter]

Makes me want to hurl that's for damn sure Absolutely disgusting, but not at all surprising What the hell is this self-rightious clown going to achieve with something that could pay for a lifetime for food and drink for a small city?

[Waxing_Gibbous (Peter)]

"Conspicuous Consumption" doesn't even begin to cover it.
Its just plain...vulgar.
I wouldn't spend that much on a boat even if I had it.
But.
It's his money to do with what he wants.
Pretty much as its our money to spend on pointlessly expensive telescopes and accessories.
What some of us spend on gear would feed a Somalian village for a year and hire mercenaries to protect it.
But as Paul and Marc have pointed out, giving money to aid agencies is not necessarily the best alternative.
It inevitably winds up in the wrong hands and merely prolongs the situation.

For the amont of aid (in dollars) it gets, you could finance a revolution in Somalia, kill all the bad guys and start over.

But that's not really part of the UN Charter-especially as China has strong interests in the area and the US is busy not interfering in the internal affairs of Lybia.

Any one who believes that war or violence never solved anything is fooling themselves. Commited military action without regard to public opinion or international pressure solves a great deal very quickly.
But your standards must be universal and you cannot waver if a moral imperitive is motivating your actions.
Alas. It rarely does.

The situation in Africa, pretty much all over, is appalling. It is mired in centuries old tribal conflicts, irredentism, sexism, corruption and racism (black Africans hate other black Africans far more than their former colonial masters and Arabic Africans hate them all).

As a former "Local Liason" for an oil company in Nigeria, Tanzania and Libya I've had to "manage dispersments" for aid that should have gone to building roads, schools, hospitals etc, and most of it has wound up in the bank accounts of the leaders and their families.
When it was spent on materiale for purpose, it would be stolen by some other tribe for their exclusive use.
Made me puke.

My heart goes out to those 'ordinary' Africans caught in the middle.
Its desperately hard to see the suffering of the poor and weak in these countries, but one Malay Bogan spending 5 Whoppers on a yacht won't change it.

[AstralTraveller (David)]

Originally Posted by Waxing_Gibbous

My heart goes out to those 'ordinary' Africans caught in the middle.
Its desperately hard to see the suffering of the poor and weak in these countries, but one Malay Bogan spending 5 Whoppers on a yacht won't change it.

But it isn't just the one 'Malay Bogan', there is a whole class of people who accumulate that sort of beyond-usable wealth; wealth which comes from a huge and damaging redistribution of wealth away from the poor. They are a drain on society. [I'll leave solving Africa's problem to another night - I'm off to the land of nod.]

[marki]

Oh well, perhaps some Somali pirates will hijack his boat and run off with all the gold. Sadly like most other donations the money would never reach those who need it. Tribal war is brutal and it seems eternal.


Mark

[renormalised (Carl)]

Despite the vulgarity and such of these enormously wealthy people, decrying their vulgarity isn't going to help anyone, least of all people in those countries that are poor. Despite the many billions thrown at the problem over the years, the situation in these countries hasn't improved. In some cases it's gotten worse.

The problems plaguing these countries are more complex than just simple "redistribution of wealth and resources". You have to get at the core of the problem...which is social and political as well as economic. In many cases the money itself is a part of the problem. But the very core of these countries plight is solely social and political. You don't address these problems in the proper manner (and I don't mean like they have been up till now), then all the money in the world and all the charity ever given will mean jack. It will most likely just make the problem worse.

Might make you feel all warm an fuzzy inside thinking you're doing a good thing, but if you really want to do a good thing, then you need to take action yourselves. In order to do that, you're going to have to take that action in the West first up. Our own socioeconomic and political order is going to have to change before we can really do these poor countries the good they must get in order to survive. Get our own house in order before we go changing others people's houses. Help ourselves in order to help others.

[Waxing_Gibbous (Peter)]

Originally Posted by AstralTraveller

But it isn't just the one 'Malay Bogan', there is a whole class of people who accumulate that sort of beyond-usable wealth; wealth which comes from a huge and damaging redistribution of wealth away from the poor. They are a drain on society. [I'll leave solving Africa's problem to another night - I'm off to the land of nod.]

It's something of a false analogy these days that being wealthy "takes money away" from the poor.
Reaganomics essentially initiated an unlimited supply of M0 (the stuff in your pocket) through financial de-regulation and shifting inflation control from fiscal (money supply) to monetary control (interest rates).
it was deemed essential that enough liquidity be instantly available to meet the US's obligations on global markets.
The idea caught-on pretty quick!
To cut a long story short, even to day, post GFC, there's "loads 'a money", out there but it demands a market to trade in.

Countries like Somalia, have really, nothing to sell and no-one to buy.
Simply giving massive amounts of cash via re-distribution, is at best a temporary solution with no goal.
At worst its a recipe for local hyper-inflation and an even bigger income-disparity. In a country with no 'rule of law', the effects would be catastrophic.

I've seen first hand countries with a policy of (forced) re-distribution of wealth and countries with the opposite. Hard to say which is worse.
Personally, I view income-tax as a fine on talent. I'm good with consumption taxes (as long as they are well-used), but taxing me 40% for being hard-working and clever is beyond the pale!
Even more galling is the fact that I could actually put the cash to uses that would benefit my local economy.
Instead, I'm financing Penny Wong's petrol-guzzling limousine!
I've never seen a country were a government that espoused high taxes for the 'rich' wasn't the prime beneficiary of those receipts.

I'd like to have a tad more in the bank, but what the hell I'd do with Gate's or Soros's money is beyond me.
In one sense you are quite correct. That sort of mass accumulation of wealth is essentially pointless unless you are going to spread it around.
I mean, OK, a Billion in hand will pretty much buy you any politician and shield you from most of life's nasties.
But really.
Who NEEDS 50-odd-billion?

[Gem (Grant)]

Spent 5 years in rural Zambia before coming back to Oz last year... what makes me sick now is the entire aisle for pet food we have in every Coles or Woolies or the surgery undertaken on Bondi Vet each week. I like animals, but I have seen too many people personally who have died from their poverty. Just the value of one tin of pet food per week... it could be the difference between affording medicine or not... between eating or not... between having food or not...
I've eaten mice, moles, termites, grasshoppers, and everything else that the locals ate because they had to ... then I look at the packaging and advertising that we put into pet food in this country.

We can point fingers at the ultra rich, but from the perspective of someone in rural Zambia everyone of us on this forum would be classed as ultra rich. Anyone who can spend more money on their pet than a villager can afford on their entire family is ultra rich.

Sorry if I put a dampener on it!

[gregbradley]

I was on a holiday in Vanuatu about 6 years ago. I had a Nikon D70.
I went on a guided walk of this waterfall. The guide asked me hw much the camera cost and I told him US$850.

He gave me this disgusted look like that was super outrageous and who would spend such a vast amount of money on a camera.

Greg.