While reading the headlines of war, recession, division and sadness, I found this little tidbit on the thriving success of a magazine targeted at the super wealthy. I thought this little tidbit was perfect for today’s QuickLinx.
Apparently there is a thriving industry around selling to people SO rich, they view the Robb Report as the damn Pennysaver. If you’re making at least $650,000 a year and/or own a private jet; than your target demographic matches Doubledown Media, who’s readership is so wealthy, your yacht must be at least 40 feet to read it.
Doubledown Media is the producer of such fine publications as Corporate Leader, Cigar Report, Private Air (a rag devoted to your own private airplane(s) and their latest periodical to hit the press, The Players Club (and btw, “playas†need not apply, that is, unless you have an impressive portfolio). While this fine group of well-minded, young upstarts are doing their duty in a nation at war and recession, they’re also answering to a higher service: making money and apparently more now than ever before.
“We’re seeing very rapid growth,” brags Doubledown President Randal Lane, “as long as we’re always reaching the top of the pyramid, then we’ll always be fine.â€
Magnus Greaves, founder of Doubledown boosts of his company’s readership,“These are very smart people.†This serves to not only distinguish his readers from the vast majority of us ignorant doles, but to remind his readers that they deserve to be at the top and we the people, who were just too dumb to think of making money, deserve to be where we are. Greaves continues, “We have to give them something meaningful.â€
What could be more meaningful than Private Air Magazine? With its featured aircraft of the week and celebrity Cessna search, it’s the kind of publication that dares to ask the tough questions like “What’s inside Steven Tyler’s private jet?” and “what’s the greatest airplane movie of all time?“
If I may, I’d like to address the middle and lower class audience that reads Soapblox, so all you richie riches hit the head for a minute or two (I’m sure your bidet will keep you filled with joy or… something rather), while I address the poor unfortunate lower 99% of Americans (oh the sarcasm never ends here at Soapblox).
As much as I’d love to believe that intelligence alone is responsible for wealth, it simply is not true. Many of the world’s leading thinkers have died broke while the douche bag who figured out how to screw people who have trouble making their credit card payments is rolling in dough (you gotta see this guy, the show Frontline got him to admit all the numerous schemes he concocted to screw us consumers over). Wealth is as much being at the right place and time as it is being ruthless, greedy and just about everything Jesus would NOT do, a fitting statement this Easter.
Our nation’s shrinking middle-class is paired with a rapidly expanding upper class which is disproportionately giving large amounts of capital to a very select and small group of people. Some say this is the American Dream at work. Is this true? I’ve always felt the American Dream was to be financially sound, with a home and a family, a modest and happy life. Champagne wishes and caviar dreams are something entirely different, which seems to be bought and paid for by the destruction of OUR American Dream.
This is nothing new, just another chapter in the ongoing battle between the Haves and the Have Nots. If it takes money to make money, than having more money in the hands of the few is bad for the population, carving out a die hard elite aristocracy that will cling to their power till the bitter end. Very few people are capable of rising from the bottom to the top, it has happened, it just doesn’t happen that often.
Those who do gain power become weird, strange and corrupted, prone to fetishism, strange binge habits and excess of all kinds, much like the oil baron from the recent film “There will be Blood.” From the weird lifestyle of the Walton family (owners of Walmart), who live in a massive mansion sized bunker, to the strange man-sized safe in the office of Dick Cheney or his wife Lynn’s bizarre erotic novels on lesbians, I’ve never liked what I’ve seen. These people seem secretive, unhappy, strange in the sex department (more often than not) and just flat out screwed up. They never do find their hopes and dreams fulfilled at the end of the rainbow. Life is designed to always leave you wanting more. There is never enough money or power or pleasure. It almost always brings diminishing returns. Fitting, isn’t it?
It is the little things in life that bring us the most joy. Having enough money to not have to break your back is certainly a plus, however, having vastly more money than you need not only makes no difference in a person’s happiness, it becomes a burden. No seriously! You can’t buy happiness and there are even scientific studies that prove this. It’s as if these super rich wear a golden chain that grows bigger and harder to protect as it grows, weighing them down.
History has recorded many of these bizarre tycoons and none have existed more strange than our own American upper class. It’s a fine U.S. tradition that continues from pioneer meat packer Gustavus Swift, so cheap he wouldn’t allow his wife to buy curtains for his bedroom despite being one of the wealthiest men alive, to the golden shower curtained lifestyle of Dennis Kozlowski, a billionaire who stole $600 million from MCI WorldCom to fund his wife’s lavish parties. Even the poor Astor heir, one of the nation’s oldest aristocrats and devoted philanthropist was surrounded by bizarre happenings at her life’s end. From the good to the bad, greed and creepy isolation seem to be the only constant.
This is, and I’ve said it before, the end of the Second Gilded Age (to play on the Mark Twain title). It’s a time when the glitz and the glamor, even the greed, are joyously pronounced as the necessities of the lavish and wonderful lifestyle described in the American Dream. We’re all supposed to be envious of their immense power and success, even their fall from grace is up-played. After all, even the sexy celebrities rise and fall, often into some sort of rehab. It’s the reason I playfully call this period “The Plastic Age.†Everything is marketing, fake and absolutely dependent on oil (plastic is petroleum after all). This is not a time when the rich flaunt their wonderful, lavish and aristocratic lives. They instead pretend to be your run of the mill, average Joe with a couple Billion in the bank. Some of these guys even get their own reality TV shows. They’re the same fat, dumb and happy Americans just like you and I, except they read “The Cigar Reportâ€, and are “very smart people†just to bring it full circle.
I’m absolutely elated that there is FINALLY a magazine devoted to nothing but expensive cigars. While we lowly serfs could not possibly appreciate the sophisticated experience of a thousand dollar cigar, the miracle of the internet has brought this smoke filled world within our reach, well, sort of. At Cigar Report Daily, you will be treated to fascinating reviews of fancy cigars with Spanish names, reviews of fancy jet-set “weekend” getaways to the finest humidor’s the Dominican Republic has to offer and, of course, “This Week in Cigar History” which, by the way, is remarkably dull (let’s face it, there have been no Cigar Wars… yet).
Ah the super rich. Like cartoon villains, they’re always good for a laugh. If only they weren’t so corrupt, evil and absolutely running this country into the ground, I might actually like them in a Mr. Burns, Lex Luther sort of way. Unfortunately I’m afraid they don’t even quite measure up to Mr. Spacely from the Jetsons.
