Everyday another shoe drops on the world economy; housing crash, credit crash, bank failure, stock market malaise, job decimation, and uncertainty heaped upon uncertainty. This downturn is unlike anything I've seen in my life and my memory goes back to the gas crisis of 1973. Last weekend I couldn't take anymore and left New York for the bucolic hills of Dutchess County. My good friend Andrew picked me up at the Poughkepsie train station and we drove to a restaurant on Route 44 to celebrate the birthday of a doctor from Medicins Sans Frontiers.
10 people were at the table.
Three billionaires and four exceedingly well-off scions of famed wealth.
Andrew, his wife, and I were the representative from the other 99.999999% of humanity. We paid for our own drinks, for nothing scares the rich more than someone asking for them for something they don't want to give. if you ever want to lose a rich person for a friend, ask him for $5.
Most of these people never travel to New york, except to the dog show or gala dinners, so they asked me how was business.
"I've had better years and worse years." Last year was bad, but anytime you start off the year by getting arrested in a foreign country is a bad one. "But this is different. No one wants to spend. Not on anything. Luckily I have a big ruby sale in the works."
"Really?" Sandy asked with interest. Her wealth was 9 zeroes long. She loved jewelry, but worshipped horses.
"Yes, I'm selling a 6-carat Burma ruby, untreated, unheated, blood-red." The customer was wavering on the stone, because its color was a little pink. Just a little, but color is everything in fine rubies.
"How much?" Her eyes batted like butterflies on speed.
"$1.4 million." I had put on enough profit to send me back to Thailand for a good two years. Even then it was a good deal for the buyer.
"Ooooh, so much." Sandy frowned with the disapproval based on her descent from the Pilgrims. "I just cancelled my trip to San Francisco, because I decided it wasn't prudent to spend money in this economy."
"Say what?" The words from Captain Sensible's hit song from the 1980s. There was a recession at the time of that recording.
"Yes, I lost 20% of my wealth in the last 4 months. Mind you I'm still as rich as I was when I inherited my money, but I've decided to be prudent. I might even have to cut back on my polo ponies." Tears misted her eyes, thinking about which ponies might get cut from the string in Wellington, Florida. "I have to be responsible."
Andrew's wife kicked me in the leg before I attacked the entire idea of the trickle-down theory of the GOP, where the rich would become really rich and then spend their moeny super-fast in order to make everyone else rich. I glared at her, but took a deep breath and said, "I think that's a good idea that you set a good example of economic prudence for the rest of the rich. Save and then other people will save, maybe even the middle class."
"Yes, I'm doing my part to increase the flow of economic prudence." She leaned over to whisper, "You don't have a line of cocaine, do you?"
"I do." It was a lie, but sometimes a lie is better than the truth. "But it wouldn't be prudent for you to do any. I have to think of my finances too. Thanks for the inspiration."
I left the table and went straight to the bathroom. All the males followed suit. They were disappointed to hear that I wasn't holding drugs. Outraged in fact. I almost thought that they wanted to strip-strip me. I wasn't having any of that and went into the bathroom. I faked snorting several lines and returned to a scornful table, wiping my nose.
"Economic prudence, didn't the Beatles do a song about that?"
The revolution obviously should begin when billionairesses stop spending money.
At least on gigolos.
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