Are rich folks different from the rest of us? The American Economics Association held their annual meeting in Atlanta recently.

Wednesday, April 10, 2002

Are rich folks different from the rest of us? The American Economics Association held their annual meeting in Atlanta recently. Three of the speakers there said that the majority of Americans are not made unhappy by inequality of incomes. I am sure this is true. We have been taught that there should be winners and losers.

I have never disliked the incredibly wealthy. I prefer to ignore them as much as possible and hang out with my peer group. Inequalities do exist and will always exist.

Such thoughts have been on my mind as of late with the Enron situation. I have heard many times how the top Enron executives cashed out their stock for riches beyond belief while thousands of their employees were left with nothing and the nothing they were left with had a mortgage on it.

According to those economists, the rich getting richer is not only okay with most of us, it is to be expected. Now I am all for free enterprise and people doing as well as possible, but I am beginning to believe that you can become too wealthy. I offer three cases in point.

Boxer Mike Tyson, he with the habit of biting off the ears of opponents, has a house in Connecticut that he has been trying to sell for a few years. Tyson bought the sprawling mansion with its 17 acres in Farmington in 1997. He paid a mere $2.7 million for it and put $1 million of work into the 56,000 square-foot residence. He added gym equipment of the kind found in a health club, and a nightclub. After all, what kind of house is it that doesn’t have a nightclub? What would you folks do without your home nightclub? In 1998, he put the house up for sale for – get this – $22 million. Mike wanted to make a little profit here. In 1999 he lowered the asking price to $12.9 million. A steal. When it still did not sell, he lowered the price to $5 million in 2000. If you are interested, the house has 18 bedrooms, 38 bathrooms, an indoor pool and a 1,500 square-foot health club. Outdoor features include a pond, a 20-foot waterfall, a guesthouse and staff quarters. Oh, the nightclub is the usual standard in-home kind – 3,500 square feet with a wall of 20 TV screens, a two-tier dance floor, a DJ station and a smoke machine. This gives the foul-mouthed boxer a perfect place to hide while he is not in prison.

Coffee drinkers worldwide are going nuts for a new brew called Kopi Luwak. It is made from coffee beans that have been run through the digestive tract of Indonesian monkeys. Kopi Luwak runs $110 per pound or $5 per cup.

Lisa Bonder Kerkorian, a 36-year-old former tennis pro, is demanding $320,000 a month in child support from her former husband, 84-year-old billionaire Kirk Kerkorian. They had a football marriage – she was just waiting for him to kick off. These two lovebirds were married for an entire month in 1998. Lisa is seeking the support for her 3-year-old daughter, Kira. Some of you may be wondering about the amount. It may seem a little excessive. I realize that there are those of us who do not quite make $320,000 a month. Well, little Kira has her needs. She needs $14,000 a month for parties and play dates. She needs $5,900 a month for eating out and $4,300 a month for eating in. I could eat like a king at the Village Inn in Hartland for a little less than $5,900 a month. Why, I could even afford to leave a tip. Kira requires the following amounts for her monthly expenses: $2,500 for movies and other outings, $7,000 for charitable donations, $1,400 for laundry and cleaning, $1,000 for toys, books and videos, $436 for care of her bunny rabbit and $144,000 for travel on private jets. Her lawyer has stated that $320,000 a month isn’t really enough, as he had neglected to include the cost of chartered yachts. I would bet that the first word little Kira ever spoke was, &uot;Gimme!&uot; When my wife and I were first married, we lived on less than what Kira’s bunny rabbit will get.

The rich are getting richer. That is going to happen. We just need to find a way for the poor to keep from getting poorer. Are rich people different than the rest of us? No, folks are folks. The only difference between rich folks and the rest of us is that their bunny rabbits live better than ours do.

Hartland resident Al Batt writes columns for the Wednesday and Sunday editions of the Tribune.