Lifestyles of the filthy rich and infamous

[brainpanhandler]

I've wondered for some time about the preparations of the ruling elite for what must be known to them as an eventually certain collapse of civilization. Surely the ownership class understands that due to a confluence of forces, some of which are beyond anyone's control now, things will have to get very, very ugly for a lot of people that are going to get really desperate and pissed off and will eventually start looking around for someone to blame. It used to be that the ruling oligarchy, in say medieval feudal europe for instance, lived in digs like this:



... which is basically and sensibly enough a fucking fortress. They did this for obvious reasons, one of which is they figured some day the peasants might get pissed off enough to want to cut their heads off.

So I went a googling for pictures of the domiciles of the ruling elite and ran across the WoW (the women on the web) website. They have a piece with a slideshow titled, An Aerial Tour of the Homes of Bernie Madoff and the Bailed-Out Bankers.



link: http://www.wowowow.com/photo-essay/homes-of-bankers-bernie-madoff-154277

The images for the slideshow are plucked from here: http://virtualglobetrotting.com/map/john-thains-house/nearby/?s=0&d=50&v=0

The Virtual Globetrotting collection is fascinating to me. The wow website only grabbed a handful of pictures of "houses" of some of the more notable banksters in the latest round of broad daylight what-are-you-gonna-do-about-it graft and robbery. But in the globetrotting collection, which is huge, you'll find the homes of folks like the Rockefellers. I wonder how they feel knowing that we know where they live? No doubt these palatial estates are nestled comfortably within gated communities. But I'll betcha they don't have more than a couple of retired, overweight cops sitting in a little gatehouse guarding these various dens of thieves. Fools. Perhaps they've made other arrangements less public. I know I would have. Like I'd have a helicopter I could hop into at a moments notice and a retreat of some sort nowhere near urban areas fully stocked with supplies to last for years and arms and ammunition enough to equip a small army.

[MacCruiskeen]

I'll betcha they don't have more than a couple of retired, overweight cops sitting in a little gatehouse guarding these various dens of thieves. Fools. Perhaps they've made other arrangements less public. I know I would have. Like I'd have a helicopter I could hop into at a moments notice

A friend of mine lives on the slopes of Vesuvius on the edge of Naples in Italy. It's a beautiful area, but now overcrowded, because there's been so much illegal, unauthorised, Camorra-financed house construction there over the last two or three decades. The volcano is long overdue for an eruption, and the city is ill-prepared for such an eventuality, because the only reliable escape route for the large population is a road that could easily be blocked by a serious car crash (all the likelier when people are rushing and panicking).

On the drive up to his house, my friend slowed down and pointed out a palatial mansion, which he told me belonged to a Camorra boss. In a sizable garden, nearly concealed behind trees, there was a helicopter parked on a pad.

I'd guess most seriously rich crooks are similarly well-prepared for disaster, all over the world.

[sunny]

They need someone to do all the menial work. Food has to be cooked, laundry done, house cleaning, security, kids to educate, gardens to tend..they'll never make it without an army of peasants surrounding them. Just sayin'

[MacCruiskeen]

They need someone to do all the menial work. Food has to be cooked, laundry done, house cleaning, security, kids to educate, gardens to tend..they'll never make it without an army of peasants surrounding them. Just sayin'

There'll be room in the helicopter for a skeleton staff (butler, maid, cook, bodyguards). Any menials left behind can be replaced from among the starving elsewhere.

[brainpanhandler]

Here's Rupert Murdoch's shack:



I found the Clinton estate as well. Seems they're doing ok for themselves. Geithner's house is modest enough, comparatively speaking. It looks to me like it's not worth more than a million or so, as befits a public servant. No doubt he'll upgrade once he cycles back into the private sector.

[Nordic]

This is very interesting. Very interesting.

[barracuda]

None of them, just like none of us, will be altogether safe in this country without the help of a private army if the bad, bad goes down.

[Nordic]

None of them, just like none of us, will be altogether safe in this country without the help of a private army if the bad, bad goes down.

Yeah, even helicopters gotta land somewhere. They don't go that far on one tank of fuel unless they're the really big-ass long-range military choppers.

[brainpanhandler]

Here's Bernanke's shabby little hut:



It really is rather unassuming for the fed chairman.

Here's a link to the "buildings" page on the Virtual Globetrotting website:

http://virtualglobetrotting.com/category/buildings/

From there you can pick from categories like "military- censored" and "companies- headquarters".

I might get lost on this site for days.

[Blue]

I've wondered for some time about the preparations of the ruling elite for what must be known to them as an eventually certain collapse of civilization.

While I agree the ruling elite spend lots of money building inaccessible domiciles, I believe that's SOP for the simply rich and famous with swelled heads. For instance I don't consider Denzel Washington to be one of the ruling elite yet here's his house:



How about Nicholas Cage who has his own island?



There are absurdly large homes in every city in the world owned by the wealthy. Are they all to be considered the ruling elite? Maybe you and I have a different definition of ruling elite. I don't consider everyone who's very wealthy to be in the ruling class unless you're strictly speaking economics. For me, highly paid athletes and entertainers don't fall into the same category as politicians, CEO's and Board Members who make their living acquiring more power and wealth by devious manners instead of actually displaying some talent.

Having said that I think professional athletes and entertainers are extremely overpaid. And perhaps it could be said that these folks are paid exorbitant salaries because they provide entertainment to the masses, thereby keeping the masses preoccupied with fluffy news about their sports hero or musical heroine instead of watching the real story whereby the ruling elite are stealing their tax dollars. I don't know when sports endorsements began but maybe there's a real parallel there with sports figures salaries and the rise of mega corporations.

I guess I'm trying to figure out how many people are actually in this Ruling Elite. Cause more and more it sounds like it's a whole hell of a lot of people.

[brainpanhandler]

I chose the thread title because it's a play on the old tv show Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.

You probably can't rise to the levels of the uber rich billionaire class by any route without having some clue how the whole game is rigged, but when I refer to the ruling class I mean more the government/corporate/banking nexus and that was my initial focus. However, a case could be made that certain media forces ought to be included in the definition of ruling classes they are so instrumental in controlling the flow of information. I started a thread a while ago on the annual Sun Valley media conference. Warren Buffet hosts the thing every year. Here's a partial list of last year's attendees:

Sports:

-Jerry Reinsdorf: Owner of the Chicago Bulls basketball team and the Chicago White Sox baseball team.
-Peter Ueberroth: managing director, the Contrarian Group Inc. (But better known as the former commissioner of Major League Baseball)
-Francis (Fay) Vincent, chairman, Vincent Enterprises. (Former MLB Commish.)
-Stan Kroenke, chairman, The Kroenke Group. (Real estate magnate, married to Wal-Mart heiress Anne Walton. Owns the Denver Nuggets basketball team and is majority shareholder of the U.K. Arsenal soccer team. He also owns way too much other stuff to list.)
-Allan “Bud” Selig, commissioner, Major League Baseball.
-David Stern, commissioner, National Basketball Association
-Roger Goodell, commissioner, National Football League
-Gary Bettman, commissioner, National Hockey League
-Jeffrey Wilpon, COO, New York Mets, and Fred Wilpon, chairman, Sterling -Equities Inc., who also owns the Mets.
-Ted Leonsis, principal owner, Washington Capitals Hockey team. (And former AOL executive.)
-Daniel Gilbert, chairman, Quicken Loans. (He is the majority owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers NBA team and bought an American Hockey League franchise in Erie, Pennsylvania. He also is a venture capitalist, and has invested $4 million in the social networking and style tips website StyleCaster)
-Cleveland Cavaliers forward LeBron James. (The Chosen 1!)

Washington, D.C. types and other politicians:

-Ambassador Henry Crumpton. President, Crumpton Group LLC. (Former CIA agent in a variety of rather high-up positions. His company, according to a now-defunct version of his website, identifies ways for other companies to make profits in parts of the world that might not seem all that friendly at first.)
-David Kilcullen, partner, Crumpton Group LLC.
-Montgomery Meigs, visiting professor, Georgetown University. Also General, U.S. Army (Ret.)
-Luis Alberto Moreno, president, Inter-American Development Bank.
-Michael Bloomberg, mayor of New York City. (He is not on our latest version of the list, but you never know.)
-Cory Booker, mayor of Newark, New Jersey.
-Sam Nunn, former Georgia Democrat senator and head of the Nuclear Threat Initiative. (With this much starpower in Sun Valley, one hopes the missiles are aimed somewhere else for a few days.)
-Manuel A. Roxas, senator, Philippines.
-Raymond Chambers, secretary-general’s special envoy for malaria. (After all, if Bill and Melinda Gates are coming…)
-Michael O’Hanlon, senior fellow, The Brookings Institution
-Martin Indyk, director, Saban Center for Middle East Policy, Senior Fellow, foreign policy, The Brookings Institution
-Michael Berman, president, The Duberstein Group. (Lobbyist for some big companies, including Comcast, General Motors and Goldman Sachs. He was counsel to former Vice President Walter Mondale during the Carter administration.)

Doctors:

-Delos Cosgrove, president and CEO, Cleveland Clinic.
-Donald Stein, department of emergency medicine, Emory University School of Medicine.
-Joseph Vacanti, chief of department of pediatric surgery, Massachusetts General Hospital.
-Denis Cortese, president, CEO, Mayo Clinic
-David Snow, chairman and CEO, Medco Health Solutions Inc.

Teachers:

-Michelle Rhee, chancellor, District of Columbia Public Schools.
-Joel Klein, chancellor, New York City Department of Education.


Huh?:

-Daniel Lamarre, president and CEO, Cirque du Soleil. (For night-time entertainment?)
-Mark C. Taylor, chair, department of religion, Columbia University. (For morning prayer?)
-Muhtar Kent, chairman, CEO, The Coca-Cola Co. (For light refreshments?)
-Jonathan Oppenheimer, head of chairman’s office, De Beers Group. (For impromptu Sun Valley marriage proposals?)
-Andrew Liveris, CEO, chairman, Dow Chemical Co. (Widely considered to have taken a big M&A deal in the wrong direction, maybe he’s hanging out somewhere where he’s unlikely to run into company shareholders.)
Yousef al Otaiba, Embassy of the United Arab Emirates. (The U.A.E. has investments in various media properties, making al Otaiba a fairly logical attendee.)
-Donald Robert, CEO, Experian. (These guys know your credit rating.)
-Richard Riordan, former mayor, Los Angeles. (A natural for movie studio guests, we’re guessing.)
-Louis Simpson, president and CEO, capital operations, Geico Corp. (In case one of us reporters crashes a rental car?)
Heather Nolin of Heather Nolin Consulting. (We swear we couldn’t find anything about her online.)
-Michael Fux, president and CEO, Lifestyle Innovations LLC. (This man ran the company that brought you memory foam mattresses, mattress toppers and pillows.)
-Andrew McKenna, chairman, McDonald’s Corp. (Lunchtime sponsor?)
-Simon Johnson, professor of entrepreneurship, MIT Sloan School of Management. (We are guessing that he is moderating a session that every crusty old media mogul should consider attending.)
-Philip Knight, chairman, NIKE Inc. (Sun Valley promises lots of hiking.)
-Ronald Sugar, chairman and CEO, Northrop Grumman Corp. (Most of us are flying to Sun Valley.)
-Nassef Sawiris, CEO, Orascom Construction Industries S.A.E. (We’re st

http://rigorousintuition.ca/board2/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=24461

[brainpanhandler]

Holy crap. Look where Kubrick lived.

[JackRiddler]

I like the castle at threadtop and the Kubrick Komplex best.

[jingofever]

Warren Buffet's house:



He actually lives in the van parked out front.

[brainpanhandler]

One of five properties of former Lehman Bros CEO Richard Fuld. This one in Greenwich CT :



Looking rather imperious:

Richard Severin Fuld, Jr. (born April 26, 1946, New York, New York) is an American banker and executive best known as the final Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. Fuld had held this position since the firm's 1994 spinoff from American Express Company until 2008. Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy protection under Chapter 11[3] on September 15, 2008, and subsequently announced a sale of major operations to parties including Barclays Bank and Nomura Securities.

Fuld was born to Richard Severin Fuld, Sr. and Elizabeth Schwab.[4] He received his B.S. from the University of Colorado at Boulder in 1969 and his M.B.A. from New York University's Stern School of Business[1] in 1973. While attending Boulder, Fuld participated in the Naval Reserve Officer Training Corps program and was president of the school's chapter of the Alpha Tau Omega social fraternity.[5]

Biography and career at Lehman

Richard Fuld's first career as an Air Force pilot came to an abrupt end when he got into a fist fight with a commanding officer. Fuld was said to have been defending a young cadet who was being taunted by the senior officer.[6] He then began his career with Lehman Brothers in 1969, the year the firm's senior partner Robert Lehman died, and stayed at the company since then. Beginning as a commercial paper trader, Fuld rose through the organization taking increasingly senior roles. During his tenure, Fuld witnessed and participated in the numerous changes which the organization endured, including its merger with Kuhn, Loeb & Co, and its acquisition by American Express, merger with E.F. Hutton, and ultimate spin-off from American Express in 1994, once again as Lehman Brothers.

From the years 1993 to 2007, he is reported to have received nearly half a billion dollars in total compensation. [7] In 2007, Fuld was reported to have been paid a total of $22,030,534, which included a base salary of $750,000, a cash bonus of $4,250,000, and stock grants of $16,877,365.[8] CNN named Fuld as one of the "Ten Most Wanted: Culprits of the Collapse" of the 2008 financial collapse in the United States; he was placed at number 9 on the list.[9]


On October 6, 2008, Fuld testified before the United States House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform on Capitol Hill regarding the causes and effects of the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers.[10][11][12]

During his congressional testimony, CNBC reported that Fuld was attacked and "knocked out cold" at the Lehman Brothers gym due to Lehman's declaration of bankruptcy.[13] Representatives of Fuld denied the report.[14]

Congressional hearing testimony

In October 2008, Fuld was among twelve Lehman Brothers executives who received grand jury subpoenas in connection to three criminal investigations led by the U.S. attorney's offices in the Eastern and Southern Districts of New York as well as the District of New Jersey, related to the securities fraud associated with the collapse of the firm.[15][16][17]

After Lehman

On November 10, 2008 Fuld sold his Florida mansion to his wife Kathleen for $100; this may protect the house from potential legal actions against him. They had bought it only 4 years earlier for $13.56 Million.[18][19] On March 17, 2009, New Jersey governor Jon Corzine commenced a lawsuit on behalf of the state of New Jersey against Fuld, several former Lehman Brothers executives and former members of Lehman Brothers' board of directors for fraud and misrepresentation. The suit seeks compensatory damages of $118 million in addition to punitive damages.[citation needed]

In April 2009 Fuld took up a position with New York hedge fund Matrix Associates.[20]

Awards, honors and board memberships

In 2006, Fuld was named #1 CEO in the Brokers & Asset Managers category, by Institutional Investor magazine.[21] In 2007 he received a $22 million bonus.[22]

Fuld at one time served on the board of directors of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, a position he ceased to hold shortly before the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers. He is a member of the International Business Council of the World Economic Forum and the Business Council. He also serves on the Board of Trustees of Middlebury College and New York-Presbyterian Hospital. As well he was on the board of directors of the Robin Hood Foundation, but was removed from the Board following the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy. [23]

In December 2008, Fuld was given the "Lex Overpaid CEO" and "thief" award of the Financial Times for having received $34m in 2007 and $40.5m in 2006, the last two years before his bank's failure.[24]

CNBC named Fuld at the top of its list of "Worst American CEOs of All Time", stating he is "belligerent and unrepentant".[25]

meanwhile: