Why the rich need tax cuts.

[bookman]

Now it all makes sense to me!

The Jet Set's Shopping List Unmasked

How do the very wealthy spend their money? You may not want to know.
By Thomas Kostigen
MarketWatch

Private jet owners have an average annual income of $9.2 million and a net worth of $89.3 million. They are 57 years old. And 70 percent of them are men.

Hannah Shaw Grove and Russ Alan Prince, two researchers, surveyed the group to find out who they are, what makes them tick, and perhaps most interestingly, what they spend their money on.

The average jet setter spends nearly $30,000 per year on alcohol (wines & spirits). Grove and Prince note that this amount is about two-thirds of the median household income in the U.S. And that's the smallest category of spending they surveyed.

The next smallest was "experiential travel," ... For these experiences, jet setters spend an average of $98,000 per year.

Travel
But these journeys are small potatoes when compared to how much these wealthy individuals spend on hotels and resorts ($157,000 a year), or events at hotels and resorts ($224,000 a year). Spa treatments even fetch more jet-set dollars than wilderness tours. The average jet setter spends $107,000 a year at spas around the world.

....

Indeed, it would take a curious psychological composition to comprehend spending $147,000 a year on watches, as the jet set do. Or $117,000 on clothes. Or a whopping $248,000 a year on jewelry.

.....

Getting Good Help
"Any way you slice it, private jet owners are an ultra-affluent bunch and, as such, likely have intricate financial requirements. As is often the case, there is a proportionate relationship between the amount of wealth and the complexity of the financial goals, meaning there is a greater need for a professional adviser to guide them through the planning process and supply them with strategies and experts to meet their goals along the way," they say.

Whatever. I'm far more interested in how much the super rich spend on cars ($226,000 per year), and boats ($404,000 a year on yacht rentals).

I'm even more interested to know what the $542,000 a year in home improvements was spent on. Grove and Prince say the average jet setter has more than two principal residences worth at least $2 million each. New kitchens? Kick ass sound systems? They don't inform.

But they do tell us that jet-setters spend the most amount of money on art, $1.75 million a year on average. It's also here that the spending patterns differ by the classes within the classes that Grove and Prince unearthed by analyzing the jet-set pack.

...

[waiting for hope]

1. Why depress me more?

and why do you hate America? :sarcasm:

[Jed Dilligan]

2. No, it's not.

The percentage of 9.2 million/year that these people are spending on luxuries and entertainment is probably the same percentage of income that average people spend. They don't "need tax cuts" to enjoy all these luxuries.

They "need" tax cuts because they are pathologically obsessed with growing their net worth. This isn't true of all very wealthy people; some just luck into their fortunes and couldn't care less about the amount. But most are obsessive money-pilers who only engage in the crass display of luxury to outdo each other. A lot of them don't indulge in luxuries at all; they eat cheap food, drive American cars, drink supermarket-brand booze if anything. The archetype of this behavior was John D. Rockefeller.

I would rather see the very rich supporting artists and artisans (including chefs, vintners, distillers, and tradesmen who work on houses) than piling up their money to consolidate prestige and political power. But if it's more fun to resent them for having nice stuff, go right ahead!

[ComerPerro]

3. And the taxpayers are funding much of that spending

not just in the sense that these people got massive tax cuts (and thanks to Bush, their children soon won't have to pay any taxes to inherit everything).

We pay for it because, most likely, our social system helped them prosper or at the very least retain and grow their wealth.

No one is self-made.

But now they want to quash all opportunity to prevent others from enjoying even a small fraction of what they have gained.

[Union Thug]

7. Good point. Money and wealth do not exist in a vacuum..

it comes from and is supported by government action and policy. Unfortunately, a huge majority of wealth in the states is rooted in slavery and genocide.

[panader0]

4. Shit, they spend more on booze than I make

That's why I drink the cheap beer.

[savemefromdumbya]

5. Don't worry we'll seal the borders so the rich can't get out

and when we slice a good proportion of their tax and hunt them out in tax havens in the Cayman Islands. We may have some money left for healthcare for all children? 'Course the economy doesn't work that it does it?

[Union Thug]

6. And yet there are people going hungry in the US and all over..

..the world.

Great system we have in place, eh?

[zbdent]

8. The owner of the Cleveland Browns wanted to buy a British

Soccer/football team ...