Wealth

I've been meaning to write about this for quite a while. With some distance between my thoughts from then to now.

In my very long career as a business consultant (financial planning, corporate and personal tax services, management, controller) I was involved with many millionaires. Supreme wealth of the yacht, race horses,  multiple homes in multiple countries types. Some were in media, others in industry, some in entertainment.

And I have to say the majority of these self made millionaires were very smart but incredibly selfish. They gave little to charity and had the utmost contempt for those who were in poverty or struggling. They resented any kind of social programmes, calling all who availed of them welfare bums. If they could make it, anyone could. But people were lazy, holding their hands out, watching TV, smoking and drinking beer all day while everyone else slaved to support these layabouts.

All of them inspired their underlings to accommodate their every whim whether through unpaid overtime or in a couple of cases manage their personal life styles as well. As examples of that I will offer assuring their wives they were off to Bermuda on a last minute business trip with a Russian financier when, in fact, they were off with the latest blonde. Or managing personal bank accounts with pay-offs (read blackmail) to ladies of the night or some unexpected results of a one night stand, or obscure payoffs to foreign bankers for looking the other way.

I was privy to many business conferences with tables of millionaires eating caviar and drinking champagne for lunch. In my younger and more foolish days, I wallowed in the reflected glow of being around these people, dropping their names casually into conversations, sharing my benefits of desirable theatre seats or visits to television show sets. It had an infectious quality to it all. I realize, in hindsight, how absolutely obnoxious I must have been in my champagne coloured Mustang with my matching business suit. I was at all the important meetings, taking notes for my boss, reviewing different financial statistics with him in consultation with the others, acquiring more assets, disposing of others.

In chatting with a multi-millionaire one night at one of those exclusive steak houses that didn't even have a name out front, I asked the question: when does anyone have enough money, adding it was a serious question. My companion repeated the question to the entire table, about 8. The response was laughter, genuine laughter.

My dear, said one, down the table from me, there is never enough, there is always more.

More laughter followed - me, to my shame, joining in.  

And there you have it, dear reader, now you can understand the Trumpian World.

Constant Beauty

 I think if one is born to an environment of natural beauty one can be immune to it.

I find this immunity prevalent amongst many of my Newfoundland people.

Yesterday I trotted out to pick up some groceries and asked my friend with dementia if she'd like to come along and she was thrilled. I can't abide shopping and pre-order my groceries on line and then have them all loaded into my car at the pickup.

I stopped outside my home and took this photo of the fog over the Atlantic in the distance and the blues just took my breath away. "Isn't it stunning?" I said to my friend as I snapped away. "I suppose," she answered, a born and bred Newfoundlander.

So this is for Marge, who is a faithful follower and loves fogs as much as I do.

We picked up the groceries and I asked her if she'd like to trot up to Middle Cove, the glorious beach near where we live and she agreed. I said I come up here a lot and she said she would come there a lot as a child and I said never since? And she said no. I was shocked. She took a long walk on the beach. I took some photos. There were many there, kids and dogs and some fishing off the shore.

We sat for a while and she became quite emotional, remembering the picnics and "boil-ups" on the beach as a child. It had never occurred to her to just visit and just be there for an afternoon.

So I talked of the healing effect of sitting by the ocean and all its different moods. And to reflect on how small we all are in the overall scheme of things.

And she agreed and said she had been so agitated about so many different things and her stress had been bad and now she could feel herself relaxing.

Her gratitude quite overwhelmed me, she went on and on about the afternoon and what a mighty gift I had given her.

And I was reminded of something I had learned a long time ago.

Measure wealth not by the stuff you own and hoard, but by the things in life that don't cost a penny.

Free Floating Fridays

I've never fit the mold, always chafed against the grain, railed against the "rules" of male and female behaviour, the so-called gender wars, that artificial societal construct which keeps us all firmly in pink and blue, dresses and lumberjack outfits, pearls and guns, advanced mathematics or home economics. (whatever do they call that now?). And effing well knowing our places in a civilized society. I am still looking for mine. Maybe it's because I'm not civilized in the traditional sense. No time for small talk, even less for braggadocios of whom many exist in my family of origin. Mainly of the male persuasion.

It was such a relief to be with one of my Sheilas last week as we share a lot of giggles over the behaviours of our family when we get together. The men never cease bragging loudly and long. If an emotion escapes in the room it is quickly stamped out. The men can swiftly round on us, the single spinstery women, with pitying glances. We can't afford the multiple cruises, or the wealthy clubs, or the endless travel hither and yon, hotels compared knowingly for the quality of spas and steaks. We live in poverty. But, and here's the codicil, it's all our own fault. We should have been nicer to the fellahs who would have taken proper care of us. We're not nice, you see. We don't tumble into that gender slot where the demure wee elderly attached "girls" peep out now and again to approve of the above mentioned luxurious life styles and vote as their fellahs do. "Sure he does all the thinking for us, it's grand." We are expected to admire the expensive dresses, the costly tans, the talking fridges, the marble floors.

I may sound bitter, I am far from it. Sheila and I laughed until we were sick. How we put in what we called "purgatory time" under the harsh glare of our families, she more than me as they live closer and drop in and judge her or broadcast of German river runs, Greek islands and Amazon tours. We exchanged tips on how to respond to the bragging when addressed directly. "Nice", "Interesting," were the favourites.

We also make excellent targets if we bring up the Family Dysfunction. We are immediately shouted down, told never to open those particularly doors even though most in the room could use massive therapy and unwittingly display it with endless loud hostilities towards the One Who Dared mention it.

It's such a comfort when you know you're not alone in a baffling universe not of your own making. Where everything is so superficial and Trump's not a bad fellah and climate change is for stupid arseholes who believe anything. If you believed in God you'd know that He wouldn't let anything bad happen to his creation. QED.

A "normal" male cousin, who's had the therapy and whose heart is open, sent me a long email during the week and enclosed a picture taken when I was around 7. Our two mothers (sisters) are at the back. And our families side by side in age as we were then. I had forgotten I wore corrective lenses for a few years.

The Moral and Ethical Authority

Am I missing something?

So this bunch of (mainly white) old men living in the lap of obscene luxury in the Vatican are calling for a crackdown on the financial markets now that the Occupy Movement has established its global street cred and gained such enormous traction.

"Oh, hang on everyone, wait for us, we're on the side of the people, the poor downtrodden people!"

a document released by the Holy See is calling for a "world authority" to crack down on capitalism and suggests some are considering it. Written by the Vatican's Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace and released on Monday:
Towards Reforming the International Financial and Monetary Systems in the Context of a Global Public Authority

Read more about it here.

It is difficult to put a figure on the extent of Vatican wealth. The closest average I can come up with in dive-bombing around the web is around 50 billion US dollars. Most of it is invested in the banking, insurance and commodities stock markets. And as we all well know transparency isn't one of the Vatican's strong suits. Somehow so much poverty in the world never equates in my mind with so much wealth in the Vatican. Is this how Jesus pictured his future church? Upon this rock which shall be rolling in red velvet and yay I say unto you a listing of stocks and bonds rippling down the steps of the Sistine Chapel?

So pardon my cynical black heart here. Isn't there a self serving whine to all of this noise about looking out for the financial interests of we the people and hear ye now from henceforth only fairness in all financial dealings?

All this coming from these outrageously wealthy masters of cover-up, these irrelevant old hypocrites