There was a story yesterday about how Rotterdam may have to disassemble a historic bridge to let Jeff Bezos’ new half-billion dollar yacht through from the shipbuilders to the sea. It strikes me as absurd that anyone needs a half-billion dollar yacht. A half billion dollars would go a long way to help solve any number of the world’s pressing problems.
But it got me to thinking about the absurdities of the world’s elites. Like buying $50+ million dollar apartments in the ugly and absurdly-designed pencil-thin high rises in Manhattan’s “billionaires row”. (The penthouse on the 96th floor of 432 Park Avenue was just listed at $169 million)
Like paying $25 million for an 11-minute ride to space in a Blue Origin rocket (in theory there is no significant environmental impact since it burns liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen – as long as one ignores how the liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen was generated in the first place).
Like United Airlines’ recent investment in a new supersonic jetliner to be developed by Boom Technology. Whether it finally comes to fruition or not, is it really environmentally sound to use vast amounts of jet fuel to ship a few of the extremely wealthy across the world in a slightly shorter time?
Like Ford’s new F-150 Lightning Platinum electric pickup truck ($90,874, with only a 280-mile range!) for the rich person who needs everything and wants to pretend they are environmentally conscious. Though to be fair, the rich have been buying wildly expensive cars (like the Ferrari LaFerrari at $1,420,000, or the Bentley Mulliner Bacalar at $1,900,000) for decades.
It does seem to me we have re-entered the age of robber barons.
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