Inside the Obscene Lifestyles of the New Global Super-Rich

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http://www.alternet.org/economy/super-rich-cnbc



A new crop of global super-rich is pouring into the United States, changing the economic landscape from Manhattan to Los Angeles. They’re driving up the price of real estate, pushing out the middle class and going on buying binges that would make Gilded Age robber barons blush.

First they want the hotel room — perhaps the storied, $15,000-a-night penthouse at the Fairmont San Francisco, where guests receive honey made by the Fairmont’s own honeybees. JFK was rumored to tryst there with Marilyn Monroe. Next they want the shopping spree, snapping up million-dollar diamond Chanel watches and $1,000-per-ounce perfume. Then they want to buy a home in their favorite playground —maybe a $90 million pad at Manhattan’s behemoth One57, where they can pay negligible taxes yet enjoy the full menu of New York City services.

For the new ultrawealthy, ordinary toys will not do. Once upon a time, owning a super-charged sports car was a symbol of wealth to a certain breed of balding Floridian. But today’s young global gazillionaires require something with a little more flash, like a gold-plated Lamborghini, which costs $7.5 million and even has its own Twitter feed. Brett David, the CEO of Lamborghini Miami, has been selling top-dollar cars for a long time. But even he is shocked at the number of items he’s selling to overseas buyers, from Argentines and Venezuelans to a new crop of Russian and Chinese shoppers.

To help us understand this new breed of 1 percenter, CNBC helpfully launched a brand new series on Jan 22 “ Secret Lives of the Super Rich.” Starting off with a sycophantic chant of “money, money, power, power” over cheesy opening credits, the show is a full hour of nonstop douchiness (two episodes aired Wednesday back-to-back), featuring eager commentary from CNBC’s “wealth editor” Robert Frank (yes, such a job title exists).

[JustAnotherGen]

1. Robert Frank is the editor?

I'm going to give it a shot. From reading is old wealth report blog - he has this sneaky ability to make fun of them right to their face. A few years ago he started a shit storm of comments with his snarky response to the survey of the wealthy that had them saying a million dollars is not enough - $7 million is.

If the WSJ couldn't rein him in - I doubt CNBC can.