Not since the Hamburgler has a crook’s name so explicitly said what he’s going to do. Bernie Madoff has taken the the money of some of the richest people in America and the world, it just so happens that most of his victims, whom tended to invest EVERYTHING in the 10-12% returns, were Bernie’s “friends”, the Jews.
There’s been several stories of ground zero, Palm beach where the barometer of the recession’s impact on the wealth has been closely watched. However, this NY Times article goes further to capture the entitlement, defensiveness, and rank opportunism on display among those in the overclass who have lost fortunes, yet remain wealthy beyond all reason and feel permitted to participate in the national sense of despair over our calamity1.
Experience the pain:
“Customers that can still come in and afford to buy fine pieces of jewelry have this feeling of guilt,†he says, sitting next to a couple of vaults at the rear of his store, H. T. Stuart & Company. “They say, ‘I still want to buy jewelry, but I feel funny, and I have friends and these people know others who got hurt, pretty badly, and they don’t want to flaunt it.’ I have to try to convince them to go on living.â€
Down the street, at Trillion, Mr. Neff says his customers will go for rarities, like a $1,200, super 180 wool sweater knitted on something called a 39-gauge machine. Everything else is a tough sell.
“They won’t deny themselves the top top,†Mr. Neff says. “I used to say, ‘I know you have eight blue blazers but look at this blue blazer. It’s an upgrade.’ And any upgrade, they’d buy. This year, they don’t want to seem foolish. Eight blue blazers is enough.â€
At a men’s store called Crease Liberty, a longtime customer recently told Jennifer Inga, a saleswoman, that he wouldn’t be buying anything for a while, because his net worth had dropped to $12 million from $30 million.
“He said, ‘Now is not the time.’ It’s mind-boggling to me,†Ms. Inga said. “How can someone with $12 million feel like they can’t afford a new pair of pants?â€
So where’s the tension?
Aside from death and money, the topic that preoccupies everyone here the most, and is spoken of the least, is the gentile-Jewish divide. As recounted in “Madness Under the Royal Palms,†Palm Beach was founded in the late 19th century by Henry Flagler, a Standard Oil executive, and for years it was dominated by white Anglo-Saxon Protestants.
In the middle of the last century, A. M. Sonnabend, a Jewish entrepreneur, started buying commercial property, including what became the Palm Beach Country Club, and nouveau-riche Jews suddenly had a hotel, beach club and a golf course of their own. Gradually, enough moved here to be described by the Christian elites as “the other half,†many of them clustered in large condominium buildings south of a place called Sloans Curve, known informally by just about everyone as the Gaza Strip. (That the real Gaza Strip is inhabited by Palestinians is apparently beside the point.)
Read full article here including the almost purchased $2000 Bernie Madoff pants.
(1 John Cook)
Easter isn’t a holiday I celebrate much anymore. Not being devout, I don’t participate in lent, go to mass, or celebrate in a religious way. I do however, find the time to bite the ears off some dark chocolate bunnies and eat a hefty brunch of eggs and bloody mary’s.
