How to spend $53,826 a week without really trying
The estranged wife of United Technologies Corp.'s chairman George David filed a document with the court that shows that she requires $53,000 a week to support her lifestyle. If you're curious to see how one person can spend that much money a week, here's the PDF of the court filing.
Real estate accounts for a lot of it, including mortgage, maintenance fees, rent or other costs for a Park Avenue apartment, a Hamptons residence and several properties in Sweden.Wife Of UTC's George David Has Expenses Of $53,000 A WeekBut travel ($8,000), clothing ($4,500), hair and skin care ($1,000), dry cleaning ($650) and flowers ($600), among many other items, contribute to the total.
Dry cleaning does not include fur storage and cleaning ($45).
And that's when Douglas-David is cutting back.
"While recognizing that many of these expenses may seem high, most are lower than prior to the commencement of this case in August 2007," a footnote in her financial affidavit says.
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Wow, I'll all chocked up. This is so sad.
Not to belabor the point, but:
Class war now.
$1,000 per week on hair and skin care? That's amazing!
In Sweden she is mostly famous for being the daughter of count Philip Douglas who in turn is mostly famous for spending time in jail for tax fraud.
The properties in Sweden were pretty expensive, mostly because they were bidding against someone from the immensely wealthy Wallenberg family says this article (with picture).
ZOMG
-abs can't think of anything else to add
Hopefully the judge ends up chastising this rich, ahem, lady. Crass and over-indulgent are words that come to mind. On top of all that, with respect to the much publicized shitty state of the economy, she's just plain embarrassing herself. $1,000 a week for hair and skin! $650 for drycleaning! $600 a week for FLOWERS. WTF
Actually, on second thought -abs does have something to add.
Basically I'm wondering if the disparity between the ultra-wealthy and the rest of has begun to reach pre-Revolutionary-France levels? Anyone know any figures?
And if we have, how long before ZikZak's call for a class war becomes real?
Or has TV become such a grand soporific that we'll never rise up and put some of these people's heads on the guillotine?
-abs isn't advocating such a violent uprising, but he can see the appeal, and if the revolution comes he'd like to stake his claim as a potential Danton or Robespierre now while the job is still available
Spank the rich!
I recommend airlifting this woman to, say, Zimbabwe, or the Sudan.
Then we drop her into two of the worst humanitarian crises for years, and leave her their for a couple of weeks (days, even). Once she's witnessed people being forced to eat six-year old cowskin rugs and drink filthy, infected water, we can only hope she would gain some perspective, and maybe some shame.
After she returns home, have her re-submit her weekly budget to the court.
If it's still anywhere near this high, just keep repeating the relocation process until it drops to a sensible level.
Their life + their marriage + their money = Their business
This story reminds me of the TX sodomy law a few years back but I remember a lot of the comments at the time were about consenting adults' rights to do whatever they wished in their own home. I didn't read any where in the article that this money was taken by force or stolen. Me thinks Mrs. Kravitz needs to move away from the window.
To quote some graffiti in my hometown:
EAT THE RICH.
Come the financial/energy/climate apocalypse, we might be doing just that.
What everyone is overlooking here is this simple fact: the rich have *very* bad skin.
Very. Bad. Skin.
@ #9:
There's nothing wrong with expressing disbelief, disgust or outrage at this woman's disgusting level of wealth and attitude of entitlement.
Her lack of perspective is equally mind-boggling.
When wealthy folks divorce, or owe money for lawsuits caused by their mismanagement of other peoples money, they should receive assets sufficient to maintain middle class income. Enron's management should have been forced to sell everything they own, and been left with enough money to move into small,modest suburban homes and drive a Hyundai. Same for the management of the financial and auto industries.
@ #11:
CHROMECOW, don't worry. We'll skin them before we eat them.
#12: An equally, there is nothing wrong with being disgusted by and wishing harm towards anyone for any reason whatsoever.
I just want to know what sort of unspeakable things she does to her clothes that requires $650 a week in dry cleaning....
little walled fiefdoms with private armies.
@ #15:
I don't get it. Elaborate?
Can some brave soul define rich? I am sure it would satisfy many to know whether they are with the sheep or the wolves.
Better yet, we just do what we've always done and wait for the media/govt. to define it for us.
@#6 abs -- Check out this figure, "Figure 5B: The ratio of the wealthiest 1% to median wealth in the U.S. (1962-2004), from a biennial book of labor statistics known as The State of Working America. It's not all hype; income inequality is rising. See also this excerpt(PDF) from the forthcoming edition on skyrocketing CEO pay.
My family survives for a year on less than she spends in a week. She definitely needs a lesson on the difference between 'need' and 'want'.
I hope her gardener as a machete.
@ #19:
Freeyourcrt, I think it's more or less orders of magnitude.
Anyone who makes a power-of-ten more than [your name here] is rich.
So anyone wanting to eat the rich, make sure you're in that lowest order of magnitude, or you may be in for a rude surprise.
Chromecow's definition is like mine
Anyone who makes more than [your name here] is rich.
#6 and #20, check out the gini index: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gini_coefficient
#18 - there's no laws forcing someone to have a certain set of emotions. You can be disgusted by anything you feel like.
Just don't take your disgust out on the object of your disgust unless it's in one of those categories with limited legal protections. You can more or less smash spiders to your hearts content, and within certain guidelines, even go to town with bugspray on them. Smashing rich people because they disgust you, or spraying them with bugspray, is frowned upon.
But you can still feel disgusted.
Obviously there's an element of relativism to the concept of "wealth".
I would consider myself to be on a decent income. I have slightly more money than I need for my current lifestyle, though were I to have children or want to buy a house, it might make things difficult.
I know I'm on a decent income. I know I earn several times more than some entire families in my country. There are families in my country who survive on a basic income of £3000.00 a year (though that is probably supplemented with some unofficial income), but those people struggle to afford even the most basic, low-cost necessities.
A woman who SPENDS (not earns, SPENDS) per WEEK 50% more than I EARN in a YEAR is rich.
@ #26:
I have no intention of getting violent with the rich. I just like to joke and/or fantasise about it.
Chromcow
It's interesting you didn't specify HOW someone "makes" it. Maybe we could say the "rich" "make" their money and the others "earn" it.
Just to be safe I will personally make the necessary adjustments and throttle my output immedia...
#2:
Shouldn't it be more along the lines of "Gender equality now!"?
Equal rights should include preventing one gender from getting the shaft in divorces.
go on
http://www.globalrichlist.com/
I'm just glad she's got a Park Avenue apartment. With the financial crisis, NYC can use all the deep-pocketed big spenders it can get.
Chromcow
It's interesting you didn't specify HOW someone "makes" it. Maybe we could say the "rich" "make" their money and the others "earn" it.
Just to be safe I will personally make the necessary adjustments and throttle my output immedia...
You're all missing something: she's a countess. This is why she needs to spend more money in a week than I make in a year, working two jobs. But who am I to judge my betters?
Abs @6 mentioned guillotines. Too expensive. The PRC got this one right ---- .22 to the occiput is much more cost effective, especially when you bill the family for the ammo.
Please remove my vowels! I can't afford them anymore anyway.
Freeyourcrt, I'll take a shot at defining "rich".
You know how sometimes luxury items don't have a price on them, and fall under the category of "If you have to ask, you probably can't afford it".
Well, being truly rich means not only not having to ask about the price, but going ahead and buying 3 of said item, one for each house you own.
There is a point that can be reached where one's wealth is so vast, that the interest off having it sit in a bank ammounts to more than even an upper-middle-class income. That's "rich".
Despite systemic obfuscation of the fact, the history of the last 150 years or so can be understood as one big class war.
Just cuz you don't know you're at war don't mean you're not at war.
as much of a libertarian as i am, and would defend peoples rights to amass disgusting amounts of money, it really does irk me the sheer waste of it all.
if i had $50,000, i could do wonderful, glorious things with it - and it would last a hell of a lot longer than a week.
as for the whole issue of spouses being responsible for maintaining the lifestyle of their ex, to me, that's bullshit. if the spouse elevates the lifestyle then the spouse and the lifestyle are a PACKAGE DEAL. no picking and choosing. you ought to leave with whatever you came in with and have amassed since then.
@ Ivan256
I think gender equality would be telling the coddled housewife who spends $2.75 MILLION of her husband's money per year to go get a job. She can earn her keep just the same as he can. To assume otherwise is unfairly biasing towards one gender.
See, it's not the vast amounts of money I hate about rich people, it's the sense of entitlement to wealth you didn't create via marriage or birth.
F that S.
# 35 TJ S
I think that we can agree that no one is making a lot money right now from interest. If you are talking biblical and outlawing usury, then that's something a different matter entirely. Still, I find your definition involving a hypothetical shopping spree vague. I also think that CHROMECOW @23 order of magnitude multiplier a little impractical as I've never seen a violent mob equipped with calculators (maybe at CalTech?).
What do you think that $600 if flowers goes to? It goes to a florist, who pays a flower arranger, and a flower grower, and someone to answer the phone, and pays the florists' rent, and so on. Would you all be happier if she sat on her large pile of money and didn't spend it?
# 35 TJ S
I think that we can agree that no one is making a lot money right now from interest. If you are talking biblical and outlawing usury, then that's something a different matter entirely. Still, I find your definition involving a hypothetical shopping spree vague. I also think that CHROMECOW @23 order of magnitude multiplier a little impractical as I've never seen a violent mob equipped with calculators (maybe at CalTech?).
"But travel ($8,000)"
What the hell is But travel? I see no "But" in the PDF.
This is what call "disposable income."
Let her spend it. It adds 233 minimum wage jobs each year.
@DeeJayQueue:
We're basically on the same page. It doesn't seem so bad when $2.75mil/year is a drop in the bucket for the husband, but when it's 50% of a guy who's barely getting by so he can live in poverty while she "maintains the lifestyle to which she is accustomed", something is seriously fucked up.
--
Don't underestimate the percentage of "rich" people who are first-generation. It's much *much* bigger than you think. Mostly due to the late '90s.
--
@JAHKNOW:
Income equality isn't so bad. It's not like rich people stuff the money in their mattresses. They invest it, and end up paying salaries to thousands of less-well-off people. You should be more concerned about how the bottom 10% are doing than the top 1%. Does it really matter if the top 1% are astronomically wealthy if the bottom 10% aren't impoverished? If so, isn't that just petty jealousy or a misguided sense of justice?
(Yes, I know we're not in a situation where the bottom 10% are doing fine, but tearing down the top 1% won't solve that problem.)
LOL... she spends more in a week than my family of 4 spends in a year and a half. Some people just have too much.
You guys are all looking at it the wrong way.
Think about all the small businesses this woman's lifestyle supports.
If the rich cut back, the people at the bottom of the pyramid suffer first.
Hey, she's helping the economy. All the listed expenses go directly to middle-income workers. Florists, dry cleaners, baggage handlers, pilots, hair stylists, etc. Her mortgages are no doubt "prime", and go to prop up what's left of many 401Ks.
If this were a government program, we'd be all for it. But she does the exact same thing with her own money (which she won fair and square by the rules of our divorce system) and she needs to be reviled?
Let's make up our minds. If we're going to use the broken window fallacy for government programs, we can hardly complain when it's implemented on a much smaller, private scale.
I think a lot of people don't understand the source of class warfare. Warfare is always waged by the uber-powerful. In other words, the biggest threat to the top .00000001 percent isn't the bottom 99%.
It is pathetic to see such spoiled people. To have so much that you loose all ability to appreciate it. To be so used to getting things that you begin to think you are entitled to it.
Pathetic.
Please people, that isn't even 3 million a year. I am not saying that spending a decent annual salary a week makes sense on a personal or spiritual level, but it must be doing something for the economy. This of all the estheticians and wardrobe stylists that can afford to send their pomeranians to doggy day camp thanks to this woman.
ERNUNNOS:
"If this were a government program, we'd be all for it. But she does the exact same thing with her own money (which she won fair and square by the rules of our divorce system) and she needs to be reviled?"
WTF? Who calls for this kind of programs? I spot a very stinky straw man here.
I think a lot of people don't understand the source of class warfare. Warfare is always waged by the uber-powerful. In other words, the biggest threat to the top .00000001 percent isn't the bottom 99%.
OK, I agree with #40 posted by Thalia. It is people like this that are pumping money into the economy. something that a lot of banks seem to forgot how to do unless its at 24% interest compounded daily.
Now I am going to try to look ashamed that I don't pump that kind of money into the local economy too.
Why is fur storage and cleaning so inexpensive? She must be spending more time in the tropics than in her "several properties in Sweden". I don't see how you spend $8000 a week on travel. Does she fly first class around the world weekly? How does she spend *anything* on dry cleaning, if she spends $4500 on new clothes every week?
@ #33:
It's interesting you didn't specify HOW someone "makes" it. Maybe we could say the "rich" "make" their money and the others "earn" it.
Nor did I talk about cost of living. The rabbit hole goes pretty deep.
I think the true conflict here is not specifically rich and poor. Some rich folks are parasitic, some symbiotic.
I think the real conflict is (to co-opt game design terms), a battle between griefers and scrubs.
The griefers are the folks like Madoff and others who find exploits in the systems that allow them to generate huge amounts of money/power at the expense of the common good.
The scrubs are us, because at a fundamental level, the game is not played the way we think it is.
For an in-depth discussion of scrubs, I recommend the article "Playing to Win, Part 1" at sirlin.net
I'm thinking about what Johnathan said in #46
"If the rich cut back, the people at the bottom of the pyramid suffer first."
That sounds suspiciously related to trickle-down economic theory. Can we possibly kill that zombie once and for all and sew it's mouth shut filled with salt?
I would think by now that voodoo economics would have been proven false to most people's satisfaction. It's pretty apparent from the attempt here in the States that the rich DON'T spend their money, most of it they invest. (apparently in stock bubbles and Bernie Madoff funds)
If they really did spend then Reagan, Bush I, and Bush II, would all have been proven right by the economic results. I'd say it's pretty clear that the very opposite was proven.
-abs is with Obama, middle-class spending is what drives the economy, not the accumulation of wealth by the extreme upper-class (and for his friends he'll note that he only wants to be Robespierre or Danton because he's had a lifelong dream of leading a torch-bearing mob as they storm Trump Tower, okay, okay, maybe not life-long, but as long as there's been a Trump Tower. I mean, c'mon, would that be a cool visual, torches and pitchforks on the streets of NYC!)
how many of you rated yourself on the Rich List?
For starters, she's trying to squeeze the money out of her richer husband, so it's not like it's coming out of our pockets. Also, this level of, um, personal economy, is pretty common. Why do you think we pay celebrities and athletes so much money? They have divorces to feed. And, if she were a guy spending it on gadgets, would all these comments be here?
"Creating jobs" is excellent doublespeak. Construct an economy where obscenely rich people have all the resources and connections they need to suck every bit of wealth they can from the poor. Then, design the credit structure so they can suck any future wealth too.
Then, when the masses are destitute, jobless and desperate, watch them praise you as a savior when you deign to accept more of their labor in exchange for a scrap of the wealth you extracted from them.
They shouldn't get to "create jobs" with that money. They should get to give it back to those who actually earned it for nothing in return but a finally clear conscience.
Here's hoping when Barack overhauls the education system, remedial feminism will be a required course in high school.
So, corporate officers should have golden parachutes, but officers in the family shouldn't?
No one gets where they are on their own. The support of family in any number of ways is often key. Quite likely the wife helped the husband get to where he is now, whether directly (e.g., supporting the family while he went to school) or indirectly (taking care of everything else in the household so his energies are free to pursue grand poobahdom). Or even helping him maintain the advantageous image as a family man, or playing hostess. Let alone making your needs/wants subordinate to another.
And if she didn't do anything but spend it and give it up now and then? Well, yknow...maybe it was worth it.
I think it's about time for the people of NY to take a weekend trip to the Hamptons for a little burning and pillaging.
@she_ray
Considering she's 36 and he's 66, and when they married 6 years ago he was already CEO, the only place she's helped him get is to divorce court.
But having said that, I don't begrudge her trying to get a chunk of his money. Her spending is ridiculously insane to us, sure, but I'd bet there are plenty of trophy wives in Hartford who read the article and wonder how the poor dear will survive.
Only $350 for food???
# 60 Zik Zak
That sure is my experience of it. I spent 8 years in the jewellery industry and encountered plenty of these people. In one company, the owner's wife was acting as manager of the flagship store. Her 'work' schedule consisted of showing up at 11am, ordering someone to make her tea, go to have her hair done (every two days: she had bragged she never washed her own hair and she spent over $900 a month on it) for about two hours, return and complain that we weren't selling enough, then went home around 3pm complaining that she had so much to do at home (yet she had two maids and someone cooking all their meals).
Most of the employees worked for less than $28, 000, earned no commission- even though each sold between $300,000 and $800,000 worth of fine jewellery/watches a year and the owners kept saying that they couldn't give anyone a raise because 'business was slow'.
It was amazing to see that they truly believed they were doing us a big favour by employing us and we should all be thanking them on our knees for giving us the crumbs off their table. They seemed completely oblivious to the fact that we kept them rolling. They had a stellar staff of knowledgeable, hard-working people who kept often very difficult customers happy and coming back. Yes, the owners deserved some wealth, but ignoring the efforts of the large team of people carrying their business on their backs was complete bull.
Too many businesses work that way and too many wealthy people hide behind a 'I made it on my own' statement. All I want to ask them is this: Do you do all your paperwork yourself? Do you clean the office/store yourself? Do you greet customers and sell all the goods yourself? Do you figure out and sort all the problems yourself? Do you show up every day to open and close shop yourself? If you answer 'yes' to all, then fine: Keep the money as it is yours. But if it is not the case, then share the wealth and profits and quit giving yourself the big, fat paycheck just because you can.
Now, I am working on my own because despite the stresses and risks, the alternative was overrated. I'll be damned if my efforts, ideas and time ever get burned again on some coddled, neurotic bimbo's hair or some arrogant dude's two Audis. I just feel bad for anyone stuck in such a deal.
I've seen too many hard-working, educated, honest people being exploited by the likes of that woman. People like her are obscene.
Can we try out meritocracy already??
Takuan @ 58: Yes, I did. I was surprised. It really puts this kind of conversation in perspective.
me too.
Summary of pdf:
Income: $0.00
Expenses: $53k/week
Liabilities: $6.7 million
Assets: $4.3million
[Net Worth: -$2.4 million]
-----------------------------
Let's take up a collection for her, poor thing.
“Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result, misery."
Our economy is screwed if it depends on the spending of only the top 1% of the population.
My dad just got laid off from a United Technologies company. He'd been there 30 years and was given 2 hours to clean his desk and leave.
sigh.
That's so sad.
the times are ripe for Economic Buddhism. Who shall be the first Patriarch? (or Matriarch?)
This takes the Screwing you get for the Screwing you got into a price range that is a worthy candidate for the Golden Pussy Award.
@freeyourcrt #40, if you need a calculator to figure an order-of-magnitude difference, you're doing it wrong. The normal method would be to take your income, add a zero to the end, and use that as the cut-off.
The poor girl is driving a 5 year old car. I would have left the guy for that as well!
Another vote against all the trickle-down fools in this discussion:
Trickle down is proven - very conclusively - to be a sham. Even was before the current collapse!
The problem we really have is not that the rich don't spend their money, but that when they buy things, they prefer to buy at a much higher value than what its actually worth (in resources or work put into it). This inflates the value of a lot of things (houses, luxury etc.) and basically sucks the money from where it is really needed - the part of society where actual things are traded at reasonable prices.
Further adding to this is that the suppliers of the rich are the rich themselves! This means that while a little DOES trickle down (to underpaid or exploited workers who convert resources - bought at a discount - into multiple times their value), the lion share will always go to sustaining the upper classes accumulation of wealth.
This is why it is ridiculous to spend five grand a week on clothing - Not because rich people should actually go naked (or wait...), but because they pay that money for stuff that makes 500% profit of which little is actually spent on the poor guys producing and converting the "luxorious" fabrics, or even the ones who design the final product.
We have to stop pretending.
@grimc
True, it's a weaker case - but
Even if he was already CEO when they met, the point remains -- having a younger (and if not beautiful, then certainly well-maintained!) wife I'm sure was advantageous, and at the very least helped reinforce his image as a man of stature.
To put it another way - for a number of reasons i don't think he should have that much #$#% money.
i choose to focus on that rather than redirecting my ire towards the u.s. divorce codes and perhaps women as well.
I always married women who had more money than I had. You know, a few hundred bucks. Or maybe their own car.
Without money divorces are usually amicable.
Hold the phone!
This person has no internets!