The Rich Are Different Than You and Me

            This post describes the rich as those making $250,000 a year or more. They’ve just received for Christmas an extension of generous tax cuts enacted during the Bush Administration.  The rich proclaim that $250,000 a year is too high a threshold, this said when they are making millions and billions. The rich are different than you and me.

Consider a recent auction of fine art at Christie’s Auction House in Manhattan. Five bidders vied to bring home Matisse’s monumental bronze sculpture of a woman’s back — “Nu de Dos, 4 État (Back IV)” — conceived in 1930 but not cast until 1978.  Superdealer Larry Gagosian won the sculpture for $48.8 million, a record for the artist and well above its $35 million high estimate. After the sale Mr. Gagosian said he had bid on behalf of a client whom he declined to name. Mr. Gagosian has bid in the past for Steven A. Cohen, the hedge fund billionaire, who was seen in a skybox above the salesroom at the auction. A skybox above the salesroom at an auction? Not a skybox at Yankee Stadium, or the home of the Dallas Cowboys or even ­­­but a skybox above the salesroom at an art auction.  The rich are different than you and me.

The new wealth exercising its muscle at such auctions is said to come from India and China, Japan and Brazil. But there’s still plenty of it here in the good, old U.S.A.  The rich are different than you and me.

Fashion sales for the affluent young remain strong as reflected in a recent New York Times article “Workwear Dresses Up for Office or Club.  Chambray, more comfortable and lighter than denim, gets kicked up a notch from its workingman roots in a Gitman Vintage shirt with button-down collar at Barneys for only $150.00.  Japanese-born designer Takeshi Ohfuchi’s homage to American vintage comes with wrinkles that are part of the look of its chambray shirt, $285 at Barneys.” Expensive jeans come with holes in them.  Now chambray shirts come with wrinkles.  The rich are different than you and me.

Take solace in the fact that you don’t have to be rich to talk trash. News from the advertising world now focuses on fashionable trash because it seems that Black is the new black, at least when it comes to trash. Hefty says it want to cash in on evolving trash-can colors with BlackOut, a new line of black kitchen bags that are about as stylish as trash bags can be.  They’re due to hit stores next month. Do the rich take out their own trash?