Greed at a Glance
A weekly update on avarice in America and beyond

October 23, 2006

First buildings, then neckwear, now vodka. Billionaire Donald Trump seems determined to fix his name on anything that can be luxury branded. Trump's new “super premium” vodka will debut this week, at $40 a bottle. What's next for Trump the Brand? Whatever can evoke “over-the-top excellence," Trump last week told Brandweek. Meanwhile, Trump is currently thumping the media circuit for his new co-authored book, Why We Want You to Be Rich. The book's theme? Explains The Donald: "It's really turning out that there is no middle class. There's a poor class and there's a rich class, but there's very little middle class. We want our people and the people who buy the book to be on the rich side, not the poor side."

Yahoo last week announced a 38 percent drop in quarterly earnings, a financial body blow that almost immediately evoked fighting words from the cyberspace giant’s top exec. Declared CEO Terry Semel: “I am not satisfied with our current financial performance and we intend to improve it.” Might some shareholders have reason not to be “satisfied” with Semel himself? Yahoo's CEO since 2001, Semel has already cleared $429 million in personal option earnings from the company, and he’s still sitting on an options stash worth another $236 million. Yahoo appears determined not to let that stash sink steeply in value. The company has just acknowledged plans to “buy back” from the open market up to $3 billion worth of its stock, a move that will pump up demand for Yahoo shares — and ensure Semel plenty of continuing fruits for his executive labors . . .

Can there be redeeming social value in a “reality” series that pits the rich, the middle, and the poor in competitive combat? Maybe. A huge TV audience in Colombia has just spent three months watching a Survivor-style “class struggle” that, claims the show’s producers, spotlights their violence-torn nation’s “glaring social inequalities.” The show’s “privileged” team started the competition — top prize, $150,000 — on a beautiful beach complete with servants, lobster, and chilled white wine. The “down and outs” started in a cold cave. By the show’s finale, many of the 18 competitors had become friends, with shoe-shiner Manual Velasco even inviting some of the “privileged” to his daughter’s birthday. But Velasco ended up with no prize money. The series, says one critic, ended up empty, too, as just another soap opera that peddles delusions about escaping poverty in a nation where the richest tenth takes home over 60 times more income than the poorest.

In the emerging new global ultra-luxury goods market, nobody worries about trade secrets. The reason? Everybody already knows the secret to winning ultra-luxury hearts and minds: Just add diamonds. The Geneva, Switzerland-based Goldvish company, for instance, has created three “diamond-encrusted Piece Unique mobile phones.” Each retails for $1.25 million. Too rich for your blood? The Houston-based jeweler Paul Wall has become the leading purveyor of “grill,” the hip new label for diamond caps that cover your teeth. Wall’s “Money in your Mouth” grill, notes the Financial Times, runs a mere $8,000 for ten teeth . . .

The new Boeing 787 Dreamliner, a plane due in service the year after next, will carry up to 330 passengers on regular commercial flights. But the “V.I.P.” version of the new Boeing, announced last week by Lufthansa, will carry just 35. This new V.I.P. model joins a growing list of full-size corporate jets now available as private planes. The V.I.P. figures to go for $150 million a pop. Lufthansa has already outfitted a dozen jumbo 747s for the private luxury market, at about $230 million each. These airborne palaces come with more than enough legroom. They can easily handle, one news report points out , both the complete entourages of their wealthy owners and “their Rolls Royces and racehorses.”

Greed at a Glance appears each week in the Too Much online newsletter. Learn more about Too Much and then sign up here for a free subscription!