billion dollar home

[CouttsClient]

I wish more incredibly wealthy people built gigantic homes. A wealthy person who does so really is making a choice to employ many people just for the pleasure of living in a huge home. Here in America people complain so often about distribution of wealth but whenever someone who can afford to build a monstrous house builds one...they complain about that as well. Those things are money pits for the owners mostly because staffing them is incredibly...even the entry level handyman/housekeeper expect a minimum of $40-$50k. When I was looking for staff in LA the agency sent me the resume for a House Manager who worked without the founders of Google for 8 years...the salary requirement was outrageous. I'm sure he was worth it to them but I couldn't afford it.

I say we all encourage the wealthiest to spend as much a possible. I would rather they build the largest home they can and directly employ 50+ people than for them to live in a 2500 sq ft tract home and employ 0 people. I don't care how ugly it is.

 

[SField]

Originally Posted by CouttsClient

I wish more incredibly wealthy people built gigantic homes. A wealthy person who does so really is making a choice to employ many people just for the pleasure of living in a huge home.

Here in America people complain so often about distribution of wealth but whenever someone who can afford to build a monstrous house builds one...they complain about that as well. Those things are money pits for the owners mostly because staffing them is incredibly...even the entry level handyman/housekeeper expect a minimum of $40-$50k. When I was looking for staff in LA the agency sent me the resume for a House Manager who worked without the founders of Google for 8 years...the salary requirement was outrageous. I'm sure he was worth it to them but I couldn't afford it.

I say we all encourage the wealthiest to spend as much a possible.

I would rather they build the largest home they can and directly employ 50+ people than for them to live in a 2500 sq ft tract home and employ 0 people. I don't care how ugly it is.

Not to mention that projects like this, despite their ugliness, lead to innovation.

 

[not_a_virus.exe]

Originally Posted by intent

I thought he died fighting the Zerg.
best post in this thread.

 

[StephenHero]

Employment for the sake of maintaining that house falls under the broken window fallacy. The redistribution of money from the owner to the servants is beneficial, but it comes at the expense of more worthwhile labor. The services rendered, let's say feather dusting this guy's forty mantles, provides no lingering benefit. It's not much different from suburban lawncare. In many instances, grass still grows back, is hidden behind a fence for nobody to use, and take away 50 man hours a summer to maintain.

A young hoodlum, say, heaves a brick through the window of a baker's shop. The shopkeeper runs out furious, but the boy is gone. A crowd gathers, and begins to stare with quiet satisfaction at the gaping hole in the window and the shattered glass over the bread and pies. After a while the crowd feels the need for philosophic reflection. And several of its members are almost certain to remind each other or the baker that, after all, the misfortune has its bright side. It will make business for some glazier. As they begin to think of this they elaborate upon it. How much does a new plate glass window cost? Two hundred and fifty dollars? That will be quite a sun. After all, if windows were never broken, what would happen to the glass business? Then, of course, the thing is endless. The glazier will have $250 more to spend with other merchants, and these in turn will have $250 more to spend with still other merchants, and so ad infinitum. The smashed window will go on providing money and employment in ever-widening circles. The logical conclusion from all this would be, if the crowd drew it, that the little hoodlum who threw the brick, far from being a public menace, was a public benefactor.

Now let us take another look. The crowd is at least right in its first conclusion. This little act of vandalism will in the first instance mean more business for some glazier. The glazier will be no more unhappy to learn of the incident than an undertaker to learn of a death. But the shopkeeper will be out $250 that he was planning to spend for a new suit. Because he has had to replace the window, he will have to go without the suit (or some equivalent need or luxury). Instead of having a window and $250 he now has merely a window. Or, as he was planning to buy the suit that very afternoon, instead of having both a window and a suit he must be content with the window and no suit. If we think of him as part of the community, the community has lost a new suit that might otherwise have come into being, and is just that much poorer.

The glazier's gain of business, in short, is merely the tailor's loss of business. No new "employment" has been added. The people in the crowd were thinking only of two parties to the transaction, the baker and the glazier. They had forgotten the potential third party involved, the tailor. They forgot him precisely because he will not now enter the scene. They will see the new window in the next day or two. They will never see the extra suit, precisely because it will never be made. They see only what is immediately visible to the eye.*

 

[zjpj83]

Originally Posted by StephenHero

Employment for the sake of maintaining that house falls under the broken window fallacy. The redistribution of money from the owner to the servants is beneficial, but it comes at the expense of more worthwhile labor. The services rendered, let's say feather dusting this guy's forty mantles, provides no lingering benefit. It's not much different from suburban lawncare. In many instances, grass still grows back, is hidden behind a fence for nobody to use, and take away 50 man hours a summer to maintain.

Silly argument. Should trash men stop picking up trash because more trash will subsequently be generated? Should janitors stop mopping public toilets because they will just get grimey again? The "lingering benefit" statement makes no sense.

Also, we are no longer cavemen where everyone has to be hunting or gathering. We live in a modern world in which people can have jobs that don't involve subsistence. This is how we can have artists, actors, writers and other people who produce no "worthwhile labor." It contributes to culture and the world we live in. A community with mowed lawns is nicer than a community with overgrown lawns. Is the world a better place because this guy probably employs someone to fluff his pillows every ten minutes? Debateable, but I bet the employee would rather fluff pillows than shovel **** in an alley or take any number of other crappy jobs.

 

[Tokyo Slim]

Originally Posted by zjpj83

Silly argument. Should trash men stop picking up trash because more trash will subsequently be generated? Should janitors stop mopping public toilets because they will just get grimey again? The "lingering benefit" statement makes no sense.

Also, we are no longer cavemen where everyone has to be hunting or gathering. We live in a modern world in which people can have jobs that don't involve subsistence. This is how we can have artists, actors, writers and other people who produce no "worthwhile labor." It contributes to culture and the world we live in. A community with mowed lawns is nicer than a community with overgrown lawns. Is the world a better place because this guy probably employs someone to fluff his pillows every ten minutes? Debateable, but I bet the employee would rather fluff pillows than shovel **** in an alley or take any number of other crappy jobs.

^ someone wants to be a fluffer.

 

[StephenHero]

Originally Posted by zjpj83

Silly argument. Should trash men stop picking up trash because more trash will subsequently be generated? Should janitors stop mopping public toilets because they will just get grimey again? The "lingering benefit" statement makes no sense.
No they shouldn't stop picking up trash because that is a tangible benefit that the whole of society can find value in. Cleanliness is good. But a huge part of advancing society is finding out how to get more production with less work and to streamline labor into the most worthwhile causes that offer the most benefits. This is why we are no longer a hunting and gathering society. We've found more efficient means to reach those ends (food and shelter) and thus we have spent more labor on other efforts and we try to improve efficiency in those endeavors so we can then move on to even more challenging ones (cell phones, laser hair removal, whatever). The question you should ask is whether or not however many servants this guy is employing are best being utilized for the labor they undertake or whether or not his billion dollars would have been better off creating jobs that produced goods or services besides simple domestic maintenance. It's not different from our stimulus program. Our unemployment could reach 2% overnight if the government decided to hire all of our unemployed people to bang on pots and pans for $10/hour, but the only output for that labor would be noise, and thus it's a dumb idea.

 

[SField]

Originally Posted by StephenHero

No they shouldn't stop picking up trash because that is a tangible benefit that the whole of society can find value in. Cleanliness is good. But a huge part of advancing society is finding out how to get more production with less work and to streamline labor into the most worthwhile causes that offer the most benefits. This is why we are no longer a hunting and gathering society. We've found more efficient means to reach those ends (food and shelter) and thus we have spent more labor on other efforts and we try to improve efficiency in those endeavors so we can then move on to even more challenging ones (cell phones, laser hair removal, whatever). The question you should ask is whether or not however many servants this guy is employing are best being utilized for the labor they undertake or whether or not his billion dollars would have been better off creating jobs that produced goods or services besides simple domestic maintenance.

It's not different from our stimulus program. Our unemployment could reach 2% overnight if the government decided to hire all of our unemployed people to bang on pots and pans for $10/hour, but the only output for that labor would be noise, and thus it's a dumb idea.

I see what you're saying but comparing it to the stimulus plan is a red herring. Society as a whole bears the brunt of that cost, whereas this guy's hiring of 600 people to wipe his ass comes solely out of his pocket.

This tower will obviously create a massive gentrified periphery around it, which could be seen as negative. However, 600 people most likely have more secure and comfortable employment than before the tower was built. As long as they're generating income, they're economically useful. And unlike the broken window argument, the economic impact is not the result of something legally or morally questionable (although that might actually be the case here.) The window didn't need to be broken in the first place, whereas nothing was lost by the building of the tower. The window was an artificially created $250 and required for one individual to lose something that they never should have, whereas this added value rather than destroying something needlessly in order to replace it.

 

[LabelKing]

I just want a luxury submarine.

 

[RSS]

I'd prefer a nice duplex ... at 740 Park Avenue. One with the side street entrance ... not the entry on Park.

 

[Mr. Moo]

Originally Posted by RSS

I'd prefer a nice duplex ... at 740 Park Avenue. One with the side street entrance ... not the entry on Park.

 

[CouttsClient]

Originally Posted by RSS

I'd prefer a nice duplex ... at 740 Park Avenue. One with the side street entrance ... not the entry on Park.
Ahh yes...that goes on the list of things money alone cannot buy. The board might not approve the guy who built the billion dollar home

 

[ALFAMALE]

Their toilet is made out of damn gold.

 

[zjpj83]

Originally Posted by StephenHero

No they shouldn't stop picking up trash because that is a tangible benefit that the whole of society can find value in. Cleanliness is good. But a huge part of advancing society is finding out how to get more production with less work and to streamline labor into the most worthwhile causes that offer the most benefits. This is why we are no longer a hunting and gathering society. We've found more efficient means to reach those ends (food and shelter) and thus we have spent more labor on other efforts and we try to improve efficiency in those endeavors so we can then move on to even more challenging ones (cell phones, laser hair removal, whatever). The question you should ask is whether or not however many servants this guy is employing are best being utilized for the labor they undertake or whether or not his billion dollars would have been better off creating jobs that produced goods or services besides simple domestic maintenance.

It's not different from our stimulus program. Our unemployment could reach 2% overnight if the government decided to hire all of our unemployed people to bang on pots and pans for $10/hour, but the only output for that labor would be noise, and thus it's a dumb idea.

I can't say I agree with you. The difference is that this guy is a private individual who can hire people to bang on pots and pans for $10/hour if he wants. The government should be maximizing the efficiency of what it pays for - that is something on which you and I can agree. But your efficiency-maximizing calculus gets lost after that. We live in a market economy. Things are worth what people are willing to pay for them.

 

[StephenHero]

Yeah. I don't really care what this guy buys. But it's not like it's money wisely spent, either morally or economically.