Day: October 13, 2004

Also from that previous entry: Elite Traveler magazine exists.

Look at it. Take a good hard look at it. From their press kit:

Elite Traveler magazine that has set standards for providing the most affluent audience in the history of media (Household Income of $1 million+). While there are many travel and lifestyle magazines written for the affluent market, until now no magazine in this category has been specifically targeted to the Elite Affluent—the very top end of the market and the smallest but most lucrative slice. (The wealthiest 1/2 of 1 percent of Americans control over 25 percent of Net Worth in the U.S., according to the Federal Reserve.)

Keep going. Don't stop now! Hey look, a reference to that Two Elite Americans (is that what Edwards was talking about) split:

Today, there is a widening gap within the affluent community itself…Half of Conde Nast Traveler (49%), Town & Country (49%) and Vanity Fair (48%) readers did not buy ANY fine jewelry in the past 12 months, and those who did spent on average less than $2,000…By contrast, the readers of Elite Traveler not only enjoy the finest life has to offer, they demand it! They are unlike the lower echelon of the affluent market who must save and plan in order to treat themselves to luxury vacations and purchases. The Elite Affluent live a completely different lifestyle.

Do you love those who make between $200K and $1mil are referred to as the "lower echelon." Wow. Just the printed table of contents preview for their winter issue sets me off as well. "14 Days Touring Elite India." Can you picture the trust fund princess? "I've always heard that India was really spiritual and cultural, but I've also heard it's dirty. I want to visit it, but you know, not visit the common parts."

The rich are more than welcome to spend their money how they'd like, but if this doesn't serve as the prima facie for a graduated income tax I don't know what will.

I'm also considering starting another one of these magazines. "Logan Square Elite" will be the first column, focusing on the higher end taco establishments. Shoot comments if you'd like to write another article that we can then use to swindle high-end watch makers into buying our ads (ET has at least $35,000 a PAGE in ad revenue according to their info; picture at least 60 pages of ads) and we'll laugh all the way to the bank.

Not to take any moral high ground (not that I hate such things), but when I was growing up, I was always taught that if you could pay your bills, keep yourself entertained, keep up your savings and have a little left over at the end of the month you were doing ok. Wow. My parents were fools – evidently you aren't doing ok until your net worth reached eight figures, or just over ten million dollars.

Very interesting article in slate yesterday about Billionaires for Kerry. They looked over research done for Elite Traveler magazine, in which they polled people whose net worth was over 1 million dollars.

The results are fascinating:

The rich folk [all over 1mil] favored Bush by a 58-42 margin… But when you break out the numbers, they tell a different story. The petit bourgeoisie millionaires were passionately for Bush: Those worth between $1 million and $10 million favored Bush by a 63-37 margin. But the haute millionaires, those worth more than million, favored Kerry 59-41.

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These results may seem confusing, as Bush is in favor of lowering taxes and Kerry in favor of raising them, but they make more sense seen through this lens: "Russ Prince explained the difference by noting that…those with a net worth of merely seven figures don't feel financially secure. 'The people with less than $10 million are still very focused on their personal financial situation in the short term'."

Those whose worth is more than $10mil care less about tax policy as they are going to be insanely rich no matter what the tax rate is, and instead get more worked up on things like Drug War policy (Soros) or the environment or, you know, social issues, and that they think that the Democrats have better policy on these topics.

Can you imagine anything more offensive than someone with 8 million dollars whose only topic of interest that gets him worked up enough to vote is taxes? "Sure we are at war with terrorism, we are occupying/liberating a Middle Eastern nation, health care is out of control, environmental policy is falling apart, pro-life forces are making headways, but the only thing that really matters to me, the only way I'd really measure progress, is to see the top marginal income tax rate below 30%."

Iraq and environmental policy are just two of the things less important than capital gains tax rates

This makes me laugh even more as I was at a party on Saturday where I talked to a person I knew from college who now works for the timber industry (he knows who he is if he visits this webpage). He brought up his salary (of course he did) which was ~$50,000, and then proceeded to talk about how he was more conservative these days as he feels his taxes are too high.

Huh? What? The idea that Bush et al is looking out for this guy when they discuss tax reform is absurd. (You don't trickle-down from the middle-class.) At that salary you will be comfortable but you'll never be independently wealthy (presumably his dream) – why not give up your dreams of being uber-rich and let your venting focus on unemployment, or health care? The idea that he feels a sense of solidarity with those who have 5 million dollars in the bank is more than a little absurd.