I am a child of the Great Depression in one sense; I was born right in the middle of it, although I don't remember much. I do know my father, a trained musician, had to work jobs in vaudeville theaters in the Washington, D.C. area where we lived, as well as drive a laundry delivery truck at night to make ends meet for my mother and their two sons.
All of which goes to my saying that what follows in no way diminishes my respect and sympathy for those suffering in the current domestic and international economic downturn. But it may diminish your respect for what is now obviously very much Rupert Murdoch's Wall Street Journal.
Curtailing
Yesterday the WSJ published an article entitled: "Rich Cut Back on Payments to Mistresses"
At first I thought it was a news spoof from The Onion but once I started reading I couldn’t stop. What a blessed release from the recession, Obama's cabinet picks, and the appalling news that, for the first time since 1956, a narrow majority of Missouri voters backed a presidential loser.
According to the WSJ article, a survey by Prince & Assoc., (not the Prince of Purple Rain fame), more than 80% of multimillionaires who had extra-marital lovers planned to cut back on their gifts and allowances. Only 12% of the multimillionaire cheaters said they plan to drop their lovers altogether for financial reasons.
"Rich people are getting hit, and they’re all expressing the need to curtail unnecessary spending," said Russ Alan Prince, president of a wealth research firm based in Connecticut. "Lovers are part of the same calculation."
Bisexual Liberation?
"Well..." I'm thinking to myself, "...who would be so stupid as to respond at all to such impertinent questions, much less respond truthfully?"
These potential dollar-a-year Obama administration officials certainly would never be able to pass the stringent background checks I've read about in the media. What would they say about, well, past e-mails that might be embarrassing to the latest ethically conscious new regime in Washington.
But on a "progress-on-the-sexual-liberation-front" note, the survey claimed to cover both cheating men and unfaithful women, (or the other way around, if you like).
Of course, any study of millionaires and their mistresses (or misters) should be taken with a large grain of salt. The survey, a subset of a larger wealth study, polled only a mere 191 individuals with a minimum net worth of $20 million who said they had lovers of at least a year or more, (this to screen out one night stands?).
About two thirds of the respondents were men and one third women. All were married and all had personal control over their finances, (at least until this survey goes public with names), meaning the women and men surveyed were the primary wealth holders in their homes.
Motherly Concern
Women were far more generous to their paramours in the face of the financial crises. Less than 20% planned to lower allowances, gifts and perks, while more than half planned to raise them!
The most surprising stats in the study relate to gender and what might be termed "length of service." Fully 82% of men in the study, (possibly some distressed hedge fund gurus), said they planned to lower the allowances to their mistresses, while more than three quarters planned to provide fewer gifts, less expensive gifts and fewer perks, like jet rides, resort vacations and top restaurant meals.
Sugar Daddy
All of which put me in mind of a famous George Galbreath cartoon that appeared in The New Yorker in 1936. In it, a tuxedo-clad sugar daddy croons to a chorus girl type: "And if Roosevelt is not re-elected, perhaps even a villa in Newport, my dearest sweet."
I guess this bit of WSJ statistical trivia underscores the depth and breadth of the economic mess in which we all, rich and not so rich, find ourselves.
Deadly Embrace
It also reminds me of one of the great ripostes of English politics, when two men who traded the office of Prime Minister back and forth in the late 19th century, went at each other.
The Liberal Party's William Gladstone, (a notorious consort of London's street walkers), was reported to have angrily said to the Conservative Party's Benjamin Disraeli: "I predict, Sir, that you will die either by hanging or of some vile disease".
To which the Rt. Hon. Mr. Disraeli coolly replied, "That all depends, sir, upon whether I embrace your principles or your mistress."
* Which proves what I often say, that you should keep some of your assets offshore for safe keeping. I tell you Where To Stash Your Cash: Click Here. And if you're interested in Switzerland, Click here for Swiss Money Secrets.
Comments