Cheap sex in a strip mall with a captive Asian woman was a turn-on for Kraft . It had nothing to do with stealing sugar packets from McDonalds .
7
Always think it must be soooooo frustrating that famous multimillionaires, men who “have it all”...Cannot indulge themselves in same small vices that the average anonymous American slob partakes!!
The writer suggests Call Girls But don’t you remember Elliott Spitzer?!
These celebrity rich guys can catch a break... It’s hilarious
1
Of all the things to skimp on, why sex?
Because Madam Palm and her five Russian daughters is too messy?
1
I do have a quarrel with Billionaires who want to buy sex. Or gamble. Or cheat legally on their taxes. These things are vices and are examples of moral weakness no matter who does them. They are behaviors that might be excused when done by desperate people who are struggling for survival but not by people who have every advantage that wealth can buy, which in a capitalist society is essentially everything. One reason that Billionaires display so many moral weaknesses is that they are basically part of the criminal class and live a life of predation in all things. The Billionaires we hear of are the 1% of the criminal class who have hit the jackpot and now can buy the government off. They are safe in their protective cocoons of special laws for rich people but at heart they are still criminals out to con the world. And so they follow their nature and exploit women who are in the grip of a criminal conspiracy which they are helpless to fight. The Billionaires will give millions to the bought politician class to write more laws to protect their crimes but that will not give them the satisfaction that they can get by forcing a woman to give them a blow job at a strip mall and not leave a tip. The rich are always true to their nature and they cannot change. But we can change the rich by confiscating their money and bringing their morally repugnant behinds back down to the level playing field that they are so afraid of. All we have to do is vote.
14
Sex isn’t the only thing he is cheap about. The picture in this article shows a man in dire need of a decent haircut. He looks like an old bum with a fancy suit. And yes I’m talking about Kraft not Trump.
3
Freely making a deal for consensual sex is something that should be legal and accepted. But paying dirt for sex with knowingly trafficked humans, not cool. One might even say misogynistic, which would be the point.
1
Trump serving fast food to champion football players struck me as both racist and elitist - these people wouldn't enjoy fancy food, and there's no need to impress them.
A lot of spending by the wealthy is to impress their peers, or signal their social standing. For Trump, it's mainly about advancing his business interests and his brand. Trump will never spend large amounts on people from whom he sees no expected benefit for himself.
8
This is one of the most pointless pieces I have read in the NYT in a while. So why are billionaires cheap with a haircut, with sex, or with whatever? Who cares! What I am really interested in is to see them pay a price for breaking the law.
And regarding the sugar envelopes and the Holiday Inn soaps, people do not "steal" them from the fast food chains or from the hotels. When one buys food, those packages are included in the price of the food. When one pays for a room, those soaps are included in the price of a room. Unless the people left the restaurant or the hotel with a full box of sugar envelopes or soaps, or steal the napkin holder or the towels, they are in their right to bring these items with them, and to use them in the manner that they find most suitable. Some people like to recycle. To use what they receive. There is nothing wrong with that. Who are you to judge, Ms. Wiener?
9
I think the Queen saves her wrapping paper due to being raised during WW2 rationing. Which the palace also did. When Eisenhower went to Buckingham palace he and his wife were shocked the bathtubs all had a painted line showing the 6 inches rationing allowed for bath water. She married in a dress bought with ration coupons for material sent in by the public as gifts. Her father was frugal (for a king), her mother and sister not so much. But as a monarch she has always been frugal compared to other royal through history
8
I have known a number of millionaires whom it painted to lose a single dollar in a bet, inexplicable the persistence of fear of return to the poverty of their or their parent's childhoods.
1
I'm beyond that pain. I don't gamble. Not even a church raffle ticket. My other vices will kill me before I go broke.
2
In my (limited) experience of the super-wealthy being conspicuously cheap: they're sending a message, obviously.
What *is* that message? "I didn't get (or deserve) this money because of inheritance, or by screwing people over, but by VIRTUE." Which, in the cases where I was involved, was patently false.
I grew up in a 1% family. My chore was to take the yard. Same leaf rake, year after year, losing a tine or two each season. By the time if was 14 it was down to a modicum of tines - ineffective and frustrating. But we could not acquire a new rake because they were “too expensive.” What did I know about the cost of rakes...... At age 16, out of frustration, I drove myself to the hardware store and bought my own damn rake for $10 (in 1978). Now, years later, I’ve observed that the very wealthy are often happy to be frugal as long as it doesn’t affect their personal comfort whether it be cuts to Medicaid, school funding, or SNAAP.
13
It wasn't about getting a bargain. It was about being anonymous.
The high priced professionals who took down Spitzer knew the names and faces of every important client.
The trafficked sex workers in Palm Beach, most of whom knew no English, wouldn't have recognized the aging billionaires coming in off the street for sex. Those guys weren't movie stars with famous chiseled faces.They probably didn't need appointments. And the Mar a Lago Madam running the day spas wasn't likely to be on the premises when her fellow GOP donors and Mar a Lago members stopped in for a quickie.
11
Sex and massage parlors aside, there's nothing wrong with thrift, even if you're rich. Everyone enjoys a good bargain, a two-for-one restaurant coupon, collecting change in a jar, reusing things rather then trashing them. The cheapness comes in when you calculate meager tips or pilfer stuff at the expense of others or refuse to pay your library fines, etc.
You can't equate Trump stiffing migrant workers and cheating on his taxes with a movie star who stops by Kentucky Fried Chicken because its offering a free drink with your order. Even a billionaire can be penny-wise -- it's a state of mind, not a defect. So yes, a rich person who blows off a waitress is shabby. But a rich person who buys "slightly used" shoes is no one to pointlessly mock.
6
Excellent article, Jennifer. You know you've hit a bullseye when you get over 500 comments. The issue you raise about wealthy men patronizing a brothel-like establishment whose employees are virtually female prisoners goes to the core of your piece. It provides a needed self examination for all of us men who can afford these bargain-priced services. Love you. paul in bessemer
3
Anyone else turned off by comparing real women who are enslaved to sugar packets and napkins?
I see what the author was trying to do but it’s offensive in its own way.
8
I have a relative who has done very, very well financially, though he certainly not a billionaire. He delights in saying that he is not price sensitive, a phrase I find infuriating, as I also have a friend worth much more who still looks for reasonable value in whatever he buys.
Most of us are not at that financial level. I certainly am not. But I am comfortable. I have learned the wisdom in my mother's comment after she learned that she was dying of pancreatic cancer less than four months before her death: "I guess I'll wear my cashmere sweaters more."
What is the point of having the means to enjoy classy clothing or anything else if we keep it for "good?" I'm not saving it for the kids. I will enjoy it now.
6
Anonymous women unable to resist present the ultimate non-threatening environment for a man who otherwise may be impotent in the presence of a more powerful woman.
It's that simple. These men can only experience sexual potency in such environments. Has nothing to do with cheap. It's all about power. These men are unable to perform with a woman on an equal basis.
12
Indeed no man is impotent in a massage parlor...Those ladies know all the tricks...
2
Good for the Queen reusing wrapping paper, and for the CEO who bought clothes at resale shop!
Reduce, reuse, recycle!
7
I am a cousin of several business people -- milionaires in Euros. The children of these people are doctors engineers, economists but they don’t make small percentage of what their parents make.
As a child I had nannies and was exposed to household help. I have seen since childhood workers who have long hours and barely cover their living expenses. And others who with little work get rich.
I have contact here in California with people who are in their early 20's have a HS education, a low paying job-- and already own 2 houses—I guess a Trump-copy.
I go often to farmers markets and have befriended and admire and cherish the farm workers who do heavy, back breaking work for very little money. And thanks to whom I eat healthy and fresh vegetables.
The reasons above are a very compelling reason to me why the Government should change the taxation system in this country. In Europe with hundreds of class wars they adopted the system so that these market “imperfections” are corrected. It’s time the US acts otherwise the trend toward the third-“”worldarization””” of the US will continue unabatted.
There are many examples of US billionaires and the length of time it took the to reap billions.!!! These billionaires unless stopped will actually destroy the US.
9
The excessively rich don't become so by spending money. Their talent, such as it is, is in raking it in.
2
I've known several people in the hundred millionaire to billionaire range. Each one of them was extremely cheap, to the extent of expecting me to pick up the tab for lunch. One might wonder whether their thrift is what led to their becoming super wealthy, but I know enough about their backgrounds to say that wasn't the case. I honestly believe the very rich live in constant dread of others taking advantage of them. I think this synchs with the author's opinion of why Kraft sought out massage women without English or papers.
46
I've argued it's a culture-religion thing. Clifford Geertz: “A religion is a system of symbols which acts to establish powerful, pervasive, and long-lasting moods in men by formulating conceptions of a general order of existence and clothing those conceptions with such an aura of factuality that the moods and motivations seem uniquely realistic.”
The rich ritualize non-sliding-scale participation in transactions (pauper and tycoon paying equal part of the tab, mogul waiting for his 23 cents change etc.) because they attach extreme moral significance to the economic system's distribution of wealth, which to them are laws of nature not to be tampered with. Each time they act "like everybody else" in money transactions, they're proclaiming the overall system's (Almighty) justice and fairness, its Morality. Small and large redistributions to them deny the morality (I mean Morality) of the market's distribution.
In other words, they want the joint social experience to ritually affirm their view of market morality, in such a way that you and they make clear obeisance to and ratify it.
7
Also, because they worship economic power, they consider (i.e, pretend to themselves and you) it is an affirmation of your dignity to have you pay and not be a beneficiary of largesse, and that their paying would affront your dignity. They don't grasp that their not paying is simply cheap, and that there is nothing more (or deeper) to it.
It shows how deranged people can be, in the thrall of market worship.
6
In other words, acting otherwise would violate their conception of "meritocracy." (Which, again, is their Religion.)
5
Blaming the billionaire for exploiting these enslaved women is like blaming illegal drug users for supporting cartels. There's a grain of truth (and self-righteousness) to it, but if we really want to change the situation, we have to change the laws that keep women in the shadows where they're vulnerable to exploitation.
There are almost no legitimate outlets for this kind of thing; it's banned almost everywhere in the United States, despite the fact that many people (including, interestingly, the author of this piece) don't really have a problem with it, so long as both parties consent and are of age, and despite the fact that we know full well that banning it doesn't actually make it go away.
17
@M.-no legitimate outlets? Prostitution is legal in Las Vegas. Kraft could fly there, in his own jet, down a few whiskeys on the way, then rent a suite at the Bellagio and take care of business. No one would know anything. But he doesn't want to spend all that money, he'd rather go slumming. His casual use of women as momentary chattel cannot be justified.
24
@M. Multiple studies on European countries with legal sex work demonstrate a marked up-tick in sex trafficking of vulnerable, young, easily exploited humans alongside the 'legal' profession. You should look them up before posting the nonsense that claims sex trafficking disappears when prostitution is legal and regulated.
13
@Mark Kraft does deserve blame, but saying so doesn't actually do anything to solve the problem. There will always be a market for prostitution. Changing laws, on the other hand, could take it out of the shadows. Most customers do not have private jets. Why are we so keen to discuss Kraft's cheapness (which is fun and allows we commoners to feel morally superior, but accomplishes nothing), and not the laws that allow women to be exploited in the first place? Some people want to keep it underground precisely so that it will produce victims they can point to to justify the policy. That's reprehensible, and it exploits the women every bit as much as Kraft has.
I'm not sure why I care enough about this to comment on it--I have no personal stake. But I keep seeing society make the same mistake in criminalizing vices like drugs, prostitution, and gambling, and there simply has to be a better way.
3
many rich people have a particular relationship with money, something like obsession. so, no surprise if it sometimes comes out a little twisted.
2
My father's boss many years ago was rich, owning cattle ranches, oil fields and a shipyard where my father worked as a machinist and welder. He told of his boss bringing a couple of cooking pans in for him to braze closed holes in the bottom of them. My father opined that that was the way his boss kept his money, being cheap on the small things. Maybe that applies to the others too?
2
Some of this behavior, as with Queen Elisabeth reusing wrapping paper, may have more to do with not wanting to throw something out that still had some life to it. Which is not a bad thing.
Paying a welder plug a hole in a pan probably is not cost effective nor does it likely result in a very nice pan. Still it squeezes a little more life out of it and doesn’t use the energy and resources it would take to make a new one. Because a rich person chooses not to live extravagantly, it doesn’t necessarily mean they are cheap.
3
Whatsoever you do to the least of my brothers... Just because I am an Ex-Catholic and an Atheist doesn't mean I have no moral code.
2
Perhaps if Mr Kraft and so many others had earned their money by the sweat of their brows, I'd have some respect, but as it is inheritance, marriage or simple theft clouds that possibility.
Most wealth is assured by laws which favor all of the above as our respected leadership know who to ask in order to guarantee passage of favorable legislation such as Mr Trump's recently passed gift to those of both political parties.
Democracy? Republic? Kleptocracy is more like it.
3
I spend a lot of energy helping the decidedly public college I graduated from many years ago. I fervently believe that everyone is entitled to a shot at a better life and our public schools are one way to level the playing field.
In that work, I have met with many rich people who also support that mission. People who can give millions to a school that they have no connections to other than supporting the mission. All of these people are first generation rich, and rich like tens of millions not billions. I have found that all of these folks are generous to a fault. So I want to put in a plug for the rich who are in fact nice, generous, etc.
Having said that, I suspect these particular rich folks are self-selected away from a large number of the rich who are simply mean and clueless. And unfortunately they may be in the minority.
4
All very interesting, Ms. Weiner. Thank you.
In addition to the purloined soap and packets of stolen sugar, may I add--
--glasses marked with the Howard Johnson logo?
How about some Martial? Roman epigrammatist. Who was no less puzzled than you, Ms. Weiner. Addressing some rich friend who stuck to the penny-pinching ways of his youth, he says:
Asse cicer tepidum constat et asse Venus.
"You pay a penny for warm porridge--and a penny for love."
But you know, Ms. Weiner--a beastlier rationale comes to mind. So please bear with me.
There are men who really ENJOY--the humiliation of the women they make love to. These must be made to FEEL abject--dominated--used. Like that guy in Ibsen's "Doll House"--doesn't he enjoy the fleeting fantasy that his own wedded wife--
--is really a prostitute?
Abominable!
And is it possible--is it just possible--that Mr. Kraft sought--and got--that same creepy titillation? As who should say:
"The social and economic chasm between ME--and this wretched young woman--here (as it were) upon sufferance--a woman who barely speaks my language--a woman utterly at my mercy, at my disposal--a woman who exists (as it were) to SERVICE me--"
Who knows, Ms. Weiner? Maybe all these dreadful things coalesced in Mr. Kraft's mind--came together for twenty minutes, for half an hour of abominable pleasure.
Or maybe I'm totally wrong.
In which case, may Heaven forgive me.
But maybe I'm RIGHT.
Who knows?
3
I worked for one of the wealthiest men in California who gave me a raise after a year, writing my new salary on a piece of paper and shoving it at me, while saying, "Now maybe you can afford some decent clothes." I replied out that my raise amounted to 25 cents a week, but that I'd "rush right out and put a down payment on a pair of socks."
Sometimes people get rich by pinching every penny, but I think a lot of wealthy people are simply obsessed by their wealth. After all, that's what makes them "special."
11
I would like to make one comment- my last one was censored -
Robert Kraft has given over $400 million dollars to chairitable foundations.
It’s interesting how this reporter seems to marginalize fiscal discipline - electing to say it’s being cheap.
The only going thing cheap, was the basis for this article.
Let’s see if the Times censors this comment as well.
...truth hurt?
5
Rich people do not like to waste money any more than anyone else does. Stealing sugar is contemptible, but a billionaire or movie star eating at In-and-out is fine. I myself don't like restaurants that have cloth napkins, too many forks, and reservations. Even if were a billionaire I would still prefer ones where the silverware is wrapped in a paper napkin and the waitress calls you "honey."
6
The first rule of the rich is "you make money by not spending it". Some of the cheapest people I've ever met flew in on their G-5s on the way to their third home.
5
When I was young, my boss, a man who I thought was really, really rich, shared this bit of worldly knowledge over one of our several lunches: "It is not about how much money you make, but how much money you save." Made sense at the time, though life doesn't quite work as neatly as the aphorism suggests. And while he may have stuffed sugar packets in his pocket, his house was large and his car a new German sedan. Now that I am much older and not really, really rich, though I became a decent saver and buy my own sugar, I have come to understand that the man shared this aphorism, not so much as to enlighten me about how to become wealthy, but rather to disguise the true reason he never once paid for my lunch.
11
I was with you right up to In 'n' Out. Gourmet dining knows no price.
1
OK, I have the money. Please tell me how to get sex without being arrested by an undercover cop? One option is to move to Germany where prostitution is legal. Another option is to get married when it is legit to pay for sex. Any other possibility? Especially if I prefer sex with a different woman whenever possible.
3
@PaulN There are legal brothels in Nevada, so you don’t have to go all the way to Germany.
Another option, I understand, is to go to bars and buy a lot of women drinks.
2
Bravo Queen Elizabeth II for reusing wrapping paper. It is not about being cheap. It is about reducing waste and saving the environment.
10
i work in a business where the upper levels are making a ton of money... really lots of money. yet, when booking a flight or a hotel, or a car, they always want to use miles, credits, points or AAA discounts. they get the expense accounts, reimbursements of the most minor expenses (a bottle of water at the airport? really?) and are sure to ask for every single penny. the few things they aren't reimbursed for, they can declare on taxes at the end of the year. the rich pay for very little, and that's how they stay rich. the rest of us pay for them, that's how we stay pushed down.
7
As someone who's worked in industries that depend on tips, the wealthiest were the cheapest with tips. There might be a reason why the wealthiest are this way; they didn't get there giving it away.
2
You left out that many billionaires are not only cheap, they're sociopaths of cheapness.
Jeff Bezos wouldn't provide air conditioning for his workers, but parked an ambulance outside to take any workers who passed out from the heat to an ER.
The Donald used illegal immigrants as construction workers but wouldn't provide them with hard hats, made them sleep at the site, & paid them under minimum wages.
These people are sick & dangerous to millions around the world.
12
Why does Trump expect to use my money to build an expensive border wall to keep out illegal aliens at one end of the country when his cronies are flying in illegal aliens at the other end for their own pleasure?
I am tired of seeing one set of rules for the ultra rich and another set for the rest of us.
11
He is my 'modest proposal' (or maybe better termed "modesty proposal"): Require anyone with wealth or income reaching in to the high six figures to answer, on their tax returns, the following three questions.
1) Do you think the American economic system should "meritocratic" in such a way that wealth and income should be based on, correspond to, and correlate with (be proportional to) combined talent, ability, and effort?
2) Do you believe wealth and income (such as wages) for the middle class, working class, working poor, and welfare recipients should be based on the principles suggested in question 1?
3) Do you consider the principles suggested in question one sound policy based on considerations of "fairness"?
4) Do your levels of wealth and income correspond to your own disproportionately high levels of talent combined with effort?
5) If the answer to 4 is "no," do you think a different standard applies to you than others of lower income?
6) If the answer to 5 is "yes," please explain. If no, please remit a check to the U.S. Treasury correcting the discrepancy to a level you consider "fair," accompanied by explanation of the amount chosen.
7) If the answer to 4 is "yes," please give a reasonabe explanation of how your "combined ability/intelligence and effort" surpasses the population average by the same ratio/factor that your wealth and income do.
Please sign and notarize your responses for public record.
1
Maybe these rich guys are "slumming" and it adds to the thrill.
3
Good article. I think there's a difference of intent behind thrift (the subjective perception of getting your money's worth) and "cheapness"/exploitation. Warren Buffet's $18 haircuts is thrifty; that's what it is worth to him. As long as someone is freely willing to give him an $18 haircut, it's win-win. Donald Trump reneging on fully paying contractors for work done after-the-fact is exploitive. Same with Trump University. Or, pretty much anything he does. I win, you lose. Ultimately it's not *really* about money; it's about a narcissistic and perhaps sociopathic need for control and power. And should be publicly condemned every time it occurs.
7
@LCS Trump can not conceive of a transaction where both parties come away better off. He believes that every transaction has a winner and a loser, and he is determined to be the winner.
This explains much of his behavior, and why he gets disproportionately angry when he perceives that he “lost”, to the point that he denies that he lost.
3
(Oops, corrected:) Here is my 'modest/y proposal': Require anyone with wealth or income reaching into the high six figures to answer, on their tax returns, the following 7 questions.
1) Do you think the American economic system should "meritocratic" in such a way that wealth and income should be based on, correspond to, and correlate with (be proportional to) combined talent, ability, and effort?
2) Do you believe wealth and income (such as wages) for the middle class, working class, working poor, and welfare recipients should be based on the principles suggested in question 1?
3) Do you consider the principles suggested in question one sound policy based on considerations of "fairness"?
4) Do your levels of wealth and income correspond to your own disproportionately high levels of talent combined with effort?
5) If the answer to 4 is "no," do you think a different standard applies to you than others of lower income?
6) If the answer to 5 is "yes," please explain. If no, please remit a check to the U.S. Treasury correcting the discrepancy to a level you consider "fair," accompanied by explanation of the amount chosen.
7) If the answer to 4 is "yes," please give a reasonabe explanation of how your "combined ability/intelligence and effort" surpasses the population average by the same ratio/factor that your wealth and income do.
Please sign and notarize your responses for public record.
Obviously, my purpose is not to endorse the widely embraced/held concept of "meritocracy." The purpose is to force the very wealthy to admit that they rely on (exploit) this ideology or ethical view to justify income and wealth distributions while exempting themselves from the avowed principles. This is ALWAYS the case.
It is one thing to be a hypocrite-- possibly everybody's right. But as a society with democratic powers to make policy, we should not SUPPORT, condone, and be complicit in the CONCEALMENT of this hypocrisy. The aforementioned suggestion is the only way out of it.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with shaming the rich to nudge them toward fairness. We are derelect to the common good and ourselves by not taking this bold action, because we are in effect enabling the hypocrisy without which escalation of inequality cannot persist.
Am I ever asleep at the wheel (or should I say "derelect"!) today. "High seven figures" (obviously), "derelict"...
(If these bigger problems in society are corrected, in return I'll edit my comments before submitting.)
@Andrew Maltz: I think it depends on what you mean, in (1), by "should." A very wealthy individual might think that it would be ideal if wealth corresponded to talent, ability, and effort, that that's how things "should" be, in the sense that such would be the best of all possible worlds. But such an individual might still think that it is not wrong to make money in a way that complies with the law, even if the result is not perfectly meritocratic. I don't see why somebody who regards themselves as lucky has to be a hypocrite.
This has to be one of the most misguided opinion pieces that I've ever read. An industry driven by sex trafficking is wrong whether billionaires underpay or not. This column is out of tune.
6
Behind every great fortune lies a great crime - Balzac
4
Let's be entirely honest about the nature of sex trafficking and the women caught up in it. They are not sex workers; they're victims of rape. Robert Kraft didn't pay for sex; he paid for the privilege of raping an unwilling woman. He does not belong in the public sphere. He should sell his team and then go straight to prison.
4
There are cheapskates in all income brackets. And there are also people willing to exploit others at all levels of wealth. There isn't something uniquely depraved about the ultra-rich. The places in every community employing victims of human trafficking would be out of business if they relied on billionaires as clients. The regular Joes who frequent such establishments aren't noteworthy enough for an mention in national news.
Lastly -- pilfering extra sugar packets with your take-out coffee isn't being frugal. It's being a thief. Frugal is making your coffee at home and not using sugar. We may excuse it because it is so common, but most of us are capable of rationalizing our own bad behavior.
3
What's the old saying..."He's so poor, all he has is money."
1
The author is wrong to suppose that Mr Craft "has to, for some small amount of time, see the prostitute as a person". It is the fact that Mr Craft did Not have to see her as a person that he went there. He likely had dealings with the manager of the of the brothel and inside the room did whatever he wanted with the woman/slave. And that relationship is exactly what he wanted, not the most expensive and discreet courtesan he could afford. This article seems absurd to me, that the author would liken stealing sugar packs to paying for the services of an enslaved person is not just ridiculous, it is disgusting.
2
I don't know. I don't see how these two methods of being "cheap" belong in the same discussion. Taking sugar packets from McDonald's or shampoo from the Holiday Inn hurts...whom? But the exploitation of a cheap massage-parlor sex-trafficking victim hurts a live person right there in front of you. Just the description of their circumstances makes me want to throw up; how anyone can walk into a business like that, face the women, and not know he's participating in a human rights violation is beyond me.
2
exploiting and humiliating are all part of the fun! the rich are not like you and me - they're bettter. just ask! all that money proves it.
1
There's a little difference between being thrifty or trying not to waste and in abetting human trafficking, don't you think?
4
Just because someone is rich doesn't mean he can't be cheap or stupid, they are not mutually exclusive. Human being is not one dimensional. We act differently in many aspects of life.
Kraft went to the Chinese parlor and may end up in jail, Trump went to Stormy Daniel, a white native women, didn't feel guilty but ended up in the White House.
We all know smart people who drive around miles to save couple dollars but invest thousands on a horrible tip from a stupid friend.
May be progressive are jealous of rich people. No need to be, rich are not happier or smarter than you, they just have more money.
1
@Jack I am not rich, but I have been poor, and I can assure you that even if you are miserable, it is much better to be miserable in a comfortable home with food on the table.
34
Well, perhaps he's just a disgusting excuse for a human being who likes to degrade others to make himself feel powerful.
1
I wonder if sex in the strip mall for heterosexual clients is like the old days of sex in the public rest rooms for gays. The added thrill of danger and maybe an additional sense of guilt that is a necessary part of the sexual dynamic in their mind.
2
I think Mr. Kraft was trying to remain anonymous. It just didn’t work out that way. This article is a great example of why I increasingly dislike the New York Times. It's just a non-stop parade of miserable and jealous people who like to pass judgment on others. Jennifer doesn't care about the girls in that spa. She's jealous, because men pay to be with them. There's an old saying, "If you don't have anything good to say, say nothing at all." How about telling us about yourself and how non-quirky you are, instead of speculating about people and things you know nothing about?
2
@Mark Jennifer is jealous of women who were shipped overseas to become sex slaves? I can’t even say in a family newspaper what I think of that idea.
I have plenty of my own faults, but I still think I can condemn sex trafficking on unwilling women.
1
Kraft is a wealthy widower living in Florida. He had ample opportunities to engage in non-commercial sex. I find it revolting that the writer implies it would have been fine for him to purchase the use of a woman’s body for sex had she been a “professional escort”.
1
Not to mention this behavior is violence against women.
1
It's done "for fun." Don't you remember -- perhaps you're too young -- "slumming" in the old days? Use of that term is no longer permissible in polite society, but the conduct it described, and could still describe if the term had not been retired, seems still to be very much alive.
3
No one knows for sure if sex workers will legalize and unionize for respectable scale wages in Florida. The competition with Nevada might make it out of the question to legalize it , since it could cut into the attractiveness of Nevada's tourist economy during the snowbird months. Florida would be much better off with legalized and unionized sex workers, at select locations that don't conflict with shopping center owners, or family store themes. Kraft was probably after convenience, and therefore did not charter a private jet to fly to Nevada for personal private consultation services. He may reflect the average Florida consumer of personal private services, only Bentley phobic now.
1
It is surprising how many commenters completely missed the point of this very thoughtful column.
There is frugality that is victimless and civilized and socially acceptable.
Then there is miserly, avaricious behavior of people of great means that has countless victims, both seen and unseen. And those victimizers have absolutely no conscience or regard for other human beings.
While this has been true throughout human history, the scale of it on display at this time in history is astounding.
5
I read two books which examine the question of wether religion is rooted in psychology and if so how — by Carl Jung and Eric Fromm. One idea which stayed with me and has enlightened me again and again concerning the human behavior I've encountered is this basic truth: What people say their religion is and what they truly worship inside their minds are often two different things.
It is so obvious that the wealthy class of westerners are not christian or jewish or atheist as many of them claim, but in fact worship money and property as a religion that I take no credit for pointing this out. This is however more than just hypocrisy or bad behavior.
It is rooted in a religious need (wether created by nature or nurture or both we'll leave aside here) and this need demands BLIND faith as well as rituals to reinforce and bolster it.
What you describe is a small ritual action which ultimately reinforces a faith but which is also only a part of a broader series of more important rituals. Parsimony is as capable as serving as a sign of devotion as fertility or fidelity or any other choice within human behavior that for many is seen as secular but for others divine. It isn't rational, but common.
This unacknowledged religious believe lends itself to reinforcing the practice of compartmentalized ethics which our society teaches everyone to practice as a part of class hegemony — no or light prison sentences for errant rich men, long sentences for the minor crimes of the poor.
2
The list is endless.
Bill Koch of Park Avenue who would give a $50 christmas bonuses to the doormen who were there 365 days during the year carrying his packages, opening doors, greeting hundreds of his wealthy friends, d3livering the mail and laundry, buying tickets, offering, an umbrella during rainy days, etc. All these services for $50
Elliot Richardson who would not share his whiskey bottle with his Finals club friends at Harvard.
The US senators who were always out of cash. Their drivers would pay for their cigarettes out of their own pockets.
It is in the culture to be cheap towards the poor.
The very wealthy aunt who asks if it is all right to sit at the table with her younger cousins, and then insisting several times that she is only paying for her breakfast. The younger kids learn to be cheap from their elders.
The mother of a future congressman who will not pay the $40,000 hotel bill at her son's wedding.
3
personally, I don't see cheap as a big problem or worries. If the person prefer $18 haircut while could afford $400 one, how bad is it? Why should we worry about him giving money to poor working in $18 haircut salon, rather than richer ones in $400 haircut salon? I am much more worry when the rich don't pay their share of taxes by using loopholes or their influence on politicians, or when the rich underpay workers. Their personal consumption is their personal business, but their wish to grab more on expense of everybody else is the real problem.
5
Part of this behavior is to reinforce the myth that their success is due to personal attributes: that eating $3.17 breakfast and scrimping on haircuts is what led to them individually having more money than several hundred million people combined.
3
My parents were depression era, born in 1929 and 1918. Mom was a secretary and Dad was a machinist. They didn’t bring home little packs of sugar. If they invited anyone to lunch, they paid for it.
2
My first job out of college was as a bank teller. Nature of that job is, you know how much money the person in front of you has.
The totally busted individual, would pay the 25 cents fee for a money order immediately.
The well off or really rich individual, would object, argue and demand to be except from that 25 cents bank fee.
6
The wealthy individual, likely using multiple services across the range of the bank’s products, makes money for the bank that makes that $0.25 look like peanuts. The customer understood that equation, your boss’s boss understood that equation, but you obviously did not. That is why bank software now flags that customer and tells you to tell that customer the $0.25 is waived when you enter the name.
1
@Miichael Blazin Well back in 1980 the bank I worked for didn't wave that 25 cents for customers based on the overall business relationship. I was not stupid enough to incur the abuse or wrath of a rich entitled customer unwilling to pay a quarter unless ordered to do so. Please credit some of us with brains even back in 1980.
1
Around Christmas, the customary time to give thanks for the services they provide to the residents, ask the "Door Men" who work at the luxurious residences in Manhattan what they think about the subject.
4
People differ on their level of contentment, and this is unrelated to the amount of wealth they may have at any given point in their life. The contentment or the lack thereof is with all aspects of life.
John D. Rockefeller, when asked how much money is enough, he said: "Jus a little bit more." Given the huge effort to consume among middle class persons who go into debt to fill their garages with clutter, one could safely assume their answer to how much more stuff is enough, they'd say: "Marginally more."
What I will say is that the masses of people who are the working poor all over the world have a lot more right to want just a little bit more than anyone who is in the to 10% of the wealthy class! Therefore, it is moral for the poor to want more and highly immoral for the wealthy to want more, hence that is why I am a progressive tax and spend liberal who knows that spreading out the wealth is far more ethical than concentrating it.
6
I'm retired after a lifetime of public service, which means living on SS and food stamps. No complaints; I've had a good life. My only brother has his own lucrative firm and is a multimillionaire, with properties in two truly exclusive communities - and I'm genuinely glad for him. But cheap? Oh, my. There's nothing too expensive for him to purchase for his pleasure, but aside from a phone call at the holidays and my birthday, nothing. Not so much as a card (stamps cost, I guess).
Maybe I wasn't profusive enough in my thanks three years ago, when he said he was sending me a gift so "special" (he loved it himself!) it would be my holiday and birthday gift combined. Golly. When the box arrived I opened it with great anticipation. It was... 3 bottles of sugar-laden "grilling sauce" - about $1.79 each at my local supermarket. And he knows I generally don't eat sugar. I gave them to my neighbor, who does.
The Rich. Definitely not like you or me.
7
Sorry to insult you brother. but he sounds like a jerk. I'd have been sorely tempted to return the parcel, telling him what he can do with said grilling sauce.
3
The poorer a person is, the more money operates "naturalistically," as a tool, like a stick or animal encountered in the wild to be used for fire or sustenance: there is little or no mediating layer of culture, morality, meaning or expressive purpose, pure means to basic biological end. Efficiency is everything.
The richer one is, the more mediation by "culture", to the point that money becomes a purely symbolic, ritualistic, expressive matter. What does it express? Legitimation of hierarchical distributions of power, wealth, security and other desirables. Money becomes an essentially religious artifact, in capitalism to worship market process & the "invisible hand."
Proof: When Jeff Bezos goes to a restaurant and pays an actual bill (in the 20 seconds it takes he makes several thousand dollars), he is engaging in a purely expressive, symbolic ritual to affirmatively acknowledge, making a ritual obeisance to, the holy market process that sets prices and distributes wealth.
One of the fascinating manifestations of this "cultural-symbolic-expressive" aspects of money for the rich is how the super rich relate to conspicuous consumption. A Ferrari says, for the merely "very rich," "I'm very rich." For those that are SO rich that everybody knows it and they have nothing to prove, a modest Ford advertises that fact just as expressively.
In other words, in consumer capitalism, each purchase can't help being a religious ritual object or gesture expressing market worship.
Maybe they have money because they do not waste it. I would like the wealthy to pay taxes with the same level of pain I do, they are free to dress, eat and live anyway they would like.
4
I find no fault with being frugal, but that’s different than being cheap. I’ve known plenty of folks who are wealthy and a lot of them are obsessed with their “money” and with keeping it!. They seem to define their own self worth by how wealthy they are. In my opinion their lives are out of balance. Increasingly we learn that a large number of the wealthy had advantages the rest of us didn’t, so to ignore that piece of the equation when extolling their success is not only naive, but also foolish. Trump has said numerous times that he built his empire with only $1,000,000 gifted from his father. ONLY $1,000,000?! Of course, we now know that was grossly understated. When wealth accumulation is the main criteria used to judge a person’s success, just what does that say about us? I think it says that a large number of us have lost our moral compass and have been bamboozled and continue to be. Get off of Facebook and actually start reading some books, donate time to genuinely worthy causes, consume less and spend more quality time with your kids, friends and other family members, be a good neighbor, be kind.
2
I think you hit the nail on the head when you said these women would not recognize the johns and therefore couldn't sue or defame them.
9
How on earth is the exploitation of enslaved women even in the same article as stealing packets of sugar? There is simply no coherence to the comparison.
5
I've been waiting for a column like this. When I read about the circumstances of these women being held as sex slaves I had the same question, why couldn't these rich men find women who were willingly performing the acts rather than slaves who were required to perform. I think the author is entirely correct, its all about the power.
7
Why should Mr. Kraft be expected to know that the women working there were victims of sex trafficking? He probably had no idea.
3
@Mike Lazarus Yeah, he is such an innocent.
Mike, you actually think women who had a real choice would choose to be employed this way?
2
I think billionaires are cheap with others (don't want to pay taxes, haircuts, sex workers etc) because they don't value them. It could be a kind of mental illness. They have more money that they can possibly spend in a lifetime which leaves them separated from the majority of Americans and consequently a poorly defined way of life. They have to reassert their perceived power and sense of self by playing these pathetic games. I support Elizabeth Warren's wealth tax basically to help these poor people (tongue in cheek). By the way if Mr. Buffet doesn't value haircuts he should let his wife cut his hair and see how that works out. She might do it for free and save him the $18 or he might realize the value of a good haircut.
3
@Ruby Tuesday What is wrong with an $18 haircut? I pay a little more ($24 before tip), but I live in a more expensive area than Nebraska, and I can’t imagine how paying a lot more would improve the way my hair looks.
When I had less money, I would go to Supercuts and try different people until I found one that did a superior job and then always ask for that person. I stayed with one person for several years, even after she left Supercuts and worked for herself.
4
My theory: the wealthy are used to special treatment based on their financial status. I believe the wealthy's impulse to rip off the vulnerable probably feels normal to them because they are used to ripping off others on a daily basis in more subtle ways.
3
This attitude is endemic in the culture of the super wealthy when dealing with the rest of us, especially those among us with the greatest need. Their battle cry? WE WILL GO CHEAP, NO MATTER HOW MUCH IT COSTS!
It comes as no surprise that this attitude would translate into how the dire situation of those trafficked sex workers, those who are the among the most vulnerable of all and to whom no recourse would be available, would be exploited by those who have the most means.
3
Fast food places (like the Panera she cites in the article) are often franchises, owned as family businesses. Stealing from them is the same as stealing from a mom&pop restaurant.
3
My guess is the allure of these strip mall places for a billionaire is that they make sex an absolute commodity: no names, no interaction, no conversation, no baggage of any kind. Go in, pay your $100 and its done. The whole thing takes less time than getting a fast food burger. And they don't care that the women are likely little more than trafficed slaves.
A high priced "escort" on the other hand requires asking around to get a name, making sure you aren't mistaking someone who isn't a prostitute, getting a little dressed up, renting a hotel room, leaving a paper trail, having a litle conversation, and God forbid, you start a connection with the woman, even worse, the woman might start calling you.
It's not really the money. It's the fact that anything more than the total anonymity of strip mall sex runs the risk of names, records, time, interaction and stickiness. It commodifies sex so its no more involving than scratching an itch.
4
@nub To him, it was like getting his nails done or a hair cut. But, a sexual service has complications. The writer understands the perspective of Mr. Kraft. It's not how much it cost, it's the lack of potential consequences that took him there. Turns out he was wrong.
The finest friend I ever had could barely managed to keep food on the table and a roof over her head, but she never missed a chance to help those who had even less than she did. She was wealthy beyond the wildest dreams of selfish billionaires.
4
The only issue here is that of consent: did these women, of their own volition agree to sex for money or were they coerced into providing it? All the rest is, ironically, voyeurism on the part of the author and the commenters who seem delighted and amazed that a rich old man behaved like a fool, literally getting caught with his pants down.
2
I wonder how Mr. Kraft was supposed to know whether these women were victims of sex trafficking. Do the women wear some kind of sign?
3
I spit my muffin out when I got to the Kraft paragraph.
1
Thomas Aquinas gave away the game a long time ago:
“That the saints may enjoy their beatitude and the grace of God more abundantly they are permitted to see the punishment of the damned in hell.”
The rich and powerful grow bored and listless, and so they must seek to compare their own good fortunes favorably against the miseries of the poor and powerless. It's not enough for them to succeed, they must also be soothed by the failures and sufferings of others.
This is the true pathology of unbalanced wealth and inequality.
3
I truly believe there's a segment of the population who get their jollies by demeaning others. By paying for it at a cheap, tawdry shop, instead of inviting a well-heeled, high-cost escort to his hotel, he satisfied so many of his inner demons.
He got to have power over this woman or women enslaved there.
He didn't have to engage in meaningless conversation or pretend he was interested in anything she had to say.
It was quick (20 minutes of hell for the poor woman) for him and no emotional attachment, nor did he have to impress her (or not) with his sexual prowess.
He didn't have to worry about her going to the press with it, because she couldn't leave the building.
And, he most likely got a rush out of being the naughty boy doing things he shouldn't be doing.
There's a lot of men out there like this, even ones who don't have a fat wallet upon which to stand to make themselves look more handsome.
1
And why did Trump hire Manafort? Manafort offered free service!
2
@Nat Ehrlich That may turn out yet to be a very expensive “bargain” for Mr. Trump.
1
This editor confounds thrift with unethical exploitation of sex workers. Who knows why Kraft made those choices but they shed no light on the curious and varied relationship between wealth and thrift. I’m disappointed the Times would publish this.
3
These comments are hilarious. So many readers focused on ketchup and sugar packets! Who wouldn’t exchange places with the elite? Meanwhile we’re are attempting to make ourselves feel better...
4
Cheap billionaires have long been a puzzle to me. I have concluded that it isn't the money that makes them happy; it's using it to make someone else miserable. If they have have one billion and someone else in their circle has a billion and a half, that's a challenge that gnaws at them. Treating those at the bottom of the economic totem pole badly reinforces their billionaire sense of superiority. How about a ninety-per cent income tax on their entire annual income. Then we could all pity them and console them. That might make them happy.
4
I am a high school English teacher.
Last summer, I had the entire summer to myself. I picked up a gig as what amounted to a professional grocery shopper. I shopped for clients and delivered the groceries to their houses. This service is used by wealthy people and by poor people.
The best tippers? The poorest people. My largest cash tips of the summer were $20 from three women. Two of these three women lived in extremely run-down houses in far less than desirable parts of the city. These women were clearly very poor. One of the women tipped me with twenty one-dollar bills.
The worst tippers? The wealthy. I delivered orders to a dozen or so customers throughout the summer who lived in huge, beautiful houses in ritzy neighborhoods with multiple new cars sitting in the driveway or garage. The standard tip I received from these customers was $2 (added on their phone app).
For people who subsist on tips, this is a slap in the face. I'm lucky because I have two master's degrees and more than twenty-five years of experience; I'm at the top of my school system's pay scale. I also work in a school district that still has an active and pretty effective union. Bottom line: I consider myself to be comfortably middle class. I took the gig to give myself something to do and pick up a little beer and ballgame money.
I received an education last summer. When eating out, I now tip 25% at a minimum. My barber I now tip at 40%.
5
Pernicious greed seems to be sold as rampant among the wealthy or at least for the nutty bunch called out in this article. My experience has been that the more wealthy and more successful individuals and companies I’ve worked for tended to be fair and generous. Good wages, clean safe working offices, growth opportunities and a slew of benefits. Granted there is strong emphasis on being productive but also ethical and politeness. Perhaps I’m just fortunate.
1
There is a lot of truth to the old saying of someone:
"knowing the price of everything and the value of nothing".
More often than not I find these "price of everything - value of nothing people" to be transactional personalities. Trump and Kraft are perfect examples of transactional personality types, where everything including personal relationships takes on a transactional nature, an exchange of money for something of value where the "winning" is counted in terms of paying as little as possible for the object to be exchanged.
No wonder that Kraft and Trump are buddies. Two peas in the same pod.
3
There's an old saying: "Rich people stay there by not spending their money."
Another corollary: "Never touch principal."
1
I'm reminded of the story told by one of Bobby Kennedy's senior aides that he never carried more than a few dollars in his wallet and that the aide and others wound up paying for most cash transactions. The aide even had to put a few dollars in the collection basket during Mass when Kenndy's pockets were empty!
2
Anyone who is super-rich by his own efforts has got to be a little nuts about money. Otherwise, why didn't they stop after the first $100 million? Who really needs an ostrich hide jacket? Once you have a private jet, one McMansion and minor mansions in every city you spend significant time in, and are putting half a dozen coeds thru college, what do you need more money for?
However, disproportionate concern with small sums is not confined to the super rich. The problem is that people think in percentages of cost rather than absolute cost. Thus people who don't worry about a $50 difference in price when buying a $10,000 item may spend hours trying to save $20 on a $100 item. In the 1960s, I was living in Los Angeles, my brother was living in Berkeley, and our parents lived in New York. When I flew to Berkeley, I took a bus to the airport. When I flew to New York, I took a cab. What's cab fare next to a transcontinental plane fare? (When I realized what I was doing, I started taking a bus to the airport.)
1
If these rich guy pals of Trump have learned anything from Trumps travails with women, it's that anonymity is the answer.
The men use these particular women because the women don't have a clue who they are; neither Col. Sanders or Santa Claus wouldn't be recognized by these women.
The women are technically slaves, and the men took advantage.
5
I’m sorry to me people who are frugal eccentrics are NOT like those who engage in cheap discounted illegal and criminal acts.
There is a difference between paying for a super cheap breakfast or taking too many sweeteners (which are there for the taking w/no limits and priced into the cost of meals) or re-using wrappers. Regardless of class many of us have frugal rituals.
But none of these are illegal. We are not breaking the law.
If we went into a store and stole a bag of sweeteners we’d be breaking the law. We could be arrested for it.
Paying for sex is breaking the law. In this country it is illegal—- regardless of how much ppl pay for it. May be the sex industry should be legal and regulated. It is not; it is illegal. It’s a big difference.
4
@Hopeful I am sorry, but reusing wrappers is frugal, taking more sweeteners than you need for your meal is stealing.
Apparently, you have never heard of the honor system. You won’t be prosecuted for taking sugar packets; it’s not worth the restaurants time and trouble. Nevertheless, it is petty theft.
Some sugar packets and napkins aren't always pilfered. They're often dumped into the bag at fast food restaurants, and not discovered until the bag is opened. It's better to use them up than to throw them out.
Hotel soaps? I take mine with me as I know I paid for them along with the supposedly "free" continental breakfast and HBO channels in the room. The soaps, shampoos and lotions can all be donated to shelters for the homeless or abused women.
3
I think Ms Weiner you are too kind to cheap wealthy people. This I grew up in the Depression excuse is flimsy at best. Generosity defines both sides of my family going back at least 2 generations. And they are not wealthy.
I think being cheap is a character flaw, a kind of passive aggressive way to withhold kindness, affection and approval from people - whether they are family members or the general public. I see a real smug satisfaction in cheap people whenever they can save a buck. This waiter poured water from the wrong side - 10% for him. This couple lists $800 sheets on their wedding registry - a vase from Marshall's for them. It must be a very cold, uptight way to live.
For some cultural reason we think the wealthy should have class. There are classy poor and middle class families, and classless wealthy.
One has nothing to do with the other.
3
The old lady with the porcelain cups and sterling silver spoons probably acquired them or inherited them long ago . Elderly now it's a safe bet the income is less and fixed. The sugar, well I know a 86 year old lady that takes straws the disposable income is tight.
Wealthy people have quirks like all of us years ago working at CBS Larry Tisch CEO, Chairman would arrive at the airport and go to Budget for a car rental. Who doesn't pay 300 Dollars a night in a Hotel and not take the Shampoo and conditioner the Turkish bathrobe you will get bill for later.
1
"with women who were, according to the police, prisoners, brought over from China with the promise of legitimate jobs."
It wasn't the sex. It was demonstrating degradation and power over the helpless.
Sound familiar?
1
In regards to billionaires, what they spend their money, and where the rest of us fit in, Henry David Thoreau's famous quote has new meaning:
"That man is the richest whose pleasures are the cheapest. ”
"If a man, even a billionaire, wants to buy sex, I’ve got no quarrel, as long as both parties are of age and willing."
What does it mean to be willing? How is being willing to have sex in order to put food on the table or support a family any different from being willing to have sex in order to advance your career? And if the latter is deemed to be exploitative on the part of the person getting sex, why not the former? What percentage of people would stop selling sex if they could find a similarly paying job doing something else?
3
"Intimate companionship????" Use the accurate term: self-indulgence. If they were seeking companionship, that would require some sort of mutual respect, if merely to acknowledge the woman as a fellow human being. These super-wealthy men (and let's be honest: their merely affluent, middle class, and even poor brothers demonstrate the same behaviors). And "intimate???" Note the first two definitions from Merriam Webster ~ that word should never describe prostitution or pornography: Intimate: 1) Marked by warm friendship developing through long association; 2) suggesting informal warmth or privacy. And the third, I would argue, is a euphemistic cover for illicit, immoral, uncaring and cruel behavior: 3) engaged in, involving or marked by sex or sexual relations. Times up. Our civilization is on a fast track to something hideous.
1
it is hard to believe the workers involved were sex trafficked. A massage in a Florida licensed massage establishment, even before a "happy ending," must be performed by a massage therapist licensed under chapter 480 Florida Statutes. If the workers were not licensed(which includes prior completion of a massage school curriculum of at least 5oo hours) then they were subject to felony prosecution under chapter 456.065 (2) (d) 1. Florida Statutes as soon as they put their hands on a client.This begs the question: why were the law enforcement personnel involved waiting for the sexual activity to happen?
3
After interviewing thousands of people for my books about quirks, idiosyncrasies and irrational behavior I’m convinced that we’re all cheap as well as extravagant to varying degrees about various things. It’s not a reflection of our bank account. Whether we’re wealthy or not, we all occasionally like to think we’re getting a bargain or even something for nothing. It’s why we’ll pay for the latest expensive new gadget but won’t buy Tropicana orange juice unless it’s on sale. Rich or poor, we’ll try to get rid of a Canadian coin by sneaking it in with other change when paying for something.
Same with germs. I haven’t come across a 100% germaphobe yet. We’re all repulsed by some things but not at all about others. You may use a tissue or your sleeve to open a door but think nothing of picking up a dirty coin on the street. Or travel with your own pillow or sheet but have no problem taking a sip from your friend’s drink.
Billionaires as well as the less financially fortunate are human. As humans, we all exhibit irrational, inconsistent behavior.
61
@Judy Reiser
And it’s probably only gotten more irrational since the last financial crisis. I now see how unbelievable screwed a whole generation is because of which institutions got bailed out and which professions were protected. We are now ruled by economists and financial planners.
4
@Judy Reiser Whether rich or poor, finding bargains, markdowns, shopping at Goodwill, Salvation Army, yard sales, thrift stores, etc., if you start doing it, then the behavior becomes a habit. It's the thrill of the hunt and not necessarily the need to do so because you are poor.
5
My father always used to say, when seeing someone clearly wealthy who was clearly cheap--well, how do you think they got their money?
Seriously, people who are tight with a buck when they don't need to be--which is most cheap people; people who don't have money to be tight with are just poor--tend to be cheap with other things as well. Like time. And kindness. And empathy.
2
This article focuses on extremes, but no one who has accumulated assets by hard work or even a combination of hard work, luck, and being the progeny of rich parents, stays rich without a focus on preserving those assets. Sorry, but the idea of saving a buck even if you have a million is how you got there in the first place. It's the principle of being careful with what you have that is behind what may appear to outsiders to be needless penny pinching. The focus is enjoying life, but within reason, and living WITHIN your means. This philosophy is key to being at peace with yourself.
3
I worked for a wealthy man as a housekeeper. He liked to hang out with the homeless. Sometimes he would bring a few kids home with him. I never saw evidence that anything seedy was going on but it was very odd. I think he liked being with the other half because he could easily impress them. Some of the kids were a little spooky. They definitely did drugs. I worried I would come in one day and he would be injured....just a risk he liked to take.
1
I used to work for a wealthy local newspaper mogul (think Park & Village) who would spend a month on his yacht in Monaco around the winter holidays.
He purchased office furniture and equipment at auctions, or worse. When it came time to write an article (in the days of typewriters) he would grab a news release, tear off the corner where the staple was, give it to me and tell me to type on the back of the printed pages.
Rich. Frugal. Wouldn't give ice to eskimos.
1
@Jack Bell.....Recycling at its best !
1
I always take the toiletries from our hotel rooms. I give them to our local shelter and they are so pleased to receive them.
3
It's called "poverty consciousness."
Often there is little relationship between the actual wealth or savings you have and how abundant you feel your life is. A person can have enormous wealth and still feel poor.
Thornton Wilder wrote:
The difference between a little money and no money at all is enormous and can shatter the world. The difference between a little money and an enormous amount of money is very slight, but that too can shatter the world.
3
The ability to treat all people in the same way, especially those on the lowest rung of society, is what defines the difference between class and crass. Ask anyone who has ever waited on Bob Kraft at a restaurant what their experience was like and they’ll roll their eyes. New employees at Gillette Stadium are warned not to “look Mr Kraft in the eye” if they should pass him in the hallway. I wonder if the Orchid girls were told the same thing.
5
The richest friend I have is a millionaire. She assiduously clips coupons and once squealed in horror when she lost a five dollar coupon. She will pay for an expensive buffet and eat only the rice. She instructs waitstaff to buy kitchen equipment they don't have so as to prepare her food the way she prefers it. She orders things not on the menu and expects the chefs to come up with it. Then she heavily over-tips. I guess that is a form of buying your own reality.
2
I keep thinking about why some of the super wealthy parents caught up in the cheating scandal didn't just fork up some more money and donate outright to the chosen colleges for their child to be accepted. it is well known that colleges will take large donations in exchange for admittance. (It cost $2 million for Jared Kushner's degree some years ago, so price at Harvard must be up, but less would likely guarantee a spot at some of the other schools involved.) These parents wanted the lesser expensive assurance of admittance, the so-called "side door" approach.
1
The donations path starts at ten million or greater nowadays. It is not anonymous. And it is not a straight quid pro quo. These folks were paying 1/100 of that or less for a direct albeit illegal transaction.
We grew up poor.
I over-tip.
We are paid ok now.
We are struggling.
It's always 1 step forward, 2 steps back,
and there is never a day that is without worry.
It is tiring. It is exhausting. It doesn't end, and then it does.
6
Thanks for relatively concisely expressing my thoughts as well as yours.
1
The culture that has allowed the treatment of workers to be reduced to level of the way serfs are treated produced Kraft. Visit his factory at 120 Grove St. Worcester MA, inquire about his temporary staffing ‘solutions’, multiply it geometrically across a wide swath of the ‘business’ world and you might get an idea of how broken the system is.
8
Take a company like Kronos. Insidious payroll/ scheduling software. Couple it with the ACA rules which dictate employees with less than 30 hours of work each week are not eligible for health benefits. Result = McJobs with all the trimmings cut off.
4
I recently discovered that the owner of one of the largest homes in our neighborhood frequents the "Community Suppers" that area churches provide for the homeless.
He has run for public office, positioning himself as an opposition candidate who will fight corruption.
Church members who help serve the dinners tell me that very week he shows up in paint-stained work clothes, along with his wife, and enjoys a free meal, including dessert.
To all the commenters who describe the non-cheap things they do (e.g., tipping generously): It is commendable and spiritually satisfying to "light one candle", but the effect on the world will almost invariably be negligible. Real change comes only through mass action-- through laws and government regulation, unions, large and well-funded organizations, etc.
Support for politics and social policy that guarantee a decent life all is the essential complement to your personal decency.
15
I think this opinion piece is more about your relationship with money than any of the folks mentioned here and only serves to reinforce cliches about the rich and money. Most of these cliches are untrue but thank you for chumming the water and reinforcing them.
In my 50 something years on this planet I have seen children of wealth chase their millionth dollar just as hard as their first and I have seen poor people slow walk and spend their money on lottery tickets instead of an extra hour of overtime, all their own choice.
People are cheap in all kinds of ways that is the only rule.
3
Nobody offers overtime anymore. They do flex work schedules to keep a wide berth. I never met a wage earner who avoided overtime ( $1.5x ).
4
Pilfering extra condiments and napkins even from large corporate restaurants has a deleterious effect. The corporate bean counters simply add it to the cost of doing business when determining the prices they charge, so other, far less wealthy, customers will have to pay more. It is not charming.
9
Yes and no. The prices in a restaurant must be competitive. And the margins are good for the big boys. So it is more a cost of business that some folks will pilfer. But they know that permitting the small cost of pilfering fosters loyalty and frecuency of visit.
2
Or use that as a bogus excuse to pay their workers minimum wages or less.
We move ever deeper into the End Days of the experiment of the American Republic.
For nearly 40 years, we've elected politicians who support "trickle-up" tax policies that have transferred most of our nation's wealth to the 1%, .1%, .01%, while working people have spiraled down the income scale. We've dumped trillions of unaccounted-for dollars down the insatiable maw of the Military Industrial Complex (using that military power for Wars of Choice, invading smaller, weaker countries that have done us no harm) while our cities struggle with increasing numbers of homeless citizens. We've codified the outright purchase of Congress Critters via Citizens United while a significant %age of our citizenry wish to deny "unalienable rights" to "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness" to many because of their race, sexuality, income… We've elected a president who represents the lowest common denominator of humanity and many of us are delighted with his crude mean-spiritedness and the pirate's crew of amoral pillagers he brought with him to run our government, while denying access to affordable health care for all citizens. Sayonara, Land of The Free.
"The United States - set in a wilderness, forever dreaming itself Athens reborn, even as it crudely, doggedly, re-created Rome."
- "The Golden Years", Gore Vidal
17
I was on a balcony of a hotel watching poor children dumpster dive far below. One boy emerged with a great big smile, and I wondered if he found a roll of cash.
It was a bar of hotel soap.
3
It may add to the excitement by going to a brothel rather than being more discreet with an escort. Although that didin't prevent Elliot Spitzer from getting into trouble. It always shocks me how little men care about where they put their favorite body part.
Trump is a whole different can of worms. Not only is he a cheapskate, he is a cheat and has no conscience. Since it is doubtful that he is an actual billionaire, he has to save money by cheating on his taxes, cheating employees and cheating contractors. When he gets caught with a porn star, he just pays her off. He needn't have bothered, his religious voting base simply doesn't care.
11
I’ve had a small retail business as a sideline for nearly 30 years, catering to a wide swath of clients both modest and well-heeled. Hands down, the most difficult and irritating were always the wealthy ones—not all of them, by any means, but there’s definitely a positive correlation. In particular, there’s also a “Chivas effect” in business: If someone pays more for it, then it must have higher intrinsic value. Just because.
Applying the “Reverse Chivas Effect,” visiting a strip mall spa for illicit sex says all you need to know about these people. It’s irritating when clients whine and moan about a widget not being quite what they expected, but it’s a whole ‘nother kettle of fish when you’re talking about human beings enslaved for sex. That “thing” would be “abhorrent and subhuman.”
8
What if the slavery aspect of this sad sordid mess is a feature not a bug, part of what gets these guys off...? Disgusting but worth considering... Might help put lots of the things we're seeing in a different context -- when sex isn't about sex, it's about power...
6
What a moral loser. No understanding of what really matters and it is not ephemeral super bowl trophies.
1
It's about power.
The power to take, and know you won't be called out as would a homeless person pocketing sugar packets and napkins.
The power to demean other human beings, and steal from them, by devaluing their work and not paying for their labor.
The power over a slave, using her as an unwilling object to sate your sexual needs.
It's in the petty wielding of power that evil, starting with small acts, incubates to a monstrosity that builds gas chambers.
Ugly stuff.
10
My guess from the first story is that there is a business connection to this operation.
Oh that answer is easy.....Greed!
2
I don't think "cheap" is a factor.
When Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie were rumored to be having an affair, everyone believed it in spite of their denials. Two hot actors spending day after day together? Of course they were.
If wealthy widower Bob Kraft hired an ultra-expensive professional lady and word got out, people would believe it. And if he picked the wrong woman, things could get embarrassing. But if Kraft was, uh, fingered by a poor, ordinary-looking woman who was here illegally and could barely speak English — and he denied it — nobody would believe it. They'd think he was being scammed.
Except that the fingering was done by law enforcement officers, and there are pictures.
9
Billionaires seem to get off on the power and domination of everyone. From the sweatshop conditions of Jeff Bezos' Amazon shipping centers to the Koch brothers' efforts to impoverish more the already downtrodden.
Of course, some of them would seek out real sex slaves. They enjoy abusing the powerless.
This has nothing to do with stealing sugar packets. It's depravity at its worst.
8
Kind of weird and disgusting that so many comments are about ketchup, sugar packets and hotel soap. This is not about frugality. This is about exploitation and human trafficking and pathetic sleaze.
6
It's called fiscal discipline Ms. Weiner - it's hard to believe you wrote an article which described billionaires spending habits - they sound a lot like my father.....and mine....why do I still pick up pennies on the ground....why do I wait to buy something, when it's 43 cents off the regular price....
you want thrify? .......look up John D. Rockefeller - frugal billionaires or millionaires..or even regular people like myself are sometimes prone to being cheap -even to the point of leaving small tips, giving to charity, and trying to get the best deal - if I had a penny for every developer in this city who tried to take advantage of contractor overruns and delays by penalizing payment, I'd be a millionaire.
THE ROBERT and MYRA KRAFT have given over $400 million to charities - why didn't you write about that???
He visits a massage parlor - give me a break.......
The article is insulting to those who watch what we spend -not like our Federal Government that borrows and borrows and borrows - incurring record debt ($21 trillion) - record unfunded liabilities of $210 trillion -
...maybe Uncle Sam should start acting fiscally responsible and start picking up pennies on the sidewalk......
6
@JMS
Your righteous indignation is rather sorely misplaced in this case - did you miss the part about the nature of the working conditions and 'sex slave' servitude at this particular 'massage' parlor? How about giving all of those women a break instead of men like Kraft? This might be a good time to ask, what would Jesus (pick your favorite religious superhero...) do if the business was in his backyard?
1
A thoughtful intelligent take on what is at base a sleazy bunch of entitled fogies. Nicely done.
4
My mom told me that you can learn from the rich on how to save money.
1
Wasn't John Paul Getty the guy who had a pay phone in his mansion in English so his guests could make local calls.?
5
Thanks, Jennifer. You are the first to intelligibly explain Kraft’s possible reason for soliciting from a sex slave. Makes his act even more despicable. I didn’t think that was possible.
1
"elderly relatives"? No ageist comments please.
2
I believe these masters of the universe calculated that a high-priced hooker could cause trouble for them but that the poor, powerless women at the massage parlors could not and likely would not. These seemingly upstanding men are as vile as the traffickers. Unfortunately, they will get away with their crimes and their charmed lives will go on. Such is the lot of uber white men who have more money than God.
So the subject of this "opinion" is that if you are rich and you pay someone for sex then you are cheap? What a muddled mess.
2
So Robert, that’s all you took away from this op-ed piece? Try putting yourself in the shoes of the indentured women, instead of the rich, fat, old white guys.
"Little old ladies?" Really?
Next time let's omit this two-fer stereotyping reflecting both ageism and misogyny.
1
Purchasing cheap sex from immigrants who probably don't even speak much English, if any, is indicative of the commodity nature of the "exchange." If you purchase an "elite" escort, you might have to engage in conversation, and be at least somewhat present as a human being. Obtaining sex from this echelon allows the purchasers to be engaged with only themselves snd their gratification. It's one step up from a blow-up doll and better because skin is nicer than plastic.
10
It's worth noting that, back in the "bad old days" before Hudson Yards, that area was rife with streetwalkers. Typical for that trade is payment AFTER the service is rendered. However, instead of reaching for his wallet, one john reached for a knife, and forced the prostitute to service him again for free.
Back in those days Judge Margaret Taylor held that john guilty of rape.
2
When Donald Trump Jr. joined the Boy Scouts, the annual dues were $7. That year, the account books of the “charitable” Trump Foundation showed a $7 donation to the Boy Scouts. Trump gives a whole new dimension to the word “cheapskate.”
8
"See? they are saying. Of course we could afford caviar or a fancy car or a fresh roll of wrapping paper. Fame and fortune haven’t changed us. Deep down, we’re just like you!"
I do not believe they are addressing anything outward: "just like you." Though this may be an element, it isn't the deeper and driving factor:
They think only a sucker wouldn't take advantage of free ketchup or mustard or sweet and low....Salt! The cheapest gastronomic commodity known to man is clutched in these filchers fingers.
My neighbor, an elegant woman of means, was captured shoplifting. In her case, as she told me in a disgusted tone: "Oh! That scarf shouldn't have cost 100 dollars! What an insult! So I pinched it....(and did time cleaning our County Roads).
But ultimately, the columnist is correct. The wealthy are entirely screwed up, consumed by the virulent epidemic of Greed and stealing free soap is some sort of touch stone to those who aren't so deranged. That is, the rest of us.
Tax them, heavily. That's enough of this experiment. It was stupid and not trickling down properly from Day One. Now it is a cruel joke that spiffy techies and Old Cow Republicans clutch to mindlessly. Stamp Out Greed.
3
Perhaps you dont understand because you have had the good fortune not to have to date American women.
Two words. Bill Gates.
Since when are billionaires the "filthy rich"? How did millionaires get off the hook? Just because there are more billionaires than ever before doesn't make millionares suddenly plebes. There'd have to be a hell of a lot of inflation for me to listen to a millionaire talk about how "rich people" seem to be. NYT has been trying lately to shift our standards of wealth upward. I'm sure the rich also did this before the Bastille was stormed.
1
@carl bumba There has been a lot of inflation. A million dollars today is the equivalent of $147,000 50 years ago.
When people say that a million dollars is not what it used to be, they are not kidding.
1
These are greed junkies, it is a mental illness they can never ever have enough. I pity them and their empty pathetic lives.
3
My career was working for such an individual who came from nothing. My life was spent helping create more wealth for this person. This experience as his president and coo was rewarding. He was generous beyond a fault and at the same time I could find him at a fast food restaurant. Wealth of this level creates folks that first recognize the absolute power they have over mere mortals. Some don't let it go to their heads and they remain where they began, humble. Some of his peers morphed into the world of all are servants to themselves and behaved like lords of old. This was reflected in the man's children. They liked to fake being ordinary, but in reality they were entitled and behaved accordingly. Their biggest threat?Their father recognizing it.
This man disdained the trappings of displayed wealth. Yet he was comfortable with his wealth. He knew human nature well. Accepted those he knew were fakes and thieves and only angered when he didn't know the latter. Never resented paying taxes.
Wealth is absolute power. When one works for wealth remember three important things. Your compensation doesn't come from some soulless corporation. The pay check is signed personally, you are not blood and the most jealous rivals will be the heirs. The next generation that were born on third base and think they hit a triple.
That latter the most pressing reason for a constant redistribution of wealth in any surviving democracy. And the means to achieve it lies in taxation.
6
Well, in Trumps defense you do get shoddy work unless you pay double. Ask me how I know.
1
"Be Quiet, Shark Week is on"! Brilliant!! For all the pain he inflicts, at least this gave me my best laugh in a long while!
Regardless of their wealth or the price paid, it shows ego bigger than Himalayas and an equally huge disdain for others.
Follow the chain/money trail and you’ll find the lowest life forms at either end and a middle filled with disadvantaged people being exploited.
I sincerely hope every person involved at those ends pays a big price in terms of money and incarceration and that the exploited are aided in some way. With their luck, trump will have them deported.
1
I wouldn't equate Buffet's low cost breakfast, because 1) he lives in Nebraska and 2) he's of an age where being thrifty was good. why spend $40 on a breakfast? save your money. But the other points are totally valid. Bezos is disingenuous, and the others, it's just sad. Those people are cheap in so many sense of the word, and cruel.
3
The most generous tippers I have known have been those who had to work hard to make a living. They know that every dollar can make a big difference in some people's lives while those born with silver spoons in their mouths have far too little appreciation for the value of a buck. It's as if too many of the wrong people have too much of the money to do the most good.
4
Always follow the premise that princesses do not wait tables, or serve pizza, or deliver papers etc. in other words, if you can afford to purchase, leave a generous renumeration. This is honest work and you are not entitled to cheat someone.
5
....she is barely a person at all.....
Heartbreaking. And, I'm sorry to say, the author pinpointed precisely why these despicable men did these despicable things. They don't see others - outside of their social strata - as people.
5
Thanks for womansplaining why rich men might visit a jack-shack rather than hiring a call girl or canoodling with your wife or girlfriend.
Nice try, but you don't get it. A valid metaphor would be comparing satisfying your hunger with the driving-through at the local choke-and-puke verses sitting down to an elaborate 5-star dinner. Maybe you can afford the 5-star dinner 3 times a day, but sometimes you just need to get the hunger monkey off your back. The convenience and variety doesn't hurt the experience either.
3
You completely miss the point of Kraft's paid sex of choice. It's the danger and the sleaziness that he gets off on. He doesn't want a polished call girl, he wants the underground, seamy side of the sex industry. The fact that these women were not willing participants makes it all the more thrilling. Disgusting! In the true sense of the word, I find it hard to keep my breakfast down.
4
While I agree with your ideas and speculations generally about the idiosyncrasies of the wealthy, I think that your choices of Trump and Kraft do not support them. Trump is all about the zero sum game. He wins, everyone else loses. Stiffing contractors means they lose and he wins. He is the ultimate narcissist. He operates from a what's in it for him stance. Kraft may seek out the "seedier" sex workers because of his own low self esteem and a view of sex as something dirty. He may feel he doesn't deserve an expensive, cultured escort; that image doesn't fit his self esteem.
I see the kinds of behavior you describe in people who are not wealthy but quite well off. However, they are more easily noticed in the wealthy and also the rest of us may expect different behavior in the wealthy.
Reading these comments gives me an understanding of why rich people withdraw into private clubs. The only people who like them are other rich people. Everyone else seems to hate them for being rich.
1
I could be as simple as 20 minutes of degrading an unknown woman was worth $100 or $200. He could return to Mar a Largo and be smug while widows, divorcees and single women trip over each other to be in his presence.
2
Many people would be in jail (for profit) without parole if they committed these crimes!
It wasn't cheapness that motivated Kraft. It was the desire to humiliate and force someone to do what he wanted. His sexual kick is abuse. Who has time for shopping for a willing partner when your team is in the playoffs? Besides, willingness is not a turn on for Kraft.
2
Of course it is easier for a camel to go through the eyes of a needle than it is for the likes of Trump, Betsy De Vos, Wilbur Ross, and the Kushners. These people have never known what it is like to be honorable.
2
What do you call a non-profit that pays its ED over 200k and runs the operation off of “volunteer” unpaid interns? It’s particularly egregious in college towns where leaders of all strips think kids “passing through” ought to make some contribution to the community so leadership can make claims for grant funding, claiming taxes are too low to offer services to the “needy”. Everyone seems to be gaming everyone.
4
There is a difference between being cheap and not being wasteful.
Waste is a curse to modern humanity and indeed our fragile planet.
Good for Her Majesty reusing wrapping paper!
5
@Will. I completely agree. Plus, I believe that the Queen of England is living off the taxpayers' money, at least in part.
Cheap is a lot of things, charming isn't one of them. I am a small business owner, a contractor and over 40 years my wife and I have been cheated by big corporations and the ultra rich alike. We are advised to build into our estimates the "vig" the opportunity cost to work for the entitled. It is impossible to charge enough for the endless second guessing, indecision, over crowded schedules, delayed wires and obsequious middle persons, more than happy to waste the time and resources of those contractually required to deliver on time and within a budget. The only "remedy" in our business is the change order, seen universally as suspect and frequently and arbitrarily, denied. When the ultimate customer pays 25 million for an apartment, pays to fly the design team across the country for months on end, agrees to a multi million dollar "renovation" of a brand new fully complete and well appointed living space and then decides that five thousand dollar change order, for exactly five thousand dollars worth of additional work and material is more than they can bear, that's more than cheap. It deprives me of the ability to maintain my shop, give my employee's well deserved and hard earned raises, makes me seek the cheapest health insurance I can find for us. This of course is nothing compared to the unspeakable crimes being committed by people like Mr. Kraft. Cheap by the uber-rich is a lot of things; illegal, immoral, stupid- charming isn't on the list.
7
I was a college athlete. If I had won a national championship; been invited to the White House; and then served fast food, I would have been more than disappointed. I would be like winning an Olympic medal and having a piece of plastic hung around your neck on the podium.
Serving junk food to athletes who eat at training tables and have dietitians is another example of Trump's narcissism. He likes junk food. Therefore, junk food is good and everyone else must like it as much as he does.
He does not appreciate that national championship athletes are a completely different breed from himself. Supposedly, he is a good golfer and he sees no difference between an NCAA athlete who may be physically talented enough to play in the NFL and himself.
TLGK
6
Rich people should not and must never be looked up to. That is where society gets ruined - in the jealousy of money. I can argue that rich worship is a huge societal problem. But you all will disagree and fall for the rich's tropes about socialism and venezuela.
So instead, take a step back at America's worship of lifestyles of the rich and famous...folks who should never be given anything because they are rich...including attention. And realize that your American society is pure mediocrity.
When McDonalds first opened in China, it was such a big deal that people went there for their wedding anniversary.
I remember waiting one hour in a queue outside a new Pizza Hut restaurant.
But Americans think it's high class to have McDonald's sugar sachets in their home?? WEIRD
1
@jzu I think you misunderstood the anecdote.
Perhaps Robert Kraft and his wealthy cohorts can pay penance (and cleanse their lousy souls) by donating a significant portion of their wealth to organizations that fight sex trafficking. If people used their wealth to do good, the world would be a better place.
Seems as though it would have in some substantial sense been acceptable to the author, for Mr Kraft to have gone about purchasing sex as F Gov Spitzer apparently did. But I have difficulty concluding FGS did so to accomplish the purposes the author finds lacking in Mr K's method. And that leaves unanswered whether there is a basis to believe it probable for would-be sex buyers to have those purposes in mind because they are wealthy. My guess, highly improbable.
These women would never approach a tabloid with their story or write a tell-all book. They probably didn't even know they were servicing a scion of capitalism. Totally risk free for Kraft . . . Aside from the moral bankruptcy.
1
The evolution of the American Statesman
Patrick Henry: "Give me liberty or give me death."
Abraham Lincoln: "With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in . . ."
John F. Kennedy: "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country."
Donald J. Trump: "Be quiet, 'Shark Week' is on."
4
Without getting entangled in the main thrust of this piece (sorry, bad pun) - taking sugar packets from McDonalds and the rest is wrong if one intentionally takes 10 packets when we need only one or two. But sometimes when you go as a family, there are napkins, sugar packets, even plastic forks and spoons left over. You cannot put them back for hygiene reasons. So do you throw them in the trash and feel righteous, or do you pocket them to be used purposefully and BE righteous?
There is a snobbery in our society, which seems to run so counter to the proverbial Thrifty Yankee ethic, and it is very disturbing. To most sensible people, America is the opposite of snobbery. While other countries have Kings, Queens, Shahs, Sultans and assorted potentates, America has an elected President, who gets two terms tops, and people when talking of their President refer to Jimmy or Gerry or Ronnie, and not His Excellency or Highness or whatever. Employees sit across the table from their boss and call them by their first names, and so on. So why this pretense of being "rich"? Someone who serves tea on fine china and silvery cutlery, providing packets of McD sugar is NORMAL, not some aberration.
Maybe instead of reading Ayn Rand's angry, polemical rubbish, we should encourage young Americans (and old) to read Robert Pirsig's "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" and even a few biographies of worthy Americans, and see how the greatest virtue and freedom is to be normal, to be yourself.
1
Contempt. That's really the key to the behaviour of these people. They hold others in contempt, whether it's the nice lady who runs the select café and unwittingly supplies some of her clients with high-class porcelain, or just the unfortunate woman from Asia providing cheap sexual gratification to some amoral "businessman". And a surfeit of contempt means a lack of respect.
That's why Mr T is admired by others who have become rich or richer than their forebears - it's the lack of any misgivings about how he treats other people. Did he send a team of accountants to arrange his marriage to Melania? (Or just that guy what's-his-name who's been taking the rap for various misdemeanours ...)
The appalling thing is that so many people appear to find such behaviour not just acceptable but even praiseworthy - getting the porcelain out of the café and into your home, like hiding your illegal activities from the FBI or whoever, is an admirable feat. And when one of the world's most powerful men feeds fast food to sportsmen, he is saying,"I'm just like you" - but let us hope they are not all going to turn out like him.
1
Why would a wealthy man use the services of a strip mall sex business? 1. His family would never guess his visits for a message are full bodied. 2. No likely complications. The provider of the service will not know him and will not sue. 3. It’s cheap and quick. 4. Better than doing it yourself. 5. Some men like the look of Asian women. They appear to be docile and obedient. 6. It’s a form of violating a woman, who is dependent on the income.
I want to know if these men left large tips. The entire industry sickens me. But so does the exploitation of women’s bodies in advertising and movies.
1
@Nancy Williams
I thought we were thought of as dragon ladies. You know- strong, deceitful, domineering. Now we "appear to be docile and obedient." Make up your mind, will ya? That in itself is dehumanizing. Nevermind the sex exploitations and other forms of exploitations.
Trump. Leona Helmsley, Robert Kraft are unpleasant people who don't like to give to others. They like to take and humiliate.
4
I guess this explains why my wife is so scrupulous and generous: she has never forgotten what it was like to grow up poor.
3
Isn't it possible these people are just hedging against a collapse in the world's ketchup packet supply? Who'll be laughing then!
2
I'd be very worried if I were a super-rich person living in the United States now. Keep it up with the scandals and the cheating and corruption and watch we commoners drag out the rope.
1
One of those men was a former colleague and I knew him as abrasive and entitled - a jerk, in other words. I imagine for him the dehumanization was a plus. I mean, if his attitude with other well-educated professionals was shut up and give me what I want, why imagine for a second that wasn’t part of the appeal? With no English, he wouldn’t even have to voice the whole message.
Ever notice how the rich and famous are showered with free stuff, free meals, free travel? Warps their minds.
3
When will the New York Times stop with all of this envy of “those who have more than us.”
McDonalds sugar… Oftentimes, restaurant employees put in more packets of sugar, ketchup, duck sauce, soy sauce, napkins, etc. than we need. Isn’t it better to use those, albeit at home, rather than discarding them?
Trump serving fast food… my recollection is that this was done since it was during the government shut down and White House kitchen staff was not working, otherwise, they would have made food for those guests.
Warren Buffett $18 haircuts and $3.17 breakfasts… If he thinks his $18 haircut is just as good as a $100 haircut and his $3.17 breakfast is just as good as a $100 breakfast, who are you to tell him he should spend more? Furthermore… if a rich person did spend huge amounts on haircuts, breakfasts, etc… then the NY Times would (and actually does, every day) write articles on how terrible they are for spending so much… and then the readers join in with comments accordingly… because, well, that’s what the New York Times does.
If you work hard, sacrifice, save, wisely invest, and build up a good deal of wealth… then you become “the enemy of the New York Times and of their readership.” It’s getting old, New York Times. Move on to something more productive.
4
@ABC123
"If you work hard, sacrifice, save, wisely invest, and build up a good deal of wealth" umm.. Trump never did any of this. Just saying.
@MS He clearly did those things better than you did.
@ABC123 Other than winning the financial lottery by who his father was, Trump did nothing better than other people, except self promotion.
It has been reported that if Trump had simply invested his inherited money into a S&P 500 index fund, he would be richer than he now claims to be, and how many people believe that he is as rich as he claims?
It’s not just about being a cheap “ person “ it’s about power. Total, absolute power over someone unable to say NO, or complain about any maltreatment. Face it: This is RAPE, which they paid for. Part of the thrill ? No. The point of it.
Grotesque.
4
Strange. Being thrifty is equivalent to exploiting sex workers. And buying expensive sex workers is more classy than buying cheap ones.
And Trump is responsible, but not Clinton, who flew to his buddy's private island to have sex with minors.
It's a confusing message. If McDonalds puts too many napkins in your to-go sack, and you save them and use them later rather than throwing them out, that's cheap.
1
These are the dreadful people we bend over backwards to further enrich while untold millions cannot make ends meet.
Our awful time in one hideous little nutshell.
1
I find it funny that in one of New York City’s most exclusive health clubs I spotted an Upper East matron unabashedly refilling an entire empty bottle with the expensive moisturizing lotion provided at the gym. I really wanted to report her, or at least publicly shame her, because I just thought it was so ridiculous and ironic that she would be so cheap.
3
So elderly billionaires are hiring prostitutes because of Trump's behavior?
If there is something wrong in the world, propose that it is caused by Trump, and the chances are good the NYT will print it. The more ludicrous and far fetched the notion, the better.
3
Hooray for client 9 (I guess?)
well, as somebody once said, 'if you save millions, the billions will take care of themselves'.....
or something like that.....
2
The editbot is at it, my latest comment not getting past the new system. Not sure what words or phrases are acceptable to it. We are now subject to an AI bot, examining our comments. I just learned you can not use the last name of glorious leader with a small t and capital R for instance.
Nothing like an ice cold trumpburger and fries to honor those sports teams at the Whitehouse. Did he provide a microwave?
My guess is that the behaviour indicates that these rich and powerful men despise women, and for them sex is a transaction. They require an orifice to provide release and don't want any other kind of interaction or "relationship"; I pity their wives and daughters.
It doesn’t have to do with cheap it has to do with convenience and anonymity. If a billionaire hires an escort she is going to turn into a Stormy Daniels as soon as she can. If she doesn’t speak English it isn’t going to happen. They don’t have a case against anyone other then a bunch of pathetic 60 and 70 year old “incels “. The women are all victims so there is no trafficking. It always takes months and repeated visits by deputies to built the case so they are pleased.
2
There is a huge difference between taking a few extra sugar packets and paying for an illegal act with a trafficked sex slave. The first might be a cheap thrill, but the second is a heinous crime all about domination and power. For some people money is not enough. They have to be the king, the bully, the dominator. I see more of a parallel to racism, a white man with his boot on the neck of an unarmed poor black man laying on the ground. Pushing everything way further than it ever has to just for the sake of it.
Oh, there’s a little more at play here than cheapness. Try power and entitlement. Do you think any of these three men have ever heard of sex trafficking? Did Bob Kraft, John Childs, John Havens think these were foreign women who didn’t speak much English were just turning a few tricks in a bleak dingy strip mall setting so that they could afford some extra bling? Spare me. I don’t think they all fell off of the same turnip truck.
We need to stop punishing sex workers, many of whom are trafficked, and start locking up their pimps and patrons or decriminalize and regulate it so that trafficking is taken out of the equation. I just hope these three don’t get off but I am sure they will get punished as if they stole some sugar packets.
I've always considered the very wealthy in one way or another to be rather freakish, a sort of a reverse Neanderthal in the way they never quite evolved into a homo sapiens sapiens.
And I think we average people are God's best product.
If that's not so then why does He make so many of us and so few freaks?
1
It's more difficult to humiliate a well paid "call girl" prostitute than a woman who is enslaved and has no choice. Maybe the humiliation of women, and being able to treat them as sub-human is part of the "pleasure" to be had for these rich men...
Everything in the world is about sex except sex. Sex is about power. (Believed to be Wilde)
1
"...paying a relatively paltry amount to a woman who doesn’t want to be there and can’t leave? That’s something else."
Human trafficking, forced labor, employee servility--as in the denial of worker rights in serfdom and slavery--is one thing.
Free private enterprise another. Did Kraft consent to the oppression? If not, that's trial by journalism--itself a cheap shot. Did you ask if he paid her asking price? Oppression aside--people have a right to make bad life choices--aesthetically and otherwise. Some prefer fast food.
Usually it's "conservatives" = anti-progressives = regressives who are champions of free [from law/logic] markets = moneyball, but are tyrants when it comes to personal rights--like abortion, sex trade and (anti) god-story delusion.
Besides sex trade scorn applies only to low class sex trade--pay per trick. Sex trade includes barter for all sorts of things--from promotions to jobs to social/political status--for weeks, months, a marriage--or an entire sex life.
Jane Austen's "romances" were about high class sex trade--good catches--her heroines traded for the guy inheriting the manor. Friends and cousins settled for less: "Maria Ward...with only seven thousand pounds had the good luck to captivate...Bertram ...and...raised to the rank of baronet's lady with...handsome house and large income....But there certainly are not so many men of large fortune in the world, as there are pretty women to deserve them" (Mansfield Park). --they settle for less.
2
I found the comparison of an old lady taking some sweet and low, tastelessly un comparable
To a billionaires getting his « plumbing « fixes from a shady spa in a strip mall for a pittance in his world. It is so utterly incompatible a point of comparison in this case that it points to the ignorance of the writer, a story of this low moral standing needed a way more extreme criticism. It is not a matter of fact, but outrageous and the article should have conveyed that, in stead of making it cute with stories about a lame old aunt. Cute is no longer acceptable by the NYT opinion writers we need people who can express the opinions we the readers feel, of outmost disgust with the reporting of and about the rich and famous as being entertaining.
1
Its not so much that money makes you rich; its the wanton desire of money that makes you poor.
If your net worth is a source of your self worth, you are poor; most people are poor.
97
@human
Fully agree. That is the life philosophy of Mr Mujica, former President of Uruguay. Came to office poor, left it poor. He said
“To be free is to spend most of our lives in what we like to do...but if I start to consume too much, I have to work endlessly to pay for those unnecessary extras”. Personal freedom lost to consumption.
10
@human
In this case you could take Thoreau's quote many different ways.
“That man is the richest whose pleasures are the cheapest. ” -Thoreau
4
@human
Excellent comment.
it's also that pesky old sense of entitlement that makes greedy rich people so odious.
To not pay employees or taxes or anything everyone else has to is a mark of a lack of character. Why is it such a high to steal and cheat someone?
I worked for someone one time and was owed $2500 and I had to fight to collect it. Why? I negotiated the deal, did the work and expected my pay. This man's son drove me home ( we lived near each other ) and explained it to me. As astounding as I saw it, he said his father would rather cheat someone for a quarter than legitimately earn $2500. At least he said that 25 cents meant more to him than the $2500.
We discussed the issue at length to try to understand it. His father hadn't grown up poor, so that was out and he'd even given his son a few hundred out of his pocket to take me to a nice restaurant on the way home. So it wasn't actually the money itself. It was something about the thrill, small as it may have been, of cheating someone.
I still don't really understand it because I get no thrill from cheating anyone.
That's why I'll never understand the likes of Donald J. Trump - I refuse to call him president. To me THAT is a disgrace.
13
Perhaps it's the thrill of enslavement. After all, enslaving a segment or two of the working class seems fundamental to the process of amassing a billion dollars; this might explain the preference for enslaved women. Might even be a subliminal drive. Using logic to explain sociopathological behavior is an exercise in futility.
2
On the flip side, how do you account for Kardashian-level consumerism, which seems to have overtaken popular culture with its videos of closet tours, McMansions, G-Wagons and Lamborghinis? Are there any Birkin bags left in Hermes shops or have Kris Jenner and her daughters bought them all? And how many of us go into serious debt trying to emulate the lives of these people?
It has never been worth worrying about why some people cheap out over certain things. Yes, we all know people who pilfer sugar packets and hotel amenities with millions in the bank. Who cares? Those of us who will never accumulate that much wealth are the ones to be admired. We give, even when we don't have much leftover for ourselves. And that's what matters.
6
It may make us feel better about ourselves to think of the, "rich," as amazingly stingy. The truth is far more complicated than that. All we have to do is look around at the names on various buildings at libraries, hospitals, universities, parks, nature preserves and realize those came into existence from the generosity of the donors.
For example David Koch, whom everyone loves to loath, in 2013 donated 100 million to NY Presybeterian hospital to help build a nine story building which provides care for cancer and gastroentology patients.
The rich may indeed by stingy, but how long would it have taken for NY Pres to instead get four million people to each donate $25.00.
3
@A P That money was donated as a tax avoidance scheme, not out of the generosity of his heart.
2
@A P: your point is somewhat well taken, but I would rather that the wealthy not be allowed to avoid taxes. When they avoid taxes, even though they may fund their pet projects at the same time, essentially they ***own*** the rest of us. They get to decide what they will contribute toward for the common good, and how much they’re willing to spend. Plus they get to publicly pat themselves on the back for their ‘generosity’.
I do, however, give those persons credit to a point, as many wealthy simply horde money and exploit others. I admit that I am conflicted. I just don’t like a system in which the population lives at the whims of the few.
When I saw the headline, I expected this to be about the parents who gave to "charitable" organizations to get their kids into college and then asked for a deduction. But it's all the same. On the other end of the spectrum, when I'm waiting in traffic, it's the drivers in the beat-up cars who give something to the man with a cup. The culture of entitlement at the highest levels of our country is insidious.
5
There is no puzzle here! Billionaire does not equate with morals, good taste, values and concern for others.Billionaires have earned or inherited money but that does not give them wisdom and class. They reflect their upbringing and unless that were brought up in families with high moral standards they will never be anything but rich misfits. I take exception to your mention of Warren Buffet because he has walked the walk.He doesn’t crave the trappings of success and is giving all of his money away .He is the first to suggest that he pays too little in taxes and started the giving challenge among the very wealthy asking that they pledge to give away their extensive fortunes. he is wise and has class.
7
The rich are different, or at least many of them are. I deal with wealthy people in my line of work and some of them are amazingly stingy. It’s just the way a lot of them are wired.
6
I was once called and asked to give piano lessons to a child. Of course the first thing I was asked was how much I charged. I said $35 an hour. The woman asked if I would take $30. I said OK. I arrived at a guarded gate which entered to a large estate. In the driveway was a Bentley and a brand new Mercedes. A maid let me in. A man (her partner) was sitting at a desk surrounded by security monitors. I was told to wait. A half hour later the woman and her child arrived. I gave him a lesson, but I was so creeped out I made up an excuse not to go back. A year later I saw them on the news being sentenced to 30 years in prison for what the judge called "one of the biggest frauds in this state's history".
12
@Phil |||You write, "A maid let me in. A man (her partner) was sitting at a desk surrounded by security monitors. I was told to wait. A half hour later the woman and her child arrived. A year later I saw them on the news being sentenced to 30 years in prison..." My question: Who was being sentenced? The maid? A man (her partner)? The woman and her child? Thirty years each? Or, sentencing spread over the quartet, seven-and-a-half years for each? What was the fraud? Cheating you out of five dollars on a lesson when "their" circumstances suggested "they" would have had no problem paying full price? Or, $1.25, each.
If we can’t tax them more maybe we can legislate that they must actually spend it on goods and services.
@J Oggia, or maybe we could legislate that they put their money in banks, where it can be used to extend mortgages, or maybe we could legislate that they invest in businesses where it could be used to create jobs. Wouldn't that be just as good?
1
The billionaires often achieved their wealth through the same shortcuts they use in the most trivial areas of their lives from the fast food napkins to the ensnared sex workers.
It's called the leveraged buy-out or the IPO or insider trading. For every Warren Buffett there is at least one Bernie Madoff (and likely many more).
Acquisitiveness and not inquisitiveness is taught first at the family table and reinforced through an unbroken chain of selective preschools, prep schools, colleges and universities. When they are insufficient, they get direct cash support from their families accreted wealth (cf. Fred Trump and his son Donald J.).
As others have pointed out, if you do not have a seat at the table, you will be on the menu. We are all, each one of us, the sex workers of the strip malls, stuck in our frequently demeaning jobs as if trapped in amber.
5
@Douglas McNeill, what's wrong with an IPO? You start a business, you employ people, people like your product so they buy it, you sell shares to the public in an IPO, and you use that money to expand your business and employ more people. What's wrong with that?
By the way, insider trading is illegal.
1
@Marty
An IPO is fine but the entitled are often given advance notice or head-of-the-line privileges in acquisition of new stock.
Insider trading is illegal but many plutocrats push hard on the envelope approaching it ever so closely...
I have a different take on those of vast wealth; they have a mental disorder. For instances, if someone were to accumulate excessively, be it of cats, newspapers, hubcaps, dead cars, or anything other than money they would be obsessive in their pursuit and declared suffering from a hoarding disorder.
We elevate those that over accumulate financial resources beyond that which they can consume in their life like models of successes when in fact they are retaining these resources more likely out of profound insecurity.
The old saying you can't take it with you is a universal truth, and those that spend their lives in pursuit of financial gain beyond realist utilization are proving to be a significant burden on society by manifesting their insecurities by purchasing political power to protect their fortunes.
When I see those of significant means, I see weakness.
12
A couple of thoughts. First, I hate tipping. Yes, as a child, I delivered newspapers for disgustingly low wages, way under the minimum wage, which was absurdly low in the days, and I relied on tips to earn maybe $10 a week. And each person got his or her paper where he or she wanted it: on the porch, on the steps, inside the vestibule, wherever they said. I didn't discriminate between those who tipped well and those who didn't. But we're not talking about the paltry amounts given the "paper boy", I am sure the vast percentage of tipping takes place in restaurants and really doesn't benefit the servers, but the owners, who pay the servers next to nothing. I recall many years ago, vacationing in Italy, tipping was truly optional; the restaurants added a fee for service, usually 15%, to the bill. The prices listed in the menu were for the food only, the 15% covered the cost of the servers wages and the providing of cutlery and napkins. One didn't tip in order to get better service, servers were expected to always provide excellent service, they had pride in their job, just as do physicians, engineers, lawyers, gardeners, etc. All of us should have been brought up to be conscientious in our work whatever it is (I make no apologies for my attitude of superiority).
Second, stuffing the extra paper napkins often lavished on customers in many eateries, into ones pocket is not being cheap but but being an environmentalist.
3
The rich get richer is what my Dad (who always overpaid) used to say. And he said, the weird thing is that the poor keep letting them garner more wealth.....as in tax cuts. I think that we have the rich in our country who invest in political parties that will make sure they continue to live the life they "deserve". If they have to skimp elsewhere....so be it. The only thing now is that are also manipulating the system to continue the wealth for their families on the backs of our children and grandchildren. The Kochs, Mercers have figured out it is "cheaper" to invest in GOP politicians than to benefit the middle class. Just saying.
6
Delightful. The public displays of billionaire's strange behaviors are a trend led by our own Cheap Billionaire in Cheif.
My educated guess is that at the heart of it is the love for money and, in the case of Trump we have some light since Cohen's public visit to the House. It seems that Trump is also a lesser Billionaire, he "had" to inflate his financial statements in order to get bank financing for his projects.
After Cohen, I would not be surprised if he included in his net worth the chapter 11 casinos as assets. I would be surprised if a "revised" financial statement places him as the solid billionaire he boasts he is. At least before the WH days.
It would poof right your hypothesis if Trump thought that the famous $130K payment was a bargain. Compared to how much richer he could become as President of the still most powerful country on earth.
2
Being thrifty and stealing are not the same thing. Taking sugar packets is not the same as buying the sugar that’s on sale. Best not to, ahem, lump the two.
The easiest road? Don’t steal anything, large or small, not even sugar packets.
5
I know no billionaires but I have met wealthy people and my hypothesis has been repeatedly borne out: rich people are rich because they tend to be incredibly stingy.
5
@Maureen A Donnelly, if they spend their money they are accused of conspicuous consumption. If they don't, they're accused of being cheap.
I have also met a lot of rich people and I don't think you can generalize about them, except to say all these rich people have a lot of money. Some deserve it, some don't. Some are cheap, some are generous. Some are brilliant, some are stupid. But the way the rich are just like every other group is that people like to generalize about them.
2
I always take the soap and shampoo from hotels and then give them to a women's shelter in my home town. I also tend to over-tip because a couple of bucks means much less to me than to the server who receives them. I over-pay the gardener who cleans my yard because he works hard and is also a small business owner who hires his own helpers thus keeping several families in food and shelter. Finally, I grew up lower middle class, worked from the time I was 14, worked my way through college as a laborer, and vowed at that time that no one would ever do work in or around my home without getting something more than his hourly wage. Why? Just to bring a smile to his face. I really don't care whether you think me virtuous or foolish for doing these things. I just find it more comfortable than being just another taker.
409
@lhc I sometimes give $5 to the cleaning lady a the local McDonalds. She works hard and is in her 70s.
25
@lhc
I love your response. You have had to earn your way in life and know what hard work is. I also have a gardener who helps me several times a year. He always does everything I ask him to do cheerfully and charges very little for his work. I pay him extra but after reading this I will pay him more next time. There is also nothing like praise for good work to bring a smile to a face.
39
@lhc I'm with you. If one is able to do something to help another, do it! There is nothing that gives me greater pleasure in life than to give a generous tip or gift to someone in a service industry who is clearly working hard and could benefit from a little extra help. My theory of humanity is very simple: There are two types of people - those whose view is "I've got mine, too bad for you" and those whose view is "We're all in this together." The choice should be simple.
38
I suspect that Kraft's decision to visit this spa had nothing to do with being cheap. I suspect that it had much more to do with anonymity.
I don't know how you find an Eliot Spitzer type of prostitute, but I would imagine that it involves disclosing some personal information of some sort--an address, a phone number, a credit card number, etc. Do women who earn $1,000 or $10,000 per hour meet with random men about whom they know absolutely nothing and simply trust that they will be paid? I suspect not.
Kraft probably assumed that by using a strip mall brothel, he would avoid ending up in some "black book" that could later be released to the police or the media. He paid cash, so, but for the fact that the police were monitoring the brothel, he would have remained anonymous. It was highly unlikely that the women would recognize him.
The idea that Kraft was thinking like some woman who stole sugar packets from McDonald's doesn't make a lot of sense to me.
6
Does Trump share his millions by donating to charity. Does he have his a name on hospital buildings honoring his donations .or only on his own buildings, planes and his self promoting brand? He cheats hard working people but seems not so share his wealth for noble,purposes? And worse of all, his base seems not to notice nor care. They some of the people who may need the help most. He instead cancels necessary services. Why don’t they care and continue to be loyal. That is my biggest question. Ditto to his Uber wealthy cabinet members.
Disgusting
19
Whether we like it or not, this is what human nature is all about.
The greed, the amorality, the ugliness and the hypocrisy, to name just a few. The kindness, the generosity, the beauty and the humility, to name just a few. Being judgmental about it may make us feel superior about ourselves yet it's only a temporary waste of time and energy. Being ourselves and being comfortable with that is truly what matters most. The rest is just noise.
4
They're takers. There's nothing cute or eccentric about it. I could see a poor person doing it for survival, but a rich person is just getting off on taking from someone else. It's lowdown.
10
There is nothing more desired by a person of means than something free. Watch who goes to a table of "complimentary gifts" and see who stuffs the most into their pockets.
6
Saw this exactly when I chaired a charity event, tickets costing 100$ per.
1
“Charming Cheap”, Ms. Weiner, is something most of us can understand and have participated in. Who has not snatched some extra napkins at the ubiquitous plastic utensil counter located in any fast food eatery, to be stuffed into the glove compartment for potential accidents while traveling? This is not to condone the practice. A “white lie” is still a lie, despite the euphemism. The Trumps and Krafts of the world however, are in another immoral universe altogether. As insulated, narcissistic billionaires, the utter depravity and criminality of their choices simply escapes them without giving a thought to those they have victimized, particularly given the total imbalance of power involved. The entire purpose of their actions is solely to satiate what they want, when they want it.
4
Here's what I don't get. Half a million for bribes. But, how about using even 1% of that to actually do something that would make sense--like paying a tutor? The irony is that a lot of these parents weren't born with the proverbial silver spoon but instead, achieved what they did through respectable means (if one can assume their bios are honest and correct), like hard work and sacrifice.
I don't believe that a lot of these offspring were ignorant about what was being done on their behalf. But, I'm willing to cut them some slack given their level of maturity and the difficulty of living in so public a manner due to who their parents are. Regardless of what or how much they knew, the fact remains that this will be an asterisk alongside their names for the rest of their lives, and any achievements--even those gained legitimately--will be questioned, fairly or not.
What an awful legacy to leave to one's children.
3
The question asked by the author - why Mr Kraft went to a "cheap" massage parlor when he could have afforded a higher price service - is faulty. Posing the problem as a quirk among "the rich" to cut corners and save money says more about the perspective of those of us with "hard working middle class" values: if you spend more, life is better; you get more exclusivity, more quality, more space on an airline seat, let's say, a better intimate sex encounter. The only question here is why was someone like Mr Kraft - touted as a successful business man - not aware of the oppressive conditions experienced by the women in these sorts of spas? I'm growing weary of the elite professing ignorance about the ways of the real world. Mr. Kraft lives in a predominantly male culture, so I'm sure he's heard talk about the illegality of some strip mall massage parlors. Was he really that ignorant? Mr Kraft sought anonymous paid sex with someone who lacked workers' rights, had no civil rights (no access to her passport, etc.), and generally without fundamental human rights. Mr Kraft didn't have to acknowledge her humanity. He paid little in time and money knowing he was exploiting a human lacking similar power in the exchange for his own need.
5
Stealing is not just cheap; it's dishonest and immoral.
And that's the truth.
2
It's an american thing - here very rich people don't want to be labeled "pretentious" so they tell you how thrifty they are within the walls of their mansions, or serve fast food...in the white house.
Very irritating behavior, particularly because it is fake and constructed, and not generous.
1
False analogies. Buying something on the basis of value received has little to do with being "cheap." Exploitation can be made at any price. It does not even rest on the principle of consent. Perhaps the frugal old aunt was saving here money to give it all to charity upon her demise. Kraft, if guilty as alleged, is but another example of the immoral side of our culture. I don't mean the sexual part. I mean the desperation that oppression brings.
3
At least once a month I get to apply my favorite book title - Bonfire of the Vanities - to some event or circumstance in the public discourse. This month I have two: the rub-and-tug (love that) and the college admissions cheating debacles. I cannot hazard a guess as to why the actors in these vignettes did what they did, but in these sad and sordid times it is immensely satisfying to see them get caught. Even if, like Manafort, they get off with a hand slap, I think the humiliation of getting caught is the most painful. Because now everyone knows who and what they really are, their arrogance unmasked. Almost as if their vanity went up in flames.
As for cheap rich people, I am fortunate to know only one such person. His personal deficits so outweigh his financial assets that I consider his net worth to be negative regardless of how much money he has. Perhaps this is the type of back of the envelope calculation these folk make; if they lose a nickel in a transaction their personal deficiencies will tip the balance sheet upside down, and we will start to smell smoke, the kind that always indicates there’s a fire.
1
Our society has made the decision to outlaw money for sex. Slavery and involuntary servitude are also illegal. Period. Of course, you can opine about Kraft's and other's "cheapness", but please remember the crime.
When you next write about "cheap" which is another person's "thrifty", review your last hospital, hotel, car rental, cable, or telephone bill (there are plenty more examples. If you want to opine about "cheapness" start with the aforementioned services.
1
I think that the word cheap should be reserved for the kind of stinginess that deliberately denigrates your life. Sometimes for those people that are wealthy or at least well off, they are trying to add some gravity to their zero-G life. Spending a long time in zero gravity space causes your body to atrophy because the weight of life is also what tells you what is important and what requires attention for you to thrive.
For whatever reason, I have usually lived well within my means, just a habit I guess. I have had ups and downs that included solid six figures and zero income living on my savings. During those down times, I found that I could live large in my own way without spending a lot of money. Financial security is itself a luxury that can be very warming if you don't take it too seriously. I suspect that is one of the qualities of a wealthy person that is not a complete self absorbed jerk, the kind of person that educates their children and expects them to get into school on their own merits because it makes them better people.
2
The country has been run for decades by cheats. Lying is cheating the truth. The example set for our children and aspiring young people by the pathological liar in the White House simply makes blatant what was always there in our socio/economic shadows. Cheating extends to the prerogatives of men forcing themselves on women. Cheating includes paying women and minorities less for the same work. It extends to billionaire sports team owners holding cities hostage for taxpayer funded billion dollar stadiums. The ultimate theft, the world class cheaters, are the ones who start a war for private gain and sell it through a toxic mix of patriotism and fear at the cost of innocent lives both foreign and domestic. Ask around the planet. People abroad know us well. They're not buying it anymore. Our best friends are fast becoming dictators and autocrats. It's hard to drain the swamp when the swamp is the only source of personnel and has been for far too long. Caveat: this freshman class of Congresspeople should bring a tear of thankfulness to all citizens who hope for a future for our children.
5
Sometimes what looks cheap is actually fulfilling a need. Kraft at the Orchids of Asia isn't about saving money. He is having a fantasy of dominance over a submissive women.
trump, on the other hand, is just cheap. That fast food dinner (which was cold by the time it was served and what is nastier than cold fast food?) wasn't necessary because of the government shut down. trump has an hotel just down the street that could have catered. He is the worst kind of cheap.
10
Maybe it is because, even with their immense wealth, they don't have any class.
7
There is a huge difference between cheap and frugal. It seems to me that many very wealthy people are cheap and people who worked hard for their money and are from a different era are frugal. Cheap people are the most miserable people one can meet. Cheap people are those who try to justify why they should not tip in a restaurant.
3
@Jack Some people are both frugal and cheap.
My grandfather (born in 1873) was a frugal man. He'd worked hard since boyhood and was a millionaire by his death in 1959. I (unfortunately) did not inherit any millions, but did learn about frugality. For example, he showed me how to slit open a tube of toothpaste to scrape out the last bits with a toothbrush--something he'd done many times in his youth.
But he was also cheap. He promised his faithful housekeeper, who'd seen not only him and his wife but also my mother through their long illnesses, that he was paying into Social Security for her. She eventually discovered that he had not paid one dime. Horrified, I made this up to her with a monthly check for the rest of her life. That knowledge made me realize how complex my beloved "Pops" had been.
I'm sure he was not unique. A determined urge to save money can take many forms within the same person.
4
Maybe this shows that these people are just creepy. Normally, an individual caught in this situation will not suffer a criminal record-the case would be held in abeyance and after 6 months dismissed if the complete community service etc., Now these billionaires are going to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars for attorneys who will get the same result their clients could have gotten for free.
Actually, what would be nice is if they go to trial and lose and get sentenced to jail time. Now that would be justice
3
Why are they always caught drunk driving too? Why don't they hire a driver if they have so much money? How do they go broke? If someone gave me a million dollars right now, I would need no more for the rest of my life. Why are they so easily lured into schemes, bad investments, loveless marriages, four or five marriages or for or five loveless marriages? Why are their kids always idiotic bores? Why are they out of shape when they can have chefs create something new every night? Why, when you are one of the richest families in the world, would you not take a cut in your personal profits to share with your loyal employees? Why don't they share? Granted money can't buy happiness but if you're unhappy and loaded, try giving more of it away and see if that doesn't change your attitude. My number is 555 POOR. You'll find me in all the phone books.
1
At times like this, I wish there were a FICO score for decency.
1
"...she is barely a person at all."
So many of these comments are focused on the sugar packets, etc. Who cares if you take the hotel soap or how anyone choses to spend (or not spend) their money? The most salient point the author makes is the inability to see or to care about the impact on others.
3
Many years ago, I admired the crystal knife rests at the Adolphus Hotel. Rather than steal any, I asked the hotel if I could purchase a set. They sold them to me at cost, a bargain. Everytime I use them, I fondly remember that hotel. And I know you're thinking, What? Crystal knife rests, really?! Yup! They are pretty and practical, keeping your table clean after you've used the knife and don't have room on the plate to put it down for later use. This keeps the knive less germy and the table clean.
3
I will bet that most people do not realize the magnitude of a billion dollars...$1,000,000,000. That's equivalent to 1,000 millionaires. Yes.
For just 10% of that wealth ($100,000,000} that billionaire can "buy" 100 congressional members at $1,000,000 (a million dollars) each. And you wonder why congress is like a flock of sheep?
And our ONE billionaire still has 90% of their starting wealth. (And probably more, considering what those "bribes" yielded in paybacks, like, say, a tax cut).
Should any one person have $1,000,000,000 when the average person has a tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny fraction of that amount ?
Let's teach this to our children, and vote accordingly.
4
The author mixes apples and oranges. Some of her examples simply illustrate re-using rather than wasting, of which I am also a strong advocate. On the other hand, what Robert Kraft did is disgusting. He should have known that the women he used were sex slaves; I hope he gets jail time for it.
1
Rich people are an easy target. People enjoy generalizing about them in very unflattering ways. But rich people are no better or worse than anyone else. Some of them are brilliant and worked very hard for their money, and some of them did absolutely nothing, inherited their money, and it's corrupted them like it would anyone else. Some of them are very generous, and some of them are very cheap.
And yet we continue to see articles about how terrible rich people are. Ideally, I don't think we should generalize about rich people, or Muslims, or Mexicans, or African-Americans, or any class of people.
6
McDonalds seems to throw ketchup in your paper bag at the drive-thru window even if you didn't ask for it. My wife and daughter bring them home and put them in the fridge all the time. Most other people I know usually just throw them away.
3
It's sorta like how some billionaires buy their children a spot at a school they don't deserve to attend by making a legal 5 million dollar donation, and some partners at TPG decide to pay barely the cost of a year's tuition for some criminal proctors or coaches to defraud the admissions committee.
1
2 points I'd like to suggest, referring back to 2 other Times articles, one in today's paper, another an old K.A. Appiah Ethicist piece: both show how the rich may treat money 'ritualistically', to express/assert their 'morality'.
In the Appiah piece, a mother wrote in asking whether it's ethical to "overpay" a financially struggling babysitter significantly above market rate as a way of giving her a gift. The writer wasn't suggesting an amount that would appear to be out-&-out charity, just significantly more than market rate. The response, as I recall, was that each job has an appropriate wage, & it's best to keep to that, at least very approximately. He even suggested it could be bad for the babysitter to get more than she was expecting. (Nonsense, I thought & still do.)
In today's paper the TV genre the author calls "wealth porn" is discussed in terms of how billionaires, having surpassed the "having something to prove" level, often eschew conspicuous extravagances that the moderately rich participate in: at a certain level, certain consumption patterns circle back toward the middle class, in a way marking billionaires against mere multimillionaires. A modest Ford can signal "so beyond needing a Ferrari."
I suspect frugality amid extreme wealth is a ritual religious gesture to express worship of the market principles & "invisible hand" that made them so rich. The Appiah stance similarly sacralizes, religion-izes market process. The behavior declares "Market is God."
Sex addiction and compulsion defies all logic. Frugality May have nothing to do with it.
"with women who were, according to the police, prisoners, brought over from China with the promise of legitimate jobs. These women’s lives sound miserable."
I am troubled too that police left them in place, let this go on for months, for a long time, just taking pictures of what was done to them.
This was human trafficking and slavery, and they just used that to catch johns getting hand jobs.
Priorities. There is more wrong here than the johns.
3
@Mark Thomason
We have a robust criminal justice system where criminals get the benefit of the doubt basically all the time, especially when they have a few nickels to hire good lawyers. It takes time to build a case that can be won in court. What's a 'long time' for you might be what it takes to get convictions.
This may be hard to understand but these wealthy men have a self esteem problem. Even a high priced call girl is a better person than they are, they can not satisfy someone whose personal stature is above theirs.
Their many counts for nothing in a relationship. It may satisfy a financial need but not an emotional one. Buying sex may satisfy a physical urge, but the soul is left empty, and these people know good women are laughing at them and their inadequacies. Any one better than a woman forced into illicit sex is a threat to their self esteem. You can tell yourself how wonderful you are, how rich you are, but you can not hide your subconscious knowledge of what kind of person you really are from yourself.
You will do many things to evade this knowledge, but it becomes obvious when it is threatened, anger is the obvious reaction. We see the Liar we know, react constantly to implications regarding his behavior, so we know it is getting to him, a classic case of fake self esteem.
1
As pointed out, a sex worker at the Orchids of Asia isn't in a position to blackmail or rat out the billionaire - and probably would have no idea who they were. I suspect Kraft and the others were completely clueless, and furthermore could have cared less even if they knew, that these women were essentially prisoners. It just goes to show money doesn't buy class or decency - of course this is on display in Washington daily.
4
It's a combination of addiction, compulsion, and personality largely underlain with anti-social and narcissistic features.
Common in the corporate world, which both attracts and rewards them.
1
Some people's leading fault is greed and they can't see it. For others it's envy and they can't see it either. Neither is attractive. (Luckily most people aren't very greedy nor envious.)
1
Robert Kraft must have known those women were in forced prostitution. He may be cheap but I am sure he would find out all about any business place he would use. So taking advantage of women who were captive against their will and he did nothing to help their plight but took advantage of their slave state is really horrible. He may be cheap, but he is also a beast of a human being.
The worst greed is the war industries who pay off politicians to vote for more wars and as with the needless war with Iraq, millions of innocent people died to make the war equipment makers even richer. Senator Diane Feinstein of California always has voted for wars with the Republicans and her husband manufactures war equipment. Diane and her husband are extremely wealthy from bribes and his business which she helped by her votes. Many people die so they can be ultra wealthy. Same with big Pharma and opioids. I do not know if the above mentioned are cheap, but they certainly hold the lives of regular people as cheap. And that is the worst frugality.
2
"Deep down, we’re just like you!"
Indeed. That also does not say much for human nature which seems to be described at a pretty low level here.
"If a man, even a billionaire, wants to buy sex, I’ve got no quarrel, as long as both parties are of age and willing. But that same billionaire skimping and paying a relatively paltry amount to a woman who doesn’t want to be there and can’t leave? That’s something else."
I gather then Ms. Weiner that you support legalized prostitution and the only things that bother you here are work conditions and the price, and perhaps the fact that rich people should not should be "just like you".
Your attitude is more puzzling than that of cheap billionaires.
2
The use of prostitutes by men is ultimately about power and the sense of power men feel by the degradation and purchasing of women. The exploitation of 'cheaper,' more-debased women (such as those who do not speak the local language, who have been deprived of their passports, etc.) is a power thrill for men accustomed to owning anything/anyone they choose. (This is the man who effectively owns Tom Brady, after all.)
English-speaking, high-priced prostitutes do not deliver the same rush and yes, it carries more 'risks.'
1
I found Ms. Weiner’s rant vs. the rich tedious. We are all quirky...rich and poor. Mr. Kraft’s libido is no more or less interesting than anyone else’s. What to me is interesting is thinly veiled envy. I find it as unattractive as stealing sugar packets from a fast food chain. There must be something more important about which to rant..
1
" In the eyes of her clients, I imagine, she isn’t a person you’d have to send your lawyer after to pay off, she is barely a person at all."
And there you have the one irresistible aspect of attraction that you leave out. The ability to inflict abject humiliation.
2
Or maybe Kraft and his chums are just trying to avoid publicity. Having seen how much it cost their fellow libertine Donald Trump to pay off his paramours and it still didn’t buy confidentiality, perhaps they thought sneaking down to the strip mall for a quickie with a non-English-speaking trafficked woman whose passport has been confiscated and who has been threatened and confined would be more discrete. In any event, it certainly backfired, just as it did for Trump.
2
They are misers. That's how they got to be billionaires.
We live in the age of the miserocracy. The real economy has grown three-fold since 1980, yet real wages are static. Or less. The deficit scolds freak out about the deficit precisely because they are parasites: Hedge fund billionaires produce nothing. They just suck wealth out of the system.
3
I'll bet Kraft was not looking to save money. He wanted sex with an object- meaning sex with as little human interaction as possible. It's much easier to objectify a person with whom you cannot communicate beyond a few hand signals. This is very different from the sugar packet thievery of the well-heeled.
Ms. Weiner, I am glad you brought Kraft and his fellow johns back into the news (it's disappearing from the national conversation far too quickly). But, I wish you'd treated this issue with less humor and devoted less of your column to napkins and sugar packets. Not that I don't enjoy a good laugh and a read about the quirks of grannies, but there is nothing remotely humorous about any aspect of this topic. If you wanted to address this issue at all, your column should have been almost entirely devoted to the role of power in Kraft's transaction at the strip mall (and probably in many if not most john-to-prostitute transactions). You are spot-on in noting that Kraft and his ilk prefer places like this massage parlor because it allows them to dehumanize the woman they are getting sexual gratification from. Why not go the next step and note that this makes Kraft a coward? Too much of a pathetic little boy to deal face to face with an actual real-life human woman? Too inadequate, too fearful of judgment, too power-hungry, too insecure--all of the attributes of lame bullies.
You could also have called for a change in the laws to make the johns who visit sex trafficking victims guilty not of a misdemeanor but of sex-trafficking itself (because, during the time he spends with her, she is imprisoned--just in his immediate custody, rather than in that of her owner).
There's too much of a difference between people and napkins to make this work as a column, Ms. Weiner.
3
Like others, I've seen plenty. A wealthy women with whom I occasionally shared a cab, would count the tip out in pennies. My wife and I had many meals with a couple who had inherited a small fortune. Paying the bill was excruciating, as the man pored over the bill, allocating each appetizer and the price of each glass of wine before splitting the tab. He too, tipped in coins.
My wife and I are retired and, among other things, tip excessively. Every person who serves us is quite likely to be less financially comfortable than we are.
I think the difference is more than cheapness. I think very rich folks disdain the people who "serve" them. They became rich and powerful not only by being selfish, but by being arrogant and haughty toward people who have little. It is the social and political phenomenon that characterizes many conservatives. They believe you get what you deserve and deserve what you get. People who are in service jobs simply don't deserve much. As the column points out, they are slightly less human.
When you see the cab driver or server as a lovely human, working harder than you work, you inevitably strike up a friendly conversation, show interest in their life, and make the easy gesture of paying them a bit more than "required." My wife and I never "tip" less than 25 or 30%. It is a very small acknowledgment of our good fortune and the more challenging circumstances, whatever they may be, that has someone "serving" us.
7
There is cheap and there is thrifty. If you go to an inexpensive restaurant, you are thrifty. If you don't pay a decent tip to the waitress, you are cheap.
473
@Tony Mendoza Well put Tony, excellent.
3
@Tony Mendoza
If you don't pay a decent tip to your waitperson you are reprehensible. In many places they only make 2.50 an hour.
7
@Tony Mendoza yes, and if you load up on sugar packets to take home, you're a thief. The article slides over that distinction.
9
One hopes that the billionaires were just cheap. Seeking out women whose “lives sound miserable . . . They would work up to 14 hours seven days a week . . Sometimes after they’d surrendered their passports to their bosses.”
Would it not be conceivable that some rich men look for women who can’t complain no matter what is done to them, who have to endure any sadistic behavior, because they are powerless and know it?
Calling out the billionaires for merely being cheap is giving them a break. Exploiting enslaved women — this is an atrocity.
388
@St. Paulite This is also why rich businessmen and women support "right to work" laws -- you can pay the bare minimum and fire anyone for any reason; the worker has no voice.
38
@Katrin
So true, Katrin. In Wisconsin it is only the wants and needs of the “job creators” that matter. They demand monetary subsidies, removal of sageguard regulations that were put in place to protect our citizens and then pay low wages with scant hours and no benefits. Our Republican leaders do their dirty deeds under cover of darkness. The only Union they support is the Union of business, AKA, the Chamber of Commerce, the working class be damned.
19
Maybe the men don’t know the situation the women are in. So stop basing them for that.
3
Being wealthy means only that one has money.
It does not imply that one has class, intelligence, empathy, the ability to think critically, or basic good judgment.
698
@Critical Rationalist
OR -- generous. These people tend to be both cheap (as in scrounging) and mean (rather than generous towards others).
Maybe they got so used to being frugal to get rich they forgot how to enjoy life. But that doesn't solve the question for inherited wealth.
Maybe Freud got it right. They are still in the immature "anal retentive" stage of toddlerhood where they can't bear to let go of their pile of whatever.
12
@Critical Rationalist
Nevertheless, we bestow great Admiration for those skilled at amassing Fortunes.
Thanks to John Roberts's supremely activist Court, we even allow them to choose 'our' Representation in government for us.
Do we need to re-examine our belief / faith in their Infallability?
Like, yesterday.
20
Bingo!
4
My brother and sister-in-law ran a breakfast and lunch restaurant in a high rise across from the state capital building where they lived. They had to keep napkins, sweetener packets, ketchup etc all behind the counter because of the constant pilferage. It does add up and mom and pop restaurants make relatively little money! And for over a year I helped my daughter run a cafe in a resort airport. People would come in and take our plastic forks, napkins etc to eat the food they had bought elsewhere! Or they would want napkins for their kid to blow their nose so they wouldn't have to walk to the bathroom down the hall. They would stand there and read the New York Times rather than buy it when our profit on a newspaper was only about 15 cents! They would demand to have a cup to put the pop in that they bought in the vending machine down the hall. I worked unpaid and we never made a real profit. Now there is not even a coffee bar in that airport! And no one has replaced my brothers restaurant. You brought it on yourselves, people! And it's not petty. Is serious theft to those being stolen from!
435
@Julie Carter
You'll have to show me the numbers. Wouldn't your rent be a much bigger factor in your break-even point than loss of plastic ware? I mean, the $7 for a sandwich has to go somewhere.
5
I've seen it in my family, and I've seen it in my friends. I am sure it is more complex than it often seems, but my observation is those with the most are by far the cheapest of people. Too much money seems to inflict some sort of sickness - there can never be enough. I've seen it in areas near where I live - McMansions in gated communities behind additional gates.
Seems like there is a bit of a sweet spot of just enough - enough to pay the bills, enough to have a place to live - and of course it varies area to area, person to person. But in my 63 years the only thing I've seen when there are big excesses of money is cheapness - and, unhappiness.
Looking at the mess our government is in - our president is (if you believe him) incredibly wealthy - but he wants more. He feeds his guests fast food. He and his party work to further enrich themselves, and leave those with the least with even less.
It all disgusts me. Our family has never had too much - only enough - and we are generous with others, with tips, with our children, with those in need. It is easy - we have no fear of not enough, because we've learned that the more you give, the more you receive, in countless ways.
It is so simple. But, apparently, not simple for those that really could make huge differences...but don't. Because that excess money has rotted their heart, and their soul.
468
Bill Gates. Bill Gates. Bill Gates.
A man who made his fortune, not inherited it. And has given away half of it.
22
@CSL You're absolutely right. I first became aware of this when I was still in high school. There were a couple of occasions when the school held a drive for some worthy cause and sent the kids who volunteered to the parking lot of the local supermarket to collect some money. It was the late 60's, and a quarter was the standard donation. I saw exactly the pattern that CSL describes: the folks who drove up in expensive cars usually refused to give anything. People who walked or drove up in a clunker almost all cheerily contributed 25 cents. The kid who earned minimum wage for collecting the shopping carts and helping women (in the 60's, in the suburb where I lived, all the shoppers were women) carry their groceries to the car came over to me every time he got a tip and gave it to me. A guy who drove up in a Porsche told me to get lost.
Of course there are exceptions to every rule. Gates and Buffett and a handful of billionaires have pledged to give away half their fortunes. That doesn't mean the observation is not generally true. And I would add that Bill Gates, like Warren Buffett, looks as though he has never spent more than $18 on a haircut.
20
@cds333 But do you know if Gates or Buffett donate to kids in parking lots? Gates started his own foundation to give away his fortune, so that he could direct what it was used for, and how well it was used.
Buffett, being frugal, decided to avoid the costs of starting and running his own foundation, and is giving away his fortune through the Gates Foundation.
I am reluctant to donate to charities who solicit donations in parking lots, because I have no way of checking to see if it is a good cause, or how efficiently they spend the donated funds. I channel my donations through reputable charities for causes I believe in, preferably those who spend 10% or less on overhead and fundraising.
4
This isn’t a harmless financial quirk but a serious character flaw. It has been well documented that many rich people have complex relationships with money, leading to what seem like paradoxical behavior, spending billions of dollars on art while haggling over the price of a hot dog. However, being a participant in sex trafficking is a completely different matter, not something that is on the same moral continuum of flying coach when one can afford a private jet. Robert Kraft and his codefendants chose to pay for sex with exploited women held in degraded, disempowered conditions, providing the demand for a destructive industry.
616
@Amy Raffensperger
Best comment so far. Thanks!
14
@Amy Raffensperger you voiced exactly what I was feeling but was unable to express.
5
@Amy Raffensperger: Many conservative men believe that pleasurable sex is dirty. They're also misogynists. So the more squalid a sexual encounter is, and the more degrading to the woman, the more enjoyable it is. They're hypocrites and pigs.
8
Let us not forget all the well-off people who steal from their housekeepers and babysitters--yes, steal--by not declaring their wages and paying the employer's half of social security and medicare tax, 6.2% and 1.45% respectively. The domestic employee becomes effectively self-employed, though even a one-day a week cleaning person who earns above a (low) threshold is supposed to be declared. She must pay both the employer and employee's share, or 15.3% of income. A woman I know (a US citizen) has worked for multiple employers--people of means and prestigious positions--for a decade or more. They of course call her "a member of the family." Not one declares her. And she will retire on social security payments she has eked out of her small salary, and those wealthy people--what will they do with the 7.65% they saved? Call this cheapness by its real name. Theft.
679
@Julia Lichtblau
Vote for someone who will get E-Verify enforced. Vote for someone who will empower the IRS and hire more agents and do more audits.
16
@as I think you missed the point. The woman referred to in this anecdote is a U.S. citizen, so E-Verify isn't relevant. But I agree on supporting the IRS so they are fully-staffed and can do more audits.
7
@Lynne
Fewer than 200,000 people file Schedule H out of about 3.8 million employers of domestic workers for a compliance rate of 5.3%. The biggest factor is a culture of non-compliance (aka cheapness), according to a Tax Policy Center report by Brian Erard. Complexity used to be a "good" argument harder before online forms. After the 1995 Zoe Baird scandal, the forms were simplified, compliance went down.
8
I come from a working class family, but through education & hard work (no trust funds here) am now part of the upper classes. In my experience people with more money are absolutely cheap. They’ll do things like pay hundreds or thousands of dollars on things like purses, shoes and electronics, but chafe at leaving a decent tip for hard working waitstaff. It’s definitely a revolting characteristic.
869
Same reason about tips relates to taxes. Their is an element of us v. others wherein they reject the leg up in basics of health, shelter, education and nutrition that contributing more in taxes and the social programs would do for the general populace. Most wealth comes easy- while much does contain varied degrees of applied effort ( i.e. ‘work’ but intolerable suffering labor ). Moreover, it may be a function of intelligence, luck, patience, targeted applied effort, connections and family legacy wealth.
52
@Barbara Sheridan
Having been a waitress, a seasonal worker, and a secretary, I have seen it too. I never tip less than 20% and I leave some money for hotel housekeeping. I have always believed that if you can’t “afford “ to leave a decent tip, you really can’t afford that meal or manicure.
172
@Lawyermom
Completely agree with you. If you can't afford the tip then it is not for you. As an ex waiter I have to say the European method of tacking on 15% service is better and usually you get a couple of Euros on top of that so it works out to 20% and often much better. American diners are variable....but generally better tippers. And housekeeping is important.
58
To pay my way through my master's degree, I got up at 2:30 every morning and delivered newspapers in my car from 3:00 to 6:00, working in two towns--one very wealthy, and one very working class. Guess which town the large majority of my tips came from? Hint: it wasn't the wealthy one.
The newspaper distributor I worked for told me he sees it over and over again. "How do you think they got rich in the first place?" He would say to me. "How do you think they stay that way?" There's a lot of window dressing that goes into being rich--and a lot of chiseling, grasping behavior too.
I'm certainly not rich, but I do now earn a comfortable professional income--and I always remember to tip well. If being rich means being a cheat or a cheapskate, I'd just as soon not, thank you.
11
At the risk of a divergence, the women in these "spas" are clearly brought here illegally and do so without having to cross through deserts and over walls. They are coming through legal points of entry, most likely flown in. Their earnings are not taxed and may flow back to China.
Why doesn't ICE catch the criminals behind this illicit business? Why aren't tools like eVerify mandated for small businesses to ensure compliance with immigration laws and also avoid the tax evasion?
It is not hard to find these operations in strip malls across the US.
Finally, as is evident in the multiple pictures that have surfaced of the former madam with Trump, just who is she and where is all the money that she has funneled coming from? Our president may have a Chinese problem as well as a Russian one.
17
I suspect the answer is that these men view women as objects and not really as people. They view their wives as objects for certain functions and other women for other functions that their wives or girlfriends do not perform. It would be great to hear from the wives and girlfriends on the topic. If Stormy Daniels is to be believed, her pleasure was not part of the functionality.
6
I never understood why the very wealthy will pay workers a pittance and then donate millions to charities to help the poor and disadvantaged. Is it just for their ego? To say they are a philanthropist? To appear generous to their wealthy friends? Had they paid their workers a living wage, many would not need government/charity help.
10
@MidWest
The donations were for tax breaks. By and large.
1
There is a big difference between an “average” person being cheap or thrifty to save money, and the wealthy spending their money in a thoughtless, cruel, immoral way. This was not a victimless spend, irrespective of the amounts.
11
I remember the cartoons of my early childhood. Trump, Kraft most resemble Mr Magoo. In the opening frames of the show, Mr. Magoo would leave his Manhattan penthouse apartment, and just before he stepped into his Rolls, he would tip the doorman, with a coin, with a string attached to it, and just as the doorman's hand and his door closing, he would yank the coin back. Even back in my cherished 1960s childhood, the notion that rich people got rich by saving their pennies, Horatio Alger style, prevailed, when most rich people got rich through inheritance.
10
Most still become wealthy thru inheritance.
1
@phacops1 Mea Culpa, mayb retire with >$1million, not wealthy, but, still, guilty, and saving pennies. I tip waiters and stiff ones that try to stff me. Is that right? Probably not. My SO says you should pay waiters more, even if the service is terrible. She says it is better for my heart. My stingy heart. My recently departed Dad admonished me, with witticisms to truth, " Living well, is the best revenge".
I call these people morbidly thrifty. It stems from past habits that are hard to break, and an insecurity that they will lose what has taken them a lifetime to acquire if they start to squander it
I must admit, while far from being wealthy, I do a few things that seem cheap. I try to know where all the lowest price gasoline stations are in my area, or along my route if I am traveling, and then only refuel where I can pay the lowest prices. I have a high performance sports car that the manufacturer recommends premium gasoline. But I discovered that it runs OK on mid grade gasoline. So I buy the cheaper fuel to save 20 cents a gallon.
3
I was in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico for the first time and was aware of the opulence of our digs compared to the poverty I saw outside of the resort where we stayed. One day we were strolling in town and a woman appeared with two little children in tow. She was selling small, hand-made trinkets. I selected one. How much? I asked. 2 dollars, she replied. As I reached in my pocket, one in our group, a Manhattan based designer said, Give her 50 cents. In that instant I saw clearly the lack of empathy that we humans can display.
60
@Ed McLoughlin
And you are looking at the Republican dream of Americas future.
6
Having watched a friend go from every day to Millonaire, I watched him get cheaper the richer he got. In the end he almost expected people to do things for free because he "needed" it done. The odd part was he would pay other Millonaires what ever they wanted and wear that cost like a Badge of Honor.
30
In 2002, retiring General Electric CEO, Jack Welch, was forced by his wife’s lawyers, to reveal the terms of his retirement benefits/perks during divorce proceedings. In addition to eye-watering sums of cash payments, the GE board had (quietly) agreed to pay for not just the expected big things like free travel on corporate jets or the use of an apartment on Central Park, but all the associated expenses, including food, restaurant meals, wine, toiletries, furnishings, opera and sports tickets, dry cleaning, flowers and even postage(!)
Clearly no expense was too small not to subsidized by GE and its workers. Greedy and cheap often seem to be two sides of the same coin.
85
@Susan, Jack Welch thought firing the bottom 10 percent of employees each year was a great management tool. Unfortunately, over the twenty years he was CEO, he looted and destroyed the company so the metric was not used on him.
19
@Jack
Other CEOs adopted that practice (were they just unable to come up with their own ideas? Lazy?). It causes unintended consequences and demoralizes whole departments just so the CEO can put it in the stockholders report as something he is achieving.
5
To the first half of the article, part of being an entrepreneur is thrift as most businesses are very lean for their founders in the start. These people are still thrifty when they are rich because thriftiness is one of the skills that got them wealthy in the first place.
6
For these millionaires it was their parents wealth that got them their money, which set them up to earn more money. Their being cheap is just their way of being stingy and even a newness that seems to go with it.
6
Eliot Spitzer (former governor of NY), frequented $1,000 an hour call girls and still got exposed. Even discreet, professional escorts are not a guarantee of anonymity.
18
@HG
I don’t think exposure was the entire point here. Much of the discussion involved how much the rich are willing to pay. In addition, Spitzer had political enemies that most people, including the wealthy, don’t have. There’s a reason he was the only guy identified.
3
@HG
I believe Eliot Spitzer was "set up". That doesn't mean that what he got caught at wasn't wrong. He just got too tempted.
2
After 65 years on the planet, if I’ve learned anything, it is this: empathy and generosity appear to exist in inverse proportion to an individual’s wealth - particularly inherited wealth. The man in the Oval Office at the moment is a shining example of this basic principle; his children ramp it up a few notches.
83
@chambolle
Wealth is power. Charitable giving is the most perverse form for the wealthy.
This whole thing is pretty unfair to Kraft. He was a good "John" doing what in many places is perfectly legal and what many women's advocates say should be legal. He couldn't know these women were being exploited in this way. If you say "it was obvious he should have known" then its should have been much more obvious to ICE and local law enforcement because it's their job to stop this stuff. Why wasn't it obvious to local women's aid groups?
13
@Aurthur Phleger
Oh, please. It was obvious to law enforcement, that's how Kraft got caught. Its not legal where it occurred. And there is so much bad stuff happening to women and women's groups don't have enough money and staff to help everyone in everyplace. Stop defending a dirty old man.
2
These businesses are hidden in plain sight. Whose going to call and who are you going to call? It’s never that simple as calling the police. Also, the evil men using these women are the guilty ones. What DEEP moral failings they have with their treatment of other human brings. WHAT happened in their upbringing that they thought using people was okay? Blame them not the victims or other women. Those men failed in the most basic ways possible.
1
@Aurthur Phleger If you claim Kraft "didn't or couldn't have know" women at massage parlors (especially those who are immigrants) are virtual slaves then he has to be the dumbest most ill informed man on the planet. Course he is rich and lives in a bubble so I guess that makes my point. Remove thy head from the sand and quit shilling for the uber rich.
1
This is really a two-topic essay. One topic is the cheese-paring ways of the very rich. The other is the frequenting of a strip-mall sex den by some men who could easily afford more expensive alternatives.
It's hard to say what motivates such behavior, having married the woman with whom one would like to commit an indiscretion, but a couple of possibilities suggest themselves.
One is fetishism. Not mere fascination with seedy sex (although that's a possibility, too), but a need for it. In that case, the medium is the massage.
The other is a hope of avoiding notice by going where customers remain anonymous. After all, "the most discreet, professional escorts" are reliably discreet only until they threaten not to be. They're not like priests; not when it comes to keeping secrets. The men in question may have been following the tradition of those wealthy gentlemen in Victorian fiction who slip into the shadows of the poorer quarters to find illicit pleasure.
Getting to the bottom of cheapskate syndrome may not be at all the same as getting to the bottom of Robert Kraft.
32
@Longestaffe
The Kraft incident has nothing to do with his being cheap. Ms. Weiner and the commenters are overanalyzing the motives of Kraft and the other men who frequent these cheesy places. These exploited women do not speak English -- hence there's not even small talk or any sort of emotional investment, so to speak, by the men who are the clients. It simply comes down to this: Sexual gratification with no strings attached. Whether he is rich or poor, good or evil, a guy is a guy is a guy.....
3
@Longestaffe The Times should have "picked" your comment just for "the medium is the massage." Bravo!
Is there no connection between Kraft and Yang, who used to own the ‘spa’ and trafficking ring and is an business associate of Trumps? Maybe an overreach but Kraft is an associate of both, no?
27
A well-off relative wanted to take the corkscrew provided for use in his room at a European hotel. I suggested we ask at the desk if he could purchase it. The desk clerk insisted he take it as a keepsake. Much better than stealing.
45
I admit to being worth a solid 8 figures and have a stash of hotel toiletries. I also darn my own clothes, and although I purchase many good quality items, I wear them until they fall apart. I had an exceptional pair of Italian leather boots resoled so often that the uppers finally died after a decade of wear. I also happily shop at Uniglo for socks and underwear when needed and will haunt a resale shop or two on the Upper East Side. Frankly I don't shop unless I need too, and I also just get a kick out of wearing a $800 pair of loafers with a $15 shirt and $20 trousers from Old Navy and a handsome Canali blazer of excellent craftsmanship that I bought 15 years ago and hope to keep and use for 15 more. Why not? We do fly business, sometimes first, but often use a consolidator and look for bargains. We are both self-made, from middle-class stock, so appreciate what we have and aren't foolish. I am perhaps more frugal than my spouse and happily spartan in most material goods, but will splurge on excellent food and experiences. Spend where it counts. The rest is really just excess baggage that no one really needs. Besides, bargains are fun. But never go cheap on shoes.
28
@Scott Thanks for the advice, which seems useful only for those who enjoy the "fun" of bargains, not the need of them. Not sure if you got the point of the article, though.
49
@Scott my Dad always said get shirts and pants on sale, buy really good shoes and don't cheap out on jackets. I can be found most days in $19.99 Gap khakis, Gucci loafers that are 15 years old and a Cartier watch. It's so weird how we operate our "frugalities".
Scott IS the point of the article.
3
It is called empathy.
The biggest tipper's are former/current waiters/waitresses (no matter their current means).
The cheapest tippers? you can guess.
I am so proud of my children - they tip what they would expect for the service, irrespective of price.
73
XLNT! There’s no such thing as overtipping.
1
Did he underpay her? Acccording to reports, he tipped her 100 dollars. Which is twice what he was obliged to pay. That sum may sound trivial, but for the worker, it would be significant. Pay is relative. Perhaps the writer thinks adequate pay would be on the level of what Ms. Daniels got.
11
@alan And did he use a credit card with 3x frequent flyer miles when used in the massage parlor category?
1
Couple of things come to mind.
Was she a willing participant or was she forced into prostitution against her will? If she was forced, no amount of money is significant enough.
Did she even get to keep that money, or did she have to pay someone off?
2
@alan Do you think she got to keep the $100? I don't.
5
Years ago, whenever these stories came up, as often as today, my dear grandmother would say "how do you think they got so much money in the first place?".
63
@Phil
Yea, I've heard that argument and I'm not buying it.
3
@Phil
and what was your grandmother implying, exactly?
Perhaps what made these people wealthy is the same drive that makes them freeload on more than their share of sweet 'n low or take advantage of down and out women. A need to exploit others and get away with it -- the need for a feeling of triumph which elevates their sense of self.
135
@reju lavtok Doubt it was a drive for success. It's more likely inherited money that needs to feel like they 'earned' it by 'something'.
3
It’s that “winning” thing.
1
The writer makes many points in this stream of conscious piece. I’d like to explain the cheapness of the well off.
My wife and I are well paid professionals, millionaires, and barely in the 1%. But we clip coupons, look for sales, and spend less than half our income. Our cars are nice but not extravagant. Our mortgage is paid. The coach seats on a jet get to the same place as first class and we don’t need to be pampered.
We work hard for our money and refuse to throw it away. But we donate $50,000 to charity annually and volunteer in a food pantry.
We won’t waste what we earned.
Is that wrong?
I think not.
142
But do you steal the sugar? The “barely in the 1%” seem to think that everything they don’t buy is a gift basket.
Also, barely in the 1%? The struggle is real.
63
@Seriously?
What % is $50,000 for a barely in the one%,and what % do actually need to
maintain your lifestyle? How much do need to feel secure, how much would like to help?
1
@Seriously? This post made me smile. I am very cheap-my favorite is bringing a tea bag to a restaurant and ordering hot water. We earn what you donate but this behavior allows me to donate to friends-some now homeless and organizations that I really love like Audubon.
I am glad for your conscious decisions.
4
My feeling is that it depends on what quality you feel is most imporant in your life.
Rich people often get rich because they value money above all else; they also typically suspect that everyone around them wants to take advantage of them. Both traits lead them to be cheap about the most unlikely things, underpay their staff, etc. The poor, on the other hand, have usually been dependent on the generosity of others, so they are more likely to extend it themselves.
79
I agree that rich people often care about money above all else. I have also observed that the when people withhold their money, they usually withhold emotional attachments, too. Or as my late mother always said, “There are two kinds of people in the world—the givers and the takers. The givers never become takers and the takers never become givers.”
18
I'm here to support the practice of taking (used) soaps home from hotel chains. In all the other described here, if the person didn't take the item (e.g. sugar), it could have been used by another patron. But if I go to a hotel for a couple of days, and I open and use the soap, then if I don't take it with me, that soap is going to get thrown away.
At least if I take it home and use it, it doesn't get wasted. Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, people!
92
In addition, I speculate - there are many boutique and niche hotels which have a promotion factor built in. The suppliers of the luxury brand miniature toiletries want the product to go with the guest as a sample. The cost to the hotel is at least partially underwritten by the consumer product company.
36
@tamtom If it is in my hotel room, it is mine to use or take. I always "use" the daily allotment of Kerug coffee pods placed in my room. I take them and put them in my bag and the next day I get more. I don't take them off the cart in the hallway. But if something is legitimately available to me in the room I am paying for then I am perfectly justified in taking it and using it later at home. Same goes for shampoo, soap etc. That is not the same as taking a handful of Splenda from the rack at Starbucks. In that instance you should only take what is appropriate to sweeten your purchase. I think most people understand the difference and operate within appropriate boundaries.
31
@tamtom
Not all used soap is thrown away. A significant number of North American hotels send the used soap to Clean the World, a charity based in Orlando, FL. Clean the World melts down the used soap, forms it into new bars, and sends these bars to NGOs like the Red Cross. They are distributed around the world to areas that need it. They also re-use shampoo, conditioner, and lotion. So if you have enough little bars and bottles of complementary personal products at home, ask your hotel what happens to the used soaps at their establishment. You may not need to take them home to avoid waste.
53
I can't begin to understand the etiology of Mr. Kraft's predicament and the decisions that landed him in a "spa," but I do see a weird characteristic among the wealthy - at least some of them - when it comes to parting with their money. They will spend extravagantly on a watch or a car or a handbag, but plead poverty to a passing panhandler, drop $5 in the church collection plate, and deride a cashier for a price increase on a cup of coffee. My first inclination is to assign such behavior to simple greed, but it runs much deeper to feelings of entitlement or superiority. In the end, though, a bargain at the expense of another human isn't a bargain; it's a form of theft, and maybe even abuse.
158
@Bus Bozo
As a musician for hire, I can attest to this. When negotiating for a wedding or a private party, the wealthiest clients are the ones who always claim to have "not much of a budget." How's it supposed to trickle down if they never let it out of their grimy clutches? ; )
3
@Bus Bozo
It's all about the show and what others can see of them. Donald Trump is a perfect example. If it can't be seen by others and elevate one's station no reason to do it.
2
Apparently, back between the world wars, my half-brother lived with a maiden aunt who took not only seasonings but also table implements when they went out to eat. Another of her peculiarities was asking bill collectors to come back the next day, and she would have the money then. He, small boy that he was, was panic stricken because under the very carpet on which they stood was the money of the household.
She wasn’t,rich, but she was "comfortable" and could certainly get by without purloined table ware and waiting a day or two to pay a bill. It's not as if the money under the front room carpet earned interest.
18
@Joan In CaliforniaPS
There was a wealthy kleptomaniac in Melbourne, Oz, who used to go to department stores and shoplift dozens of items. The staff would follow him round at a discreet distanced, then send a bill the next day. It was always paid. He left one of the largest ever bequests to the National Gallery of Victoria.
The department store Georges (or maybe Myer) used to take photos of women in the Members' at the Melbourne Cup -- so when they bowled up the next day to return a dress they "didn't wear" they could be presented with the evidence. Famously, there were often betting slips in the pockets.
3
It is not enough for wealthy people to have every thing they could want, they need to degrade others in the process.
128
@Morgan
That is exactly right. When people who have more than enough to live on still steal from their workers, or hire enslaved women, they aren't just looking to save money. What they want is the power to degrade others so they themselves can feel bigger. They'll spent ridiculous amounts on dreadful art work just to show that they are more important than the next guy.
8
I think people of means ought to refrain from larceny, both grand and petty, and ought to be generous and prompt in paying for services. But I do not fault anyone for frugality, which is a virtue. If Warren Buffet saves money on his breakfast and donates his wealth to charity, he should be praised.
156
@PDX C'mon already. It is a cheap quirk, not a virtue. The place, whatever it is, where he eats breakfast is a small business and his stingy order, accompanied I suppose by a tiny gratuity, is not frugality.
1
To understand the very rich, one should familiarize oneself with the movie 'Trading Places', paying particular attention to the Duke Brothers - all that is confusing becomes crystal clear.
26
I absolutely agree with the writer, that Mr. Kraft should have hired a discreet, high priced escort that made house calls. See Eliot Spitzer. One can pay too little for something where all the money spent is totally wasted, like a shirt in a hideous color that will never be worn. Being cheap is mind set, which is usually a life long habit influenced by your early years, even if you come into money as an adult.
13
@sob: sexuality is a highly individualized thing.
The left recognizes this easily when talking about gays or transgender people or bisexuals, but when it comes to a straight guy who wants casual sex with a sex worker…..then he is a nasty pervert.
It is not clear to me that Mr. Kraft would have known the immigration status of the ladies he frequented.
When it comes to ILLEGAL ALIENS in general….we are told that assuming a worker who speaks no English is ILLEGAL, means we are "racist xenophobic bigots" -- why is it any different HERE?
2
The problem is painfully obvious to anyone who understands what the Republican Party stands for - enriching the rich. It's lunacy how rank-in-file middle class Republicans will defend the "rich" not having to pay their share??? Obama's first budget attempt was to maintain the lower tax rates on folks earning less than $250K and raise them to Clinton era taxes (still low) on everyone else - Republican's were incredulous. The thought of "rich" folks paying more even though they can more than afford it is some how in Republican vernacular...obscene.
117
People are people, regardless of net worth. And lets face it, some fraction of the population is just downright cheap.
17
How do you think they got to be so rich? By being reasonable with others or by always taking more than their fair share?
Kraft's billions came because when he had a chance to decide how to divide the profits, he took more and the people at the bottom took less.
This is transactional sex and he approached it like any other transaction. A mouth is a mouth is a mouth.
59
I believe that many very wealthy persons are cheap because they are, well, simply greedy. Each penny is pinched because they care a LOT about money....literally ANY amount of money, and they can never have "enough."
52
And the people who want to tax them for their own gain are not greedy at all. Right.
1
I was always puzzled by the scripture quote: "Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God." Until I thought more deeply about it..in my growing years I have noticed that rich people are never satisfied - they are always looking for more...they are greedy for the outer world and losing all sense of the inner one. Think about it.
91
@kate s
And don't forget the Bible verse that says "The love of money is the root of all evil." 1 Timothy 6:10
3
@kate s That verse is one of my favorites, but you left out what Jesus said afterwards: "But for God anything is possible." If you don't believe me, look at Bill Gates. He got through the needle.
Money can't buy class.
52
@NM Kraft cheese and Kraft mac and cheese don't have much class so why expect it from the owner.
OTOH, Trump is likely to have them as menu items the next time Super Bowl Champs visit the White House.
1
I’ll tell you about cheap. A friend of mine, a highly regarded picture restorer, got a call from Donald Trump to estimate an insurance claim for a damaged picture. She drove to Mar-a-Lago, looked at the painting and told him how many hours it would take to repair. He wanted her to up the estimate; then he invited her to look at his collection of bad paintings. And then he invited to lunch with him and Melania. At the end of the meal, she found herself with a bill for $18 for her salad. Since the club doesn’t take credit cards —members sign — she handed him $18. And he put it in his pocket.
525
@Geoffrey James This is one of the best Trump stories I've seen.
More detail is needed. Did Trump react when she didn't give him a 15% tip?
71
@Geoffrey James
$18 sounds cheap for a salad at Mar-A-S--thole.
She got a bargaaaaain !
I believe this unlikely store is true.
SAD
13
@Geoffrey James I think the ultimate Trump cheap story was reported by David Fahrenthold of the Washington Post. The Trump Foundation’s “smallest-ever gift, for $7, was paid to the Boy Scouts in 1989, at a time when it cost $7 to register a new Scout. Trump’s oldest son was 11 at the time.”
Not only was this illegal, but he saved only about $3.50.
51
No mention of Kraft's significant other or the memory of his beloved departed wife? But you had to dilute the story with Trump, the most common character in written journalism on Earth. I feel like I've come here in good faith on my paid subscription, and you've been cheap to me.
6
Before you dismiss all rich people who don't waste money as "cheap", read up on Chuck Feeney.
He lives the lifestyle of a blue collar worker, and it's not to "say" anything to the rest of us. It's just who is.
He is a better human being than either of us.
6
@David Rea
Chuck Feeney deserves to be held up as a role model for the young. He’s an amazing guy, a good man, and he is modest.
Modesty.
Remember that quaint outmoded relic?
But, Mr. Feeney doesn’t want to be a public figure.
I’d be willing to bet he seeks approval from the Almighty rather than from the TV cameras.
Old fashioned can be better sometimes.
3
Yes, the rich are different from you and me—more powerful and exploitative. Some of them live modest life styles, but they underpay and overwork their workers, control monopolies, support politicians and media who defend their interests, and some like Kraft and Trump use women for sex. Why should rightwing billionaires like Murdoch and his Fox News, Rebecca Mercer and her Breitbart, the Koch Brothers and their network of foundations, DeVos, Sheldon Adelson be controlling elections, legislation, the media, and shaping popular opinion? Or moderates like Howard Schultz who wants to be a spoiler in 2020, social engineers Zuckerberg and Bill Gates who support charter schools, Bezos own the Washington Post, and Steve Jobs’ widow control Atlantic Monthly? Why do we allow the 1 percenters to run our lives?
61
The thrill of sex in a cheap strip mall with possible or actual slaves has nothing to do with the cost.
So many editorials and commenters just don’t get it: the act is attractive exactly because of what it is: illicit, slightly dangerous, definitely wrong, and against logic.
Petty theft from fast food restaurants and hotels is attractive because it seems free; sex in the strip mall is attractive because it’s dirty.
104
Isn’t this a bit naïve? Reading this column one would think Freud never existed. Billionaires who go to massage parlors aren’t going for sex. For that, as Ms. Weiner points out, they can hire a professional escort who speaks three languages, went to college with their granddaughters, and did postgraduate work in medieval history. But the idea that they’re going to massage parlors to save money is laughable, though not remotely funny. Comparing it to Warren Buffett’s cheap haircuts is not only not funny, it’s fatuous and offensive. On top of that, the notion that they need to dehumanize sex workers seems to miss the point entirely. Isn’t it obvious that billionaires go to massage parlors for profound psychological reasons having to do with self-degradation and humiliation? That doesn’t excuse them for degrading women who have been sex-trafficked and who by definition aren’t consenting participants, and for that reason alone society should extract a high price for their behavior. But there is something really odd about a Times columnist asking why men of means seek sex in dirty hidden places. Simply, it tells you something of what they think about sex: they like it dirty, degrading, and hidden. One could go on. The narrowness, naïveté, and casual humor in this column is shocking coming from a columnist for the Times.
194
Degradation and humiliation may be part of the scenario, as you assert. But even if those aspects are there, they exist alongside appalling cheapness and inhumane disregard for others. (And whatever your expertise, no need to pound on the columnist!)
24
@ADN
Oh, don’t be a such a Calvinist.
Humanities post-docs without best sellers tend to be such bitter bores. And Johns can’t be expected to demand e-Verify before the transaction.
The demand will never go away.
But if you’re up for taking on multiple Chinese Mafia groups active in the US there might be a positive avenue forward for you.
How brave are you?
Ready to be denounced as a racist?
6
I know it's poor form to speculate about the psychology of illicit sexual behavior based on one opinion piece, but isn't there a known syndrome where the guilty escalate their risk until being caught? I'm not talking about hubris or arrogance, this is a willful desire to be caught and punished.
Like... I know this is wrong, and I feel terrible doing it, but I can't stop myself. Please, please catch me so I can admit my shame.
14
@BA_Blue
No doubt.
Jimmy Swaggart admitted his shame.
And the money came rolling in.
2
Hold on. This was no ordinary cheapskate move. As we now know, the owner of this and other spas sat in the Super Bowl box seats of Mr Kraft. That same woman appears with mutual friend Donald Trump at Mar a Lago where she donates money to the Republican Party. teh Miami Herald has run some excellent stories on this.
It's not about some psychological disorder: it's about who your friends are and the politial disorder of our country.
119
To borrow an ad slogan, "How do you think they got so rich?"
8
@Tim Lynch, how about brilliance, hard work, and effective money management?
@Marty Or maybe:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth_inequality_in_the_United_States
1
The wealthiest can sometimes be the cheapest ( not to mention the greediest ). Part of it is upbringing ( excuses like the Depression etc ), part of it is the milieu of other neurotic cheapskates they roll with. Or, is it in the DNA of Homo Economus ? The thrill of the hunt and pride of the conquest regardless of the ease and tawdriness of the pursuit and result are irresistable ? This opinion piece is a nice entree to the behavior and psychology. I’d love to read a mental health PhD’s research too.
1
Remember when we learned that George H W Bush didn't have a clue about supermarkets? Maybe Kraft -- who was married for many years before his wife died -- really didn't know how to locate a paid sexual outlet. He couldn't exactly say, "Jeeves, would you ring me up an escort for the evening?" But he'd driven by these massage parlors, and knew what they offered. Just because someone is wealthy doesn't make them wise in all ways the world works.
12
@Joel
I feel pretty certain he'd learned about Eliot Spitzer somewhere along the line. There are such things as high paid escort services. Everybody in America knows about them. Everybody.
You might say, yeah, but Spitzer got caught. Okay, but would you rather be caught with a high priced sex worker or a sex slave who works seven days a week and cooks meals on a hot plate?
There's no excusing this. I'd also like to ask you how it is he knew what these massage parlors offered. Did he ask, "hey Jeeves, do they give more than massages in there?"
4
"Maybe Mr. Trump, a fast-food aficionado himself, believed that the spread was exactly what the athletes wanted."
Some fast food is tolerable if you get it right after it is cooked. Ten minutes later? Yuck. French fries brought from a nearby Burger King and sitting in the White House waiting for a ceremony to be completed? Double yuck.
Not only was the serving cheap, it was inconsiderate, too, because the "food" wouldn't be any good by the time the athletes got around to it. This is, I must say, rather typical rich folks behavior toward those who aren't rich: give them something but don't worry about whether it is any good or not. Just do it and congratulate yourself for being a wonderful, generous person. (Trump said he paid for the Burger King with his own money. White House expense allowance money?)
If you are ever in trouble and need help, ask a poor person. A well known actor who lived for several years as a broke hippie begging on the streets said he and his crowd learned to ask black people if they needed food because white people could never imagine that anyone was going without eating and, therefore, wouldn't help at all.
Poor people know how to give because they know what it is like to go without. Rich people, at base, don't care unless you are going to name a building after them. (This is not universally true, but it is generally true.)
54
The actor who once lived as a hippie with no money was the great Peter Coyote who has also done some really great voice over work on documentaries, including at least one by Ken Burns. In his biography, he said he was a member of "The Diggers", a group who traveled around in an old bus begging for food and money.
17
For the record: The Diggers did not beg, they distributed free food and operated a free store (where everything was free). Keep it real!
1
I come from an affluent background and was raised as the poorest person in my preparatory school universe. It's a truism that the rich are absurdly cheap about things like this. Most of my friends had parents who were absurdly cheap. My own mother, who is a really lovely person and, along with her partner, a comfortable millionaire, keeps stashes of hotel soaps in drawers all over her house. To them, it is about an idea of frugality that they create as somehow having made them wealthy. To others, it's a microcosm of the trickle down myth. Rich people hoard things. That's why they have everything....except empathy.
87
The thing is, the hotel soap bar never gets completely used up. Now, do you leave it to be thrown in the trash or do you take it home so as not to waste it? I take the latter course. And I never unwrap more than one bar. There is a difference between frugality and cheapness.
13
@Jeffrey Gillespie My parents (who grew up during the Depression) followed the old-fashioned custom of melting down the ends of hand soaps in a pot, with a little water added. This made a great liquid soap. Reuse, recycle, etc.!
10
To paraphrase some Sociology professor I had, old-money goes to some length not to attract attention to itself, despite the affinity for epicurean luxury.
New money is about spending to signal the existence, because the perception of status means more than quality, and it is characterized largely by conspicuous consumption.
Donald Trump is the poster child of “new money.”
45
@sarah It's pretty obvious.
2
The richer someone is, the smaller their heart. People who live with hardships have some of the most generous hearts in the world. Poverty teaches humility, and with humility comes generosity and selflessness. Riches bestow arrogance and blind the eyes.
I have seen people grow in wealth, and coincidentally the volume of their voice and laughter grew linearly with their wealth.
52
Well that is casting a pretty broad brush and dealing in stereotypes.
The basic premise of pretty much all of the comments here seems to be “rich people are horrid” with “rich” defined as anyone with more wealth than the commentor.
I would submit that no particular socioeconomic group has a monopoly on good or bad people.
2
@pankaj When I was pregnant years ago and riding the subway in NYC, who would get up and offer their seats to me? The black cleaning ladies who had probably been on their feet all day. Who wouldn’t offer their seats? The Wall Street brokers. You knew who they were because back then they all wore yellow ties.
4
@pankaj, then everyone should aspire to poverty? Because it does them so much good?
1
It feels like we're heading toward a major re-calibration in this country concerning wealth, opportunity, and inequality. I think we'll see a lot of money flying out of here in the next couple of years as the billlionaires and multi-millionaires try to protect their assets before Congress really turns populist. If I were a member of Congress, I would be working on legislation to tax heavily money that flees this country before the massive and inevitable exit occurs.
113
Like all diseases, the money disease has strange, confounding outcroppings. Symptoms of pathology that don’t readily seem logical. Because it’s a disease.
26
@Matthew
The idea that billionaires here were seeking to save money, and that this is somehow about the grand evils of capitalism, is preposterous. They were seeking furtive, dirty, hidden sex. Most assuredly the other customers for this particular ugly operation were hardly the richest man in America. Really, something has gone wacko haywire in the American intellect.
perhaps analogous to Michael Jackson or George Pell's abuse of children - knowing they were in a position of power with much to lose, they chose victims who were vulnerable and already heavily committed so were unlikely to be able to sue or seek recompense
and were unlikely to even understand their legal options due to their situation.
25
@Frank
The comments here are astonishing. Comparing Michael Jackson’s grooming and seduction of children to a billionaire’s furtive massage parlor sex doesn’t make the slightest sense. They have absolutely nothing in common.
1
This column raises some interesting questions about the nature of wealth and integrity. It reminds me of something Tolstoy once wrote about the 19th century Russian aristocracy: "If the wealthy were nice, they wouldn't be wealthy."
211
If you want to become rich, the best way to do it is to save money and don't spend anything. That explains why most rich people are cheap. They don't need to be cheap any more, but they continue doing what they did before they were rich.
21
Jonathan, the best way to become rich is by saving money? The usual way people get rich is by cheating other people or a inheritance. Saving money, jeez.
66
Fidelity found that ~86% of millionaires are self-made. Most haven’t cheated anyone, they haven’t inherited anything. The core of these myths is envy.
23
@Tim Mosk
Millionaire in this day and age can be a paid off 4 bedroom and a large 401k. When people use the term they generally mean either multi-millionaires or cash millionaire. Imagine a paid off house in a nice area with nice cars and a comfortable retirement account at 55 against a 35 year old with a mansion in the suburbs and a sports car for every day of the week. Billionaire is such another level that it can't replace the older term, but inflation has conspired to water down the meaning of millionaire.
10
The author of the post makes an assumption that these billionaires make decisions in the world of perfect information. Everytime you visit a supermarket, are you able to clearly spot who's legally employed and who's not? Do you think the same is true for workers in the Asia spa? Have you seen an employee disclosing to customers that their passport were taken away by their boss ?
It's unlikely that anyone would defend those who take sugar and napkins on moral grounds. Being thrifty is a choice. Who's problem is it that they pay $18 for a haircut? Does being a billionaire automatically increases the cost of an haircut or breakfast for them? Does the barber have perfect information to recognize that this man is a billionaire and therefore he's entitled to charge him more for his service simply because of his wealth?
15
@Howard Z
It has to be pretty obvious what the situation of a non English speaking woman working at a cheap rub'n'tug is. You can't say they didn't know. It's also not the same customer-client power dynamic as with someone stacking shelves at the supermarket.
There's no way that any billionaires who went to a seedy spa didn't know.
254
@Howard Z Your grousing in defense of billionaire hair cuts reminds me of a very funny bit by Dave Chappelle on his old show where goes to his barber shop for a hair cut and the price goes way up when word gets out Chappelle was offered millions for a show he of course later rejected. Very funny bit.
15
@Howard Z anyone who knows anything about human trafficing knows that any foreign, non-English speaking woman being paid for sex deserves at least a thought that they are unwilling and are slaves. Yes, I have asked more than once asked the owner who the girls have handed over their tip I just gave them why he is taking money I gave them because I always suspect in salons/spas where the women are non or barely English speaking are traffic or to use the real truth slaves. Always try to ask too many questions, but those girls tend to be non-committal. All it takes is reading a real newspaper or listening to one news story to make you aware. So it's totally valid that the author wrote it, people tend to ignore or disregard those stories, these stolen/sold people are everywhere.
33
I wonder if some wealthy people - trust fund types (not self-mades) - are weird about money because they don't really know how they got it. They don't understand what has to be done to get it or keep it. They are afraid that it will go away magically, in the same way they got it. What can I say other than... no sympathy - they should learn what it's like.
46
I would believe that those who are born wealthy and are not left wanting anything during their youth don’t worry in the least of their wealth evaporating. Quite the opposite, I bet they treat money like air or water. Available, ubiquitous in their lives and without cost or conditions.
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No, the ones I know are terrified of losing money because they don’t know how to make it. One guy I know most lost a fortune trying to keep up with his uber rich friend’s spending. His daddy had to put him back on a allowance.
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@Melinda
Trust fund babies easily become politicians, early practice in spending other people’s money. We have one for our prime minister. Spending my grandchildren’s as we speak.
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I read somewhere (sorry to not have source), that you are entitled to take all free disposable items provided in your hotel room since they are all included in the price of the room. Those little shampoos do come in handy at the gym.
Taking 2 sugars from McDonalds with your coffee (whether you use them at the time or use at home) is probably ok too. Taking 20 sugars at a time with the purpose of using them at home is unabashed theft since no logic can tie this to the expected use from your visit.
Morality differs from person to person and rich or poor does not provide an excuse for its lack when dealing with others. However, when you speak of superrich sleazeballs like Kraft and Trump (if he really is that rich) I would bet my hard earned money that they have obtained the excessive wealth by taking from others whether it be from outright cheating them or exploiting those in a weaker or more vulnerable position. In my ledger book, those that think more Money is worth lying, cheating or taking advantage of the weak are indeed poorer than the rest of us regular folk.
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@Joe B: When I was growing up in a working-class family in New York, visitors to our home were often puzzled by the fact that all our silverware was monogrammed PRR. Our last name started with the letter A.
For decades, one of my grandmothers worked the graveyard shift cleaning train cars for the Pennsylvania Railroad. She was allowed to keep anything she picked up off the floor. She snagged a lot of paperbacks and a fair amount of loose change, too.
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@Joe B Come on now. The claim that you are “entitled to take all free” hotel amenities since “they are included in the price of the room” is absurd. If hotel guests only used what they needed and didn’t act like those products are like Halloween treats, the hotel costs would be lower and the savings passed on in the rates. And the plastic waste would be less.
Even claims of charity by people who take all that stuff from hotel rooms and “donate it” are pretty ridiculous. Donate money or go to your local big box and spend a buck or two on something that has more than 2-3 uses.
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Is there any similarity to like ten to fifteen large real estate interests owning some 200 buildings never making a plan to help the less fortunate with respect to building affordable units at no profit. Some own thousands of apartments. Yet do nothing to help middle income or low income families.
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I have seen it with the wealthy people I know. It would be laughable, if it was not sad, to see how cheap they are at times and for the oddest things. One man only spends lavishly when he knows others are watching whom he wants to impress. Charity auctions thrive off this sort of moneybag. What cracked me up was after the crash of '08 how they all put on the public austerity belt tightening.
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There is a certain sense of entitlement that goes with tremendous wealth. A feeling that the rules for everyone else don't apply. Whether or not intellect factored into how a rich person got that way, intellect doesn't factor in to how that economic prestige gets displayed.
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