By Dom Serafini
Years ago, the very rich didn’t have to prove anything to anyone. Today, according to a Wall Street Journal article titled “How the Super-Rich Signal Their Wealth to Each Other,” insecurity is pervasive even among those who cannot possibly spend all their money in a lifetime. Obviously, money is not everything.
Going back to years ago, I remember when we could recognize the very rich because they were super dressy on weekdays and casually dressed on weekends because they were working on their farms or grooming their horses. They were the opposite of us Paeonians (i.e., pedestrians and plebeians), who dressed sharply only on Sundays and holy days.
Back then, the super-rich used the green Amex card, not the platinum one. Silvio Berlusconi once asked me about the type of person that Ted Turner was. I told him that Turner recognized me (after I had met him just once) while I was walking along Sixth Avenue in New York City, and he was carrying his own luggage into a hotel! Berlusconi interjected, “But I do the same!” Another billionaire that I saw carrying his own luggage was Haim Saban, who I encountered at the arrivals terminal at LAX.
Years ago, rich passengers in first class made sure to board last (the super rich fly private, and the extra rich have their own planes). Today, the merely rich are eager to enter first, hoping to be admired by all other travelers.
I don’t know many billionaires, but Bruce Gordon once invited me to his summer residence in Bermuda. There, I found him working on his boat. He handed me a paint brush as a welcoming gift so that I could help with the repairs.
When on a private boat the owner makes sure that shoes are left on the deck after the gangway, and if socks have holes (as was the case for King Charles in February at a London Mosque when he removed his shoes) they just go with the flow. On the other hand, if the host doesn’t care, that’s a giveaway that the boat is a rental.
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