Millionaires are a dime a dozen

THE VILLAGE IDIOT by Jim Mullen

A pent­house in Man­hat­tan just sold for $90 mil­lion, which broke the record set last year when the 22-year-old daugh­ter of a Russ­ian bil­lion­aire spent $88 mil­lion on a Park Avenue pad that she plans to use dur­ing the few weeks a year when she’s in town. (It’s still hard for me to say “Russ­ian bil­lion­aire” after years of think­ing of Rus­sia as a place full of empty, government-run stores where toi­let paper — if there was any — was a lux­ury item.)

In other big real estate news, some­one bought a park­ing spot in the garage of a Man­hat­tan build­ing for a mil­lion dol­lars. They’re kid­ding, right? Who’s going to believe that some­one who can blow a mil­lion dol­lars on a park­ing spot has only one car? Even I have two cars, and I’m only, oh, a mil­lion dol­lars shy of hav­ing a mil­lion dol­lars. One of my cars is 9 years old; the other is 7.

But I’m not jeal­ous. This guy is obvi­ously one of those peo­ple the news media now call “job cre­ators.” If only we would lower his taxes, this guy could afford to buy two million-dollar park­ing spots and buy another car. That’s how you cre­ate jobs. When you and I buy a car, jobs are not cre­ated because we’re not rich. But when a rich per­son buys a car, tons of jobs are cre­ated. That’s why we all have to chip in and lower taxes for the wealthy. Why is that so hard to understand?

What kind of car would some­one park in a million-dollar park­ing space? A Ford? A Chevy? No, it’s prob­a­bly one of those expen­sive Euro­pean cars. Maybe a Porsche or a BMW. No, even that won’t cut it. If you’re spend­ing a mil­lion dol­lars on a park­ing spot, you’re prob­a­bly dri­ving one of those million-dollar cars like a May­bach or a Fer­rari or a Lam­borgh­ini. Which would cre­ate a lot of man­u­fac­tur­ing jobs — in Europe.

Of course, a lot of peo­ple think you’d be crazy to own a car in a place like Man­hat­tan. You can walk faster than you can drive there. You need a car in Man­hat­tan like you need a row­boat in the Sahara.

Then again, a lot of peo­ple think you’re crazy if you walk in Man­hat­tan. It’s a lose-lose sit­u­a­tion. Think of the wear and tear on the vehi­cle. How many times do you have to hear, “Yo, buddy, it hurt my hand when I opened the cab door and dinged your Masarati. I’d sue you, but I’m in a hurry!” before you stop tak­ing the car out of the garage at all?

Every­body knows park­ing is expen­sive in Man­hat­tan. I was there on busi­ness last year and parked in one of the many under­ground garages. It was $5.95 for the first half-hour. Three hours later, I paid the $25 bill (plus $2 tip) and headed for home. As I pulled out of the garage, I saw a sign for another park­ing garage right across the street. It charged only $5.94 for the first half-hour. Free-market com­pe­ti­tion like that keeps park­ing prices low, low, low.

Still, if you lived there, you could park your car at many park­ing garages in Man­hat­tan for a monthly rate of $500. As out­ra­geous as that may sound to the nor­mal home­owner, it still is a deal com­pared to spend­ing a mil­lion on a sin­gle park­ing spot.

There used to be a show on TV in the late ‘50s called “The Mil­lion­aire.” A char­ac­ter named Michael Anthony would show up at someone’s front door and hand the shocked res­i­dents a cashier’s check for a mil­lion dol­lars, tax-free, from reclu­sive gazil­lion­aire John Beres­ford Tip­ton. There was one stip­u­la­tion: They could never say where they got the money.

Back then, a mil­lion dol­lars meant some­thing; it could change your life. You could buy houses and cars for your friends and fam­ily. Now it buys you a park­ing space for a car you will rarely, if ever, use.

(Jim Mullen’s newest book, “How to Lose Money in Your Spare Time — At Home,” is avail­able at amazon.com. You can fol­low him on Pin­ter­est at pinterest.com/jimmullen.

Posted by Guest 2 Columnist on May 29 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.