The rich have become so super rich that already this year they have spent 3.4 BILLION dollars on

[Snoutport]

Art. Sotheby's has announced a record breaking year in sales and it is only August.

The rich have become so super rich that every auction has been setting records...and this is going on not only at Sotheby's but also in Dubai and London and at Christie's and at all the art houses around the world. Chinese art is going through the roof. Workers there make pennies in wages but the Chinese rich are spending a million dollars for an old porcelain jug.

Children are dropping dead of starvation and instead of saving children people are spending billions on art.

I think it is time for the meek to inherit the earth (and some art).

http://www.artdaily.com/index.asp?int_sec=2&int_new=49615

[BlueJazz]

1. One of my customer's ex-husband is in the jewelry business. She was telling me..

...last week the he commented that "Sales of expensive watches and diamonds are through the roof"

....and I guaranty ee?) you, it's not the cause of the average American worker.

The rich create jobs my Ass...

[Snoutport]

5. My friend is a antique jewelery dealer and her sales on high item pieces have been good

her last show was very successful.

[Rex]

2. The rich create wealth among their own class.

They will hoard it until they die.

[Snoutport]

7. ANd just pass back and forth to each other

Through infinity.

My family has connections that go pretty far back and when I studied the family tree (well documented by the British Heritage) I was amazed...the royalty of roman times became the feudal royalty of the middle ages and they intermarried and intermarried and basically, the same families have been passing the power and money down through the ages.

The progeny of Roman Emperors still sit in positions of wealth and power and they never stop trying to keep everything to themselves.

[Snoutport]

12. The Waltons gave close to a billion dollars to a museum!

I did a post about that a while back. shameless to have kid starving in the neighboring state and they are putting all that money into a museum trust.

[marions ghost]

15. We could have

kids being taken care of AND museums supported if things were running right.

You have to be supportive of museums as they are the only way most people get to see real art. Including the poor kids (I know, I was one once--the museum was near my house and was a refuge for me).

The Arts are not funded well in this country at all. Public programs are losing support everywhere.

This is different from rich people surrounding themselves with glitz and glamor.

[indepat]

8. And after death, the Federal government has chosen to not subject the estates of the

most wealthy to any meaningful estate tax: the government would much rather take earned benefits from the old and frail, to speed up their deaths, and let the poor die needlessly. :patriot:

[Snoutport]

10. I'm becoming a bigger and bigger fan of the estate tax

[marions ghost]

3. They are buying it as an investment

Most of them don't really care about art. They just care about owning expensive status giving objects, mostly by artists no longer living, whose value is secure. Going for safe investments that they think will increase over time.

But separate this type of uber rich art collector from the Art. A lot is bought by museums where everybody can see it.

These are very bad times for living artists. A Dark Ages.

[Kelvin Mace]

4. They also realize that the stock market is rigged

and completely dishonest. Unless they are the ones rigging the game, they can't take a chance on investing in someone else's Ponzi scheme, so they invest in "art".

[marions ghost]

9. Check out Herb and Dorothy Vogel

Now these are collectors with a conscience. She was a librarian. He was a postal worker. They collected art in New York for many years and amassed a large collection which they GAVE to the National Gallery and received NO money in exchange. Their names are at the top of National Gallery donor list. They just did it for the love of art.

WATCH THE SHORT TRAILER TO THE DOCUMENTARY:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdLm4IbMlsY&feature=relmfu

-----------------------

From wikipedia:

Herbert Vogel (born 1922) and Dorothy Vogel (born 1935) are American art collectors. Herbert Vogel was the son of a Russian Jewish garment worker from Harlem.<1> He never finished high school and worked as a clerk for the United States Postal Service until retiring in 1980. Dorothy Faye Hoffmann was the daughter of an Orthodox Jewish stationary merchant from Elmira, New York.<1> She holds a masters degree and worked as a librarian in the Brooklyn Public Library. Herbert and Dorothy married in 1962 in Elmira, New York.<2> Early in their marriage, they both took painting classes at New York University and rented a studio at Union Square, but gave up painting in favor of collecting.

Together they built a large and impressive contemporary art collection on their modest incomes. Dorothy's income covered their living expenses and they used Herb's income to buy art. Though their focus is conceptual art and minimalist art,<3> the collection also includes noteworthy post-minimalist work.<4> They amassed a collection of over 4,782 works, which they kept in their one-bedroom rent-controlled New York City apartment. In 1992, they decided to transfer the entire collection to the National Gallery of Art.

[Snoutport]

13. thanks for sharing nt

[marions ghost]

16. Sure

The documentary is excellent, an eye-opener.

You know how people with money get together and have these investing clubs? Well why don't they get together and have some investing in regional (living artist) clubs --and then leave it to museums?

[Coyote_Bandit]

6. And today's artists

can't make a living.

[marions ghost]

11. Sometimes

the super rich do leave the art to museums (when they're old and have to do something with it). They get their name on a plaque. A good deal for people who never did anything in their lives but manage their investments.

[Glimmer of Hope]

14. 3.4 billion could feed a lot of starving children in Somalia.

I don't know how some people live with themselves.

[roody]

17. I thought they were creating jobs.

[DirkGently]

18. Poor things. Drowning in cash. And it's so hard to find a nice neighborhood to gate off these days.