March | 2020 | The Meandering Maloneys

Yacht styles of the rich and famous

Looking across the lake at the orchards and vineyards on a sunny spring day in the South Okanagan it’s easy to momentarily brush away the fears of a global pandemic. Not the worst place to be locked down.

With the infection rate and death toll rising at a fearsome pace and the economy tanking in the virus’s toxic wake it is a moment for quiet contemplation. One thought that comes to an idle mind is that the global pandemic presents the ‘haves’ of the world an opportunity to step up or to be held to account.

Last year we were in Fort Lauderdale at spring break walking the boardwalks and, from the safe vantage point of age, enjoying the scantily clad revelries of the young and carefree. Good times. Great vibe.

During a canal tour showcasing a stunning array of waterfront mansions with massive yachts docked in front, thoughts of something amiss dulled the holiday glow of the Florida sun. As the guide noted the palatial pile of this or that captain of industry, I couldn’t stop wondering about all the employees toiling away at barely liveable wages to keep the titans living so large.

How many workers annual salaries would it take for the upkeep of a boat that burns hundreds of gallons of fuel an hour. How many minimum wage hours to pay the taxes on a second, third or even fourth home? How much more could the workers make if the captain of industry gave up the boat and the holiday house in Fort Lauderdale and put that money back into the workers’ kitty?

The ostentatious consumerism on display during the Fort Lauderdale canal cruise is nothing short of obscene in a country with millions of kids reliant on school lunches for their daily nutrition. It is said revolutions begin with the rising price of bread or rice. Maybe in today’s world of conspicuous consumption a global pandemic will affect change.

Governments in all countries considering industry bailouts should make it a condition that the CEOs and other executives take massive salary cuts. If the head of a cruise company, airline, hotel chain or casino is making 50 million a year cut it down to one. They might have to sell a home or two, but they’ll get by. Call it the cost of corporate socialism and put the savings into the pool for the workers worried about keeping food on the table.

It is time for the super wealthy athletes and owners to do more than kick in a few bucks for laid off stadium employees. Tom Brady is reportedly ready to sign a $30 million a year deal. After 20 years in the NFL he is already fabulously wealthy. His super model wife makes more than he does. If Brady was a real hero, he would throw the whole $30 million into the communal pot to help mitigate some of the damage his friend the President has done to the country.

Defenders of Brady and other overpaid athletes like Lebron James, Tiger Woods et al, will point to the many charitable endeavors they champion. True and good, but what personal sacrifice does it require of somebody like Woods or James to give a few million here or there as a tax write-off. Give enough so you can only afford the Bentley and one palatial home and I’ll be impressed.

The same holds true for Hollywood A-listers, rock stars and business titans. I’m talking about you Michael Douglas, Bono and the Walton family. Give back enough that it hurts a little. Donate the private plane to the pandemic effort and fly first class instead. Give the Rolls, the Range Rover and the Porsche Cayenne to a food bank and buy yourself a used Lincoln to keep the economy going. Sell the New York apartment and the place in Aspen and put all the money into pandemic relief.

Even ‘poor’ politicians like Bernie Sanders have two or even three homes. Bernie keeps a place in Washington in addition to his regular residence in Vermont and a summer place better than what most Americans live in. Senator Richard Burr, whose name shall go down in infamy for profiting while his constituents face financial ruin, is said to be a politician of modest means. Even so, he was able to offload up to $1.7 million in stock before the market collapsed, which should help in his coming retirement with a fully indexed government pension.

The Senate and House are filled with millionaires and the Trump cabinet with billionaires. Ousted politicians use their connections for cushy jobs in the private sector at ten times the salary of the average worker. Former Presidents parlay their fame into tens of millions on the speaking circuit while taxpayers making minimum wage foot the bill for their security. Yes, I’m talking about Liberal icons like Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, who just augmented his Washington D.C. manse with a million-dollar-plus summer home on Cape Cod. Nice place to self-isolate between cruises on even richer friends’ yachts. It’s a long way from working with Chicago’s poor to the Cape.

To be clear, I’m not a raving communist begrudging those better off than me for enjoying the fruits of their labour or unique abilities. Smart, talented, hardworking people are entitled to live well. It’s the capitalist way most of us believe in. How well? That is the question in these low times of the pandemic. And how much should they give back for the common good with millions of their fellow citizens worrying about feeding their families.

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I would like to hear a reporter ask Mike Pence the following at his embarrassing daily public ass-smooching sessions:

“Mr. Vice President, what do you say to the tens of millions of Americans who do not believe your assertion that the President has shown the incredible leadership you attribute to him at the beginning of every press conference? Do you think it hurts your credibility as leader of the Covid-19 task force when you effusively praise the man who called its severity a Democratic hoax and said the 15 reported cases would soon miraculously go down to zero?

Does your unabashed fealty to Dear Leader, who only a week or so ago told Americans it was fine to go to work with symptoms, come before your duty to the country to tell the truth in this time of crisis? Do you notice how uncomfortable it makes the scientists and doctors standing with you in embarrassed silence when you pucker up at the podium?

In the words of Joseph Welch, who is credited with turning the tide on McCarthyism with his famous question during a Senate hearing: “At long last, have you no sense of decency?”

In these low times of Trump and global pandemic, in a world of social distancing and self-isolation, it is important to maintain perspective. One humorous social media post nicely summed things up: “Your grandparents went to war; you are going to your couch.”

And there has been no other time in human history where that couch has been so comfortable. Console yourself in knowing that, even in the absence of sports, your television set provides an almost limitless supply of quality entertainment.

Want to feed the travel bug? Click on You Tube and ask for the top ten things to do in that special place on your travel bucket list and you will be immediately presented with a dizzying visual array that will keep you occupied for hours.

Music more your thing? Turn up the volume on your surround sound and call up vintage performances from everyone from Maria Callas to Janis Joplin, from Harry Belafonte and Frank Sinatra to Jim Morrison and Jimi Hendrix. You may not leave the couch for days.

A bit of a movie buff? You are living in the time of excellent television. Not only can you call up favourite old movies with a click of the remote, you can sort selections by actors or genre. If standard movie fare doesn’t do it for you, delve into the episodic world of Netflix, Crave or Hulu and binge-watch quality drama that makes standard network fare cringe-worthy in comparison. Geezers with memory issues, which is to say all of us, can re-watch the Sopranos and The Wire with avid anticipation. We’re talking weeks here, not just days.

Tired of TV? Try reading a book. Kindle offers hundreds of thousands of choices from the classics you’ve always wanted to read but didn’t have time for to the latest in global political commentary and contemporary fiction.

More of a news junkie than a book reader? Go to your laptop or I-pad and subscribe to newspapers like the New York Times. The Sunday edition will keep you on the couch all day. You won’t even get to the crossword puzzle until Monday. Catch up on the hometown you left years ago through the local paper that is only a click away.

News getting you down? Bury yourself in hobby reading with the amazingly affordable magazine bundle News+Magazines from Apple that includes everything from Better Homes & Gardens to Popular Woodworking, from Good Housekeeping to Vanity Fair, from Sports Illustrated to Backpacker and Field and Stream, from Mother Jones and Rolling Stone to Clean Eating and Diabetic Living. Seriously folks, if you can’t find something interesting in this selection you might already be dead.

Maybe you want to spend your alone time learning something. If there’s a subject that hasn’t been posted about online, I haven’t come across it yet. You can learn to paint landscapes or how to assemble kitchen cabinets with step-by-step videos. You can hone your dog obedience skills or practice your Spanish without moving from the couch.

If too much alone time is getting you down, Skyping will bring the faces of your friends and love ones to the living room coffee table. Not that tech savvy? E-mail or text them instead. Better yet, put on the headphones and give people a call while you go for a walk.

To sum up, in these low times of Trump and his ‘foreign virus’ and the shameless puckering of Pence, be grateful for the technological advances that soften a sentence of weeks or even months on the couch.