Had to admit to being “gobsmacked” by the BBC’s choice of headline news last night…. “Sir Tom Hunter, Scotland’s richest man is giving away £1B to charity..”. Sounds great, but he’s keeping at least £50M for himself. They filmed Sir Tom sitting in his “Palace in St Tropez preaching to the camera about the “evils of the poverty gap”. I had to check my calendar…was it April 1st ??
I’m not against people being generous, but I DO believe we should all keep these acts of so called “generosity” in perspective. Bill gates, Warren Buffet, “Sir” Tom Hunter, lah de dah… they’re all doing it. WHY ??
….My basic premise is that no human being can reasonably spend a Billion pounds in their lifetime (unless they are totally wreckless … a bit like Prince Geezer and his twat of a brother from a backward little country in Asia).
To “get the plot” you need to do some mathematics…start by imagining you have £1Billion to get rid of…
Firstly …buy 12 beautiful billionaire homes….in 12 countries (one for every month of the year…good for your “tax exile” status…average cost £20M ?…good so you have £240M less cash….still, you haven’t diluted your assets unless you bought all of your houses in the Chernobyl catchment area !!
Secondly, treat yourself to 5 lovely cars for each house….hard to spend more than £1M on these on average…but you could probably blow £20M for your 12 houses….great news is cars actually DEPRECIATE (at least most of the ones I buy do)…now you’re down to your last £760M.
You need to be able to commute of course…so buy 2 planes (in case one breaks down)…bang goes another £50M if you go top end but not TOO extravagant (reckon this would secure a couple of “slightly used” Gulfstream IVs …the “mutts nuts” of exec jets…)…£710M and counting..
Reckon you could take your “spare” £10M and buy a few bits of jewelery and some nice clothes.
Russian wife (inc divorce) might be another £50m (if you don’t get the pre-nup right) …watch out…your down to your last £650M….
Super Yacht…£200M…for those days when you get bored with your other 12 houses…
….and just for laughs, get yourself a premiership football team…Manchester City for £80M, plus a transfer budget of £50M would take out another £130M in cash, but the club is still arguably an asset ?…actually why not buy Fulham and sell off the ground for a tidy profit ?? Net net maybe it’s “only” £100M cos you don’t really like football (Paul Allen, Roman Abramovich are you reading this ??)
Now you’ve “only got” £350M left to spend….I know, why not find yourself a washed up ex President of the USA and start a charity with £50M to “end poverty” (bit of a laugh that the guy you’re teaming up with actually could have ended world poverty 20 years ago when he had a chance….but he spent it on bombs, guns and “Find the WMD games” instead)…still you get a lot of publicity and some powerful mates who can do clever things with cigars and you still have £300M left to spend ….
So…I’m not picking on anyone who is generous…especially “Sir” Tom, who has only kept a measly £50Million for himself…I just want to point out that these people aren’t as generous as they sound…they ALL keep their lifestyles…they simply CAN’T do anything else with the money…they might as well give it away….
…Knighthood anybody ??… I reckon Sir Sandy and Lady Duncan sounds bloody brilliant…and when I get my big gaff in St Trop I can get prime billing on the BBC evening news (my mates will be impressed) and tell the world how awful the poverty gap has become….how ridiculous is that ??
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