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Want
to know more about Trump’s private world? In
MADNESS UNDER THE ROYAL PALMS, Laurence
Leamer tells the story of Palm Beach, Florida,
and the rich socialites who vie for pecking order
in the rarified and stratified ranks of the super
rich. It’s all here, too: the mega mansions
bulldozed to build even bigger ones so that one can
overshadow the neighbors, the pretenders who gate
and party crash (one only to commit suicide in disgrace
upon discovery), the status symbol cars and yachts,
the endless charity events in which more is spent
on flowers and food than is given to the charity,
the trophy wives and husbands, the Bernie Madoff con,
and the time when rapper Diddy had sex on the beach
in broad daylight on the Trump estate…and Trump
almost sent an email defending him until he heard
there had been children in the area. The rich really
are different, but are no more exempt from greed,
ego, and the desire for approval than anyone else.
This is why they congregate together: to compete with
peers while pretending sophistication, to imagine
they have “arrived” at the pinnacle of
success in this elite class (some of whom don’t
read anything except “The Shiny Sheet,”
which is the Palm Beach society events and gossip
newspaper.) There is a woman who lives alone in a
20 bedroom mansion with a dozen servants. She bulldozed
a former historic mansion to build her 20,000 square
foot palace. Why? To get talked about. There are wars
over shrubbery, parking spots at clubs, who gets memberships
and who doesn’t. Why put up with it? If you
have a billion dollars, why live in Palm Beach at
all? Well, here’s the thing: it’s easy
to lord it over the drooling masses. It’s like
shooting ducks in a barrel. But can you “win”
over other billionaires? As a trust fund baby, can
you build a yacht just a foot longer than anyone else’s
in town, and get a photo in the Shiny Sheet…guaranteed
to bring invitations to the top private parties, where
Trump or Forbes or a pharmaceutical heir may shake
your hand and welcome you to the fold? On the flip
side, across the bridge in West Palm Beach, there
is a homeless shelter. One of the party crashers lived
there, acquired a nice suit at a flee market, got
a haircut, and became a con man party planner. (Funny.
My novel Fame Island features such a guy, and even
starts with the Trump quote: “People are impressed
by fame. Think big, and live large.”)
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On
the flip side of all this, the audiobook SUCCESS
AND LUCK by Robert Frank is a scientific
examination of chance in business and personal success,
with the subtitle: “Good Fortune and the Myth
of Meritocracy.” In it, Frank debunks the idea
that hard work alone or “picking oneself up
by one’s bootstraps” results in the vast
fortunes acquired by many icons we often worship as
role models. More likely, it is a combination of work
and chance: a small advantage magnified over time,
or a “nip slip” viral event, or (in the
case of running races) a tailwind. Everything has
to go right. Without her sex tape, Kim Kardashian
would be unknown today. Without his dad, so would
Trump. Even many music icons got a break without which
they would now be unknown. Does this mean we should
count on everything going right for us in multiple
“lightning strike” chance incidents? Many
in line at talent shows do hope for this, and some
of those gave up traditional careers in medicine or
education to do so. What is wrong with finding middle
ground, a much more likely niche in which to do your
best?
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To
examine that, listen to REWORK by Jason Fried.
It champions the middle class, the small company or
business which almost always is more sustainable and
both environmentally and people friendly. Growth being
the goal, and laying waste to the competition the
imperative, in Big Business what you get is a “Mr.
Wonderful” morality in which hidden costs for
pollution are picked up by taxpayers while one seeks
to hide profits offshore and hire low wage workers
there too. Sure, Wal Mart is a large employer, but
one does not see all the mom and pop startups put
out of business by them, while they exploit workers
and give little to charity.
Yet
we have been BRANDWASHED (listen
to Martin Lindstrom’s book
of the same name) to believe that big is best, that
might makes right, and that one must put blinders
on, toward the goal of “owning” the most
stuff—and joining the ones who build high walls
to keep out any riff raff who don’t.
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Our
whole mania over competition itself is wrong, according
to Paypal founder Peter Thiel in ZERO TO ONE,
and this is also echoed in ANTIFRAGILE
by statistical scientist Nicholas Taleb,
who
shows that,
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not
only can’t the world afford unfettered growth
anymore (there being no more worlds to conquer without
stepping on more poor and powerless,) but the artisan
economy of small business is the only way to save
us from ourselves. (Notes: Lindstrom was an advertising
executive named one of Time’s most influential;
his book is narrated by Dan Woren, an award winning
voiceover actor in both audiobooks and video games.
Taleb holds a PhD, MS, BS, and MBA from the Universities
of Paris and Pennsylvania. He is professor of Risk
Engineering at NYU’s Polytechic Institute, and
lectures at Oxford, Stanford, and MIT. His book is
narrated by actor and stage director Joe Ochman. Peter
Thiel is currently chairman of Palantir Technologies,
an analytical software company. Narrator of his book
is the co-author, Blake Masters, cofounder of Judicata,
a legal research service company. Jason Fried is cofounder
of 37Signals, a software company profiled in Time,
Newsweek, and Wired. His book is narrated by actor
Mike Chamberlain, a Boston College trained Shakespeare,
radio, and video game performer. Robert Frank is economics
professor at Cornell’s Johnson Graduate School
of Management, and a columnist for the NY Times. He
narrates his own book. Laurence Leamer is a journalist
and former Newsweek reporter who has also written
for the NY Times and Harpers, with books on the Kennedy
women and Arnold Schwarzenegger. He lives in DC and
Palm Beach. His book is narrated by Todd McLaren,
a voiceover actor for radio, TV, and documentaries.) |
