Locust invasion |
| Some years ago, we wondered what was going on with our Kahlenberg. Would they finally remove this ugly restaurant, that for unknown reasons was protected as national heritage? When the dust had settled, we knew. I wonder if anybody was relieved to find the restaurant untouched. But side by side with this jewel of modern architecture we got, in addition, 20 suites privately rented to the more solvent customer. The price? Money's too tight to mention... |
| Today, I read in Der Standard that also the company running our Schloss Schönbrunn is thinking about hotel suites (and also here no prices were mentioned). So, if you are lucky enough not to need any price information, you are welcome now to reside above Vienna, and soon also to enjoy the atmosphere that 100 years ago was reserved to the Austrian emperor and his family. What is this going to be about? A tourist advertisement for the upper class? Wait and see. |
| The most visible change in this world since the demise of socialism is its openess to money. Values are aquired and disposed of within seconds all over the world (almost). Art objects are sold for 100 million dollars and more. The richest people in the world are no longer millionaires, but billionaires. In a "free" world of nominally 7 billions, purely stochastic processes resulted in a narrow class of entrepreneurs floating like cream on milk, possessing more than they could dissipate in a lifetime, even if they would hire another luxury suite each day. |
| Leasing suites on Kahlenberg or in the Schloss Schönbrunn is like howling with the wolves. We do it, because everybody in the world does it. Since we need money like everybody else, we are obliged to go for it where it is hiding: in the porte monnaies of the rich. Generously offering the most spectacular locations of a city to the crème de la crème of international financial business comes close to prostitution. I would be more pleased to see the old castle on the Leopoldsberg renovated and opened again to the ordinary public, than the luxury suites on the neighboring hill. |
| Should we condemn the rich for profiting from the situation? Its not their fault, but the statistical consequence of the transparency of a gigantic market to the arbitrary transfer of unlimited amounts of money. The bigger the market, the higher the top amounts. The only way out of the nightmare is strict market regulation, down to humanized sizes. No business man should be allowed to aquire values he doesn't want to keep for at least a few days. Local transfer of values should be easier than far-distant transfers. |
| On a regulated market, no trees will grow to the sky, and all societies will find their own local economic equilibria. An efficient education system provided, a developed upper class (yes, some kind of upper class will always form) will feel responsible for the society as a whole. If they ruin it, they will suffer themselves from the consequences, but if they do a good job, they will lead a happy social life, in their genuine social atmosphere. And they will simply know by intuition (and good education), that nobody is privileged to live on Kahlenberg or in Schloss Schönbrunn. |
| 9/13 < MB
11/13 > 11/13 Thorny blossoms of globalization |