Obscene?

Gribbo

Wonder if he drinks it with a diet coke

Chippycafc

The individual who bought that is so minted it's like most of us paying a tenner a bottle. There's always things like this that go on everyday like people buying  multi million pound rolls royces and yachts.

I don't walk in that world and neither do I want too. I have a small circle of real friends who would back and support me no matter where I am at. 

These sort of people just have a mingling group of hanger on's.

Wheresmeticket

Gribbo said:

Wonder if he drinks it with a diet coke

Now THAT'S obscene.

Wheresmeticket

I suppose it represents something but you have to step away from getting too uptight about this stuff or you simply get emotionally damaged without changing anything. Premier league salaries, bankers bonuses, politicians expenses, food waste. Try to be kind, keep a sense of humour and look after yourself.

Algarveaddick

Wheresmeticket? said:

I suppose it represents something but you have to step away from getting too uptight about this stuff or you simply get emotionally damaged without changing anything. Premier league salaries, bankers bonuses, politicians expenses, food waste. Try to be kind, keep a sense of humour and look after yourself.

In fairness to Martin, I don't think he is talking about himself as a "have not", he's looking out for others who really are penniless?    

golfaddick

As Del Amitri once sang.....

"when Van Gogh's can be picked up for the price of a hospital wing"

T'was ever thus. Some people have money, some don't. 

Wheresmeticket

Algarveaddick said:

Wheresmeticket? said:

I suppose it represents something but you have to step away from getting too uptight about this stuff or you simply get emotionally damaged without changing anything. Premier league salaries, bankers bonuses, politicians expenses, food waste. Try to be kind, keep a sense of humour and look after yourself.

In fairness to Martin, I don't think he is talking about himself as a "have not", he's looking out for others who really are penniless?    

And I agree with him.

Arthur_Trudgill

I read somewhere (Nassim Nicholas Taleb maybe) that wealth is one of the few human attributes that does not follow a normal distribution.

This means, roughly speaking, that unlike height, good looks, football ability, sprinting speed, etc. some people have orders of magnitude more of it than the average person, unlike more natural attributes.

Spending over 2 million on a bottle of booze is, to me, proof that the current wealth distribution in the world is unnatural and unfair.

Sillybilly

And the irony is that it probably tastes like gnats piss after all these years in a bottle slowly oxidising. We’ll never know though as it’s  now a commodity rather than a whisky. Wonder how the distillery feels now that something they created is worth that much?

Rob7Lee

I really don't see the issue here. Anything that is sold is (usually) by a willing seller and a willing buyer. Whether that's a packet of Polo's or a £100m mansion or piece of art. For all we know it could have been a lottery winner or Warren Buffett.

Not that it matters really but it was $2.7m USD so a bit over £2m GBPm of which only about £1.7m was the purchase price the rest was fee's, now that (fee) is ridiculous!

I've been to some high profile auctions both normal and Charity. I've seen someone pay £60k for two wimbledon final tickets, £20,000 for a meal with a celebrity. Where's the issue?

Whilst I'd likely not agree I can sort of understand someone's negative feeling to the uber wealthy in some instances, but to get worked up about what they spend it on is a little odd IMHO, much better things to get worked up about.

charltonkeston

I find it strange world we live in where normal things can be worth unbelievable amounts. The whiskey may never be drunk, which really was it’s only purpose. It may as well be gnats piss in the bottle because I seriously doubt it will be drunk by a group of whiskey buffs comparing notes. I could see it ending up in a 7 star Middle Eastern hotel blended into a sickly cocktails by a celebrity mixer for people who would be just as pleased with their drink if contained a drop from a £30 bottle single malt. But that’s how rich people spend their money and always have. 

Hal1x

sillav nitram said:

SporadicAddick said:

sillav nitram said:

letthegoodtimesroll said:

sillav nitram said:

How obscene is our world becoming when a bottle of whisky can be sold at auction for 2.7million?

How much is this behaviour, shoving it in the face of the ‘have nots’?

It really is disgraceful, IMHO.

It’s not obscene, it’s payback. Some guy thinks he has got unnecessarily extremely rich on the back of ultimately selling stuff to others because another person has calculated his net worth on paper for him. He then has a problem of what to do with the money he’s accumulated and somebody helps him redistribute it by convincing him that a bottle of whiskey is worth that much money (& more because it it was bought at auction then there’s another cost in doing so). The whiskey will never be drunk and it will sit in a secure place until another rich guy comes along and buys it. Redistribution of wealth at its finest as the Emperor gets sold yet another new set of clothes and his wealth slowly filters back down the chain. 

If someone has that much money to fritter away, why not donate it to charities, much better use.

I’m assuming you don’t know the net wealth of the buyer?

if you have spare cash at the end of the week, what percentage do you give to charity?

it’s not a question I want to know the answer to, because what people want to do with their money is their choice. You spend money going to Charlton, this person spends it on expensive whisky.

This argument about it’s up to people what they spend their money on, is missing the point, it’s the morality of what they spend it on!

I give money to charities on a regular basis as well as have a number of DD set up to donate to charities I support.

Have you seen the top wages some charities pay their executives?

I have just pledged a fair wedge in my will, but only after looking very carefully into what the charities do with the money, some very surprising figures. 

Huskaris

I think it's more a symptom than a problem in itself.

The whisky being purchased isn't an issue for me, but I do struggle with the idea that someone can be that obscenely rich. 

I look at the money a some people in society have and think it's obscene when you see the poverty elsewhere, even millions of people in the UK with jobs. These people are often paid taxpayers money in tax credits etc, when in reality the companies that people work for should be paying their workers a high enough wage that we aren't subsidising them. 

But spending £2.7m on a bottle of whisky most likely as an investment is just a simple marketplace transaction and doesn't bother me at all.

Rob7Lee

Huskaris said:

I think it's more a symptom than a problem in itself.

The whisky being purchased isn't an issue for me, but I do struggle with the idea that someone can be that obscenely rich. 

I look at the money a some people in society have and think it's obscene when you see the poverty elsewhere, even millions of people in the UK with jobs. These people are often paid taxpayers money in tax credits etc, when in reality the companies that people work for should be paying their workers a high enough wage that we aren't subsidising them. 

But spending £2.7m on a bottle of whisky most likely as an investment is just a simple marketplace transaction and doesn't bother me at all.

I think we have to be careful here, there are many successful individuals who are what many would say are obscenely rich, but that's not to say what they have done hasn't had a huge positive effect on the wider society in job creation and taxation paid amongst other things. I've no problem if someone earns £10m a year as long as they pay their proper taxes and treat any staff they may have well (which I appreciate some won't). But we should't knock the wealthy simply for being wealthy and as you say, a £2.7m investment all be it Whiskey is simply that, an investment, the auctioneers would have earned a pretty sum (and assume pay tax on those earnings).

Despite my reservations about gambling, someone like the BET365 owners/CEO who pays huge sums in income tax and has created something like 7,000 jobs, or a Levi Roots (reggae reggae sauce) who is worth something like £35m from his once contested recipe. No idea what he spends his huge wealth on, nor am I even remotely interested.

ElfsborgAddick

On the 23.23 from Bromley to Nunhead having had a lovely evening. 
On the mobile,  minding my own business, a woman walking up the train sneers at me and gives me a one finger salute, she then repeats this on her way back!
Wtf is going on in this country?!

Alwaysneil

ElfsborgAddick said:

On the 23.23 from Bromley to Nunhead having had a lovely evening. 
On the mobile,  minding my own business, a woman walking up the train sneers at me and gives me a one finger salute, she then repeats this on her way back!
Wtf is going on in this country?!

Probably knows you