Ride to Ruin in a Submarine Bubble
As the merely super-wealthy graduate to mega-wealthy, one of their greatest challenges is figuring out what to spend their fiat dollars on.
We sympathize — it’s hard for all of us living with an infinitely inflatable currency that can be printed at will. Life will, of course, present different challenges to different people.
The mega-wealthy have been forced to resort to extraordinary measures to rid themselves of their extra cash. First, it was cars: Mercedes-Benz just saw its sales rise to record heights in September. Sales were driven largely by new demand from China. Never mind that China has one of the most fantastically unsustainable wealth bubbles in the world — China’s rising millionaire class is going to ride this bull until it’s good and dead.
But eh… even the plebes have cars. The novelty wears off quickly. In order to keep up with the Jonesingtons, you have to get creative these days.
That’s why everyone who’s anyone has to go all in… and get their own personal submarine.
Yes, for the billionaire banker who has it all, you can now purchase a $3.5 million submersible and take your family on a private undersea cruise in a glass bubble. Coral reef scuba diving is for poor people anyway.
“There are more requests for submarines aboard yachts then there were even just three years ago,” Timothy Hamilton of Feadship Yachts told Bloomberg TV. “It’s something where as they see more submarines on other people’s yachts, they say ‘Oh, that would be a great experience.’”
“We’re seeing that most of these large projects are sort of about how many large toys can you carry on board to amuse yourself when you’re cruising,” noted naval architect Greg Marshall.
Take that, plebes!
“The world is bankrupt,” noted Egon von Greyerz in The Daily Reckoning on Sept. 18, “and all of the economic figures that are being published are just a mirage of a castle built on a foundation of worthless paper money.”
For some reason, the guy busy exploring sunken ruins and tropical fish habitats in his very own submarine doesn’t seem to mind.
For him and all those billionaires riding that fiat bull in style… we salute you.
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