Keeping Up With The Ponzies

It is hard to reckon what Mr. Black's cellmate thinks about this photo.

On a per captia basis, Dalton, Georgia is more densely populated with billionaires than most US cities, certainly more than its over-achieving cousin, Atlanta. Almost to a man, the billionaires in Dalton made their money in carpet. Yes, the fuzzy stuff that runs under our feet. Among the throng of people who do not fret about the mortgage in Dalton, you will find no grungy internet gurus or obnoxious hedge fund sorts. Who you will find among the über–wealthy are just a few normal people who produce some 80% of the carpet in the America, the most carpeted republic on earth.

Carpet, all rolled up, is very heavy, which I knew. It’s also perishable, which I didn’t. The other element in this formula for success is that heavy things cost a lot to ship and Asia is far away. As such, carpet is one of the few things that nearly all of us see everyday but never think about, that has not been outsourced to China. When you call to order said carpet from the fellow on the phone with the post colonial accent who swears his name is Roger, the call is probably being routed through Mumbai, but your carpet is made in Dalton, Georgia.

You wouldn’t know that these people had cornered the market in anything from looking at the place, though. It’s plenty nice: a quaint, well-maintained Southern downtown district that is thoroughly un-modern. It’s clean and you have all the mod cons, but the original building haven’t been knocked down because some architect is trying to make his reputation on the bad taste of some mogul with too much money. Dalton supports nice restaurants that aren’t difficult about being nice, where the owners come out and check on out of town guests and regulars alike. Nice is the operative word here, and friendly. It led me to ask the question: “So why are the billionaires and millionaires here indistinguishable from the...lets call them thousandaires?”

Honestly I have no idea if I met and billionaire while I was there or not. I know a handful (small hands) of billionaires in Memphis – but for the most part they shop in the same stores I do.

Why would, during his lifetime in Memphis, Holiday Inn founder Kemmons Wilson sit in the bleacher seats at the US Open and people like Conrad Black, Bernie Madoff, Allen Stamford, and Mark Drier be such insufferable jerks with their jetting around in private planes and barking at the help? The answer is that, save Mr. Wilson and an unremarkable handful of carpet tycoons, the rest weren’t really billionaires. They only played one for investors. To judge by the way the Feds raided the Galleon Hedge Fund those guys aren’t coming by their success honestly either.

Newspaper proprietor Conrad Black was affectionately known as “the poorest billionaire in Manhattan.” Reportedly, he was crestfallen when he had to tell his wife that they couldn’t afford a helicopter to go with the private jet because “we aren’t rich like the Kravises.” Mr. Black had his lawyers scare the hell out of every Canadian in the eastern provinces, bought a title into the British House of Lords, then tried to sue an American investor for suggesting that Lord Black wasn’t all he said he was. That’s when it all went wrong for Mr. Black.

Messers Madoff, Drier and Stamford, whose falls were more sudden and therefore more spectacular, are all in jail or under house arrest. Jeffery Picower, who authorities believe was the key to finding just what the hell happened to Madoff’s missing billions, was found dead in his swimming pool at his $33 million dollar estate in Palm Beach. Mr. Picower’s claimed that he was not an accomplice, but a victim. Given Mr. Picower’s heart problems, it was the stress of being a victim of a ponzi scheme that left him more than $7 billion richer that caused him to have a heart attack.

This isn’t the keeping up with the Joneses that led so many Americans to buy houses they had no hope of paying for. This is “Keeping up with the Jones” plus the multiplier of a state lottery. Like the one where I blew my money in Dalton, Ga. This is keeping up with the Ponzis.
Which just may be the key to understanding why some billionaires are such jerks, even when begging for money. If I made my money by scamming people – even legally – I’d want my customers and the general public to be scared to ask me questions too.

So how is one to tell an honest billionaire from a crook? You might want to observe how said moneybags addresses the great equalizer of the free republic: the hamburger. The wealthiest man I know – who worked for every one of his billion plus dollars is not afraid of a hamburger. He’s a gentleman about it, but he’s not afraid to get in there and mess it up with a hunk of meat either.

If, on the other hand, said billionaire whines about grease on his suit, or orders a burger with truffles in it, or pairs it with Bouchard Père et Fils 2006 Clos Vougeot then you know something else: people confident enough in their work to enjoy the fruits of their labor are also confident enough not to dress the classic burger with a $150 bottle of wine.

That’s for stolen money and getting laid.