Friday, March 30, 2007
    3638

    Slum Lords

    Ellen DeGeneres is selling listing her home for 52% more than she paid for it about a year ago. I forgot to write down how many million--noticed it in the WSJ. She owns others. Don't know if she ever actually lived there. Here's an item by John Updike that appeared in the Autumn 1998 American Scholar.

    The superrich make lousy neighbors–
    they buy a house and tear it down
    and build another, twice as big, and leave.
    They're never there; they own so many
    other houses, each demands a visit.
    Entire neighborhoods called fashionable,
    bustling with servants and masters, such as
    Louisburg Square in Boston or Bel Air in L.A.,
    are districts now like Wall Street after dark
    or Tombstone once the silver boom went bust.
    The essence of the superrich is absence.
    They're always demonstrating they can afford
    to be somewhere else. Don't let them in.
    Their money is a kind of poverty.
    – John Updike, Slum Lords

    There was also an item in the WSJ today about a wealthy Japanese-Hawaiian who is letting homeless people live in his properties in expensive neighborhoods. Supposedly, amassed his wealth by being a slum lord. Now people are just a bit suspicious that he's doing this to drive property values down so he can buy out his neighbors. Makes sense doesn't it? Do bad by doing good. You probably aren't happy when the county buys property in your neighborhood for housing vouchers for the poor.Source URL: http://maryelizabeth-winstead.blogspot.com/2007/03/3638-slum-lords-ellen-degeneres-is.html
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