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NY Times Op-Ed, March 15, 2019
The Puzzle of Cheap Billionaires
By Jennifer Weiner
I’ve been thinking lately about one of my relatives, now of blessed
memory. This woman was gracious and kind. Her clothes and makeup were
always impeccable; her home was well decorated and welcoming. When you
went over for tea, the cups would be porcelain, and the utensils would
be sterling silver. The sweetener would come in white paper packets,
embossed with the Golden Arches, most likely pilfered from the nearby
McDonald’s where she and her girls would go for coffee, and woe betide
the server who failed to offer them the senior discount.
This was a woman who could afford to buy a bag of sugar. But she
wouldn’t dream of it. Maybe it was Depression-era thrift, or maybe it
was the tiny thrill of a tiny theft, the minute dopamine rush you get
when you do something that isn’t exactly stealing but isn’t entirely
legitimate either.
Her quirk was far from unique. We’ve all seen (or maybe even carried)
pocketbooks full of stolen Sweet’N Low or used a guest bathroom where
the towels were Egyptian cotton, the countertops were Carrara marble and
the soap was a tiny rectangle from a Holiday Inn Express.
The rich are different. Some of them drop six figures to get their
children into a college where they didn’t earn a spot.
And some of them seem to be cheap about the weirdest things. There’s our
president, who likes to brag about his tremendous fortune and who has
twice served an assortment of fast food to championship college football
players who came to call. Maybe Mr. Trump, a fast-food aficionado
himself, believed that the spread was exactly what the athletes wanted.
And maybe it was.
But we know that Mr. Trump has bragged about underpaying contractors who
he has said have done shoddy work and has cut workers’ benefits and
salaries, being cheap in a way that causes pain and suffering.
We also know that he pretty much lives to troll. So it’s hard for me not
to read the bargain-menu feast as intended, at the very least, to enrage
the libs and, as a bonus, keep costs down, too.
But maybe Mr. Trump’s behavior makes a kind of sense when you put it in
the context of the billionaire thrift-boast, the 0.001 percent variation
on the humblebrag. See, for example, Warren Buffett and his reported $18
haircuts, or how he never pays more than $3.17 for breakfast. Or Jeff
Bezos, letting the world know about his $81,840 annual salary from
Amazon. The Ikea founder, Ingvar Kamprad, flew coach and bought his
clothes at flea markets. Queen Elizabeth II is said to reuse wrapping
paper. Stars in jewels and couture scarf In-N-Out burgers on their way
home from the Oscars.
See? they are saying. Of course we could afford caviar or a fancy car or
a fresh roll of wrapping paper. Fame and fortune haven’t changed us.
Deep down, we’re just like you!
Which brings us to Robert Kraft, a 77-year-old billionaire, Donald Trump
pal, New England Patriots owner and, apparently, a fellow cheap senior.
Last month Mr. Kraft was swept up in a statewide sting operation and
charged with soliciting sex in a South Florida strip mall. Mr. Kraft is
an undisputed billionaire. If he wants to pay for sex, he could hire the
most discreet, professional escorts. If it had to be sex with someone at
a strip mall, he could have probably bought the entire strip mall — nail
salon, Outback Steakhouse and all.
But according to the prosecutors, that’s not what happened. Instead,
they say, for two days in a row he visited a seedy-looking storefront
called Orchids of Asia Spa, where he spent less than 20 minutes per
visit and paid between $100 and $200 for these encounters, one of which
involved oral sex, with women who were, according to the police,
prisoners, brought over from China with the promise of legitimate jobs.
These women’s lives sound miserable. They were flown to America. Many
were routed through Flushing, Queens, then dispatched to spas all over
the country. They would work up to 14-hour days, seven days a week,
cooking their meals on hot plates, sleeping on the massage tables, being
moved from business to business, sometimes after they’d surrendered
their passports to their bosses.
Mr. Kraft wasn’t the only superrich guy who was caught up in this
investigation: John Childs, who founded a private equity firm, and John
Havens, the former chief financial officer of Citigroup, were also charged.
Mr. Kraft and Mr. Childs have denied the charges. The police say they
have taped evidence. But the allegations do present this tantalizing
question: If these men are indeed guilty, why are billionaires, with all
the discretionary income in the world to pay for sex in a way that’s
sane and unlikely to get them in trouble, seemingly looking for intimate
companionship and a bargain at the same time? Of all the things to skimp
on, why sex?
Maybe the cheapness is part of the fun. Maybe strip-mall sex lets jaded,
wealthy men feel as if they’re getting away with something, giving them
the same tiny thrill enjoyed by every little old lady with a purse full
of purloined Panera napkins.
Maybe it speaks to a puritanical ambivalence about pleasure: The seedy
surroundings allow you to simultaneously have your cake and feel bad
about eating it, too.
Perhaps it’s the cautionary example Mr. Trump provides. His presidency,
of course, has been plagued by revelations that his fixer arranged for
significant hush money payments to two women with whom Mr. Trump
allegedly had affairs.
A professional escort (or even just a native, English-speaking one)
might be tempted to try for a similar arrangement. And even if she
doesn’t, her client presumably would still have to talk to her, to look
her in the face and discuss terms, negotiate limits or even just say,
“Be quiet, ‘Shark Week’ is on.” No matter how skewed the power dynamics,
no matter how briefly, the client has to see her as a person.
A woman in a place like Orchids of Asia who might not be in the country
legally and doesn’t speak your language? She probably doesn’t seem like
a threat in the same way. In the eyes of her clients, I imagine, she
isn’t a person you’d have to send your lawyer after to pay off, she is
barely a person at all.
If a man, even a billionaire, wants to buy sex, I’ve got no quarrel, as
long as both parties are of age and willing. But that same billionaire
skimping and paying a relatively paltry amount to a woman who doesn’t
want to be there and can’t leave? That’s something else.
Same with the sugar. When your elderly relatives take a few extra
napkins from a fast-food place, that’s one thing. But what if they load
up at a mom-and-pop restaurant and take the napkin dispenser, too?
Cheap can be charming, and quirky, or at least understandable. But
cutting corners at the expense of small-business owners or casino
workers or Trump University students who think they’ll be getting an
education is different. Helping yourself to free napkins is one thing;
underpaying a prostitute or a victim of sex trafficking? That kind of
cheap is a lot harder to understand.
Jennifer Weiner (@jenniferweiner) is the author, most recently, of the
memoir “Hungry Heart” and a contributing opinion writer.
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