Champagne Wishes and Caviar Dreams: Bharat Desai/Neerja Sethi and Conrad Prebys

Zero Sum Empire

Remember fidget spinners? Joe doesn’t. (2:18) This week in the news: We talk about the Amazon fires and their relationship to soybean farming and tariffs. Then, in celebration of David Koch’s death, we introduce the David Koch Memorial Asset Liquidation Index, a rating scale we made up for the billionaires we cover. We decide, on a scale of 1 – 10, how urgent it is that the billionaire’s assets are immediately liquidated and the proceeds distributed among their victims. It goes without saying that all billionaire fortunes should be liquidated and redistributed, but we want to liquidate some more quickly than others. David Koch is the namesake of the rating scale because he was unquestionably a perfect 10. (12:40) Bharat Desai and Neerja Sethi: 2.5/10 Desai and Sethi are a married couple who started a technology services company that basically outsources various business needs to overseas workers. They sold the company a few years ago and have retired to Fisher Island, FL. Fisher Island is a tiny island right next to Miami Beach, and it is currently the wealthiest zip code in the US. It is only .3 sq. mi., and has a population under 500. A lot of rich people buy condos there and establish the place as their primary residence because Florida doesn’t have state income tax. This trend has seen a huge boost since the 2017 Republican tax bill capped property tax deductions at $10,000. We end up talking about Pizzagate and “hypothetical” food-based criminal code languages. We highly suggest checking out Opulence Magazine’s (a magazine about South Florida luxury condos) Fisher Island party videos: https://vimeo.com/162627583 https://vimeo.com/16225305 (35:55) Conrad Prebys: 4/10 Conrad Prebys was, apparently, a messy bitch who loved drama. He was estranged from his son, then reunited with him, and then wrote him out of his will. He made his money in the construction business in San Diego, and later in life made a bunch of big philanthropic donations to build buildings with his name on them. Many were for performing arts centers, and others were for buildings on university campuses. Joe pops off about how stupid it is that debt-laden universities keep building new, expensive buildings that accrue more debt because they think nicer buildings will recruit more students. Unsurprisingly, there’s not much data to support that claim. We come back around to the Koch brothers, their donations to universities and the inherent problems with those kinds of donations, and we finish up with a dramatic reading of an article defending David Koch’s legacy that drives Chad over the edge. America Loves To Hate Billionaires https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/op-eds/america-loves-to-hate-billionaires A full list of the Koch Foundation’s 2016 donations to higher ed: https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/WwbbU/1/