[contextly_auto_sidebar id=”jyFHuTfymBp4zjqhRnelFYWTSaIQFC3g”]
The Germans may have a word for it — things that seem inevitable but are stomach-turning nonetheless. That’s the way I feel about the fact that the very rich are amassing lavish art collections and finding tax shelters for them. They call these tax shelters “museums,” but don’t let the rest of us in. It’s the latest in the strategy by the financial class — many of whom were bailed out with our tax money a few years ago — to socialize the risk and privatize the gain.
Here’s how a New York Times story – “Writing Off the Warhol Next Door” — describes it:
Thanks in part to the skyrocketing value of art and the growing number of collectors who buy it as an investment, private museums — sometimes in out-of-the-way locations and with strictly limited public access — have proliferated in the last decade. While these jewel-box museums can house extraordinary work and offer a small group of art lovers an unusual viewing experience, critics wonder whether taxpayers are helping subsidize wealthy collectors’ multimillion-dollar purchases with little public benefit in return.
And at a time when concerns about inequality have heightened criticism of government policies that favor the wealthiest sliver of society, these tax breaks have come under sharper scrutiny.
A lot of these people — the hedge fund guys, for instance — pay less in taxes than you do. This reminds me of the scandal of for-profit colleges, most of which are subsidized by your tax dollars. 
If you’ve ever doubted Elizabeth Warren’s assertion that the game is rigged, I urge you to read this piece — and weep.
It was a particularly revolting story. My post-Soviet friends are shocked when you are asked to pay admission to an art museum.
Milton, Your Soviet friends grew up in a world in which the state had almost total control of artistic life, which didn’t end up real well for some of the artists. Can we talk about Shostakovich for a second, please?
Our system is wack — don’t get me wrong == but I’m not sure the Soviet or Stalin-lite/ Putinesque alternative is such an improvement.
These fake rich-folk museums are vile indeed.
Yes, let’s please talk about Shostakovich.
Can you imagine an opera about a woman who murders her husband and father-in-law – so that she can have sex with her fellow assassin – getting much play at the Met in the 1930s? Because somehow I can’t.
Even so, in its barely-rewritten version, “Katerina Izmailova’ ran for many years in opera theatres all over the USSR. In fact the rewrite gave DSCH the chance to tighten-up the writing in a number of scenes – edits which he later introduced into the score of ‘Lady Macbeth Of Mtsensk’ when it rejoined the repertory.
Ever been to Russia, Scott?
So on what basis do you type your tripe about “Putinesque” Russia?????
Just another know-nothing yankee who jumps on the Obama NeoCon bandwagon.
Any respect I had for you has evaporated bigtime
I’ve been to Russia, by the way, and have known people who’ve escaped.
Re Putin, I don’t like dictators or strongmen no matter what their ideology. In some ways I’m like Orwell or Trotsky — a man of the left who does not like authoritarianism. That makes me a neocon?
I love Shostakovich’s work; maybe my favorite 20 c composer. I hardly think he would endorse Stalin or that pinched little bully Putin.