Patterico's Pontifications

8/23/2019

Obamas Set To Purchase Martha’s Vineyard Estate

Filed under: General — Dana @ 7:04 pm



[guest post by Dana]

So when Barack Obama talked about wealth and said: “There’s only so much you can eat. There’s only so big a house you can have. There’s only so many nice trips you can take. I mean, it’s enough,” as well as “I mean, I do think at a certain point you’ve made enough money,” he was talking about all of you, not himself, right??

The report lists the estate as having been on the market for close to $15 million, is 6,900 square feet with 29 beachfront acres, and has 7 bedrooms, a pool, an outdoor fireplace, a chef’s kitchen, 2 guest wings, and a second-floor balcony Jacuzzi. In other words, it’s got all the bells and whistles.

I don’t begrudge the Obama’s buying a beautiful home set in such a stunning location. Who wouldn’t want it? And they are certainly wealthy enough to afford a little vacation home. According to reports, the Obamas are worth 30 times more than when they entered the White House in 2008 and Barack Obama was estimated to have a net worth $40 million in 2018. The couple earned more than $20 million between 2005 and 2016 from two lucrative book deals, and the former President has made millions from speaking engagements as well. Additionally, both Michelle and Barack Obama have signed a production deal with Netflix. How much wealth is too much wealth? I dunno, but the Obama’s ever-increasing wealth tells us that they haven’t hit the ceiling yet. Anyway, the problem isn’t that they spent 8 years shaming wealthy Americans and they’re now swimming in extraordinary wealth themselves. That double-standard is just standard operating procedures for Democrats. The problem I have with it is a broader one: accruing wealth from politics. When individuals without any wealth enter politics and end up 30 times wealthier all is said and done, I have a bit of a problem with it. What do you think?

P.S. The Martha Vineyard’s home would be the second home owned by the Obamas. Still one shy of Bernie…

(Cross-posted at The Jury Talks Back.)

–Dana

52 Responses to “Obamas Set To Purchase Martha’s Vineyard Estate”

  1. These are some seriously industrious and ambitious Americans who have taken advantage of a great economic system that allows them to earn such wealth.

    Dana (fdf131)

  2. I guess they have no worries about global warmening/climate change and the rise of the seas, since he b!tchslapped Gaia back in ’09.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  3. Joe Biden also owns an oceanfront beach home, this in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. As some are pointing out, here’s at least two Democrats who don’t seem to be taking the whole “rising oceans threatening to flood the coasts” bullcrap all that seriously.

    JVW (54fd0b)

  4. Pikers. When Chicago’s first lady mayor was kicked out after four years, she had $11 million that she did not have when she became mayor (and we’re talking 1983 dollars). When her successor, Chicago’s first black mayor, died in office four and a half years later, he left $13 million that he did not have when he became mayor. Nobody dares ask how much Mayor Richard M. Daley retired with.

    nk (dbc370)

  5. Gerald Ford took rising oceans seriously; his second home was in Vail (elevation 8,150 feet). And Donald Rumsfeld must too; he’s in Taos (elevation 6,970 feet).

    JVW (54fd0b)

  6. Well jeeze, nk, Obama was only President of the United States. You can’t expect him to have the same access to graft and filthy lucre that the Mayor of Chicago does.

    JVW (54fd0b)

  7. BTW, that Obama quote, Bill Gates said it before Obama, when he was still the world’s richest person. As F. Scott Fitzgerald almost wrote: “The rich are different from you and me. They’re lying jerkoffs.”

    nk (dbc370)

  8. Actually, he did write it, but in book length, not in eleven words.

    nk (dbc370)

  9. It was a short story. Sorry for the copypasta, but the details make up the interesting part.

    Ernest Hemingway once said of F. Scott Fitzgerald:

    “His talent was as natural as the pattern that was made by the dust on a butterfly’s wings”
    Hemingway is responsible for a famous misquotation of Fitzgerald’s. According to Hemingway, a conversation between him and Fitzgerald went:

    Fitzgerald: The rich are different from you and me.
    Hemingway: Yes, they have more money.
    This never actually happened; it is a retelling of an actual encounter between Hemingway and Mary Colum, which went as follows:

    Hemingway: I am getting to know the rich.
    Colum: I think you’ll find the only difference between the rich and other people is that the rich have more money.
    The full quotation is found in Fitzgerald’s words in his short story “The Rich Boy” (1926), paragraph 3: “Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me. They possess and enjoy early, and it does something to them, makes them soft, where we are hard, cynical where we are trustful, in a way that, unless you were born rich, it is very difficult to understand.”

    source: http://www.quotecounterquote.com/2009/11/rich-are-different-famous-quote.html:

    You may have heard about a legendary exchange between the American novelists F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940) and Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961).

    Usually, Fitzgerald is quoted as saying: “The rich are different from you and me.” And, Hemingway is quoted as responding: “Yes, they have more money.”

    In fact, this is a mythical quote-counterquote. Here’s how it became a legend…

    In 1925, Fitzgerald wrote a short story titled “Rich Boy.” It was later published in a popular book of his short stories titled All the Sad Young Men (1936). The story begins with this passage:

    “Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me. They possess and enjoy early, and it does something to them, makes them soft where we are hard, and cynical where we are trustful, in a way that, unless you were born rich, it is very difficult to understand. They think, deep in their hearts, that they are better than we are because we had to discover the compensations and refuges of life for ourselves. Even when they enter deep into our world or sink below us, they still think that they are better than we are. They are different.”

    Clearly, that’s not a favorable view of the rich.

    But years later, Ernest Hemingway, who was supposedly a friend of Fitzgerald, mocked the famed opening lines of “Rich Boy” in his short story “The Snows of Kilimanjaro.” In the original version of that story, printed in Esquire magazine in 1936, Hemingway wrote: “The rich…were dull and they drank too much, or they played too much backgammon. They were dull and they were repetitious. He remembered poor Scott Fitzgerald and his romantic awe of them and how he had started a story once that began, “The very rich are different from you and me.” And how some one had said to Scott, Yes, they have more money. But that was not humorous to Scott. He thought they were a special glamorous race and when he found they weren’t it wrecked him as much as any other thing that wrecked him.”

    Understandably, Fitzgerald was offended. He complained to Hemingway’s publisher and when the story was reprinted in a 1938 collection of Hemingway’s short stories, “Scott Fitzgerald” was changed to the name “Julian.”

    But in his personal notebooks, Fitzgerald made the mistake of writing a cryptic entry that said: “They have more money. (Ernest’s wisecrack.)”

    After Fitzgerald’s death, entries from his notebooks were included in The Crack-Up (1945), a book compiled from Fitzgerald’s writings by his friend Edmund Wilson.

    Wilson added a footnote to the notebook entry about Ernest’s wisecrack that explained: “Fitzgerald had said, ‘The rich are different from us.’ Hemingway had replied, ‘Yes, they have more money.’”

    After that, books began citing this footnote as if it were an actual conversation between Fitzgerald and Hemingway. And, thus a famous quote-counterquote myth was born.

    From here
    https://en.m.wikiquote.org/wiki/Talk:F._Scott_Fitzgerald

    Kishnevi (0acdcd)

  10. Ex president buys expensive house. Slow news day?

    JRH (52aed3)

  11. JRH,

    I know, right? It’s a Friday night, cut me some slack. Besides which, as I stated, it’s not just an ex-president buying an expensive home. It’s about politics being a wealth-generating machine. Nothing new, but the levels of wealth generated are extraordinary. And I find that’s interesting to think about, although you may not.

    Dana (fdf131)

  12. My guides for how seriously to take CAGW are the examples set by Al Gore and Barack Obama.

    Carry on fellas, you spread the word better than you know.

    harkin (58d012)

  13. @11. sorry didn’t meant to be super-critical. I like reading your posts. But the Obama quotes about wealth seemed taken out of context. And I wonder at which point criticism of politicians we don’t like becomes excessive and counter productive. my team vs your team. I mean I get that this is a political blog so maybe I should expect that. anyway thanks for all your posts.

    JRH (52aed3)

  14. *shrug* as long as they pay their taxes a responsible, wealth having, citizens.

    I’d rather they get their money from speaking engagements and book deals than lobbying, but that’s a personal preference.

    Nic (896fdf)

  15. By book, I meant The Great Gatsby, and that my version of the quote, “The rich are different from you and me. They’re lying jerkoffs,” is as good an eleven-word summary of it as any.

    nk (dbc370)

  16. And remember, the only people who profited off Venezuela socialism were high placed party hacks

    “ENTEBBE, Uganda—The government of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro is selling off his country’s gold reserves. Some of it has passed through a secretive operation in East Africa, a gambit that evades U.S. sanctions.”

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-7-4-tons-of-venezuelas-gold-landed-in-africaand-vanished-11560867792
    _

    harkin (58d012)

  17. Their other house in DC is gorgeous too, but I don’t blame them for wanting something more scenic and less urban.

    I don’t think they stole their money from anybody, and being worth $40M puts them somewhere around the top 0.1% of wealth.

    Dave (1bb933)

  18. Rip David Koch
    A heckuva giver, built many wings of hospitals for the benefit of others. May peace be with you.

    mg (8cbc69)

  19. I don’t think they stole their money from anybody,

    All profit gained from the labor of others is theft.

    nk (dbc370)

  20. Akshually, all property is theft. This has been known since 1840.

    “La propriété, c’est le vol!”

    If I were asked to answer the following question: What is slavery? and I should answer in one word, It is murder!, my meaning would be understood at once. No extended argument would be required to show that the power to remove a man’s mind, will, and personality, is the power of life and death, and that it makes a man a slave. It is murder. Why, then, to this other question: What is property? may I not likewise answer, It is robbery!, without the certainty of being misunderstood; the second proposition being no other than a transformation of the first?
    — Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, What is Property?

    Dave (1bb933)

  21. nk was giving the Karl Marx version.

    I don’t have a problem with book deals. If the soldier who killed OBL can have one, why not the CiC who (theoretically) sent him on that mission? And it was all done in public view.

    Speechifying, lecturing, raising money for charitable foundation are a bit more hazy. Especially if President Biden ever appoints Mrs Obama to the cabinet.

    Kishnevi (0acdcd)

  22. Taxation is also theft. So therefore, by the transitive property of mathematics, property is taxation.

    JVW (54fd0b)

  23. Slow news day?

    Ponder this:

    30 years ago this week Voyager 2 swept past Neptune. It was the final planetary encounter of the famed ‘Grand Tour’- which took advantage of a celestial alignment of the outer planets in our solar system that occurs ever 176 years or so.

    Voyager 2 and twin spacecraft, Voyager 1, were launched in 1977. If you wanna get a fix on where both Voyager 2 and Voyager 1 are now, take a look:

    https://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/

    It certainly puts the events of daily life in perspective here on this tiny, insignificant, ‘Pale Blue Dot.’

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  24. Obama did say the seas would cease rising upon his election so he’s got that going for him.

    Bugg (024e40)

  25. Obama did say the seas would cease rising upon his election so he’s got that going for him.

    No he didn’t.

    Dave (1bb933)

  26. Dave – The view is hiring.

    mg (8cbc69)

  27. The journey will be difficult. The road will be long. I face this challenge with profound humility, and knowledge of my own limitations. But I also face it with limitless faith in the capacity of the American people. Because if we are willing to work for it, and fight for it, and believe in it, then I am absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal; this was the moment when we ended a war and secured our nation and restored our image as the last, best hope on Earth. This was the moment – this was the time – when we came together to remake this great nation so that it may always reflect our very best selves, and our highest ideals. Thank you, God Bless you, and may God Bless the United States of America.

    Good speech, didn’t happen. But it’s not quite as good as Trump’s American carnage and call for the proletariat to rise up and take back the country from the Czar…

    That all changes, starting right here and right now, because this moment is your moment: It belongs to you. It belongs to everyone gathered here today and everyone watching all across America. This is your day. This is your celebration. And this, the United States of America, is your country.

    What truly matters is not which party controls our Government, but whether our Government is controlled by the people. January 20, 2017, will be remembered as the day the people became the rulers of this Nation again. The forgotten men and women of our country will be forgotten no longer. Everyone is listening to you now.

    You came by the tens of millions to become part of a historic movement the likes of which the world has never seen before. At the center of this movement is a crucial conviction: that a nation exists to serve its citizens. Americans want great schools for their children, safe neighborhoods for their families, and good jobs for themselves. These are just and reasonable demands of righteous people and a righteous public.

    Colonel Klink (Ret) (6e7a1c)

  28. Falsely attacking Obama for things he didn’t say undermines the credibility of honest criticism.

    Not that supporters of Donald Trump care about honesty, of course.

    Dave (1bb933)

  29. Trump’s tweets on Election Night 2012, calling for violent overthrow of the government because he thought Obama would be elected while losing the popular vote, are arguably his finest hour.

    Dave (1bb933)

  30. This has been going on since forever. Reagan made a lot of money after leaving office, too. Despite everything.

    Kevin M (21ca15)

  31. Since a mere $40 million wouldn’t amount to much for Trump, all this does is make a mockery of the hotel-based emoluments claims.

    Kevin M (21ca15)

  32. I think it is a gimme that the Obama’s have more taste than Donald Trump.

    Kevin M (21ca15)

  33. Melania is all class
    moochelle is all azz

    mg (8cbc69)

  34. Kevin – The view is hiring.

    mg (8cbc69)

  35. Melania is all class

    Soft-focus p*rn is still p*rn.

    Dave (1bb933)

  36. The Obamas always liked the Hamptons. That’s where they went on vacation when Obama was President. One reason why the White House press corps liked him. He took them to the Hamptons. Bush 43 had been taking them to Crawford.

    nk (dbc370)

  37. This may have literally happened:

    French photographer: Hey, Trump, you got any dirty pictures of your wife?
    Trump: No.
    French photographer: Want to buy some?
    Trump: No.
    French photographer: Okay, then I’ll sell them to the New York Post.

    nk (dbc370)

  38. Closing day on the estate will be the second time in her adult life that Michelle will be really proud of America.

    Munroe (1e9517)

  39. Which begs question why Fearless Leader pay 130 large to Stormy and 150 to Karen to save himself embarrassment, but nothing to keep Barron from seeing mommy nekkid with another nekkid lady in the newspapers.

    nk (dbc370)

  40. moonves and their deep research with glor, in stormy’s strip club landon Thomas who covered Epstein with a pillow, graydon carter who pretends he was actually against him, their pantomime horse act gets tiresome,

    narciso (d1f714)

  41. landon Thomas who covered Epstein with a pillow

    Heh! Since that’s almost certainly how Epstein died, it might not be the best figure of speech fro media reports about him.

    Less be hones’ here, people. Of all the people, of all times and of all places, who is the one who cares the most about what the #FakeNewsMedia says about him? Trump’s is the most media-driven presidency ever, and the one being driven the most is Trump.

    nk (dbc370)

  42. 40… because the first two were BAU and the latter depended and relied on a child’s natural aversion to seeing a parent in said parent’s birthday suit.

    And, if it needs to be explained to a claimed heterosexual, because two beautiful nekkid ladies together – even if they aren’t Greco-Roman wrestling – is HOT!

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  43. I have never heard Melania speak poorly of America.
    Moochella made a career of it.

    mg (8cbc69)

  44. I was using david burge’s turn of phrase, of course explain len wexner and leon black, Victoria secrets and Telemundo’s complex relationships, is something the press doesn’t want to dwell on,

    narciso (d1f714)

  45. 44… and yet the media repeatedly reminds us how beloved the former first lady is.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  46. because they agree with her conditional approval of America,

    narciso (d1f714)

  47. I very much like the former first lady. She’s down to earth, is who she is. I don’t have to agree with everything they did and said to like them. By the way the current first lady is, or at least was, a big admirer of hers as well.

    I get that the Obamas were in some quarters worshipped, and I get why that’s a problem, but I think the hate and revulsion for them is a worse problem, esp coming from people who are supposed to value family. And family values. Whatever else you can say about the Obamas, they are a tight family who cares about each other. That ought to be worth at least a modicum of respect, imo.

    JRH (52aed3)

  48. They’ve got to be worth more than $40M, and also must have a very hefty revenue stream to be able to pay property taxes and upkeep.

    steveg (354706)

  49. I’ve never liked Mrs Obama much. She has always seemed very bitter laced with a hefty splash of sour. Like a Kumquat that never turns sweet

    steveg (354706)

  50. Netflix did this to reward him for pushing net neutrality, like deutsche bank with the iran deal

    narciso (d1f714)

  51. Martha’s Vineyard has a natural border fence called the ocean, which means it’s not the place to rub elbows with DACA recipients and illegals like the Obamas were led to believe.

    Munroe (1e9517)


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