Billionaire

German eco-industrialist Guido Krass is offering to sell his 241-ft. Silver Zwei (above), the world’s fastest long-range superyacht, for €59 million (about $85 million). Designed to the billionaire’s specifications by Monaco’s famed Espen Oeino, the Silver Zwei is about as an environmentally friendly as a yacht of its size and speed can be.

That means high fuel efficiency, which is quite handy when crossing the Atlantic at a cool 22 knots. The yacht’s light, airy interior has accommodations for 20 guests in nine cabins including a large owner’s suite with private lounge and veranda deck. Earth tones and clean white spaces with orange accents abound.

Continue reading German Billionaire Offers World’s Fastest Long-Range Superyacht for $85 Million

German Billionaire Offers World’s Fastest Long-Range Superyacht for $85 Million originally appeared on Luxist on Tue, 12 Apr 2011 13:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

At 295 feet, Netscape billionaire Jim Clark’s Royal Huisman yacht Athena is the second largest sailing superyacht in the world. Just behind Barry Diller’s 305-ft. Eos and just ahead of the famed Maltese Falcon at 289 feet, the stunning Athena is a sight to behold wherever she sets sail.

Now Clark, who’s said to have paid under $100 million for the craft back in 2004, is having her refit in New Zealand – the largest such project ever carried out in the country – at a cost of tens of million of dollars including many high-tech additions.

Upgrades are reportedly being carried out at the behest of Clark’s much, much younger new wife, former Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue model Christy Hinze. He’s 67, she’s 31. We had dinner with the Aussie stunner once and found her charming.

Hinze apparently wants to freshen up the somewhat stodgy, old-guy interior done up in dark wood and hotel suite-type furniture. The yacht’s deckplan features an open air lounge, media center, formal dining salon, library, main salon with wet bar and an alfresco dining area.

The Athena can currently accommodate ten guests in five cabins, with the lower deck comprised of a full-width master cabin with a Jacuzzi, study and walk-in wardrobe. Hinze will want to enlarge that, no doubt.

[via JamesList]

Netscape Billionaire Refits $100 Million Superyacht originally appeared on Luxist on Mon, 04 Apr 2011 16:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

On Wednesday, Forbes magazine will publish its annual list of the richest billionaires in the world. It’s almost certain to include Bill Gates, Warren Buffett and Carlos Slim in the top three, but while Gates has topped the list nearly every year since 1995 (losing out only once to Buffett by a margin of half a billion), this year we’re not expecting to see the Microsoft co-founder in the top spot.

The reason for Gates’ displacement? His overwhelming philanthropic activity. Although his personal fortune today is estimated around $49 billion, he and his wife Melinda have funneled some $28 billion into their non-profit foundation. As a result, Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim – who contributes far less than Gates or Buffett to charity – is expected to top the list.

[Source: Reuters]

Bill Gates Gives Up “World’s Richest Man” Status for Philanthropy originally appeared on Luxist on Tue, 08 Mar 2011 19:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Corporate education reform group Stand for Children has Massachusetts in its crosshairs, threatening a ballot measure that would make it easier to fire teachers based on an untested, unproven evaluation system. This is despite the fact that Massachusetts has, by many measures, the best schools in the nation.

Though there are real grassroots activists in Stand for Children’s background, by now it is controlled by more of the sameaWall Street money, Walmart Walton money, and other billionaire supporters of bringing private profit into public education. Stand leaves behind it a trail of disillusioned former members. In Massachusetts, a group of 29 former Stand for Children activists write that:

Stand was one group of many at the table when the new Massachusetts educator evaluation system was hammered out over several months last spring. Unions, principals, state officials, parentsaall contributed. But when the new regulations were finally announced, one group walked awayaStand for Children.

Immediately, Stand filed for a ballot initiative and used some of their new corporate money to hire people to collect the signatures. It cost them $3 a signature, but they have plenty more. They are following the master plan revealed in Colorado by their national CEO, Jonah Edelman, a month before it was announced Massachusetts.

The proposed ballot measure attempts to blow up the collaborative work that created the new regulations last spring. It does nothing to improve teaching in our schools.

Instead, the Stand for Children plan eliminates job protections for teachers, pushes them to teach to the standardized test, and makes it dangerous for them to stand up for their students to administrators and bureaucrats.

Sign our petition calling on Stand for Children to withdraw this harmful, divisive measure from the Massachusetts ballot.

• What’s coming up on Sunday Kos …

• William Galston talks 2012 election with Daily Kos, by DemFromCT
• Two Daily Kos/SEIU polls show why Americans Elect failed, by Chris Bowers
• Billionaire donors drive anti-teacher, pro-testing education reform agenda, by Laura Clawson
• Injustice and jury selection, by Denise Oliver Velez
• Mitt Romney is a coward, by brooklynbadboy
• A conversation with future voters, by Dante Atkins

• Former Vice President Walter Mondale, now 84, has some things to say about the Supreme Court’s politicization:
  

  aOur Court, as long as I’ve been around, has been in many ways our nation’s most remarkable institution,a Mondale said. aIt has been bipartisan, we’ve had great judges with a lot of vision. Without it, we wouldn’t have civil rights, we wouldn’t have so many things that have made America more open, more fair, more trustworthy. Now it’s become a kind of harsh, partisan institution. You have ‘Citizens United,’ you have the Florida case, you have some real bummers coming up here. I really worry about what it’ll do to the country. I’ve been around once during the worst of the Vietnam War when I really began to worry whether this place was going to blow up, whether the center would hold. We’re nowhere near that now. But don’t toy with that. Always try to act in a way that sustains trust, public trust. It’s hard to explain but what makes us strong as a nation, fundamentally, is that people trust the system. And I don’t think we should keep playing with that like we are now.a

• Absolutely the cutest photo you’ll see all day, guaranteed
  
• An apology for work on “gay cure”:
  

  Dr. [Robert] Spitzer in no way implied in the study that being gay was a choice, or that it was possible for anyone who wanted to change to do so in therapy. But that didnat stop socially conservative groups from citing the paper in support of just those points, according to Wayne Besen, executive director of Truth Wins Out, a nonprofit that fights antigay bias. [...]

  aYou know, itas the only regret I have; the only professional one,a Dr. Spitzer said of the study, near the end of a long interview. aAnd I think, in the history of psychiatry, I donat know that Iave ever seen a scientist write a letter saying that the data were all there but were totally misinterpreted. Who admitted that and who apologized to his readers.a

• Up to no good:
  

  Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on my parahippocampal gyrus. Scientists at the Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute have found that suspicion resides in two distinct regions of the brain: the amygdala, which plays a central role in processing fear and emotional memories, and the parahippocampal gyrus, which is associated with declarative memory and the recognition of scenes.

  “We wondered how individuals assess the credibility of other people in simple social interactions,” said Read Montague, director of the Human Neuroimaging Laboratory and the Computational Psychiatry Unit at the Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute, who led the study. “We found a strong correlation between the amygdala and a baseline level of distrust, which may be based on a person’s beliefs about the trustworthiness of other people in general, his or her emotional state, and the situation at hand. What surprised us, though, is that when other people’s behavior aroused suspicion, the parahippocampal gyrus lit up, acting like an inborn lie detector.”

• North Carolina vote on marriage equality reflects a rural-urban divide. The perception that African Americans are somehow uniquely opposed to marriage equality has been debunked for Proposition 8 in California and now, despite steady commentary to the contrary, the same has been done for North Carolina’s Amendment 1:
  

  It’s impossible to calculate exactly how black voters came down on Amendment 1, because there was no exit polling and voting precincts are rarely single-race. What is clear is that urban voters opposed the amendment; rural ones supported it; and that division cut cleanly across the color line.

  In each of North Carolina’s five largest cities, voters in majority-black precincts rejected the measure: Charlotte (52 percent), Raleigh (51 percent), Greensboro (54 percent), Winston-Salem (55 percent), and Durham (65 percent). Durham’s results were dramatic: Not a single majority-black precinct supported the amendment. Several crushed it by margins of 3-to-1 and even 4-to-1.

• Rare victory:
  

  A federal district court in New York has ruled that the federal government cannot enforce the domestic military detention provisions of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) of 2012 because it unconstitutionally infringes on the rights of journalists and activists to associate with people the government might consider terroristsaexposing them to arrest and indefinite detention without a trial.    

  aThis court is acutely aware that preliminarily enjoining an act of Congress must be done with great caution,a wrote U.S. District Judge Katherine B. Forrest, in a 68-page decision handed down on Wednesday. aHowever, it is the responsibility of our judicial system to protect the public from acts of Congress which infringe upon constitutional rights.a

• A corner of the unexplored galaxy in your kitchen.
  
• The FBI investigating possible influence-peddling in Ohio’s GOP.
  
• President Obama will visit tornado-devastated Joplin, Missouri, Monday to deliver the graduation address at Joplin High School.
• Long  Island, N.Y., goes solar. It  has launched the nation’s first Clean Local Energy Accessible Now (CLEAN) program using a feed-in tariff system that stoked Germany’s solar energy boom. The name CLEAN was chosen because the tariff system under its European name was a tough sell in the States. The system sets a firm price for electricity generated by solar, allowing investors to feel confident about their return.

In the fury Thursday that greeted the leaking of a proposal that would try to taint Barack Obama by once again attaching him to the fiery sermons of Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Mitt Romney botched his response with a “whatever” statement that will go down in the record books of political stumbles. One person said it was as if his mouth were falling down the stairs.

Whether or not billionaire Joe Ricketts of the Ending Spending Action Fund Super PAC had given a preliminary green light to the $10 million race-baiting proposal made little difference. By the end of the day, the Rev. Wright and the race issue had once again been brought to foreground. But not in the way the right-wingers planning for a big splash at the Democratic Convention were hoping. Instead of their proposal helping to weaken President Obama with a sneak attack three months down the road, the premature leak of its contents had diverted attention away from the economy, where the Romney camp sees Obama as vulnerable. Simultaneously, it provided the circumstances for Romney to upstage his worst previous stumble-tongue performance with a new worst-in-show.

Being compelled by the firestorm to repudiate the attack plan, the candidate drew attention to his own deficits as well as to the holes in the proposed attack on Obama itself. Romney’s face-palm display also illustrated by implication the president’s strengths both as a public speaker, whoawhatever his policy flawsaconnects with people at a personal level, and on the matter of race itself, where the president has, since his widely acclaimed Philadelphia speech in March 2008, boxed in the more obvious racists. As Conor Friedersdorf points out at The Atlantic:

Although hard core conservatives can’t see it, President Obama is adept at talking about race in America. He’s thought about the issue long enough to speak about it with simple words and sophisticated nuance. He invokes the best of America when telling the story of his life. He can tell a story about why he attended that church that makes white people listening feel good about their country and themselves. Mitt Romney cannot talk about race like that, nor does he benefit from an inquisition into how he could participate in his own faith given its flaws over the last five decades.

So it isn’t just that Mitt Romney wants to be talking about the economy. It’s that making an issue of Wright risk conversations about race and Mormonism, subjects Romney lacks the charisma to finesse, and that would be utter disasters if all his surrogates had to discuss them.

It wasn’t just the awfulness of Romney’s “whatever” meander in response to his own past linking of the Rev. Wright to Obama but also the tepidness of his overall response to the attack proposal that made Thursday a disastrous day for the GOP candidate. The Obama campaign lost no time in zeroing in on the reality that Romney failed to go anywhere near far enough in blasting a plan, which, in another line that will surely make it into the annals of campaign stupidity, says Obama has tried to characterize himself as a ametrosexual Black Abe Lincoln.a

aToday, Mitt Romney had the opportunity to distance himself from his previous attempts to inject the divisive politics of character assassination into the presidential race,a said Obama spokesman Ben LaBolt in an email to reporters late Thursday. aIt was a moment that required moral leadership, and once again he didnat rise to the occasion.a

Because he can’t.

David Haugh at The Chicago Tribune:

No Cubs fan wants to hear about a “Ricketts Plan,” unless it involves improving the bullpen and the bunting. [...] Wrigley usually represents a no-stress, non-partisan zone, a place where you praise Castro and everybody knows you’re talking about the shortstop, not the dictator. A place smack dab in the middle of a Cubbie-blue state but where Obama still will get criticized for being a Sox fan, if his name comes up at all.

But before Friday’s first pitch, sorry, sadly I will wonder if fans from the North and South sides are debating starting rotations or presidential politics. I bet people sitting in the decaying stadium will discuss how the perception of the “Ricketts Plan,” dramatically altered the reality of who pays for Wrigley renovations. I will look for the first “Rahm v. Tom” T-shirt.

Perhaps, in a strange way, the controversy will unify Cubs and Sox fans by forcing them to cling to a common belief; that baseball is better in Chicago when the only party that matters is the one in the bleachers.

Alex Koppelman at The New Yorker:

The theory that Americans would reject Obama if they really knew about Jeremiah Wright rests on the idea that we donat know about him, because the liberal press didnat tell us. But we do, because they did.

In May of 2008, after Wright became a major issue in the campaign for a second time (the first was two months earlier) by making a series of public appearances, Pew conducted a survey in which it asked respondents about Wright and the mediaas coverage of him. In all, eighty-four per cent of those polled said theyad heard about the remarks had madeasixty-two per cent said theyad heard aa lot,a twenty-two per cent aa little.a Only fifteen per cent said they hadnat heard anything at all. Obama won anyway.
And, as Adam Serwer points out, despite accusations that the media protected Obama by under-covering Wright, even in 2008 the vast majority of respondents felt differently. Twenty-six per cent thought the press had given the right amount of attention to Wright; fifty-nine per cent thought there had been too much coverage of his comments.

Keith Boykin at BET:

Even though the plan isnat going forward, the proposal itself shows they’re out of touch with reality. First, they talk about “literate” Black people as if that’s a rare occurrence. Second, they think Elder will persuade people. And third, they want to attack the president for being a “metrosexual.” Really? [...]

And how did Mitt Romney respond to the news? When asked whether Wright is off limits in the 2012 presidential campaign, Romney said he hadn’t “read the papers yet,” according to Los Angeles Times reporter Maeve Reston. Perhaps that should come as no surprise since the presumptive GOP nominee has already tried to link Obama to Wright, as he did in a radio interview with talk show host Sean Hannity in February.

And though the official Wright ad campaign will never see the light of day, the racist undertone will persist through November. This is not about winning independents. This is part of a dog-whistle campaign to reach out to those crazy conservatives who think Obama is a radical socialist Muslim Kenyan with no birth certificate and no right to be president.

Alex Roarty at National Journal:

Romney can breathe a sigh of relief: The proposed advertisement has been scuttled after eliciting swift, sharp backlash. But the close call still highlights a potentially ominous lesson for all political candidates in 2012: In the post-Citizens United era of loosened campaign finance regulations, candidates are at the mercy of well-heeled outside groups.

Those organizationsa prodigious financial resources can be enormously beneficial, but because candidates canat legally coordinate with them, they risk having their message hijacked and campaigns hurt by well-meaning allies. Just as easily as a multi-million dollar ad purchase can buy a candidate victory, it can also torpedo their entire effort.
aBillionaires may think they have best interest of candidate in mind, but they may not know a whole lot about winning elections and how to persuade voters,a said Rick Tyler, who worked on the super PAC supportive of former presidential candidate Newt Gingrich. aAnd that can be dangerous for the candidate.a

Brian Naylor at NPR:

The Nebraska native recalled his first job, as a third-grader, helping the janitor of a local courthouse. The job, he said, made his parents proud. “And I felt proud of myself, cleaning bathrooms, emptying wastebaskets and sweeping floors because I had a job where I got paid. So that has always been the main focus of my life and my energies a to make money. And it’s a lot of fun to make money.”

Melissa Harris and Rick Pearson at The Chicago Tribune:

He has long railed against government spending on pork-barrel projects, an irony given the Cubs ownership is trying to work out a deal with City Hall that would involve using $150 million in city amusement taxes to leverage a $300 million renovation of the National League’s oldest ballpark. [...]

The Rickettses made a point of saying family members have diverse political views. Laura Ricketts, a major fundraiser for Obama and a Cubs co-owner, said she hoped the “misunderstanding” about her father’s political efforts “will have no impact on the Cubs, which is completely unrelated. My father is not involved with the Cubs whatsoever. My hope is it won’t have an impact, but we’ll see.”

But after Thursday’s events, the tax incentives that were under consideration are likely “off the table right now,” according to an Emanuel aide.

Jake Tapper at ABC News:

The Super PAC he is funding has stated its intent to spend at least $10 million on its activities. Last month, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Ricketts sold 521,988 share of common stock in the company for $20.04 Per Share a worth $10.46 million.

So does it bother TD Ameritrade that he appears to be cashing in TD Ameritrade stock to run this campaign?

aWe have many shareholders and we canat legislate what people do with their money,a Hillyer said. [...] aHis political activities are not those of the company,a Hillyer said again.

German eco-industrialist Guido Krass is offering to sell his 241-ft. Silver Zwei (above), the world’s fastest long-range superyacht, for €59 million (about $85 million). Designed to the billionaire’s specifications by Monaco’s famed Espen Oeino, the Silver Zwei is about as an environmentally friendly as a yacht of its size and speed can be.

That means high fuel efficiency, which is quite handy when crossing the Atlantic at a cool 22 knots. The yacht’s light, airy interior has accommodations for 20 guests in nine cabins including a large owner’s suite with private lounge and veranda deck. Earth tones and clean white spaces with orange accents abound.

Continue reading German Billionaire Offers World’s Fastest Long-Range Superyacht for $85 Million

German Billionaire Offers World’s Fastest Long-Range Superyacht for $85 Million originally appeared on Luxist on Tue, 12 Apr 2011 13:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

At 295 feet, Netscape billionaire Jim Clark’s Royal Huisman yacht Athena is the second largest sailing superyacht in the world. Just behind Barry Diller’s 305-ft. Eos and just ahead of the famed Maltese Falcon at 289 feet, the stunning Athena is a sight to behold wherever she sets sail.

Now Clark, who’s said to have paid under $100 million for the craft back in 2004, is having her refit in New Zealand – the largest such project ever carried out in the country – at a cost of tens of million of dollars including many high-tech additions.

Upgrades are reportedly being carried out at the behest of Clark’s much, much younger new wife, former Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue model Christy Hinze. He’s 67, she’s 31. We had dinner with the Aussie stunner once and found her charming.

Hinze apparently wants to freshen up the somewhat stodgy, old-guy interior done up in dark wood and hotel suite-type furniture. The yacht’s deckplan features an open air lounge, media center, formal dining salon, library, main salon with wet bar and an alfresco dining area.

The Athena can currently accommodate ten guests in five cabins, with the lower deck comprised of a full-width master cabin with a Jacuzzi, study and walk-in wardrobe. Hinze will want to enlarge that, no doubt.

[via JamesList]

Netscape Billionaire Refits $100 Million Superyacht originally appeared on Luxist on Mon, 04 Apr 2011 16:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

The interior of the yacht, first shown at the Salon Nautique in Cannes, features five staterooms and is finished in a luxurious, elegant combination of neutral fabrics and dark woodwork. The 165′s interior includes an expansive main salon with cocktail tables, a long bar, and a surfeit of seating. Two pop-up, back-to-back flat-screen televisions face the main salon and the adjacent dining room. The craft’s aft deck covers a garage that contains tenders and toys and opens hydraulically at the push of a button. The bikini-clad babes are extra.

Sting Hangs Out on Billionaire’s Superyacht in Sydney originally appeared on Luxist on Wed, 16 Feb 2011 18:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

German eco-industrialist Guido Krass is offering to sell his 241-ft. Silver Zwei (above), the world’s fastest long-range superyacht, for €59 million (about $85 million). Designed to the billionaire’s specifications by Monaco’s famed Espen Oeino, the Silver Zwei is about as an environmentally friendly as a yacht of its size and speed can be.

That means high fuel efficiency, which is quite handy when crossing the Atlantic at a cool 22 knots. The yacht’s light, airy interior has accommodations for 20 guests in nine cabins including a large owner’s suite with private lounge and veranda deck. Earth tones and clean white spaces with orange accents abound.

Continue reading German Billionaire Offers World’s Fastest Long-Range Superyacht for $85 Million

Filed under: Yachts & Sailing, Wealth

German Billionaire Offers World’s Fastest Long-Range Superyacht for $85 Million originally appeared on Luxist on Tue, 12 Apr 2011 13:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

And VW AG supervisory board chairman, billionaire Ferdinand Piech (grandson of Porsche founder Ferdinand Porsche) isn’t through trying to add premium and luxury brands. At the Geneva Motor Show this week Piech reiterated his interest in acquiring Italian brand Alfa Romeo, owned by Fiat, despite public statements by Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne that the marque is not for sale.

Continue reading VW Closing Purchase of Porsche. Still Eyeing Alfa-Romeo

Filed under: Luxury Cars & Autos

VW Closing Purchase of Porsche. Still Eyeing Alfa-Romeo originally appeared on Luxist on Wed, 02 Mar 2011 10:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Spyker, which bought Saab from General Motors in 2010, has signed a memo of understanding to sell the Spyker business and brand to Russian financier Vladimir Antonov, who owns CPP Global Holdings in the U.K.

The sale of Spyker is expected to raise $44 million, substantially reducing the company’s debt, and positioning it better to give Saab a shot at surviving as a niche premium car brand.

Continue reading Saving Saab: Spyker To Sell Luxury Sports Car Biz To Save Swedish Icon

Filed under: Luxury Cars & Autos

Saving Saab: Spyker To Sell Luxury Sports Car Biz To Save Swedish Icon originally appeared on Luxist on Thu, 24 Feb 2011 16:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.