Survivor's Guide for the Affluent

So your an überaffluent multibillionaire, your assets total more than Paraguay, in these tough economic times who do you turn to when the heat is on?

Forbes that's who.

In the May 11th article by Daniel Fisher with Steven Bertoni and Devon Pendleton, entitled Survivor's Guide for the Affluent. This team helps those downtrodden plutocrats through all the shaky troubles that only the wealthiest 1% have to deal with.

The title of this article should have been "So you screwed the world over and they want your head, now what?"

This article is teeming with timeless advice for the super rich and powerful such as;

What's a strapped hectomillionaire (to say nothing of a billionaire) to do? First off, relax. Don't do anything crazy, like build a bomb shelter or open a Channel Islands trust with a dummy trustee to hide from taxes (it's illegal). Like the recession, the angry mob clamoring for your head will pass on. It's still good to be rich.

and from the sub article: Protecting Assets

Trusts for children are nearly impossible to crack, as long as the assets weren't derived from criminal conduct and the trust was established long enough before the grantor went broke (there's no specified time; what's key is that you set up the trust before incurring the liabilities you're trying to avoid). If you're nice to your kids, they might even lend you some of the money you gave them.

To state it plainly, you ripped off everyone around you, helped destroy the global economic system, give your ill gotten gains to your kids in a trust fund and hope to god they liked the Bentley you gave them for their 16th birthday.

It continues on with more nifty gems like...

There is one way to stash money overseas in secrecy: Store all the diamonds or gold bullion (but not gold certificates) you want in a Swiss bank without reporting it to the irs, since the investments don't pay interest. (Another option: raw land, which doesn't require reporting until it generates income.) It's perfectly legal to hire, say, Goldmoney.com, which will charge roughly $15,000 a year to store $10 million worth of bullion in the Channel Islands. But getting the money offshore without reporting it to the proper authorities is still a minefield of potential felonies.

So the lesson here is to take your hard earned assets (hard earned as in, on the backs of the people you stepped on and ran over to get, probably including your own mother, as you clawed your way to the top of the economic food chain) and take a lesson from the drug cartels and turn that blood money into gold, and funnel it offshore using your multimillion dollar luxury yacht to an offshore holding company.

But wait there's more to this complete you to the poor population (I.E. anyone who has less than $750 million dollars. you know, that riff raff) would be John Gaults of America take heed there is a way to keep Uncle Sam out of your piggybank.

Sidestepping Taxes

FIRSt rule: forget trying to evade income taxes. that was always a tricky business, and now, with UBS being forced to squeal, is not worth the risk. Second rule: Don't panic.

Don't evade income taxes... well that is don't do it the traditional way, let's look at these nifty ways to skimp out on your tax bill eh?

Gordon's firm helps wealthy investors use complex trading strategies to trim their tax bills. But he tells his clients to be wary of their instinct to defer income (such as by owning a tax-deferred annuity).

and

The simplest strategy is to buy municipal bonds. Alas, at a 3.5% yield it takes a $7 million nut to earn the $250,000 a year that qualifies for sUBSistence living in Manhattan.

(anyone notice the capitalized UBS in the article? Error? I don't think so, here's a little hint, ask your UBS banker to help you hide your assets away from the IRS's sticky fingers.)

but wait there's more!

"We are definitely dusting off a lot of the high-tax-rate strategies that have fallen into disuse," says Isdale. Owners of low-basis stock in a public company can buy a put below the current price, sell a call above it and borrow most of the value of the stock. That gives them most of the economic benefits of a sale without an obligation to declare a capital gain. The IRS doesn't like this strategy and has gone after Denver billionaire Philip Anschutz for $144 million in back taxes for using it. You will probably prevail in Tax Court if you keep it simple and make sure the option strikes aren't too close to the stock's spot price.

Isn't the above what a lot of people did right before 9/11? Just wondering?

Of course what is the point of being rich if you can't flaunt it right? I mean It's so passe and undignified to have to put off buying that mega yacht or that Gulfstream. But not to worry the boys at Forbes have a plan for you.

Keeping Your Toys

Billionaire John Paul DeJoria encountered a bit of turbulence recently when he tried, as he usually does for short flights, to charter a low-end Lear ( LEA - news - people ) or West Wind. Not so easy. Because cash-strapped owners are mothballing their Gulfstreams and demurely switching to puddle-jumpers, DeJoria had to have a small jet flown in from Houston in order for him to take off from Austin. Before the crash, "most billionaires would take their big G4s and G5s anywhere," says DeJoria, who made his money with Paul Mitchell hair products and Patrón tequila. "Now business for these small planes is suddenly through the roof."

Must be rough eh? I mean the indignity of having to (GASP!) charter a plane instead of flying your own. How the wealthy go on is astounding, those troopers!

Worse yet, some moderately wealthy people are having to do the unthinkable! Doing their OWN HOUSEWORK! (I know you must feel faint like I do, how do they manage right?)

It appears that the überaffluent are not trimming their domestic retinues, although of course the recession provides a good smoke screen for disposing of a servant you don't like anyway. "People with real money need to maintain staff," says Mary Louise Starkey, president and founder of Starkey International Institute in Denver, which trains butlers, nannies, maids, chefs and sommeliers. "I see the people who have $100 million to $750 million maybe scaling back." Such riffraff may even be attempting to do their own domestic chores, as Martha Stewart's Homekeeping Handbook (Random House, 2006) chillingly seems to suggest. The book contains useful advice on the care and feeding of mansions, but, sniffs Starkey, "She's wrong about how long it takes to iron a shirt."

Their advice? Sure you handed out thousands of pink slips this year to faceless employees, but think of the thrill you could have by firing that maid that doesn't crisp your sheets just the way you like?

It's ok super rich people, times will get better, if you can handle the indignity of being moderately rich instead of stinking rich I am sure you will be fine. Soon you will be spitting on those ghastly poor people (you know the ones, the ones that somehow manage to live off of less than 10 million a year) like you used to.

Great find, Wukky. Wowsers. It's another needed reminder to the other 99% of us non-gazillionaires that the current economic global disparity is much more severe than the last Gilded Age.

As Joe Hill said, "Don't mourn ... organize."

reply to post by whatukno


The rich get richer and the poor get...

After reading the article, that old saying is never more truer than today. The golden rule has always existed: He who has the gold, makes the rules.

What gets my goat about this group of articles is how shallowly they remind these super rich (insert long string of swear words and derogatory comments here) people how to save their own assets all the while screwing over the very system they manipulated in order to get that rich in the first place.

The mega wealthy (read: those that are at the core of the NWO) wonder why people hate them so much and are at their doorstep with pitchforks in hand and torches screaming for blood.

I tell these slime balls to read a freaking history book and particularly pay attention to Renaissance France. They might learn a lesson or two from Marie-Therese and what happened when she said "qu'ils mangent de la brioche."

I don't have to tell you folks that times are rough, and they keep getting rougher. Today as I was traveling on the bus to work we had to detour around a fire in an abandoned building on the west side of Detroit. The coals are hot people, I know you understand this. But it's articles like this that pour gasoline on those coals.

I am admittedly an armchair historian. But from what I know of history I see the signs as plain as the nose on my face, revolution is just around the corner.

And it seems like the media is blatantly fanning the flames.

Even now the media is hyping an outbreak into a pandemic. Scaring people into their homes, force feeding us fear in order to quell the coming slaughter. But what happens when people are sick of being afraid? What happens when people are tired of being jerked around?

And what do the affluent fear? Populist hatred. Printing articles in a publication intended for the rich and powerful. Whats worse? They fear a democratically controlled government that they are on the loosing end of.

What is going to happen when the government caves to money instead of the voice of the people that elected them? What happens when people that for the last eight years were ignored, and then these next four years are stomped on?

What happens when your government tells you that when your starving because you have lost your job you can eat cake?

Our media obsessed lifestyle is only delaying the inevitable. Those forgotten nations, the ones that our countries have turned their backs on are already fighting back.

We call them terrorists and pirates, but are they really? Or are they fighting for survival and fighting for their freedom?

Throughout history it is the winners that write the history books.

In the eighties The mujahideen were our allies. Today the Taliban are our enemies. We called the mujahideen freedom fighters but the Taliban oppressors. It's all about perspective isn't it?

Starving fishermen off the coast of Somalia steal and threaten in order to feed their families. They commit piracy, on insured cargo. (remember, insured cargo.)

How far would you go in order to feed your family?

Look at the other side for a moment. Understanding the opponent's point of view can often lead to an enlightened argument.