Billionaire talking about why he bought a jet

aart wrote:

Although there are more operating positively, either in the limelight or not, we need more like people like him, Musk, Soros and Gates to name a few

Gracias Aart! I could not agree more, but if we get emotional, as you know I am a man of Faith, and I believe in the story of the widow’s mite

like @Peter said, not so different from the rest of us

Hopefully you will still share a table with me at EDNY if I make it there!

aart wrote:

this is a pilot forum where ‘rational’ thoughts and attitudes probably prevail

At the risk of contradicting myself I think there is a lot of emotion and little rationale in the whole idea of flying around in a $100k “toy” whose utility is more and more questionable in the European environment and whose running costs make little sense…I guess most of us around this forum must surely be a bit crazy

Silvaire wrote:

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The real crooks are the ones driving electric cars though! Or worse, bandits like me that avoid even more taxes by charging them with their own solar panels

Why blame him? He is just a new rich guy taking Potus as his success example…

On a cynical note, the world will be a better place with guys like him (or Trump) convincing the 99% poor that reducing taxes on the 1% rich is good for all (which is true unfortunatly)

On the bright side, we are lucky to still have few rich and philantropists as those listed by aart sitting around to teach us how to get the best of the two worlds

“The real crooks”

That definition depends which election cycle you are talking about, that relates to how many dark spots the sun have,

http://www.pas.rochester.edu/~tim/introframe/sunspots.pdf

This thread really is a super example of the Europe vs US attitude to success and wealth.

The old story (adapted for aviation) playing at what could be the Aero or a similar show where an American and European with their sons go watching all the shiny planes. They stop at opposite ends beside a brand new biz jet on display. Sais the American “Look son, if you do great in school, get a good education and work hard, one day one of these may well be yours.” Sais the European: “There you have it son, this is where the people’s money go in the hands of filthy capitalists who exploit the masses. You should never be friends with people like that”.

It took me many years to understand just how profound the difference is. And why there are relatively few success stories in Europe while there are many in the US. And that does not mean that there are no wealthy people in Europe, they just are too clever to talk about it because they know what the consequences would be.

Before puking or spiting against this guy, has anyone bothered to read up on him or to read some other stuff he has written? There is plenty. This show, whatever it was, was definitly aimed at an American audience and Cardone does what he does for a living: Selling. I guess if he saw this reaction to this clip, he would learn a bit of something about Europe which he is obviously either not aware of or simply can afford not to care.

Cardone is a Louisiana boy who attended good education, excelled at it with top marks and degrees and made his pile in property and automotive sales. He went on to write books about selling things and made another pile with that as a best selling author. The fact that he is virtually unknown in Europe is that nobody here buys books like that, because almost nobody believes in success anyhow and of course American get rich books are not too relevant at times. Today, Grant Cardone is known in the US as a leading expert for international sales, business strategist and marketing and branding expert. His business venues spread from Miami to Los Angeles and London amongst only a few and he has quite a large property portfolio in the US.

So this is a guy who travels a heck of a lot and has the money to afford a biz jet. And decides to spend money he’d have to tax otherwise on a new jet (he had one before) which allows direct travel from / to all his venues. And he gets rosted for it on this aviation forum?

Reading some of his columns in huff post show quite a different picture than the flippant remarks which have set off folks on this forum. I for one can see why he is regarded as someone who can teach others how to succeed. But of course that is something very unpopular in Europe, not that people won’t read books like his under the bed cover dreaming to do the same…

That clip btw is a small exerpt of the interview he did with Mr Pink Tie. And the show most definitly is made for Americans, not European audiences.

I can’t speak for others but i don’t have any issue at all with people becoming billionnaires, usually as a result of talent and hard work. My point is that you would hope that such people have the sense that they can actually contribute to this planet’s problems and not spend their extraordinary talents on how to minimize taxes in order to obtain yet more money that they don’t need.

aart,

from that clip what do you know what this particular guy does when not buying airplanes. What I read by now is that he controls several property funds where people pay in and he invests in properties and then pays out the money to the trustees. That is his main business. What kind of charities or else he may do he does not advertize but being tax savvy and from what I read at Huff written by him a quite decent guy. Worlds away e.g from who is currently occupying that piece of real estate at DC… Only thing which makes me rise my eyebrows is that he is apparently with Scientology…. but that is his problem.

Besides the fact that his wife seems a bit silly, all the best to him! This kind of stuff Europeans and Americans in general will probably never agree on, nothing wrong with that.

his wife seems a bit silly

That’s not his wife. That is a famous rap-artist with a skin disease.

I think it is his wife in the video and from what I hear (from my wife that follows him online here and there) he places his family on top (family-man). Great that he is able to buy the Gulfstream!