About
a week and a half ago, someone paid 2.16 million dollars for a comic book. It wasn’t as if this comic book was gold plated, held the cure for baldness, and rested on a bed of Kardashians; instead it was a simple, newspaper quality, first issue of Action Comics from 1938, originally selling for a dime. It boasted within, the first appearance of Superman. If you want to, you can read it here. For free.
The buyer has chosen to remain anonymous, but I don’t care to know the identity of the buyer anyway; I would just like to know where he lives.
I’d like to know where he lives because there must be no homeless in his town making him obviously unaware that homeless people exist and that ignorance has freed him up to spend millions on something that can’t feed him, house him, or warm him at night. His village must also have no food banks or full food banks, all the children in his cozy hamlet have got to all have warm coats and sturdy shoes, every library is certainly stocked to the ceiling with books, and music and art programs must be bulging with funds at every school. The local university is surely turning away offers of scholarships in this man’s burg, and women’s shelters, mental health institutions, and playgrounds are all modern, clean, and empty. Unemployment in this Bedford Falls of the 21st Century must be at absolute zero because this man chose to “invest” his many millions in a risky venture that if it profits at all, it will only profit him.
What a wonderful municipality this must be. Why, everything must be so perfect there to allow such Caligula-esque spending, it’s as if Superman was real and he has come down from Heaven and made the world right. Please, please, please tell me not who he is, but where he is. It’s certainly not Los Angeles or San Francisco because I’ve been to both and neither meet the criteria of the previous paragraph, it can’t be New York or Chicago, and Atlanta (traffic) and New Orleans (hurricane devastation) are obviously out. Could it be San Antonio, Texas? I hear that river walk is pretty nice. What about Utopia, Texas, it has the right name? Maybe it’s Louisville, CO; voted 2011’s Most Livable City. Perhaps it’s right in my neck of the country like Tulare, Visalia, or Bakersfield.
I have to know where a man can feel good at spending what amounts to a good yearly salary of 50 families for…well for nothing really.
I certainly don't have a few million dollars of discretionary income laying around to spend on items of historical significance. But I do spend 20 to 30 dollars a week on current comics that will probably decrease in value. And here in St. Louis Missouri there are homeless people and food banks needing contributions. Should I, and by extension everyone else including Mark Wright, forego spending money on non-essential items like internet access and personal blogs until everyone has... what economic equivalence?
ReplyDeleteI understand you're point but the unknown buyer may be contributing generously to charities. Should he feel guilty for indulging himself? I don't think so.
I hear and agree with you George. I'm not suggesting that the buyer redistribute his wealth until we are all even. I think it's the numbers that prompted me to write this. You're right, I have no way of knowing whether or not the buyer contributes to charities or not, nor do I have any right to tell him what to do with his money,but when they want to remain anonymous I have to wonder why.
ReplyDeleteIt's probably a good thing I wrote this when I did, because the next day someone spent over 7 million for a single coin.