{"id":200,"date":"2009-02-27T08:59:54","date_gmt":"2009-02-27T13:59:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.richestmanintown.com\/?p=200"},"modified":"2009-02-27T10:21:40","modified_gmt":"2009-02-27T15:21:40","slug":"the-rich-and-the-recession","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.richestmanintown.com\/blog\/2009\/02\/27\/the-rich-and-the-recession\/","title":{"rendered":"The Rich and the Recession"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>No one feels sorry for the rich, but the rich are people too, and this financial crisis has shaken them to the core just as it has the less fortunate\u2014all of us, really. I\u2019m not suggesting that you pick up the violin for the top 1 percent\u2014those who still control over 35 percent of the nation\u2019s total wealth, albeit dwindling; I\u2019m simply reporting that their pain is real, too. They\u2019ve seen  their stock portfolios ravaged, their real estate values decline and their companies (the source of most of their wealth) affected by this economic tsunami. So how are they reacting? As you might suspect, better than most, but their world has definitely been shaken. One member of New York\u2019s wealthy old guard said to me yesterday, \u201cThe invitations are drying up; people aren\u2019t entertaining as much, and they certainly aren\u2019t spending on anything but the necessities.  None of us knows how long this recession will last.\u201d One private equity bigwig said, \u201cI\u2019m just laying low for now\u2014this is a truly scary time.\u201d <strong>Georgette Mosbacher<\/strong>, the flame-haired beauty, CEO of Borghese Cosmetics, and a perennial social A-lister, has just returned from sailing on investment banker <strong>Roberto deGuardiola<\/strong>\u2019s boat. She says, \u201cThe rich are being more cautious, no doubt. It\u2019s all right to have wealth, but it is not all right to show it right now.\u201d Ever the optimist, she says, \u201cThose who had the right values\u2014reverence for family and friends\u2014in the first place are doing just fine right now. Those of us who have had to work all our lives and have made our own way have seen this movie before. We\u2019re not daunted. We will come out of this quagmire and America will be stronger.\u201d Georgette, I\u2019m counting on you to be right! All Americans are.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>No one feels sorry for the rich, but the rich are people too, and this financial crisis has shaken them to the core, just as it has the less fortunate&#8212;all of us really. I&#8217;m not suggesting that you pick up the violin for the top 1 percent&#8212;those who still control over 35 percent of the nation&#8217;s total wealth, albeit dwindling; I&#8217;m simply reporting that their pain is real, too. They&#8217;ve seen their stock portfolios ravaged, their real estate values decline and their companies (the source of most of their wealth) affected by this economic tsunami. So how are they reacting? <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7,6],"tags":[56,55,58,57,49],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.richestmanintown.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.richestmanintown.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.richestmanintown.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.richestmanintown.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.richestmanintown.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=200"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/www.richestmanintown.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":227,"href":"http:\/\/www.richestmanintown.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200\/revisions\/227"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.richestmanintown.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.richestmanintown.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.richestmanintown.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}