I'd invite the staff in for a big party, leave cigarette burns on all the furniture, then burn it to the ground.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

Assuming that I had the right to do anything I wanted with the property, I would sell it and build three or four neighborhood parks for kids. Since many of the working poor would be able to buy homes but for the prohibitive down payments, some of the rest would go into some sort of a fund to facilitate the purchase of homes by low income families. Some of it would be used to get the homeless off of the streets. There are far too many people who would be able to pay rent, but remain homeless because they can't afford the required deposits.

If there was money left over, it would fund some reputable financial advice to ensure that all of this was feasible, and money to fund one of my pet projects...gentrification. It would work like this;

You're a landlord, and you need some upgrades to your property. You can't afford them, but you can't afford not to afford them. My team of volunteers, or maybe people serving community service time, will do the repairs, painting, whatever. In return, you agree to rent the property to an employed renter and waive the deposit. All other standards apply. The renter chucks his refrigerator out of the upstairs window, trashes the place, falls back on his rent without reason..whatever...that renter is gone. And good renter or bad, one time only, my program will send people in to get your place ready for the next renter.

All of this depends, of course on which property I got and it's value, as well as the cost of accountants, probably attorneys, and whatever else, to make my perception of needs workable.

But that's what I'd do.

Rinthy

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

If we'd stop electing millionaires to run this country and get a real government made up of real people, there would still be laws against this kind of thing and these kind of trash couldn't do what they do. Also our "so-called leaders" in congress wouldn't have stood idly by while lead poisoned toys were moved out of our stores from one door and moved back in through another so the corrupt toy corporations wouldn't lose a dime. Lead poisoned children is a good thing for these kinds of people. Brain damaged children will not grow up to be able to make new laws against poisoned products so the corporate leaders will have a free ride into eternity. That's just the way it is now. Hope all you anti-government, anti-regulation people have lots of children and get more of these toys than any one else. Then maybe some of our children will escape the taint and have a fighting chance after all.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

eat the rich.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

1. Use the money to distribute this film to every household in the U.S.
2. Fund union drives at all of his factories
3. Start worker owned green factory cooperatives manufacturing products for the green revolution in the former rust belt where there are a plethora of empty factories which could be refurbished green. 25% of profits would go into the worker's pockets, 25% would go to community initiatives such as health care and education (esp. political education), and 50% would go into research and development of additional Mondragon style cooperatives.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

Turn the mansions into homeless shelters and throw a great big party for them.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

Why does Alter-Net always pick on us Jews? Surely they could of found an American who wasn't Jewish?

Why are Jews always targetted? So what if almost all the NY Billionaires are Jewish? Obviously some are smarter than others.

This anti-Semiticm on Alter-Net MUST STOP!

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

OK, so the premise is we don't own the house, we just live in it for a day.
I'd throw a big party for the idiot investment bankers in this country who extend credit in high-risk situations (as we see with the sub-prime mortgage crisis). I'd tell them I owned it. They, being true to form, would be duly impressed with my "wealth" and not check on my ability to repay. I'd then use the house as collateral to get my own loan. I'd use that money to help individuals start up small businesses in the community and create jobs.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

America's Corporations have abandoned the America people who's toil made them great...

Our Politicians have abandoned the America People as we see more everyday..both parties..

Our system is nothing more than Corporatism and ever more fascist corporatism daily and more and more laws that restrict our liberties and rights are passed as S.1959 by 404-6 which may in reality end free speech in America for all practical purposes..


Unbridled Capitalism is unsustainable and will be our ruin as a nation as these billionaires all know which is why they and multi millionaires are already buying estates out of America so they won't be here to suffer the wrath of the people and need to witness their betrayal and it's effect upon America..

The Bush Tax Cuts are nothing less than immoral and we will see just how immoral this Administration is in the resolution of the Mortgage crisis..!

Never have Americans had less of a voice in their government or access to it and the corporations are in reality our government or overseers the ruling elite..

They have stolen our country and are selling it out in every region or issue or aspect while also passing laws that will allow oppression of all and any action soon that they foresee will be the result of their treason dishonesty and dissolution of America's sovereignty itself as has already been agreed upon..

Forget the America you've known and forget what you've been told and were raised to believe David Rockefeller has seen to that..

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

not unlike the elites during the decadence of the Roman Empire. He'll be seen as an example of the disgusting injustices that emerge when a society is collapsing.

This is if he's remembered at all.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

Especially after WW II, mostly in europe, with the inestimable help of millions of american heroes - many of whom died in battle- and the political genius of men like Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Harry Truman, George C. Marshall, Konrad Adenauer, Charles de Gaulle and many others, an economic development model flourished.
Its inspiration came from the european social democrat principles born in the late XIX century and, last but not least, the astonishing political, social and economic feat usualy named "New Deal".
Vultures like de above cited (similar to those that induced the 1929 "crash")never accepted it, because it went against their interests. So, creeps like milton friedman, and others, began a war against it, with crap disguised in pseudo scientifical arguments. Unfortunately, they have been winning all battles for the last 30 years. Let's pay back before it's too late. The real fact is that never in human history there as been such prosperity and dignity as in the middle-class ruled social democratic systems, and the best way to win all ordeals ahead, specially the emergence of china and the environmental problems, is the widespreading of that model (specially, in ana innicial phase,in China, India, the USA, and europe. The rest of the world would follow.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

because though most people don't care or seem to realize, people are still being driven into bankruptcy, poverty and agonizing deaths by HIV/AIDS.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

Going after the rich for not paying their fair share of taxes is not the answer...going after the tax laws that created the loop holes for the rich is the answer. What I would do if I had a day to hang out ... invite the Local IRS agents to a fine dinner and lavish party. All of which would be tax deductable because we would talk about buisness and how to reduce taxes even more. Heck they should get to enjoy this day as well. I might even invite Mr. Bush and a few senators or congressman.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

How about selling all the stuff in it and giving most of it to Doctors Without Borders, Oxfam, or some other worthwhile cause (including Greenwald films, of course!) Some money must be kept to revamp it into Guantanamo style cells, where we put Bush, Cheney and fellow henchmen indefinitely and without trial as terrorists who endanger our country. Most of the property can be sold too, but a small portion kept for them to exercise as in the prison in Cuba...and perhaps the pool can be kept for purposes of waterboarding until they admit the crimes they have committed.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

It is more troublesome that Mr. Kravis is Presider on the Coucil for Foreign Relations. Rich doesn't bother anyone but how wealth is acquired can be very destructive, not only to those whose lives you have impaired, but to the image it portrays to many. The Iraq war is an unimaginable horror based on these disgusting business practices. Pity Mr. Kravis and his usery of others. I wouldn't spend a minute in his museums, there are much more interesting ones dedicated to all of civilization.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

Is this a set up to suck you in by using someone's PERSONAL taxes(rate/bill) to invent a story by 'applying" it to the business tax rate, etc???

I owned BOTH a small corp AND a sole prop.
They ARE very very different.

Have you been sucked in AGAIN??

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

If money is the only thing that motivates rich people- we need to take their money away.

Capitalism is not working anymore. If it ever did.
The greedy get rich and the good people suffer.

No baby should be born 'owning' more of the world than any other baby. We need to evolve beyond money, wealth and power.
We need an environment first world.

Alternet should do an article on the 3000 families who own America. The 3000 families who control 98 percent of the wealth of America.
What are their names, where do they live?
We need to get rid of this mafia.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

Another shocking example of wealth accumulation gone mad, for sure. But also another example of how articles and commentaries on this site tend to explode with emotion, beyond all reasonable debate.

Richard Greenwald - I am a great fan of much of your work and have shown several videos of yours to my students at Business School. That is how much I respect your work. Alternet, too, gets my big thumbs up and plenty of circulation among my students.

However, please reconsider the following sentence:

"we see another example of the HORRIFIC economic pain our country is being devastated by".

Er, no. You want HORRIFIC PAIN and DEVASTATION - take a trip to Bangladesh and you'll quickly forget your US-centric view. Yes, the American dream does hide some hideous poverty, but let's keep it in perspective...

As a nation, the USA has accumulated more wealth than any other in history in little over two hundred years. The secret? Guys like Kravis! I don't think most of the commentators quite realise how much of the wealth of the USA has been created by guys like him and no one else. Time to take the rough with the smooth, I afraid.

I also tend to agree with AMERICAN VETERAN. There is no financial, accounting or business logic here that measures risk, real ownership, and different tax rates and incentives. I'm certainly not defending Mr Kravis' outrageous position (if your claims are to be believed), but I'm sure the US tax code is a little more nuanced than is suggested here...

Anyway, look on the bright side. In 5-10 years, you won't be complaining about US billionaires who cheat the system. You'll all be inflation-aided billionaires, there will be little left of any system, and you'll be controlled by Chinese trillionaires!

So, time to start accepting what the US has always been and will always be: a large corporate farm whose very existence was built on a series of financial transactions and whose historical legacy, compared with other great empires and nations, will be to have heralded the finance-driven, the-economy-is-everything-[stupid!]" age of world power and domination.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

If I had a Kravitz house with all that land, I would sell half the land to get money. Then I would have a "Plan for the Future" party and invite the "A" List of Republican/Neocons. As the evening wore on I would invite each guest for a "private(ized)" conference and take them out to a black limousine where they would be "renditioned" to Kosovo, Guantanamo, Uruguay, Poland, wherever, so they could contemplate their "disappeared" future of endless torture. Then I'd sell the house, buy a major newspaper and hire Thom Hartmann as Editor in Chief.
Rrrandy Wurst (www.wurstwisdom.com)

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

Sure the guy's a piece of shit. Yes, it would be nice if he had to pony up like the rest of us. Ain't gonna happen.

But guess what? He's going to die, just like me and you and no amount of money is going to change that. He may die of cancer, he may die in an accident or of old age. He may die slowly and painfully or in his sleep. But he's going to die and he can't buy his way out of it.

That, folks, is the real equalizer.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

The most creative and most realistic plan, hands down, is Angel1961's:

OK, so the premise is we don't own the house, we just live in it for a day.
I'd throw a big party for the idiot investment bankers in this country who extend credit in high-risk situations (as we see with the sub-prime mortgage crisis). I'd tell them I owned it. They, being true to form, would be duly impressed with my "wealth" and not check on my ability to repay. I'd then use the house as collateral to get my own loan. I'd use that money to help individuals start up small businesses in the community and create jobs.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

Mr. Kravitz provides a needed service in the capitalist world by keeping companies competitive. Eastern Europe and Russia tried it the other way......and it didn't work very well. Why begrudge the man his success ( defined as greed on Alternet). Think of all the 'undocumented immigrants' give jobs maintaining his homes. Money circulates.Rather than bitch and moan, posters here should position themselves to get a piece of the action..Oops.....sorry......that's greed, right??

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

If I owned the Kravis properties, I would enjoy them and not feel guilty in the slightest. I would choose to share their use with members of my extended family, simply because doing things for others has always brought me the greatest amount of pleasure. I would feel guiltless in enjoying my wealth because I purchased the properties with money I earned, operating according to the rules of the economic system that has proven to be the greatest in the world. I would do this because I believe in the American system of private enterprise, in which the profit motive, exercised within a private enterprise economic system, is the surest and fairest way of permitting people to succeed or fail according to their individual ability, ambition, work ethic, and personal values. That is one of the principal reasons this country was founded. That being said, I would also set my properties up in such a way that I could use a certain percentage of the profits to help ambitious and deserving people to acquire the education, training, and life skills necessary to realize their full potential. Also, I would make sure that this sort of help would be available to my extended family as well. But, again, I would do this because I get a great deal of pleasure from helping others, not because I thought I owed them something. I would not feel guilty for having achieved such a high level of economic success, as this "war on greed" implies that I should. This sort of "logic" is the kind of nonsense that I would have expected to read in publications advocating socialism or communism, not publications written by people raised within our economic system. Before people start bashing the rich (which, by the way, I am not), they should remember something my Grandfather told me when I was a kid: "Before you start criticizing rich people, remember: a poor man never gave anyone a job!" When I was growing up, we were taught to study the habits of the more successful members of our community, so that we may be able to learn something positive from them and, thereby, help ourselves. Today, the emphasis seems to be on finding every way possible to attack them and hold them up to public ridicule. The Kravis case is a prime example. Apparently, he has found a way to avoid paying his "fair share" in taxes. But, the article is not even-handed. what about the other wealthy people who don't do what Kravis has done? The last tax analyis I read showed that the top 1 or 2% of taxpayers pay something like 39% of all the income taxes paid. Obviously, most of them are not shirking their civic responsibilities to pay for the cost of our government. Considering all of this, I WOULD ENJOY MY PROPERTIES AND MY MONEY!!!

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

Henry Kravis has done nothing wrong, as per the information provided. He has taken advantage of the current tax system, possibly taken it to its limits, but appears to have broken no laws. That much is clear, as is the stench of envy and irrational protestions of 'fairness'. As much as I can't stand the moralizing morons on the right, I can't stomach the patronizing, apoplectic 'progressives' of the left either.

The tax laws as they stand are engendering an efficient allocation of resources. The asset-stripping that Kravis and his cohorts engage in should not be allowed to happen because it is not beneficial to the economy or to society - this is manifest from an efficiency stance, so no need to resort to ad hominem attacks. I don't even have to look at the numbers (publicly available) to know that the aggregate of the companies (i.e., regrouped after being stripped apart) 'purchased' by KKR are worth less after 5 years than they were at time of 'purchase'. And that is just the financial impact. The economic cost is, of course, much much larger and not accounted for in any official statistic.

Is there anything that can be done be done until the tax laws are changed? Naturally. A little shareholder activism goes a long way... but it's so much hard work! It's so much easier to foam at the mouth from the sidelines...

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

Sorry, the second paragraph should have read: The tax laws as they stand are engendering an inefficient allocation of resources.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

...will not ever be challenged by his billionaire-friends on who's paying an lower tax rate in Corporate States of America (CSA)!!

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

If I was a multi-billionaire, here's how I would do it, and I gave it a lot of thought...here goes;

Pay my workers good wages, like over 17 per hour and up, make my products in America, and get it certified that it's free of that bad stuff that's coming in from everywhere else.

What happens is if my workers get paid good wages, they tend to buy not only stuff they need but stuff they want.

At the same time, I'll own stocks in some of everything, so that whey they go buy, I get a profit off that, too, make more money, then recycle it back to my workers, whom by then would be making a lot more money, along with bonuses, so they buy more stuff, and repeat Paragraph 2, and so on, and so on.....everybody wins!

But that's just my Idea, and I know no rich person would agree with me on that....for that I'm a self-taught trader, and it makes sense.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

I'd use K's extreme wealthpower to globally publicize this: We stand on the brink of either genosadistic extinction, or the greatest escalation of happiness the world has ever had the chance to achieve.

There is an inherent flaw in capitalism that must be corrected for.

The fix is easy once a majority gets clarity of economic thought, requiring only the passage of simple law against the injustice of limitless personal fortunes.

Everything is produced by work. (If you don't believe it, pull a dollar bill out of your wallet and tell it to fix you a sandwich.) The maximum sacrifice of personal time and energy that can be made in order to contribute to the pool of wealth is FINITE. Yet, we humans allow infinite withdrawal, thereby getting farther from reality, justice, safety, happiness, survival. The total pool of wealth is finite. Overpay has nowhere to come from but from underpay.

The rich get richer and the poor get poorer means 1% get paid more and more per unit of work while 99% get paid less and less per unit of work. People love money because it is power, yet can't see extreme inequality of money is tyranny and slavery.

Myriad legal thefts constantly shift money from earners to nonearners. Transaction itself contains the primary legal theft, since two things exchanged cannot be of equal value, cannot represent equal amounts of contribution to society through work. Over trillions of transactions that adds up to an ever-stretching bell curve of overpay/underpay.

Broadly speaking, everyone is working more or less equally, or working unequally within a small range. No one can work more than twice as hard as the average person. Meanwhile, pay ranges extremely widely from a million times to 1/1000th of world average hourly pay.

A car obeys mechanical laws, and economic laws like supply and demand exist, too. But we know that a car left to obey its mechanical laws without us steering and braking, will obey those laws by crashing. We have to properly steer our economic system.

The solution is so easy without shocks to economies: counter the ceaseless automatic drift of money from earners to nonearners by shoveling money from the 1% overpaid back to the 99% underpaid who did 99% of the work that produced the goods that the money is token of. Two easy ways:

A 1% increase per month in the global money supply going equally, directly, freely, electronically to every living human being, one account per person. The inflation effect reduces overpays, the money effect reduces underpays.

Make inheritance public instead of private. This takes no self-earnings from living persons and reverses the perpetual concentration of wealth and political power in fewer and fewer hands. Effectively counters the natural tendency of money to concentrate unjustly, violently.

Human acquiescence to economic inequity is responsible for deaths of 100 million per year; starvation and war take 1 in 50 humans every year. Inequity is extremely wicked, causes misery, and misery is not isolatable, is infinitely contagious and mobile. No one with pretensions to goodness can take refuge in doing lesser good than abolishing inequity. Doing less equates to destroying the planet by default by failing to strike the root.

Money makes money: a billion dollars takes out of the pool of work $50 million of work products per annum without any work, at 5% return.

A just cap on personal fortunes defeats all methods past, present, and future of circumventing justice. Be rid of the idea of having wealth-heaped power-giants, or succumb to the result of having the next and the next ad infinitum.

It is late in the day, the planet is a bomb ticking, but we could start thinking about the big picture.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

I could save my own money for retirement ,pay my own health care and prob live off my own tax interest
Maybe he can help me with my forclosure that will accure in 2009 ,, heck hes rich but remember you can not take nothing with you when you go to another place and health is more important than his big mansions or what ever he has ,,

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

A frustrated capitalist...One lesson here is; having excellent credit is like having gold anytime you need it, and in this land of opportunity, it can make you lots of money!!

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]