Larry Ellison Buys His Own Hawaiian Island 398
First time accepted submitter nrozema writes "Oracle co-founder and billionaire Larry Ellison is buying the Hawaiian island of Lana'i, the sixth-largest island in the U.S. archipelago. Hawaii Gov. Neil Abercrombie confirmed in a written statement that the current landowner filed a transfer application with the state's Public Utilities commission Wednesday to sell its 98 percent share of the 141-square-mile island to Ellison."
That's REALLY a considerable ... (Score:2, Insightful)
NON-EVENT ... at all !!!
Thank you, whoever posted this thing. ... that I wonder what my day could have been if I hadn't received it.
Really.
It was so important to rellay this non-information
so what? (Score:1, Insightful)
When the law and the market is such that corporate owners can buy whole islands for themselves, it's time to recognise that land ownership is just a piece of paper filed in some cabinet/database, not a natural right. Ellison has no moral right to own an island - indeed, no-one really has any more right to own land than they do to own a genetic patent. It's nature's thing, it was there before you, and it'll be there after you were gone. We must recognise that the only way that this land "belongs" to Ellison is that people in uniform will stop others from using it.
Now it seems right to allow people to lease a limited amount of land under limited terms according to the privileges decided by a democratically elected government. As it stands now for the average person, you pay your land tax and you get control of some land, for as long as your control doesn't act to the detriment of the general public. This has a philosophical basis in geolibertarianism, and receives a nod from communism (though communism's implementation is different). It is also, of course, the system partly implemented by almost every Western government: e.g. in the UK, pay your Council Tax or Business Rates or have your property taken from you. The difference is that the latter have weak recognition of the nature of land, allowing monopolisation of this naturally monopolisable resource. We need to recognise that no land really belongs to anyone - the only thing a man is entitled to is what he has physically made with his own hands, or that someone else has so made and freely traded with him. Even then, there are questions of ownership of raw materials, so it's all just a compromise.
Units (Score:5, Insightful)
the 141-square-mile island
I can't comprehend that size. Could we have the area in asteroid passing distances? Earth radiuses works too.
Re:Uh-oh. (Score:3, Insightful)
people in africa have been starving since i was a kid. too bad when you send them food the government takes it
Re:Uh-oh. (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not one of those idiots who whines and bitches about how someone makes more money than other people and how they should somehow give it all back to them or something. However, it's strange thinking that I've worked here for fifteen years and the biggest purchase of my life is my $200k house that I'll be paying off until I die . . . while my boss/CEO is buying fighter jets, billion dollar yachts, appearing in Iron Man 2, buying massively expensive houses all over the place, and buying a 141sq mile Hawaiian island. It's kind of demoralizing to realize that Larry probably spent more in this one purchase than every single person *combined* in my entire division will earn (after taxes) in three or four life-times. Or as much as I would earn in take-home if I continued working from today until the year 17,000.
I pity him (Score:4, Insightful)
My own Lanai is in the back of my house, and it has a built in pool and fire pit. I don't have to travel all the way to Hawaii when I want to use. Just pop out there after work. Ellison got suckered.
Re:What a flake Ellison is (Score:5, Insightful)
I know, I kept them as pets for years. I had to stop since they don't live long enough for as attached as I got. I trained some to fetch, they liked to be petted, very much like little dogs.
Far smarter and kinder than Mr.Ellison.
Re:Uh-oh. (Score:3, Insightful)
people in africa have been starving since i was a kid. too bad when you send them food the government takes it
No. When you send them food they eat it, turn around and fuck to have some more children, after all food will just appear out of thin air.
Re:What's the point of your post (Score:3, Insightful)
Starving Africans are the first worlds responsibility how? They have nobody to blame but there own people. Local warlord take the food they grow "make" them grow other crops etc. They have a choice to stand up and possibly die. Nobody else can be responsible for them they are not children the sooner we stop treating them as such the better. As to starvation in particular that's a population control, there fertility rates are insane with most of Africa at 4 children per family and some nations close to 8.
The Hawaiian Homestead act should be modified to.. (Score:4, Insightful)
...prevent stuff like this.
It should be decided by Hawaiians what happens to Hawaii - and I assure you they wouldn't want some megalomaniacal (sp?) asshat with all that power over their lives.
Re:so what? (Score:4, Insightful)
I have to disagree. A lion eating you because you infringed on his territory is remarkably similar to me shooting you for trespassing. We both mark our territorial boundaries and we both defend them. We can also both lose our territory if we fail to defend it.
Not true. A lion will eat what it kills, so the purpose is to provide food. The territory protection is secondary. So, unless you are going to eat the trespasser you shot they are not the same at all. Besides, human beings supposedly have the ability to use reason, where as animals rely on instinct. In other words, we have a choice for what we do or how we act. The lion can only act like a lion.
Re:Never thought.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Nonsense, this guy is a job creator. Let's all vote Romney and give him a big tax cut!
Re:Uh-oh. (Score:5, Insightful)
I disagree. What exactly is wrong with the German form of capitalism and socialism blended? What about the Nordic nations?
Pure anything is garbage, no single system is without flaws.
Re:What a flake Ellison is (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Real plan (Score:5, Insightful)
If all of the landowners in an area vote to secede, they can secede.
Then again there was that whole Civil War thing, which suggests that not everyone agrees about that principle.
Re:Uh-oh. (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not one of those idiots who whines and bitches about how someone makes more money than other people and how they should somehow give it all back to them or something. However, it's strange thinking that I've worked here for fifteen years and the biggest purchase of my life is my $200k house that I'll be paying off until I die . . . while my boss/CEO is buying fighter jets, billion dollar yachts, appearing in Iron Man 2, buying massively expensive houses all over the place, and buying a 141sq mile Hawaiian island. It's kind of demoralizing to realize that Larry probably spent more in this one purchase than every single person *combined* in my entire division will earn (after taxes) in three or four life-times. Or as much as I would earn in take-home if I continued working from today until the year 17,000.
I am one of those idiots. Not because we shouldn't award innovation and hard work, but because your boss/CEO is getting richer at your expense. I know that the libertarians around here like to say that free markets lead to meritocracy, but it just isn't the case. Your wages, my wages, and 99% of people on Slashdot have stagnated over the past 30 years. Instead, we are supposed to "earn" money by investing in a house. How has that worked out? Gen X, the generation to which I happen to belong, has lost around 40% of its wealth since the housing bubble burst. But Larry Ellison is buying a Hawaiian island. Where did that money come from? Thin air? Where did our lost wealth go? Thin air? No, of course not. It never existed except as debt on a bank balance sheet. And now that the debt has gone bad, we get to pay to de-leverage banks. The economy is zero sum. We can collectively only increase our wealth by the amount that the economy grows each year. Likewise, when the economy shrinks, we must collectively shed wealth. But somehow Larry gets rich when the economy grows and gets richer when it shrinks. That is the policies of the government actively transferring wealth from you and I to Larry Ellison so that he can buy a f***ing Hawaiian island during a prolonged, global economic contraction that has turned home ownership into Russian roulette for the rest of us. And it will continue like this until perception and reality [motherjones.com] converge.
Also, WTF does one person need with an entire Hawaiian island? Or a fighter jet? Why do we allow one person to accumulate so much wealth that they have to find new, unnecessary extravagances to blow it on while the rest of us can barely afford to educate our kids? Shouldn't there be some level of comfort that we allow the middle class to achieve before letting people like Larry Ellison skip ludicrous and go straight to plaid? Right now it seems that we have to wait for the benevolent "job creators" to toss some coin our way, but not until there is "more certainty" in the markets. Fortunately for us there are still enough billionaires to buy the White House for someone that understands their plight.
Re:What's the point of your post (Score:4, Insightful)
No criticism about the ridiculous wealth disparity in the world is appropriate if it comes from someone who spends significantly more than his share.
I wish I could mod this whole thread about share of wealth irrelevant. Whether Larry Ellison buys a huge chunk of real estate in Hawaii has nothing to do with whether a starving kid in Africa gets a meal today. And if Larry never got to the point where he could afford such a thing doesn't matter one iota to solve the plight of impoverished people around the world.
There are many fair criticisms about his management tactics and business decisions, but I fail to see how someone who has donated hundreds of millions of dollars to charity can be criticized for what appears to be yet another business deal.
The laws of the U.S. and Hawaii should ensure that he doesn't do anything harmful to the people or environment of this island. And if his involvement means the people that live there have a better life and he comes out ahead financially, then that's a net win we should all agree on.
Re:Taxes (Score:5, Insightful)