Mar 18, 2008
Vulgarity knows no bounds: around-the-world for $114,000 per couple in a big jet configured to seat only 88 persons
Although I am not an alumnus of Columbia University, I am on their mailing list for travel deals, and last week's delivery brought a whopper: a three-week around-the-world trip by private jet for $113,900 per couple (or $56,950 per person, double occupancy). The trip will depart from Fort Lauderdale on February 2, 2009, returning on February 25. Columbia's alumni will share the specially-configured Boeing 757 with alumni or members of the University of Georgia, the University of Connecticut, and the National Trust for Historic Preservation. (For further info: the Columbia University Travel Study Program at tel. 866/325-8664.)
There are expenditures so excessive as to be grossly vulgar -- and this is one of them. $114,000 would fund a year's college studies for at least three deserving young people -- and still leave enough left over for a normal around-the-world trip. $114,000 would fund pre-school education for dozens of deserving young children, provide considerable housing for the homeless, fund a major meals-on-wheels program in cities on the brink of discontinuing that assistance, provide thousands of AIDS treatments in a developing country, perform a dozen other worthy social tasks. Although none of us would deny well-off people the right to engage in pleasant, comfortable recreation, isn't there a point at which excessive luxury spending becomes obscene?
The eminent administrators of Columbia University, in my view, should hang their heads in shame. Or is this one of those issues that we're no longer supposed to discuss?
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There are expenditures so excessive as to be grossly vulgar -- and this is one of them. $114,000 would fund a year's college studies for at least three deserving young people -- and still leave enough left over for a normal around-the-world trip. $114,000 would fund pre-school education for dozens of deserving young children, provide considerable housing for the homeless, fund a major meals-on-wheels program in cities on the brink of discontinuing that assistance, provide thousands of AIDS treatments in a developing country, perform a dozen other worthy social tasks. Although none of us would deny well-off people the right to engage in pleasant, comfortable recreation, isn't there a point at which excessive luxury spending becomes obscene?
The eminent administrators of Columbia University, in my view, should hang their heads in shame. Or is this one of those issues that we're no longer supposed to discuss?
Write and read comments about this post.
Labels: fat cats
Fifty years ago, 
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