Ooops…
Casino magnate Steve Wynn will keep and restore a Pablo Picasso painting that was accidentally damaged after he accidentally put his elbow through it.Wynn had agreed to sell the painting, called Le Rêve (The Dream), to art collector Steven Cohen for $139 million US just before the accident. But he struck the painting with his right elbow earlier this month while entertaining guests at his Wynn Las Vegas casino, including Barbara Walters and screenwriters Nora Ephron and Nicholas Pileggi. He created a hole the size of a silver dollar in the left forearm of Marie-Theresa Walter.
Shoulda kept his mouth shut, fixed it with masking tape, and sold it anyway. It’s a Picasso. Who’s gonna know?
“Shoulda kept his mouth shut, fixed it with masking tape, and sold it anyway. It’s a Picasso. Who’s gonna know?”
Perhaps that might be an essential difference between a socialist and a libertarian
It is amazing how much money people will pay for a painting. It may be nice to look at and all, but US $139 million could feed a small african nation for a few weeks, I would imagine. Priorities sure are strange these days.
“Priorities sure are strange these days.”
But you are only looking at one side of the transaction. The person receiving the money may very well do as he/she pleases, including spending it.
Spending it, or at least some of it, puts additional money out there, increases production, and might even go towards some hungry folk, whether they are in Africa – or some other part of the world.
Blah blah blah. I think it’s sarcasm, but sometimes I can’t tell.
How is a painting worth that much money? How?
It’s simple. There’s no objective measure of “worth”: any product, commodity or service is “worth” what the market will pay for it.
Gold is a pretty useless metal for most purposes, but we have arbitrarily assigned a value to it unconnected to its actual utility. Ditto truffles, NHL stars, and purebred poodles. They’re “worth” X because someone is willing to pay X for them. This may have been the best example ever.