Let Them Eat Cake

Many years ago a now-deceased friend attended an exhibit of French pre-revolution women's finery. His takeaway was that it was clear that the plutocrats in France had gone over the top with their female adornments -- jewel-bedecked, silk-creweled masterpieces that must have cost a king's ransom -- dresses that were obscene when contrasted with what was being worn by the then-French peasants.  Thus this clothing differential was a clear predictor of the bloodshed that was about to erupt ... costing the heads of many of the women who had previously worn these opulent gowns.

Why do I bring this up? Because, although we have not yer reached this level of dramatic clothing differential here in the United States, we seem well on our way. President Obummer's daughters, Sasha and Malia, each just wore almost $20,000 designer gowns to a recent state dinner at the White House in a dazzling display of conspicuous consumption ... see: Yahoo News Article. Such excesses must rankle many families in the declining middle class in this country ... whose discretionary annual income could not buy even one of  these two gowns. I wonder what Bernie Sanders thinks about such inequalities? Or perhaps he too secretly longs for this life ...

What's that quote about people who ignore history?

Mommy ...

Sasha and Malia Obama

please come back home ... we miss you!  (Mother Michelle Obama stays in Hawaii to extend her vacation a few more weeks ... sans children ... see: Huffington Post Story)

Frugal Is as Frugal Does

Michelle Obama is on another of her obsessive missions.  This time it is to save the U.S. taxpayers money.  This Spring break, instead of taking her daughters (Sasha and Malia) and an entourage of friends to Spain (or the equivalent) at a cost of (at least) a half a million dollars (like she did last August … see: Huffington Post Story) she, because she had $4,000 per night room coupons, sent her daughters to the Atlantis resort in the Bahamas (see: Breitbart Story).  Then, because these coupons were only good for four nights, she had them flown to Sun Valley, Idaho to finish out their vacation (see: Breitbart Story ... I would have referenced a main-stream media story if I could have found one) in a discounted $184,000 per week ski chalet.  And to further exhibit her frugality, she sent them both on the same Presidential jumbo jet.  (They will return to Washington next week in the same penny-pinching way.)  It is thought that she was going to accompany them, but she, because of government regulations, was forced to take a duplicate plane.

The reason that Sun Valley was chosen for this ski trip was that their previous junket to Aspen, Colorado a little over a month ago was not to their liking.  The people at Aspen were not willing to close off the Panda Pipe area for their exclusive use (see: New York Post Story).  In Sun Valley, for an undisclosed, but discount-bundled amount, they were given exclusive use of the mountain. Moreover, at both locales, Michelle had the White House chefs and food tasters flown out there too to save the cost of eating at the expensive local bistros. These chefs then could prepare their favorite waygu beef sliders and other apres ski snacks.  She also had White-House staff flown in to lay out their (cut-rate) designer ski wardrobes.

Now, aren’t we happy that our First Lady is so sensitive to the government spending sequestration and the current economic crunch in which we find ourselves … and is willing to cut back on non-essential  luxuries like the rest of us?
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