Ted Turner on being down to his few billion:
Turner said he has learned to live with less, yet he still bemoans the decline in his net worth.
“To drop out of that league, that was hard to do,” Turner said. “I’ve had the experience of being on top and riding the roller coaster down again, nearly to the bottom. You know, if you economize and don’t buy new airplanes or long-range jets, or that sort of thing, you can get by on a billion or two.”
What the world need now is New York Times profile of the woes of billionaires who used to be multi-billionaires.
Thunderbird
The unmitigated gall is staggering.
Hunter Gathers
As a gift to Ted Turner, we should colorize the moon.
Fax Paladin
Almost certainly joking. That sounds like his sense of humor.
Chad N Freude
This is completely at odds with his politics. He’s got to be joking.
General Winfield Stuck
@Fax Paladin:
Yes. Turner never has been about the money. It was the game to get it that made his wagon go. That and doing things different than others. At least that’s always been my impression of the man.
Chad N Freude
This appears in the article:
Bloomberg has been pwned.
twiffer
apparently i’m a few miles underneath the rollercoaster.
Mayur
Thirded. Definitely a joke. Ted Turner has even commented (can’t find the citation right now; sorry) that “500 Richest” type lists are disgusting in that they encourage keeping score.
licensed to kill time
Yeah, I’m putting off that new airplane this year, too. Hey, times are tough!
(yes, I think he’s making a funny. Still, I’d like to give “getting by on a billion or two” a shot!)
Thunderbird
Hmmm…seems like my humor detector’s busted. I blame the win that was the Michael Gass thread!
donovong
I have no doubt that Ted had his tongue so far in cheek that it was probably about to burst through to the outside.
Chad N Freude
@Hunter Gathers: So you don’t like film noir y rouge y vert y bleu?
srv
http://abcnews.go.com/print?id=5844658
Probably another spot for him in Obama’s SEC.
General Winfield Stuck
@Hunter Gathers:
It is, after all, made of cheese. Green I think.
moderately
Agreed that he must be joking. As far as billionaires go, Turner’s also been more charitable than most over the years:
srv
This is where I go when I get depressed for people like Ted. They’re all really suffering, more launchings every day:
http://www.superyachttimes.com/editorial/2/
PeakVT
Funny, but not as good as Bill Ayers’ straight line from a few weeks ago.
Foxhunter
Turner is an arrogant fuck, to be sure, but he knows how to play journalists for fools. See his appearance on 60 Minutes from last year.
About the only thing he needs is a fly rod and a sizable herd of buffalo.
Keith
The worst part about being not-as-super-rich is that smaller bills go through more people’s hands (not to mention it’s a lower class of people), so those first few puffs off your contraband Cohiba taste like crap.
Truly tragic.
georgia pig
Complete joke. Back in the 80’s, I was flying back to Atlanta from SF and Ted sat right next to me, in coach. You could tell his flunkies weren’t happy about it, but he didn’t give a shit. He was reading a biography of Lenin (CNN was about to do a groundbreaking series on the Soviet Union) and offered me his cheesecake. Back then, he used to ride the city buses in downtown Atlanta and park a beatup Subaru in the employees lot at CNN. I’m sure he’s no Ghandi, but that comment was classic Turner.
Robin G.
Gotta be a joke. The phrasing was very punch-line.
calling all toasters
How… can that man… joke about this, when so many people are unemployed?
Doesn’t… he care?
I’m going to fax him… my credenza… and then we’ll see who’s wrong. [/Gass]
geg6
I will surely be in a decided minority here, but I love Ted Turner. He’s joking here, folks. He loves to pwn the press in interviews and say stuff like this that the scribes will take seriously and run with. He does it all the time.
As for his politics, he’s usually one of the good guys. And CNN would be very, very lucky to get him back. Alex Castellanos, on the other hand, will not be.
liberal
OT: Glenn Greenwald claims Michael Moore claims “Goldman was the number one source of funding for the Obama 2008 presidential campaign.”.
Calouste
Ted Turner?
You mean the guy who gave a Billion to Unesco, saying something along off “At the beginning of the year I was worth 2 billion, stock prices went up by a lot and now I am worth 3 billion. And I thought, I can just give a billion away and I will still be as rich as I was at the beginning of the year. And then I though, why not?”
DougJ, give me you address and I’ll send you some new batteries for your sarcasm detector.
Chad N Freude
@calling all toasters: Best Gasstric attack so far. [Insert smiley]
liberal
My favorite Ted Turner incident is “Ted Turner Sends Self Back In Time To Prevent AOL Time Warner Merger”.
The pic there is funny.
Cat Lady
Bloomberg got punk’d if they really thought Ted “iconoclast” Turner was looking for sympathy, especially using the passing the joint analogy.
Two days, two punkings. Way to go, MSM.
Chad N Freude
@geg6: Hardly in the minority. Read the entire thread.
Ralph Dosser
That’s totally his sense of humor.
I remember when CNN merged with Time-Warner in 1996, he said something like “I’m tired of being head of a small-time, rinky-dink network, I’m ready for the big-time.”
DougJ
He’s joking here, folks.
I’m not saying he’s not. I hope that he is.
Chad N Freude
@liberal: Somebody posted this link on another thread. Goldman was number two. An interesting mix of contributers.
Chad N Freude
@DougJ: Well, the available evidence indicates that your hope is realized.
liberal
@Chad N Freude:
LOL! What I like is all those universities. Relatedly, my old man said of Obama’s fondness for the likes of morons like Geithner and Summers is that he’s impressed by their academic credentials.
geg6
@Chad N Freude:
Well, I posted before I read. Now I’ve read. Seems I’m in the majority. That’s twice in my life. Nov. 4, 2008 and today. lol
geg6
@liberal:
Just my small satellite campus of a large public research university probably had a 90/10 breakdown of faculty/staff contributions for Obama. Interestingly, if you broke it down just to support staff (staff assistants, maintenance, grounds), that ratio could be completely turned around.
Scuffletuffle
@calling all toasters: total win!
Chad N Freude
@liberal: Probably true. I’ve known any number of PhDs who would have difficulty figuring out what to do with toilet paper. Academic credentials should do no more than get you in the door. Too many employers (I include Obama here) give the credentialed a pass on assessing what they actually might do.
ksmiami
Ted Turner is like a rich, modern version of Samuel Clements… His comment was dripping with irony and he has purchased a ton of land to protect the environment. He is a libertarian mostly, but he has good intentions.
eemom
I don’t know or care about Ted Turner, but I am ready to skip the pitchforks and break out the guillotines for the Wall Street scumbags and others of their ilk.
“There is a way, when the rich are too rich.” Pearl S. Buck
slippy
This ranks with my CIO boring the living fuck out of his entire 300-person IT staff with his whining about having to choose between his Corvette and his Lexus on the drive into work, and then bitching that he didn’t get free tickets to the Kentucky Derby from vendors anymore.
And another story I heard (from a firsthand source) of a high-ranking executive bitching at his staff that the company’s accounting rules forced him to fly coach, and his incredulous statement: “Do you know what it’s like riding in coach?”
Alan
@liberal:
“And they’re marching to Bastille Day …”
Shell
Remember that loathsome saying from the ’80’s?’
‘He who dies with the most toys, wins!’
GregB
It’s sad when the plutonomy hits a tough patch and the billionaires have to tighten their fine Corinthian leather belts with the diamond studded gold buckles.
-G
Chad N Freude
@slippy: Not that it’s really relevant here (but it’s amusing): Years ago my employer moved me to Europe for a long-term project. The company bought my sports car as part of the compensation package. I learned later that one of the vice presidents complained about how I had taken the company on the deal, (drum roll) while driving the car to and from work every day.
different church-lady
I’m sure he’s kidding about “getting by”, but the pain of the loss of status is probably real. Not very worthy of our sympathy, but real. I would suppose the joke about getting by would be self-effacing humor, mocking himself for his own sense of ‘suffering’.
Ruckus
@Chad N Freude:
Gasstric – a new term for the lexicon – a pompous ass with no apparent life skills
liberal
@Chad N Freude:
Yeah…actually, I have a PhD myself.
Re Summers, history has now shown he was wrong, dead wrong, in the 1990s. (Cf browbeating of Brooksley Born.) And it’s not like he didn’t hold an influential position.
Guy should be shoveling dog $hit.
Corner Stone
@Chad N Freude: What Moore actually claimed was that GS was the top “private” donor to Obama’s campaign.
I point out in the film that Goldman Sachs is his No. 1 private contributor
Which may be a little splitting hairs but it’s still not chump change.
Sam Hutcheson
The best thing about the Onioin article is that we’re only three years away from Turner’s climatic battle with Zygax The Investorator.
The Saff
Ted Turner was the keynote speaker at my college commencement ceremony in 1989. Huge university so graduation was divvied up by your particular college — mine was College of Communications Arts & Sciences. Ted agreed to speak on the condition that then FCC Commissioner James Quello introduce him.
Ted only spoke for about 10 minutes but I do remember him telling us to practice birth control because the world was overpopulated.
Corner Stone
@liberal:
I don’t know if it’s so much “impressed” by them (which I will agree happens a lot to other people with advanced education), but it’s a useful shield to deflect a lot of criticism.
They get to do what he agrees with anyway, and a lot of the different levels of criticism can be sloughed off by referencing their diligence and obvious smarts ala certs to prove same.
ericblair
@Chad N Freude: I’ve known any number of PhDs who would have difficulty figuring out what to do with toilet paper.
Uh, so ya gonna let us in on the answer, or are we gonna have to beat it out of you?
-ericblair, Ph.D.
Michael D.
Personally, if I had to guess, this was most likely Ted Turner’s thought process:
Ted Turner, 1:48PM, Friday, October 16, 2009:
Corner Stone
@ericblair:
I’ve always been fond of throwing it in the trees of the girls I like but am too shy to speak to.
Hasn’t seemed to work as well as theoretical formulas predicted…
Calvin Jones and the 13th Apostle
Three things about Turner. He won the America’s Cup when it meant something. Two, he got kicked out of Brown University for having women over to his apartment(Kinda funny given things today). Three, I suppose some people here know how his father died. Well, in the aftermath the old man’s company was sold off(not to Ted). Ted didn’t like that very much. So what did Ted set out to do? He basically made it hell on those who bought the company until they sold it to him(I believe it was billboard advertising). Read a biography of the guy. He’s one interesting dude. He’s like Dennis Rodman in regards to money. It’s good in as much as it lets you do things(travel … professional sail boat racer … own the Atlanta Braves). To be your own person.
Michael D.
@different church-lady:
I don’t think Ted Turner has ever given a rat’s ass about his status.
Michael D.
@Calvin Jones and the 13th Apostle: Four, he was basically pushed out of Turner Broadcasting because he, wait for it, didn’t want to shill news for corporate America!
Athenawise
Well, the NY Times can’t call them Portraits of Grief because those are commemorating true heroes. Portraits of Greed, maybe.
different church-lady
@Michael D.:
Well, I know what you’re saying, but what I’m saying is that as a human being he is probably suffering instinctive emotions regarding the loss of status, and as a person who is not status-driven he is probably a bit surprised by how strong they are. Even those who are not purposefully driven by a desire for status can suffer pangs when it is obtained and then lost. That’s how our human psychology works.
Brachiator
@different church-lady:
Like Michael D. says, I doubt that Turner cares about status. From articles I’ve read about him, he seems to be extremely competitive, with a drive to always be the winner. This is not quite the same thing as craving status, which can be entirely disconnected from actual achievement.
Unlike some moguls, who hoard their cash, get their dividends and play games to multiply their wealth, Turner helped to create or expand entire new industries (cable and CNN), and created jobs. He also did a fair amount for philanthropy.
There might be a bit of regret that the decline of his fortune makes it harder for him to get out there and re-invent himself and the economic landscape one more time.
tde
Regardless of whether he was joking, he is a twat.
I once saw some footage of him and Tom Brokaw fly fishing together and Turner keep needling Brokaw about having wind-knots in his leader. (Wind knots are often caused by poor casting technique.) Brokaw gently said “Those are a different kind of knot” or something like that.
The point being that Tom Brokaw was tying his leaders the old-school way by piecing together short lengths of progressively finer line, while Turner was unfamiliar with this practice since he, presumably, just bought factory tapered leaders.
SiubhanDuinne
He’s totally making a funny. I used to work in CNN Center (not for any of the Turner properties; we simply leased office space) when he was still very active, and I used to see him all the time in the halls, elevators, shops. He is a very down-to-earth, rather self-depracating guy. (Remember, this is “The Mouth of the South” and “Captain Outrageous,” so take everything he says in public with a big handful of salt.)
The first time I ever saw Ted in person, I was walking toward one of the elevator banks from one direction, and he was heading to the same elevator from another direction. There was a piece of litter on the floor in front of the elevator; Ted made a dive for it, threw it in the trash can, looked straight at me, and said, “What’s WRONG with people who can just leave trash lying around?”
Another time, on Valentine’s Day one year, I was standing behind him in line at the convenience store in CNN Center. He had just bought a card and box of chocolates or something, and after he paid he stood at the counter simply agonizing over what to write in the card! LOL! It was before he started dating Jane, I think, so I don’t know who finally received the gift, but I was touched that someone in his exalted position (and he was riding very high at that point) would have such human wobblies about writing a love message.
Anne Laurie
@donovong:
To use R.A. Lafferty’s winning formulation, “tongue so far in cheek as to protrude from the vulgar bodily orifice”!
Any bets on which Media Village Idiot will be first to publish a very serious “Oh, poor Ted, lo how our billionaires suffer in this Obama recession! ! !” op-ed? I have a store-bought cookie on David ‘BoBo’ Brooks, although Richard ‘My Third-Grade Teacher Says I’m Funny’ Cohen is also a strong contender…
lol
Goldman Sach makes up 0.25% of Obama’s total contributions.
They must truly own him. He could not have raise all that money otherwise.
Cain
@georgia pig:
The correct spelling is “Gandhi” not Ghandi. Thanks :)
cain
Chad N Freude
@Corner Stone: The quote at #24 is
I only know what I read in the comments. (HT to Will Rogers.)
Chad N Freude
@ericblair: That’s funny, ericblair. You tell jokes good. Or well.
Chad N Freude
@ericblair: What makes you think I know what to do with it?
Chad N Freude
@tde: That certainly proves that Turner is not worthy of admiration.
TenguPhule
Unless it contains phrases like “set on fire while still alive by non-sympathic workers who lost everything”, I’m not interested.
mclaren
Pass the donation cup! Soon Ted Turner will sit by the freeway holding a cardboard sign that reads DOWN TO MY LAST BILLION DOLLARS – PLEASE HELP.
Chris Johnson
Geez, with that and the OP use of sarcasm on a hapless press, I’m starting to like the guy in spite of his colorizing sacrilege ;)
Read the wikipedia article. Yeah, I like this guy. And he gave a billion dollars to the UN. And he’s funny :D
He gets to have a billion dollars. We’ll eat all the OTHER rich people just as he predicted :D
Chris Johnson
Oh- and all the Balloon Juice trolls? PWNED to within an inch of their lives…