Inside the island fortress of America's mega-billionaires

[LiberalArkie]

As my boat cruises toward the private island city of Indian Creek Village — better known as the Billionaire Bunker — I'm hoping my trip doesn't end in an arrest.

It's a hot morning on South Florida's Biscayne Bay, and I've convinced two local tour boat captains to pilot me around the perimeter of what is quite possibly the wealthiest and most heavily defended town in America. I'm not entirely clear on the rules about boating near the island, which lies just across the bay from Miami, and neither are my captains — they're both in their first weeks on the job. What I do know is that Indian Creek employs a new all-seeing security system and a small navy of police officers who frequently stop and ticket boats that venture too close to the island's manicured shore.

As we near the northwestern side of the island, I spot the bright red steel beams of "La Petite Clef," the Mark di Suvero sculpture that towers 20 feet over the front lawn of the car magnate Norman Braman's mansion. We glide past a modern palace hidden behind a dense cluster of palm trees, purchased for $50 million in 2019 by a mysterious LLC linked to the emir of Qatar. On the southwestern shore, we come upon the island's most sought-after mansions. This is where the elite of the elite live: Tom Brady, Carl Icahn, and the neighborhood's most recent arrival, Jeff Bezos. The wealth here is staggering — 25,000-square-foot mansions with ivy-strewn stucco walls, fronted by sprawling lawns and sleek yachts. Today, almost all the mansions appear to be empty.

As we get closer to the shore, I start to notice the cameras.

Snip



https://www.msn.com/en-us/travel/news/inside-the-island-fortress-of-americas-mega-billionaires/ar-AA1qZi9f?ocid=BingNewsSerp

[orthoclad]

1. The concentration of power

Wealth is power. As it trickles up from the masses to the megas, the masses lose power.

my favorite graph, from the Congressional Budget Office:

[vanlassie]

4. I wish this graph was clearly understandable

to the undereducated. With all love and respect, they need to understand just how much money is involved. I seriously doubt the would even get that the dark brown line represents half of the population. But if they DID…. And if they could then start to see how the hard labor of the lower half feeds the upper half, maybe they would not be so sure Republicans are protecting their interests.

[orthoclad]

6. When you're dividing up 115 Trillion dollars

into VERY unequal slices, that bottom scale (50%) is hard to fit in, since the bottom half holds only 2% of the wealth.

The graph is most useful for showing the change in wealth division over time.

I'm not sure which line you are calling the "brown line", but that black color barely visible at the bottom is the majority of people - the ones feeding the plutocrats on the OP's island. I'd love to see the graph broken down into smaller slices, like the top 1% and the top 0.01%. According to the study, the top 1% held 1/3 of the total family wealth, or 38 TRILLION DOLLARS. Compare that to the bottom half, which does the work but holds only 2% of the wealth.

Here's the original study:
https://www.cbo.gov/publication/58533

and here's some of the executive summary, bold mine:

Total Wealth. The total real wealth (that is, wealth adjusted to remove the effects of inflation) held by families in the United States tripled from 1989 to 2019—from $38 trillion in 2019 dollars (roughly four times the nation’s gross domestic product, or GDP) to $115 trillion (about five times GDP).
Concentration of Wealth. The growth of real wealth over the past three decades was not uniform: Family wealth increased more in the top half of the distribution than in the bottom half. Families in the top 10 percent and in the top 1 percent of the distribution, in particular, saw their share of total wealth rise over the period. In 2019, families in the top 10 percent of the distribution held 72 percent of total wealth, and families in the top 1 percent of the distribution held more than one-third; families in the bottom half of the distribution held only 2 percent of total wealth.
Trends by Family Characteristics. Over the 30-year period, the median wealth of families in higher-income groups, families with more education, and older families rose faster than that of families with less income, families with less education, and younger families. The median wealth of White families exceeded that of families in other racial and ethnic groups by considerable amounts throughout the period. The median wealth of every cohort born since 1950 was less than the preceding cohort’s median wealth when that cohort was the same age.
Trends Since 2019. In the first quarter of 2020, total family wealth declined as a result of the disruption in economic activities caused by the coronavirus pandemic. By the end of the second quarter of 2020, total family wealth had recovered; it continued to increase through the fourth quarter of 2021 but declined slightly in the first quarter of 2022.

[vanlassie]

16. That brown line is brown not black, on my phone anyway!

And yes my point exactly- people cannot understand these graphs. Years ago I saw one that was so clear- if rudimentary…
www.lcurve.org

The visual is everything.

[orthoclad]

18. If I get hold of the raw data,

I might try a simpler graph, but I like to use the actual source's material.

[vanlassie]

19. I knew the guy who made mine. It was

years ago but the concept is so much more understandable. And today the visual would be even more shocking.

[orthoclad]

20. Could you post that graph?

I got a blank from icurve.org

Ironically, I've posted this graph before and had people say it was so very clear.

[vanlassie]

21. Does this work?

https://www.lcurve.org/

[orthoclad]

22. Tried it. Blank.

[vanlassie]

23. Google Dave chandler L-curve

https://imgur.com/a/6Wh7zTd

[hatrack]

2. Located two feet above sea level and in a region famous for hurricanes . . .

Some "fortress" . . . .

[orthoclad]

7. They'll get giant seawalls and pumps

They think money can conquer everything. Especially if they can get us to pay for it. Expect to see work from the Corps Of Engineers on that island.

When it gets hopeless they'll sell it to chumps or get a tax-backed buyout, and move to New Zealand.

[hatrack]

8. Won't work (or for Miami as a whole) . . .

The whole area sits on limestone karst, which is like a sponge, and the water will come up from below over time (the bedrock is like Swiss cheese, basically).

That's setting aside whether it could bear the weight of a seawall - which seems unlikely.

[orthoclad]

9. True. They'll still think they can buy an engineering solution

After all, "billionaires in space".

Calling King Cnut!

[hatrack]

10. There's always Mars . . .

In fact, the sooner that Eloon and Jarvanka and Richard Branson and all the rest start packing, the more quickly we can start the Great Colonization Project!!

Think of all we can learn from watching them deploy their hard-earned ingenuity and mad engineering skills in an environment more hostile than any on Earth!!!

[orthoclad]

11. I was thinking last night (mistake, I know),

with all the zillionnaires going up to space, where's MuX? He even owns the rockets.
Bok bok bok

[NoMoreRepugs]

3. Brady belongs there. The elitist Everyman.

[EX500rider]

5. Article sounds a little hyped

Looking on google sat & street view it's a typical very upper income bridged island gated community, and as there are boating channels in the 300ft wide space between the island and the mainland with docks on both sides of course you can boat near the island. Security would only be involved in you tried to land or dock. Even the gate area at the bridge to the island looks pretty standard, just some gate arms and no drawbridge.

[muriel_volestrangler]

12. Not quite - in the middle of it, it's clear they harrass boats that come close

With the new security system, the Indian Creek police appear to have turbocharged their enforcement of regulations in the surrounding waters. In 2019, the department issued 211 traffic and marine citations. In 2022, the first year the radar system was fully operational, the number of citations soared to 1,600.

"Every time I go past Indian Creek, I run into a marine patrol guy," Ross says. He knows of plenty of boaters who have been ticketed, generally for creating a wake too close to the shore. Passing by the island earlier this year, Ross triggered the attention of an Indian Creek Police patrol. The officer hit him with a $140 ticket for not having the correct safety equipment on board. The Indian Creek police department did not respond to my inquiries.

Those are, basically, bullshit fines, meant to discourage people using public waters. They have a private security set-up that has been given "police" status so that it can fine people doing normal stuff.

[EX500rider]

13. I am a Fla boater, too fast in no wake zone and safety equipment checks are common in all Fla coastal waters

Kind of the Marine Patrol's job enforcing maritime safety.

Those are, basically, bullshit fines, meant to discourage people using public waters.
Or to encourage them to follow the law.

And Indian Creek was incorporated in 1939, they aren't "private police" but real police.

Anyone really surprised that billionaires are security conscious and worried about home invasions or kidnappings?

[muriel_volestrangler]

14. Yeah, it's a bullshit system that allows rich people to employ private police for a tiny area

It's a deficiency in democracy.

The huge number of fines for things on board the boats, and the increase, are clearly designed to keep people out of public waters. Amazing to see it condoned on DU.

"Home invasions or kidnappings" don't come from wakes or boat equipment, as you know full well.

[EX500rider]

17. Pretty much the same in all Fla small beach towns..

....no real crime so draconian enforcement of the small stuff.

And again, not a "private police force" but a small regular police force.

And it's fairly easy not to get tickets, don't speed thru no wake zones and have the correct safety equipment on board your boat, how is that a bad thing? Are you a fan of unsafe boating? Most Fla small beach towns police force's have their own police boats and enforce exactly the same stuff. Also no wake zones are good for Manatees

As to 19 cops writing 1,600 citations in a year, the tiny town of Waldo in central Fla says "hold my beer":
Waldo's seven police officers wrote nearly 12,000 speeding tickets last year, collecting more than $400,000 in fines - a third of the town's revenue. (although that is old news but Waldo was famous for tickets for any amount over the speed limit)

[Hekate]

15. The hubris never ceases to amaze me. Once again, let me recommend Survival of the Richest by Rushkoff...

One of the many insights he provides is that billionaires keep attempting to escape the world they created & inflicted on the rest of us.

This island looks like a good hurricane will blow it away eventually, and the whole catastrophe will be recorded for posterity by their security system.

Douglas Rushkoff
Survival of the Richest: Escape Fantasies of the Tech Billionaires
2022