How much do women really get based on sex?

[Galt]

Women clearly get massive amounts of money based solely on sex. A woman was recently awarded 4.5 billion in a divorce (sample report in the press: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/russian-ordered-to-pay-ex-wife-45-billion-divorce-settlement/article18747387/ ). Patricia Kluge got nearly 1 billion (she was an "exotic dancer" who married a guy named John Kluge, who actually worked, founding Metromedia among other companies). She recently filed for bankruptcy, yes you read that right.

Lots of women get $30,000 or more per month per child in child support. The governor of Florida recently vetoed a bill to reduce permanent alimony (not alimony to help a sit-on-her-ass housewife to get back on her feet with training or the like, this involves support for the rest of her life, and enough to comfortably live on). I saw an interview with a man who had to pay his ex-wife $5000 per month for the rest of her life - his current wife was the one who was complaining more, he just accepted it.

I saw that the name of the charity is now the "Melinda and Bill Gates Foundation". She married him and is taking over the money. Why don't they just delete Bill's name from the foundation and shunt him off to the garage somewhere. All he did was pay for it.

The women who just live off men are immeasurable. Most of them do it in one form or another; that's not misogyny, that's an observation of society and reality.

So why is none of this acknowledged by any feminist anywhere? They lap up propaganda like the "wage gap", but they will never acknowledge how much women get out of men based on sex.

And no one here is ever going to have anywhere near 4.5 billion dollars. Not even if you shave your legs and put on a dress and wig.

[neoteny]

Patricia Kluge got nearly 1 billion (she was an "exotic dancer" who married a guy named John Kluge, who actually worked, founding Metromedia among other companies). She recently filed for bankruptcy, yes you read that right.

According to The Money Pit, her divorce settlement came to $100 million (and her business troubles started in 2008).

According to the Forbes Magazine article The Rise And Fall Of Patricia Kluge:

On a trip to New York City she met John W. Kluge, the founder of Metromedia. The two were married in 1981. By the time they divorced nine years later, Kluge, the husband, was ranked by Forbes as the world's richest man, worth more than $5 billion.

Patricia walked away with a paltry settlement by comparison, estimated to have come to less than $1 million a year, plus Albemarle. The 24,000-square-foot neo-Georgian home boasts a helipad, wine grotto, stables and two kitchens.

Her bankruptcy was the consequence of her business dealings (detailed in the article).

----

I'm not saying that $100 million (and a yearly million after that) is peanuts, but she did manage to hook a rich one (who had four wives in total). If he wanted cheap company, he should have had dates with the like of Ashley Dupré for $1,000/hour. For three million bucks, he could have had a date almost every day for the nine years.

[Galt]

I don't think that's right, Neoteny. Almost the entire Interweebs say "nearly a billion".

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/8593164/Briton-who-won-1-billion-divorce-case-files-for-bankruptcy.html

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2011/06/woman.html

http://www.ibtimes.com/rich-divorcee-manages-blow-1-billion-files-bankruptcy-645193

http://www.businessinsider.com/patricia-kluge-photos-2011-6?op=1

http://www.healys.com/blog/2011/06/how-to-lose-1-billion-divorce-financial-settlement/

http://shrewdeconomist.blogspot.de/2011/06/briton-who-won-1-billion-divorce-case.html


She was also getting payments of well over a million a week.

[Galt]

The cases above are extreme, but there are millions of less extreme cases. Look around, you'll see it. Lots of stories about second wives and a husband with dementia (hint: his money ain't going to be going to the kids from his first wife, no matter what he wanted). Women who have never worked in their lives who have a couple mil. Just because. Women getting permanent alimony. Hefty life insurance policies for the woman because she wouldn't know how to work. The fiction that both parties always contribute equally in a marriage.

I'm just wondering why feminists never bring this up in their quest for equality between the sexes.

[neoteny]

She was also getting payments of well over a million a week.

Here's a contemporary (July 1990) piece from People Magazine:

There's also the matter of spending money--in this case, the annual interest on a billion dollars, which, at $1.6 million a week, would make Pat the wealthiest divorcée in history.

This makes it obvious that there wasn't a billion dollars and also well over a million a week: the latter was the (estimated) interest on the billion dollars.

Then there's this:

Kluge, who famously got a $100 million divorce settlement in 1990 from Metromedia billionaire John Kluge

Then there's this:

Kluge -- who famously got a $100 million divorce settlement in 1990 from Metromedia billionaire John Kluge

Then there's The Money Is Gone, but the Winery and a Woman's Resolve Remain (from the New York Times, for whatever it is worth):

She shows signs of strain from years of battling creditors and countering barbs about what could she possibly have done with so much money. Many reports in the press overstated the windfall from her 1990 divorce. A year ago, when she called Mr. Trump for a meeting, he told his staff that they would be seeing a woman who made out very well in her divorce settlement. "I had always heard she got the income on $1 billion," Mr. Trump recalled telling them.

But after a three-minute meeting, he said that he knew Ms. Kluge was in "huge financial trouble."

Outright, she received about $25 million in cash in her divorce settlement from Mr. Kluge, according to several people with knowledge of the terms, as well as Albemarle, an opulent mansion of eight bedrooms and 13 bathrooms over 23,000 square feet she had built during their marriage. (Earlier this year Bank of America bought it out of foreclosure for $15 million.)

Mr. Kluge also agreed to pay her close to $1 million a year for life, those people said. But as the banks closed in, she sold off the rights to future payments for just $5 million, money that went to Farm Credit of Virginia, which was owed about $35 million, according to Bill Shmidheiser, a lawyer for the bank. Ms. Kluge declined to comment on the divorce settlement and the sale of those rights.

So no one knows for sure what were the exact terms of her divorce settlement (apart from her and the lawyers involved in the negotiations -- but they're not telling, at least not on the record). However it was, the notion of a billion dollars and also a million+ per week can be safely excluded from the possibilities.

[Galt]

Well, if she only got $100 million, I can see why she had to declare bankruptcy. You can't be expected to live on that.

But if she did get nearly a billion, then she WAS ALSO getting payments of well over a million a week on top of that. It just wasn't coming from the sap she married and divorced, it was being generated by the assets.

Anyway, the bigger question here is why feminists don't focus on this particular inequality between the sexes. I thought that feminism was about equality, so I'm really confused now.

[neoteny]

Well, if she only got $100 million, I can see why she had to declare bankruptcy. You can't be expected to live on that.

She (and her next husband) made investments (in a winery and in some real estate developments) which flopped when the Big Recession hit. Such shit happens to many people (who once had assets enough "to live on"); there's no reason that it couldn't or shouldn't happen to women. If rich men are "allowed" to fail spectacularly, so do rich women. If a woman is to be faulted for squandering her considerable assets on bad investments, so do those men who make the same mistake.

But if she did get nearly a billion, then she WAS ALSO getting payments of well over a million a week on top of that. It just wasn't coming from the sap she married and divorced, it was being generated by the assets.

OK, now I see that you've used 'payment' in a wider sense I was thinking of. Of course no one offers yearly fixed 'payments' (interest) of 8.3%, certainly not over 18 years (with three intervening recessions).

Anyway, the bigger question here is why feminists don't focus on this particular inequality between the sexes. I thought that feminism was about equality, so I'm really confused now.

Maybe because men can score on divorce settlements, too:

Larry Fortensky got a million from Liz Taylor.
Kevin Federline got a million from Britney Spears.
Jim Threapleton got $4 million from Kate Winslet (half of their common property).
Parker Stevenson got $6 million out of her divorce from Kristie Alley.
Peter Andre got $9.6 million from model Katie Price. This was half of what they made during their marriage.
Rene Elizondo, Jr. reportedly got $10 million from Janet Jackson.
Cris Judd got $14 million from Jennifer Lopez after a 9 month marriage.
Harry Glassman got half of the community assets ($25 million) when he and Victoria Principal divorced.
Tom Arnold got $50 million from Roseanne Barr.
Guy Ritchie got $92 million from Madonna.

These settlements aren't in the hundred million dollars range (with the exception of the Ritchie-Madonna case), but the women involved aren't billionaires either (with the possible exception of Madonna). So if you're a man and apply yourself to the task at hand -- so to speak --, you can make half of her money (or at least a nice chunk of it), too.

[Galt]

I think what you're trying to portray, Neoteny, is that it's exactly symmetrical - women get money out of men, men get money out of women. Just like slave owners beat their slaves, slaves beat their slave owners. When the latter get their chance.

I think you can name a few cases (Larry Fortensky and Guy Ritchie always seem to be named, along with Peter Holm, who you forgot, who got some bucks out of Joan Collins). Some of the other men you named earned a substantial amount of money from work themselves (actually, Ritchie did too), so it's a bit murkier as to who had what. I just don't think it's symmetrical. Do you really believe that it's anywhere near symmetrical? Men get unearned money from women to the same degree as women get unearned money from men?

Edited to add: If you get down to only a million in a settlement - which you had to do here for men to even find enough for your list - you are reaching WAY, WAY, WAY down in the list of settlements to women. There are hundreds of thousands - or likely far, far more - women who get a million out of men. It's the norm. You get the house today and it may be worth a million. I personally know women who have gotten a good chunk of unearned money out of men. I don't know any men in that situation. That's likely your case as well.

Men who get a million in a settlement with a woman are named precisely because it is fairly rare. Man bites dog is newsworthy because it is rarer than the other way around. Women who get that from men are just not named, because it is so common. Dog bites man. So to speak.

[neoteny]

Do you really believe that it's anywhere near symmetrical?

Of course I don't think it is symmetrical in the (statistical) outcome. But men can and do get settlements where at least some of the money was made by her. And if the split is 50-50 (like in California, a community property state) and she made considerably more money while the marriage lasted, then he can end up with lots of money which was made by her.

Men get unearned money from women to the same degree as women get unearned money from men?

There's no objective measure of subjective value; accordingly, no one can decide for someone else what is 'unearned'. As I mentioned above, Kluge could have bought 'equivalent' sex by the hour considerably cheaper than by marrying Patricia; obviously marrying her was more important (represented more subjective value) for him than buying sex (or even companionship) by the hour. That was his choice; and one doesn't have to agree with it -- but if freedom means anything, then it means that one can make whatever (legal) choice one wants.

But you're right: the sexes aren't symmetrical. Women's reproductive capacity is a resource sought after by (most) men: and (most) women do make (most) men pay for it, one way or the other. If you say that it is neither fair nor just, you're right again: but the only fairness in life is that "in the long run we're all dead". Everything before that, starting from conception, depends largely on chance: what kind of genes (alleles, to be precise) we inherit, what kind of family we're born into, what kind of society we're born into, what kind of experiences (including events we call accidents) we have growing up -- and by the time we're "grownups", there are a bunch of (different!) constraints on what we are able to do. Which is fundamentally unfair -- as life wont to be. Mother Nature is a cold-hearted bitch.

[Galt]

I see the so-called "wage gap" everywhere. That is an instance where feminists (and basically women ... and men ... and the media ... and society) continue to hammer home that there may be a very small bit of unearned income that men get because they are men.

People here know the truth, but I just see that propaganda over and over and over again. I probably don't have to say: In broad areas of the working world, in government, in the miltiary, in large companies and in unions, for starters, they just kind of have a matrix / grid today. Your job classification or (in government) GS level down the left hand side, years of service along the top. Find the intersection, that's your salary. I don't see where they have separate tables for gender.

And then there's all the civil rights acts, one on top of the other, most recently Lilly Ledbetter Act. And the EEOC and all the rest for smaller private companies. You better be damn good at being a male chauvinist pig.

----------------------

But then, on the other hand, no one wants to look at the billions of unearned income by women. It is truly staggering if you start adding up all the sources. If someone calls me on that, I'll do it. But I mostly see that no one cares. Women don't care. Men certainly don't care, and it is just bizarre to me that every little possibility that a man may get unearned income by making his USD 1 for every USD 0.77 a woman makes FOR EXACTLY THE SAME JOB, of course, is put under a microscope.

I know plenty of men who have worked their entire lives, and they have nothing to show for it. I also know women who have never working in their lives and live in the lap of luxury. And yet women are "oppressed" - someone may want to take a closer look.

[CaptDMO]

There's no objective measure of subjective value; accordingly, no one can decide for someone else what is 'unearned'.

REALLY?
Neoteny, Meet the Internal Revenue Service, and (US) the State Treasury.  Internal Revenue Service, State Treasury,  meet Mr. Neoteny.

[neoteny]

REALLY?

Do any of the revenue agencies claim that they operate with an objective measure of values?

[neoteny]

Monday marks the start of Hamm's divorce trial in Oklahoma County Court, which may result in the largest-ever divorce judgment.  Scheduled to run nine weeks, the trial will revolve around precisely how Hamm, who owns 68 percent of the company's shares, amassed a $19 billion fortune during his 26-year marriage to his wife, Sue Ann.

[Galt]

Why not tilt the laws towards a meritocracy? That means people who WORK and PROVIDE new ideas in society should be rewarded. Period. The income tax can easily be replaced by taxation on leeches and golddiggers and alround scumbags if government funding is the problem. I don't think it is. Bizarre. And most of the hidden taxes on earners and favoritism for leeches come from conservatives.

There are really innumerable things hidden, that you don't even think about. Why do current copyright laws allow an extension of protection 70 years after the death of the author? I dunno. Probably because they want to give the real money to the wife. And maybe the kids.
Why not structure society according to people who contribute?

Today, the high earners and worshipped people are Kim Kardashian (last contract: 80 million) and Paris Hilton and co. Society is going to implode by making these people the Meritocracy.