Lost At Sea Part 60

"She has a bit of money saved, but basically yes," I say.

Nick smiles. "While we sit here, during this charming conversation, I will make twenty-five thousand dollars," he says.

I look at Nick. "That's terrible," I say.

Nick roars with laughter. "That's the difference between me and her! Hahahaha!"

Nick has just been holidaying in Cabo. His life is ceaselessly luxurious, and always will be, because of one insanely clever realization-that Jeff Bezos was onto something-and the smart, subsequent ways he invested his Amazon profits.

"Ellen says she doesn't want to be any richer because you've got problems," I say. "People want to go on your plane. You fall asleep during conference calls."

"Hahahaha!" Nick literally slaps his thigh. "People do want to come on my plane, and my wife and I make every effort to bring everyone we can."

"How much tax did you pay last year?" I ask.

"Eleven percent," says Nick.

"Do you feel awful about that?" I ask.

"Yes," says Nick.

There's something unusual about Nick, in that he's come to believe that the system he benefits so richly from is built on nonsense-specifically the idea that "the markets are perfectly efficient, and allocate benefits and burdens perfectly efficiently, based on talent and merit. So by that definition the rich deserve to be rich and the poor deserve to be poor. We believe this because we have an almost insanely powerful need to self-justify."

And the biggest nonsense of all, he says, "is the idea that because the rich are the smartest, and because we're the job creators, the richer we get, the better it is for everyone. So taxes on the rich should be very, very low because we're essentially the center of the economic universe, the font of productivity." Nick pauses. "If there was a shred of truth to the claim that the rich are our nation's job creators, then given how rich the rich have gotten, America should be drowning in jobs!"

"So if the rich don't create the jobs," I ask, "who does?"

"The middle cla.s.ses!" Nick roars. "A huge middle cla.s.s will produce an unbelievable opportunity for capitalists."

I tell Nick about Rebecca and Dennis in Iowa, about how their health-insurance costs are preventing them from driving across the state to celebrate their anniversary, thus denying themselves happiness and small businesses across Iowa their money.

"I fly around in a twenty-five-million-dollar Falcon 2000," he replies. "And they can't afford to drive across the state to celebrate their anniversary? It's not fair, and it's terrible for business. The best ideas in the world aren't worth jack s.h.i.+t unless you have someone to sell to.

"I don't even know how much my health-care costs are," he continues. "It doesn't matter! For them it's the difference between celebrating an anniversary and not celebrating an anniversary."

The solution, Nick says, is to raise taxes for the rich. He says a 50 percent rate for people like him seems about right. It would pay for the likes of Dennis and Rebecca's health care and enable them to drive across Iowa, creating jobs at whichever bed-and-breakfasts and gas stations and tourist attractions they happen to stop off at.

"If you're so concerned about it, why don't you write a check?" I ask.

"You can't build a society around the effort of a few do-gooders," he replies. "History shows that most people would not do it voluntarily. People have to be required to partic.i.p.ate."

So instead, he says, he's dedicated his life to something more meaningful. He's trying to persuade everyone he can-business journalists, etc.-that the system needs a radical change. He's published a book about it: The Gardens of Democracy.

"The view that regulation is bad for business is almost universally held," he says. "But in every country where you find prosperity you find ma.s.sive amounts of regulation. Show me a libertarian paradise where n.o.body pays any taxes and n.o.body follows rules and everybody lives like a king! Show me one!"

AND SO I JOURNEY to a place where that libertarian ideal is imagined in a soft, warm glow: B. Wayne Hughes's una.s.suming Malibu office. As it happens, Wayne is a substantial donor to Republican causes. For example, he has given $3.25 million to American Crossroads, a super PAC started by Karl Rove and Ed Gillespie that pays for GOP campaign ads. You'll see a lot of "Paid for by American Crossroads" tags on your TV in the coming months. But I didn't know his politics when I approached him. My first inkling that his libertarian philosophy is practically spiritualist in its pa.s.sion comes when he happens to mention some old novel from 1939 he likes.

"Read Doctor Hudson's Secret Journal," he says. "It'll tell you how to make your life a very satisfying thing. But it doesn't have a d.a.m.n thing to do with money."

"Oh, OK, thanks, I will," I reply politely. Then I instantly forget about it. The recommendation of a silly-sounding novel doesn't seem at all relevant to my story. But later, just as I'm about to wind down the interview, a weird thing happens. It's when I ask him if he has any advice for wannabe billionaires.

"I don't know anything worth knowing," he says. Then he pauses. A mischievous look crosses his face. "I gave you a secret in this interview already on how to make your life way better and you went right by it."

I look at him, befuddled.

"Hahahahaha!" he says.

"Was it that thing you said about Mr. Hudson and the ... ?" I say.

"Exactly right!" he roars. "Doctor Hudson's Secret Journal. Read it! You'll see!"

And so I order it from some secondhand-book place. It's out of print. It arrives, ancient and battered. It's kind of pulpy, the story of a Dr. Hudson who encounters a mysterious gravestone engraver named Randolph.

"I now have everything I want and can do anything I wis.h.!.+" Randolph tells the doctor. "So can you! So can anybody! All you have to do is follow the rules!" Randolph hands Dr. Hudson a "magic page" upon which is written the secret, the rules for "generating that mysterious power I told you about ..."

You can imagine how excited I am when I get to this part of the novel. But the secret turns out to be underwhelming. It is this: If you perform anonymous good deeds, greatness will visit you. But the philanthropy must be carried out with "absolute secrecy." That's the key.

When I read my B. Wayne Hughes transcript, I see that it's peppered with covert references to Doctor Hudson's Secret Journal. When I asked him which charities he donates to, he said, "I have over the years supported charities." Then he fell mysteriously silent. Then he said, "If you talk about things you've done that you think are worthwhile, you subtract from yourself. And so therefore I will only say my princ.i.p.al charity is children's cancer and I've been doing it for twenty-two years."

"You don't want to say how much you've given away?" I asked.

"I don't want to subtract from my pleasure," he said. "I especially don't want it written up. It would be a disaster for me. It would hurt me."

"Why?" I asked.

"It would subtract from me," he said.

Then, later, he said, with an anguished look, "Don't you think I have an urge to say, 'I did this and I did that and I got studies going in twenty hospitals ...' I have an urge to say that but I'm sitting on it. Why? Because once I say it, I've lost it! It's gone. Forever. The whale doesn't get harpooned until it rises to the surface to blow. If you do a good deed, a deed you're proud of, and you don't tell anybody, it will be the most difficult thing you've ever accomplished, but with the highest payoff. You feel good about yourself. It gives you happiness and satisfaction. It makes you different from other people in ways people don't realize. If you follow the rule, I promise you it is a life-changing event."

It was a lovely, engaging, strange philosophy. But there's another side to it. Dr. Hudson chooses whom to bestow his graciousness onto. It's entirely his choice. Taxation takes that decision out of his hands and gives it to the state. It screws up the formula completely.

Wayne's avuncular manner deserted him when he talked about what to do about the have-nots. "I remember an advertis.e.m.e.nt with an Indian in a canoe in a harbor," he said, "and tears are running down his face because he sees all the trash in the water and he sees what's happening. That's how I feel about America. It's an emotional thing for me." He paused, and that's when he said, "I'm a little surprised to find out that I'm an enemy of the state at this time in my life. They talk about your 'fair share.' 'Are you paying your fair share?' Fair is in the eyes of the beholder." He paused. "I hope I don't come off like some big person ... so conservative ... I believe in spreading it around, but I believe in doing it myself... ."

"So the trash in the river is higher taxes?" I asked.

"It's the idea of ent.i.tlement," he snapped. "That idea wasn't there in the history of this country. I remember pa.s.sing a building and my father saying to me, 'That's the poorhouse. You don't ever want-'"

And then we were interrupted by his daughter, a woman in her forties. She came into the room, kissed him, and asked him if he was going to walk along the beach later. He said he was. She kissed him again and left and he didn't return to the "poorhouse" anecdote. Instead he said, "When the politicians said, 'Everybody is ent.i.tled to a house,' you saw what happened. And now you have 'Everybody is ent.i.tled to go to college.' Which is stupid! When I went to college I had to drive a truck to pay. I had a partial scholars.h.i.+p, but I took care of myself."

"So you're saying everybody is ent.i.tled to college, but they should have to pay their own way?" I asked.

"Some people don't belong in college!" he said. "That should occur to you."

I understand why Wayne's great love in life is his stud farm. There's something very Thoroughbred-horses about his view of the world. Perhaps the different ways Nick and Wayne made their money may explain their politics. Nick sees an economy of luck. He got lucky, and he understands that fragility for what it is. Wayne sees an economy of earning where those with exceptional talent or exceptional grit rise, as they should, to the top.

For Wayne's philosophy to work, though, he needs to see those who don't make it as kind of deserving of their ill fortune. He talked to me about "derelicts on welfare" in Los Angeles who check themselves into the hospital because they're "bored" and "want feeding" and "we're paying for all that kind of activity." He said too much tax money is spent on "guys going to chiropractors, guys getting ma.s.sages all over the country! On us! Give me a break. Guys getting v.i.a.g.r.a!" He talked about "Los Angeles bus drivers who are on permanent stress leave because someone spat on them when they got on the bus and now they're emotionally upside down. More than half the bus drivers are out on stress leave! Systems like that cannot work!"