Patricia Kluge and William Moses’ finances are a matter of public record, Bryan McKenzie writes, and it’s not pretty. Bankruptcy filings have $2.65M in assets, and they’re $47.5M in debt. Those assets are $1.35M in real estate and $1.3M in cash, which is to say that they apparently have no cash, stock, bonds, or any liquid assets to speak of. Somehow they have an estimated monthly income of $16k (where does it come from—do they have jobs?) against monthly expenses of $21k, including $5.5k in rent.
If I’d just declared bankruptcy, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t move into a 6,600 square foot home, as these two financial wizards just did. The word for that is “mansion.” This is the part where I’d make a crack about how the rich are different than you and me, but they’re also different from the Kluges—because, at this point, I’m worth more than they are.
On day One at Fuel, I ordered a $10 sandwich. With Patty hanging in the uncrowded food area, oblivious to the fact that it was taking 25 minutes to make a sandwich, I finally got my food. Ate it in 3 bites and wandered down the road to get some food to fill myself for lunch.
Sadly, if Patty had simply taken her settlement from Kluge and invested it conservatively, she would be sitting pretty.
But Patty, boobs are not brains. And you thought your brains would make money. But you have shown how much those brains are worth.
Posing naked is not the same as hard work.
They do have jobs now: the Donald is paying Ms. Kluge just over $150K and Mr. Moses just under $150k to manage the winery. A mistake really, as the person who matters is the winemaker: the guy who actually tests the sugar content of maturing grapes and manages the fermentation and evaluates blends and so forth. All Mrs. Kluge used to do is hire a good winemaker. And market the resulting wine, which she did not have a knack for. Can you see her hauling a case of wine down the sidewalk in stilletto heels to try to hustle up some business at the Market Street Wineshop? Neither can I. Neither could she.
Give her a break: pretty soon she has to do her own cooking and cleaning. Yes she is a former exotic dancer who married a ridiculously rich older guy and got a little pretentious along the way but: she is taking care of her elderly mother. When she was in funds she donated a lot including notably the Kluge Children’s Medical Center. And had she not gotten too full of herself an invited then-Governor Wilder to helicopter in for a good bonking, she’d still have been married to John Kluge at his death during a non-estate tax paying era, would have been extraordinarily rich and perhaps mellowing into a philanthropic old age–rather than having to start over now, very very late in life. She is paying very heavily for one rather small, tedious convention-bucking sexual indulgence of fifteen years ago.
Kluge is not broke. She, like all wealthy people, has move her assets so she can claim she has none. This is a tactical move to avoid being personally responsible for repaying on any defaults pertaining to the winery or other ventures. BTW, this is a very common practice. Which also is used to avoid having your heirs pay inheritance taxes. On another note. The winery was not failing. It was the bank that called the loan for not meeting an obituary quota in sales. The bank’s CEO, for some reason, doesn’t like Ms. Kluge and refuse to let her or anyone close to her to repay the loan. He wanted to hurt her. So, Ms. Kluge did the only thing she could. She stopped paying for everything and forced the bank to pick up the tab. She later, caused the bank to loose some serious cash, between $15-19MM. Good for her.