http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/ ... ties-sale/http://money.cnn.com/2015/05/11/luxury/ ... n-results/
Picasso painting set to break records
Pablo Picasso would be a happy man if he were alive today.
A painting by the iconic abstract artist sold for a record $179,365,000 at an auction Monday in New York, a Christie's spokesperson said.
The 1955 canvas, "Les femmes d'Alger (Version "O")," sets a new bar for the contemporary art market.
At least 99.9999999% of the world will never earn that much money in 1,000 lifetimes. But a small group of people have enough money that they can buy art that costs mega-millions, build mansions that cost mega-millions, and life like royalty while everyone else is at worst a slave and at best a serf. The middle class has become an insignificant minority and the less wealthy life one a level like aristocrats.
The world has lost all meritocracy and is basically a caste system. Sometimes the ruling caste needs to elevate some people from the lower caste as an illusion that there is social mobility, just like the Hunger Games. Record poverty rates across the North America and Europe, and a small group of people can buy things like that. Most of the people with that money did not accumulate their fortunes ethically.
