Alps, lost luggage and White Lotus
I just read an interesting Wall Street Journal article eviscerating Prez Trump in the smartest way on really every front. And then you page over to Fox News and find a universe of news and perspective positioning him as a tough effective leader. These two voices are owned by the same conglomerate, so to reconcile their goals is impossible. I guess you could say Murdoch wants it both ways - he wants to be on the record as evaluating the man correctly (WSJ) and also wants to continue his profitable propaganda machine (Fox News and related personalities). The recent news about Rupert Murdoch - (other than his 5th marriage) - was he was trying to change up his irrevocable trust and reduce the influence and ownership shares of some of this children.
Why this was interesting is because I’m a student of trusts, having a living trust myself where all my assets live (other than high liability autos). Trusts are common tools/vehicles, and you don’t need to be uber-wealthy to benefit from them. Trusts are helpful in organizing assets and instructing heirs on what, when and how you’d like your estate administered after you head off to the bright light, and it can be done in more detail than a will, and also keeps the details of the details out of the courts and the public record.
A living trust is controlled by the person who owns the trust during their living years, and can be changed, amended, altered etc… as often and as drastically as events dictate - new wife, new child, new business, new rules of money distribution. A living trust doesn’t really come with any inherent estate or tax benefits. It’s an organization tool; a tool to protect assets.
An irrevocable trust, however, is just the opposite, and comes with a host of tax and estate benefits, with one serious caveat: you literally give up control of any asset the trust holds. So Murdoch has his Fox and related entities in an irrevocable trust, and has assigned inheritance details to his children and others in this trust, and, by the very nature of the irrevocable trust, he doesn’t have the ability or authority to change it, in exchange for whatever benefits this type of trust offers.
He’s engaged in a legal process attempting to open the trust up for him to change the details and structure of it, and is being opposed by several of his children. There are a few very esoteric ways you allowed to get back into the machinery of an irrevocable trust, and I think one of them is if the business or asset is a real threat of being materially devalued and the only person with the skill set to preserve it is the person who gave the keys away - or perhaps the argument goes that the current structure poses substantial and real risk of devaluing the value of the asset.
So Murdoch was in court arguing the current structure, that all his children (not sure how many there are but there are at least 3 primary) receive equal shares, is a threat to Fox News because at least two of this children have shown a disinclination to pursue his news programming that has set the US on a course of disintegration, and that their influence, and moderation of Fox programming threatens its very survival and value. It’s actually a really interesting and possible correct view of things - the court turned him down, and he wasn’t allowed to reopen the Trust but that is more a comment on how iron-clad these trusts can be, not on his perceptive insights on the trajectory of Fox News if made more moderate by his off-spring. Murdoch is 95 years old, so this change of direction may be closer than it seems, which would be good for US, but only open the way for some other organization (NewsMax) to fill the propaganda void.
I’m in Meribel, with my wingman Eli. Day 4. We are still waiting on his luggage, which was never really lost in the technical way since we and United have always been able to see where it was (first in Newark, then in Geneva, then in the delivery company’s hands), we just don’t have it yet. And considering we are skiing, there’s a lot more than toiletries than we need in that bag. So that’s been a bit stressful, mostly because the information we’ve been given (after long wait times) has been wrong, or misleading. In the end, the correct information and guidance and expectation-setting seems quite clear - ‘we have your bag, and you expect it within 48-72 hours, and you can’t track it in the meantime, and we will call you 90 minutes before it arrives so don’t go anywhere!”)
So Saturday, we cooled it in the flashy condo with Alp views, and binged watched 6 episodes of The White Lotus waiting for the luggage, but by Sunday we needed to go to the slopes, and so we then binged bought at a slope side French alps ski store for a ski jacket, ski bibs, helmet, googles, long underwear, etc…. And for you non-skiers, ski shits expensive, and buying ski ship slope side in a fancy ski resort town is about the most expensive way to buy, so 1800 EU later, Eli my nephew was looking about as good as he is ever going to look in some new ski stuff. Rumor has it United will reimburse us for a lot of this (in Europe for some reason the limit is 1400 EU while everywhere else it’s higher), so we will see. We literally are hours away from a big town, and really didn’t have the luxury of time, so there wasn’t a lot of bargain shopping options. From what I’ve been reading, it seems quite possible we will be reimbursed if we follow the process and keep our receipts, which we have been doing. A shorter ski trip - like the ones I take in the States - would have been a lot more disrupted by this type of lost baggage. Seems like the lesson here is pack a carry on, always, with the trips essentials.
We finished Season 3 of The White Lotus, and enjoyed it thoroughly. Lots, if not all, of the story lines tied up nicely and satisfactorily at the conclusion. I think everyone is relieved Lochlan was revived and survived the poisoning. I think the Schwartzenegger kid did a great job and was perfectly cast, though you can’t help but assume the benefits of having that name on the cast wasn’t lost on the producer.
It’s Monday morning in the Alps and I’m drinking a sacrilegious cup of instant coffee. The season is a week away from being over, so it’s an interesting time to be here, with the ski shops embarked on a campaign of boot cleaning, ski maintenance and closed for longer lunch times (12:30-3:30!). Which reminds me of the final kick in the cojenes lost luggage part of the story : we finally get the call yesterday that they want to deliver the luggage and they will be arriving in an hour and a half. This is a huge ski place with 3 valleys and mountains connected so weren’t going to be able to get back in an hour so we call the ski shop next door and ask if they will accept the luggage, and they say sure - however, the luggage is set to arrive at 1, and they close FOR 3 HOURS FOR LUNCH EVERYDAY. OMG, the French, gotta love them.
