You, too, can save $197,999,812 by buying the Flint, Michigan home, instead of the Beverly Hills Palazzo d'Amore.
Photo: Wikimapia

Disparity between the rich and poor has always existed"?uKings vs peasants, landowners vs serfs, slave owners vs slaves. On this score, today's wealthiest are going for the gold, or as Warren Buffett said, "There's been class warfare going on for the last 20 years, and my class has won." Ha!

The number of billionaires worldwide has more than doubled since the 2009 financial crisis. According to Forbes, in March 2009, there were 793 billionaires; in March 2014, there were 1,645.

Research from Oxfam International in early 2014 reports the 85 richest people in the world have as much wealth as the poorest half of the global population. From March 2013 to March 2014, Oxfam states the wealth of those 85 richest rose a further 14 per cent ($244 billion).

Oxfam, formed in 1995, is an international confederation of 17 organizations working together with partners and local communities in more than 90 countries. Oxfam vision is "a just world without poverty."

In that vein, we learn the week of Nov. 3, about this year's record-breaking, shameless listing for a U.S. home: $195 million. The Beverly Hills estate, pretentiously named "Palazzo d'Amore'"?uone thinks of Horace Rumpole's wry description of his modest London lodgings ("mansion flat 25-B Froxbury Court")"?ulies on 25 acres. That acreage includes a vineyard producing 400-500 cases of wine annually; a 3,000-bottle wine cellar; 53,000 sq. ft. home (12 bedrooms, 23 bathrooms"?uapparently a "his' and "her' bathroom for each room) with vaulted ceilings and inlaid marble floors; a 5,000 sq. ft. master suite (larger than the entirety of most homes); 15,000 sq. ft. entertainment complex; two-lane bowling alley and game room; lighted tennis court; walk-in refrigerator; 27-car garage (one must park one's fleet of luxury vehicles somewhere); guesthouse; formal gardens; and, of course, a spa and 128-foot long reflecting pool.

Russian mining tycoon Vladimir Potanin's $95,000 purchase of a 4-lb. white truffle seems an appropriate appetizer at chez "Amore'.

Juxtaposed at the other end of the spectrum to this unabashed, grotesque listing is a home in Flint, Michigan listed the same week for the bargain basement price of $188. This "fixer-upper with fire damage," "Taudis Brûlé' ("burned out hovel"), is a classy nod to the first European to explore Michigan, one Étienne Brûlé!

This decidedly modest1,225 sq. ft. dwelling, built in 1928 when many Americans were hungrier and considerably thinner, somehow manages to partition the home into three bedrooms and a single bath. It sits on a 5,663 square foot lot, just slightly larger than the Beverly Hills master bedroom.

It's a long journey from Flint, Michigan to Beverly Hills, Calif. (2,281 miles), but the economic disparities are even greater, or, as they say in Beverly Hills: "Let them eat truffles."