In Miami Herald’s online edition today there was an article by Hanna Sampson about the new ship Epic (image courtesy of Miami Herald), which came to Miami port today. It is a so called superliner, one of less than a handful biggest cruise ships 
in the industry. I am sure this is a very impressive vessel, offering in addition to what other cruise ship offer, an ice bar, cabins for solo travelers and performances by the hip Blue Man Group.
You can go to the article and read about all the innovations on the ship, and the expectations that the cruise line and Miami in general are excited about.
What struck me was the price tag - $1.2 Billion.
I know that’s a lot of money, even though I have difficult time imagining that much money. (Can you?). Of course, I could think of how many certain things one can buy for that much money and how many wonderful things you can do with this money, but I was told to compare apples to apples, and I tried.
Just recently I read about the most expensive private yacht in the world (image courtesy of www.worldinterestingfacts.com), which, of course, happened to belong to a Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich. It also has a price tag of $1.2 Billion. It will not have performances by the hip Blue Man Group, but I doubt that Abramovich’s 11 guests would really miss it.
A 560 feet Eclipse requires a 70+ crew members, it is protected by security systems that use laser bursts to thwart paparazzi digital photography, anti wiretapping, anti intruder systems and – watch this - missile detection systems among other cool features like 2 helicopter pads and two submarines. Sounds like a perfect vacation place for Mr. Putin, a 'friend' of Mr. Abramovich.
All oligarchs are not equal. You need to know what to say and what not to say. That’s why one oligarch, Mr. Abramovich has a $1.2 Bil Eclipse, and Mr. Khodorkovsky has a small jail cell. 
He thought that if he had money, he could talk trash? The government did not think so and for a decade now Mr. Khodorkovsky is learning Russian etiquette…How to talk to Mr. Putin... Of course, Mr Putin told the world it was not political. Yep, not any more... Now, as they keep stripping the guy of everything he ever had, it is purely economical...
But why the heck the missile detection system?
Oh, yeah… Mr. Putin has missiles… Are 'friends' included?
You gotta be careful if you are an oligarch. You can’t Eclipse some important people… thay might like to be in the shadow, but never Eclipsed...Usually these are the same people who have missiles...
I am so lucky I am not an oligarch. That missile detection is so darn expensive…
P.S. Reread the post, what the heck... started like an nice article about a cruise ship ... and then I digress so badly...
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