> When, in 2015, police raided the properties of Ronald Belciano, a Philadelphia drug lord, they found paintings by Renoir, Picasso, and Salvador Dalí, most of them held in a nearby storage locker. The man, it would seem, had little interest in actually looking at the works he’d acquired.
To go to that trouble and then not to bother enjoying your Renoir and Dali paintings... that hurts my heart.
For a lot of people who transact in art, actually looking at the art is not at all the point of the exercise. Speculation on the art is the whole point. These things are effectively fanciful, convoluted, tax-dodging securities instruments, with only the most cursory nod to the appreciation of art.
Which, y'know, is awfully reminiscent of something else in recent memory...
One of my most interesting memories when visiting Geneva as a tourist a few years back was travelling in a public transport bus near the city's freeport, one of the biggest (if not the biggest) in the world. I was asking myself while on that public bus about how many masterpieces might be stored in the anonymous depot-like building I was seeing through the bus's window. A special kind of Louvre or Kunsthistorisches Museum, if you will.
Basically, either you wish to enjoy the artwork alone, then you have to pay taxes, or you wish to hide it from taxes, then you have to share it with the general public.
This is true, societies could choose to be less free. Alternatively, societies could choose to be more free.
I would rather my society be more free than it currently is, rather than less free.
In this phrase, “someone” are only million/billionaires (1%) and “something” is avoid taxes on a niche, speculation on art.
Not sure how that is much of a freedom to be honest.
Billions (TV show) depicts how these freeports work as well, exactly like you’ve explained. Absolutely disgusting that these loopholes exist…
Note: I find that when examples like these are used, you always get comments saying “Anyone can use a freeport” and “They have perfectly legal usecases”.
One fun thing about The Broad (pronounced "Brode") in Los Angeles is that you can peek into the storage and restoration area where the staff is often moving pieces of the collection around for cleaning and so on.
The movie Tenet has some fun with the freeport idea:
Edit: BTW I recommend reading Priceless [0] by Robert K. Wittman [1]
[0] https://www.amazon.com/Priceless-Undercover-Rescue-Worlds-Tr...