Free Republic
Browse · Search
Bloggers & Personal
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

The 10 most decadent dictators
Times of London ^ | 09/05/08

Posted on 09/06/2008 12:41:49 PM PDT by TigerLikesRooster

The 10 most decadent dictators

A revolving gold statue, pink champagne and a "Pleasure Brigade" of nubile retainers all feature in Times Money's list of history's most decadent dictators. While their people suffered, these men - and sometimes their wives and children - agonised over how best to spend their ill-gotten gains...

1. Kim Jong-il, "Dear Leader" of North Korea since 1994. The son of the communist state's "Great Leader" Kim Il-sung, Kim Jong-il has super-expensive tastes, with 17 palaces, and collections of hundreds of cars and around 20,000 video tapes. On one state visit to Russia, he reportedly had live lobsters airlifted daily to his armoured private train. He is believed to spend around $650,000 a year on Hennessy VSOP cognac and maintains an entourage of young lovelies known as the "Pleasure Brigade"

2. Ferdinand Marcos, President of the Philippines, 1965 - 1986. The Second World freedom-fighter turned kleptocrat secreted billions of dollars in overseas accounts. His wife Imelda, however, was the big spender, leaving 888 handbags and 1060 pairs of shoes in the Malacanang presidential palace when the family fled mob justice after Marcos was deposed. Her pricier purchases included the $51 million Crown Building and $61 million Herald Centre in New York and art by Michelangelo and Botticelli

3. Nicolae Ceausescu, President of Romania, 1967 - 1989. The "Geniul din Carpati", or Genius of the Carpathians, was congratulated (by telegram) by Salvador Dali on his excesses, which included his use of a kingly sceptre. Despite an official salary of just $3,000, he found the cash for 15 palaces, a superb car collection, yachts, fine art and bespoke suits. Tens of thousands of homes were demolished to make space for his 1,100-room, 480-chandelier Palace of the Parliament in the capital, Bucharest

(Excerpt) Read more at timesbusiness.typepad.com ...


TOPICS: Politics; Weird Stuff
KEYWORDS: arugula; dictators; geopolitics; greed; personalitycult; tyrants; vanity
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-37 last
To: dfwgator

“The Last King of Scotland” was pure fiction. Even the principal characters were only loosely based on real people. Every deed shown therein is made up. Especially the way the hero is sneaked out with the Entebbe hostages.

It got the mood of the times and the basic character of ol’ Idi about right. But all the specific misdeeds were fictituous.


21 posted on 09/06/2008 1:24:50 PM PDT by sinanju
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 17 | View Replies]

To: DariusBane

No wonder, it’s in La-La land. Hollywood, California.

http://www.onlocation.com/displayimage.php?searchtype=blueid&blueid=1662


22 posted on 09/06/2008 1:24:53 PM PDT by TheThirdRuffian (Bomb, Bomb. Bomb! Bomb bomb Iran! Bomb. Bomb. Bomb! Bomb bomb Iran!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 10 | View Replies]

To: TheThirdRuffian

Ah! Thanks!


23 posted on 09/06/2008 1:30:46 PM PDT by null and void (Sarah Palin might be more conservative than even John McCain ~ Megyn Kelly, Fox News 9/2/08)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 20 | View Replies]

To: null and void
Les nouveaux riches equate glitz with luxury. Criminals, chiselers, and similar low-class types who suddenly come into money yearn to displaytheir wealth to their neighbors; as with most pimps, Mugabe's taste runs to Modern Whorehouse.

It takes years of careful education (or centuries of careful breeding) to produce a mind capable of recognizing elegance — the idea that less = more. Lacking that education in esthetics, taste is likewise absent; to the vulgar, more = more. This fact of human behavior explains not only those dictatorial palaces decorated à la mode Saddam, but the decal-covered "race cars" and brick-veneer mini-mansions that Americans buy as well. Every owner of one of those Celotex crapboxes one sees in suburbia would decorate just like Mugabe if they had his money; like Tevye, they would prefer to live in a house with "one long staircase just going up, one even longer going down, and one more leading nowhere just for show".

Those with true class know better. The richest people I know (and I know a few) live in circumstances that the average person might consider plain, or even shabby. Few drive new cars; few wear trendy clothes. Instead, they buy expensive, super-reliable cars, and drive them for years; they buy (or have made) the best clothes money can buy, then wear them until threadbare. Those with true class show their superiority through humility. The superior man lives humbly, and is a servant to all.

Only losers need to brag.

24 posted on 09/06/2008 1:33:24 PM PDT by B-Chan (Catholic. Monarchist. Texan. Any questions?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 8 | View Replies]

To: TigerLikesRooster

Hmmm...Nobama is not on the list yet??


25 posted on 09/06/2008 2:30:48 PM PDT by RightWingTeen (Support FREE education - Homeschool and FREE your kids from SOCIALISM!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: RightWingTeen

If elected, he may be well on his way.


26 posted on 09/06/2008 2:32:41 PM PDT by TigerLikesRooster (kim jong-il, chia head, ppogri, In Grim Reaper we trust)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 25 | View Replies]

To: null and void

Jeez, Papa Doc of Haiti didn’t even get an honorable mention.


27 posted on 09/06/2008 2:35:36 PM PDT by Tijeras_Slim
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: John123
May I present Idi Amin... biggest freakin' moron in history...

Thou B. Hussien Obama, might give him a run for the honor.

28 posted on 09/06/2008 2:41:44 PM PDT by RightWingTeen (Support FREE education - Homeschool and FREE your kids from SOCIALISM!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 16 | View Replies]

To: lonestar67

Not the worst ones; the ones with the worst taste.


29 posted on 09/06/2008 2:58:54 PM PDT by GAB-1955 (Kicking and Screaming into the Kingdom of Heaven!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: TigerLikesRooster

Sorry, the Shah doesn’t belong on that list. He wasn’t a dictator and he genuinely wanted to modernize and better Iran and the people.


30 posted on 09/06/2008 3:51:27 PM PDT by nuconvert (Obama - Preferred by 4 out of 5 Dictators & Terrorists// Biden= Big,Blowhard Doofus)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: nuconvert
I believe Iran would have been better off if Pahlavi stayed on. He was indeed pushing for modernizing Iran, his authoritarian rule not withstanding.

I bet Tudeh and Mojaheddin Khalq would have been still around, staging regular riots. Most of socialist intellectuals of Iran would be still at home, not in exile in Europe, bitching about U.S. :-)

31 posted on 09/06/2008 4:30:56 PM PDT by TigerLikesRooster (kim jong-il, chia head, ppogri, In Grim Reaper we trust)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 30 | View Replies]

To: BigEdLB

ROR! (raf out roud)


32 posted on 09/06/2008 4:36:24 PM PDT by papasmurf (I ain't your Daddy's Conservative, OK?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 15 | View Replies]

To: nuconvert

I agree. I have many Persian friends, have known them for many years. The loved the Shah. Told me stories of how he was “sneaking” Democracy into Iran, and the improvements in the daily lives of his Countrymen.

A fine line, he had to tote, no doubt. But, one that he, in the end, miscalculated.


33 posted on 09/06/2008 4:46:40 PM PDT by papasmurf (I ain't your Daddy's Conservative, OK?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 30 | View Replies]

To: TigerLikesRooster

Should have Tiberius on that list.


34 posted on 09/06/2008 5:15:20 PM PDT by Beowulf9
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: TigerLikesRooster
Rumor has it that Mao lived a fairly comfy life during his 25 (or so) year long “presidency”.
35 posted on 09/06/2008 6:28:39 PM PDT by Gay State Conservative (Obama:"Ich bin ein beginner")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: B-Chan

I always thought “The Sopranos” did a fantastic job of showing the nouveau-riche/criminal “aesthetic” you talk about. The houses, the furnishings, the clothes, the jewelry, all support the theme of “money doesn’t buy taste” without beating the viewer over the head with it. In one early episode the educated and law-abiding Dr. Melfi shyly admits to her family that she likes Murano glass. I liked how that brief scene highlighted the very complicated social and ideological meanings behind how one decorates her house.


36 posted on 09/06/2008 7:29:31 PM PDT by sassbox
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 24 | View Replies]

To: TigerLikesRooster; DAVEY CROCKETT; Velveeta; Calpernia; PGalt

A very interesting thread.


37 posted on 09/07/2008 4:30:51 AM PDT by nw_arizona_granny ( http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/1990507/posts?page=451 SURVIVAL, RECIPES, GARDENS, & INFO)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-37 last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
Bloggers & Personal
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson