Posted by guest , May 21, 2008 12:13PM

Collectivism lives on! Confiscate all the money of these Greenwich residents and give it to the poor. These are the people who give other people who are hardworking and rich a bad name.

If the Russian guy was paying all the money legally, why on earth should he not be able to build ANY kind of house that he wants to?

And if not, then why should those other guys be allowed to live in multi-million dollar homes when people cannot afford their mortgages? These are the most shamless people of all time!

Posted by guest , May 21, 2008 12:18PM

Why can't he build any house he wants and can afford? Because hes not on an island. We all have to look at whatever he builds. Thats why there are zoning regs. If you don't like it, tote out your libertarian motives and move to Houston, which is a very unpleasant place, in large part because of a lack of zoning regs.

Posted by guest , May 21, 2008 1:05PM

I always thought Houston was so unpleasant because of the heat, humidity, proximity to millions of Texans, and the occasional hurricane. Let me know when zoning fixes those things.

Posted by guest , May 21, 2008 1:06PM

guest@12:13pm,

ALL Russian business is criminal enterprise. No one should be foolish enough to think otherwise.

That black-leather-jacket wearing, unshaven, grungy-looking Russian "businessman" who is trying to build that monstrosity is still just another goon for Russian global crime.

Posted by guest , May 21, 2008 1:53PM

Dude, I did not come across from gawker but I like the immense hypocrisy here. I have always defended less regulation etc but it is people like these (and the responders above) who hand the socialists their case for redistribution and collectivism. These are the people who try to 'privatize profits and socialize the losses.'

The Russian dude wasn't exactly building a scy-scraper in Greenwich or setting up an oil refinery. It was an obscenely large and lavish mansion (palace?). Is that new to Greenwich? And his zoning permit had also been legally approved.

The viewpoints are no different from those of the 90-yr old hippies in the
city who will not let anyone build something new in the place of run-down decrepit 150 yr old buildings in the name of god know what (I should now, there is an abandoned one lying around for the last 15 years down my block.)

Yes. Go Obama. Go Hillary. Go Patterson. Jack up property rates in the People's Republic of New York for all houses about 5000 sq ft to triple. After all, these people dont exactly 'live in an island' and it is inconscionable that they enjot 10<x<19 toilets when poor people in the ghetto have none.

And @1:06, if his money is derived off of crime - then indict him for money laudering / tax evasion / whatever else. What does that have to do with his housing permit? And you are the one who actually sounds like the gawker crowd - who classify all earnings of hedge fund and pe manager to crimes against humanity. And also berate Schwazmann's wealth and Blankfein's crib. Seems like everything comes around in a full circle!

Posted by guest , May 21, 2008 2:02PM

I thought Russians urinated in their yard so the pigs and chickens had something to eat. Maybe the toilets were to direct the feces to a part of the yard.

Go Borat!!

Posted by guest , May 21, 2008 2:04PM

God butts out his cigarettes in Houston. Or Athens. It depends on what side of the planet he's on at the time.

Posted by guest , May 21, 2008 3:56PM

Anal_yst@1:35pm,

The@1:06pm poster here.

The 12:13/1:53 philosopher is surely confusing reality with Karl Marx's Treatise on Capitalism.

Definately a d-e-m-o-c-r-a-t.