The Seyfarth Country Residence, one of the most beautiful homes in Glencoe was featured on Chicago Tonight, in a story about “The Growing Gap” (WTTW video here) in income in the Chicago Area. The Arts and Crafts Style home, on the market for $4.75 Million, was touted by a real estate broker interviewed by Chicago Tonight’s Elizabeth Brackett, as “sure to sell in the next few months”, and trumpeted as evidence as stated by Phil Ponce that the “Super rich doing better than ever”.

Working with the Landmarks Preservation Council of Illinois, I had evaluated the Seyfarth House, and for what my architectural opinion is worth, declared it a very good building, but hard to economically justify in the battered housing market. The Seyfarth House has been on the market for around 4 years now, with no takers. There has been debate in Glencoe about making it into a community house, a historic museum, an architectural showcase, or just tearing it down, and starting over with the large lot. The house, while certainly beautiful, is an economic White Elephant.

None of the actual facts about the Seyfarth house, seemed to matter much to Elizabeth Brackett in her wild claims about high end real estate, nor in her other observations of wealth distribution in Chicago. After few interviews with sales people at luxury stores, Brackett declared “the market is in great shape. Luxury goods selling well.” Of course Wal Mart just reported a huge increase in sales per store, as people shift from luxury to utilitarian goods, but numbers bedeviled the story, so Brackett went with her own observations, and those of a few professors who backed up the feeling that (surprise!) there are some rich people in Chicago and offered some not very surprising observations.

Dean Susan Mayer of the Harris School of Public Policy at the University of Chicago thought “We need the checks and balances through regulation so the rich avoid being in positions rules of rest of society don’t apply to them” Surely that is the solution, with just a bit more regulation, Sam Zell would empty his pockets and give all his wealth to the poor, then realize that he must follow the rules that Susan Mayer has determined for him.

Paradoxically, Dean Mayer points to “the subprime loan crisis, decisions made by top managers in banking and finance that have hurt thousands of middle class Americans” which is mind boggling. Dumping assets with an equity value below zero has been a great relief to these “thousands of middle class Americans”. The laws are fairly forgiving. You can walk away from a significant debt, just by handing the keys back to the bank. But while this offers downside protection to homeowner, the crisis has also caused the loss of 99% of the equity value at Bear Stearns, for example, wiping out the investment bankers at the very top 1% that this rather odd story sets out to demonize.

In a most inflammatory statement Brackett warned “The civic participation of many of Chicago’s wealthy elite today may temper anger towards the very rich here. ” Yes, Elizabeth Brackett has Chicagoans in The Struggle where noble plumbers are eternally mad at the plutocrats over their relative wealth. But perhaps sponsoring the Lyric Opera (or WTTW) would assuage anger of the musical plumbers. Brackett didn’t actually find an angry plumber, or even a greedy hotel baron to interview. Be be alarmed: WTTW says we are in The Struggle.

But Dean Mayer thought the rich can only hold back the masses for so long by sponsoring the Opera stating “We can sustain inequality if people do feel they have a chance to get ahead. Very unhappy very dissillusioned with the government very disilusioned with the rich and we will see some backlash from it”.

Professor John Koval of DePaul felt a bit better about the benevolent rich. (In Chicago the) “Wealthy identify with the community. Enrich the public life. It is Heartwarming to go to Milenium Park. Funded by private income, but that does not effect peoples lives in terms of what they put on their table, it does not effect their lives in terms of their mortgage payment.” So sorry , rich guys, your benevolence is not enough for Prof. Koval, you need to provide food and housing as well for those Koval deems worthy.

Professor Harris summed up the old solution that her comrades generally conjure up: “Government tax policies that benefit the super rich and fail to redistribute wealth” So if we only taxed the rich a bit more, Harris has it that the poor would no longer be an issue. While Harris is numerically dead wrong on income tax: no one in their right mind thinks that taxing only the rich is a benefit to the rich, she may have stumbled upon a point. Is it the purpose of the government to redistribute wealth? Does government tend to take from the rich to give to the politically connected, never actually doing much good for the poor anyway? Don’t the middle class give away a large proportion of their wealth? Would creating more economic wealth through capitalist enterprise be more valuable to the poor than a shiny sculpture of a bean in Grant Park?

WTTW brought very little new nor balance to this discussion. The unasked questions remain just that, while the ridiculous sniping and threats tossed at those declared by our media and academics as the undeserving wealthy have a happy home on Channel 11.