BryanM wrote:On another dimension it is a display of snooty affluence as well. The money could have gone to buying a hungry kid a sandwich, if not stimulating the hooker and cocaine markets. But it goes to hidden pirate treasure that does nothing for nobody. Analogous to burying a mummy in a sarcophagus in your back yard. Except not as cool. It's just another sink for a massive surplus of currency.
As a bit of an aside, there are a lot of food eateries that serve a similar function. A place where you can spend $10 on a cold sandwich that hasn't even been passed through a toaster, the California Pizza Place where you can spend $12 on a tiny pie that normally would cost $3.50, that isn't any better than Little Freakin' Caesar's... The appeal of these places isn't the quality or cost efficiency of the food, it's that they don't have any poor people that eat there.
