BigGameHunt.net Hunting Forums

[expatriate]

Yep, in increasing parts of the country it isn't the people's land -- it's Ted's land.

[bitmasher]

This land is not my land!
This land is not your land!
This land is Ted's land!
This land was not made for you and me!

Come on now Everybody, sing along (except Ted)!!! 1-2-3!

This land is not my land!
This land is not your land!
This land is Ted's land!
This land was not made for you and me!

[expatriate]

Lots of people know Ted Turner made his money in the media, but folks out west know his favorite industry is mining. That's mine...that's mine...that's mine...

I know what some of you folks are saying about guides, and that's another reason I don't put Ted in that category. If you pay $13K to take a bull elk on Ted's property, I doubt Ted will help you find it or haul it out for you. But frankly, I think he'd get more business if he did. It might be worth $13K to be able to tell Ted Turner to quarter and haul your elk for you. I think I'd pay double that if he'd get Hanoi Jane to do it -- in fact, if that were an option I don't think there's enough elk in New Mexico to accomodate the Vietnam vets that would sign up for that action.

[ This Message was edited by: expatriate on 2002-11-07 16:28 ]

[bitmasher]

Who is Hanoi Jane?

So just to stir things up a bit. What's wrong with Ted owning all this land? He earned the money, he bought the land. Should there be limits to the amount of land one person can hold? If so, under what circumstances, should those limits be enforced?

I'm not saying that I agree with Ted or even support him, but his vast land holdings are a product of his success at capitalism.

[expatriate]

Bitmasher, I think you just dated yourself by asking about Hanoi Jane.

Jane Fonda was one of the Vietnam War's most ardent opponents. That in itself isn't bad. However, during the war she made a trip to North Vietnam, where she met with communist officials and military leaders, held press conferences, "interviewed" American POWs, toured alleged bombing sites, and made a series of propaganda broadcasts -- all the while badmouthing our country, castigating our military, calling the president criminal, etc. There's some rather famous pictures out there of Jane Fonda at the controls of a North Vietnamese antiaircraft gun, peering through the gunsight. People who've done this type of thing in other wars (Tokyo Rose, Axis Sally, Taliban John) were prosecuted. But not Jane Fonda. It's been awhile, but I've been in places where stickers of "Hanoi Jane" looking through that gunsight were stuck inside urinals.

[bitmasher]

I see. A quick search on google turned up this if you would like to relive some by gone days.

http://www.geocities.com/fateymike/jane.html

Taking this into light, perhaps Ted needs these vast holdings to keep his wife from getting bumped off.

I also now have a better understanding of the resentment of Ted too...

[bitmasher]

Upon further thought, I'm really suprised that Jane was not arrested upon returning to the states. In the other 3 cases you highlight (2 of which I needed to research) the person was brought back into the states for trial and all did not go over during war time.

Here is a site claiming to have a recording of Axis Sally:

http://users.rlc.net/catfish/l.....0Sally.htm

[expatriate]

To Ted's credit, he did divorce her. To his further credit, he must've had a heck of a pre-nup, 'cause you didn't hear anything about Jane getting half his assets.

But back to the issue, you raise a good point about the fact that there's really not anything we can do about a guy that's wildly successful in business and can afford to buy huge tracts of land. About the only avenue to address it is environmentalists complaining about miles of fences blocking migration paths.

But as I said before -- attempts to grab choice public land puts things into a whole new category. Makes me wonder what voice the public has in the process when proposals are made to trade off public land.

[ This Message was edited by: expatriate on 2002-11-07 22:47 ]

[bitmasher]

Quote:
About the only avenue to address it is environmentalists complaining about miles of fences blocking migration paths.


It will be a sad day when the bickering is left to the enviro's and the ultra-rich.

In bygone years, the tycoons idiot offspring after a few generations blow the loot on lavishily uneventful lives. So have faith, in time Ted's wealth will blow into the dirt from whence it came. Although admittedly it might not be in my lifetime.

Certainly in the short run the government shouldn't be trading land with him.

[expatriate]

Now THAT's a scary thought...the evil spawn of Ted and Jane loose with $5 billion, 1.8 million acres, and no sense of moral direction or responsibility. Thank goodness they married late in life and didn't have children.

[ This Message was edited by: expatriate on 2002-11-07 23:06 ]

[bitmasher]

There are Turner children though...

I got a kick out of this:
http://abcnews.go.com/reference/bios/turner.html

Maybe we can all ask Ted to give us a good half million acres or so. Threaten that we are going to start a french revolution if he doesn't comply.

Hey Cob you still around man? We are way off topic! :wink:

[cob]

yeah, i'm still around. I didn't check the board last night and there were 9 posts to this subject. Yes, yall are off topic. The subject is rich hunters, not rich ***holes.
bitmasher, you're right, he "earned" his money and he can do whatever he wants with it, but as long as he's not giving any of it to me and what he's doing with it costs me money, i'm going to get pissed off and talk bad about him on the internet and what he's doing is immoral.

[expatriate]

Good point, Cob.

Here's a thread Bitmasher might enjoy. Everyone knows that in 1997 Ted gave $1 billion to the UN to go for programs like refugees, cleaning up land mines, diseases, etc. What most people don't realize is that the gift actually consisted of $100 million in Time Warner stock per year over ten years.

Here's the source: http://www.cnn.com/US/9709/18/turner.gift/

So we have to assume that the UN cashes out the stock each year. Otherwise, according to the math the UN now owns at least half a billion dollars in Time Warner stock. A cynical person might think that the right global policies could create crises that would boost ratings at CNN and increase the stock value of a media giant like Time Warner. This in turn would make more money available for dealing with the refugees, land mines, diseases, etc caused by the crises.

So was it a gift, or an investment? Any chimp can see the potential in this one, wouldn't you agree, Bit?

By the way, note that most UN sanctions are applied against countries that don't have affordable cable.

[ This Message was edited by: expatriate on 2002-11-08 22:00 ]

[bitmasher]

Intriguing post. Honestly it is hard to say, since there is little in the article that discusses what roll Ted will play in governing how the money is used ("Only UN causes" is vague). Certainly if the money is not used for humanitarian aid, but rather vote buying money (in favor of strong action against Iraq) on the recent security council vote (Russia sure changed their tune didn't they? Perhaps a little discussion between various countries looking the other way in chenya and georgia in a yet to be known future planned offensive? I'm being serious on this one...) there can be little doubt that it is a shrewd investment. CNN's ratings soar in times of crisis.

There is another portion of this article that is interesting. Ted said the gift had a net present value of $600,000 (this sounds fishy). So did he give a one time donation of (what is now AOL Time Warner) stock in trust then project future share price growth would result in a 10 year $1,000,000,000 donation (to be dispersed annually)? If he did then there is more to the story. Review this link:

http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=A.....on&z=m&q=l

Reviewing the history of the stock, at the time it does certainly look like the "gift" would result in a 1 billion donation, given its previous growth curve. And for the first few years it meeted and exceeded those projections. However (ignoring splits, i'll explain in a minute) and drawing a line between the current value and 1997, it does not appear that the stock will meet the performance projection necessary to be a $1 billion gift.

If you count splits, that the trust in question would keep the value of the split rather than half being returned to Turner, then clearly it has kept and made projections (and way exceeded). However, since Turner has not come out trumpeting his 1 billion is worth considerably more, it is probably safe to assume that the trust is not keeping the split value.

The upshot of this rambling? The billion isn't a billion, gifts of stock and future projections are a little bogus. Furthermore considering the dead weight AOL has become the stock could go much lower.

Of course, siting the larry king interview mentioning an estatic Jane upon hearing the "donation" news, perhaps at the time their sex life was on the rocks, and Ted simply needed a way to get the "romance" going again. Too bad diamonds aren't this girl's best friend...

Cob, sorry, he baited me (THAT'S NOT FAIR CHASE!) and I bit, perhaps this thread should just be called "Ted Turner"....

Regarding chimps, some shouldn't be given keyboards even if they are capable of abstract thought.

[ This Message was edited by: bitmasher on 2002-11-08 22:47 ]

[cob]

I used to work with a guy that would go crazy over this. He hates ted with a passion, not because of hunting but because of what he did to TV. "The founding fathers of tv would roll over in their graves if they knew how much teddy was charging americans for cable" his payback is hacking satellites. That was one of his jobs in the military so it comes easy. him and several people that i worked with there have every channel direct tv offers for free. If anybody has seen this done its not that hard to buy a card burner and download everything you need off the internet but this guy was more serious than that. He got me (i'm a computer programmer) and a mathmetician to help him with this one project and he built a $9000 computer to run this software i helped write to break these codes on the cards. anyway, this guy's pretty much a nut job but its not just hunters that don't care for teddy.