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The Titanic will sail again, and this time she will not sink, according to a man who could pay for La Caja’s public health care system in Costa Rica for the next 6 years or so.
Clive Palmer is an Australian magnate whose net worth is estimated at $5.05 billion, according to some financial media circles. Considering that the official exchange rate Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of Costa Rica was $40 billion in 2011 (according to the CIA World Factbook), Mr. Palmer’s net worth is 12 percent of Costa Rica’s GDP.
Mr. Palmer’s wealth mainly comes from mining operations. His Mineralogy mining company in Western Australia is set to extract, with the help of Chinese firms, more than 100 billion tons of iron ore used in steel production. He also owns a professional football team in China and is interested in luxury tourism, hence his Titanic II project.
According to an article in the Winnipeg Free Press, Mr. Palmer’s announcement of the project is very timely. The world is knee-deep in Titanic fever, with James Cameron’s epic melodrama re-released on stereoscopic 3D format for screening at IMAX theaters in several countries. Titanic 3D was released in tandem with the observance of the 100th anniversary of the tragedy, and when it arrived in Costa Rica last month it was well-received.
Mr. Palmer mentioned that Titanic II, the faithful replica of her predecessor, “will be every bit as luxurious as the original Titanic but of course it will have state-of-the-art 21st century technology and the latest navigation and safety systems.” The maiden voyage of Titanic II from Southampton in England across the Atlantic to New York will also be recreated, and this time she will make it, assured Mr. Palmer.
One would think that this is a flight of fancy or a pipe dream for a man who has already regaled his daughter with a $5 million yacht -on her 15th birthday, or who gifted his staff of more than 50 with brand-new Mercedes Benz sedans. Titanic II is also a clever and spectacular marketing ploy for his Blue Star Line of luxury cruises and resorts.
Mr. Palmer is just the latest quixotic project coming from the mega-rich. A previous article in The Costa Rica Star looked at director James Cameron’s voyage to the Mariana Trench, the deepest manned submarine dive ever accomplished, and how that dive has prompted a wave of underwater tourism for the rich and famous. Then there’s the asteroid mining project proposed by Mr. Cameron and other billionaires, like Google’s Larry Page and Eric Schmidt, who brings to mind the fantastic plot of the film Armageddon. And what about the launch of the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon capsule, scheduled to launch and dock with the International Space Station next week? That’s the work of billionaire Elon Musk, whose PayPal and Tesla Motors projects have paid well.
With such ambitious and extraordinary projects undertaken by billionaires these days, one can spend all day questioning their reasons, motives or value and still come up with the same answer: because they can, and they have enough money to pursuit such projects. It is important to them in some level, just like it has been important for Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates to dedicate a major portion of his fortune and effort into reducing the number of new HIV infections in developing regions of the world.
