Stolen Picasso Recovered

Buste de Femme

A portrait stolen from a yacht moored at Antibes in 1999 has been recovered by Dutch art theft specialist Arthur Brand, according to this article and this one. The picture is said to be of Picasso muse Dora Maar,  was painted in 1938 and is estimated to have a value of $25 million.

Stolen art, especially valuable, well-known works, have a function in the criminal world but their very value makes them a problem for whomever has them in their possession. Brand has become the go-to guy to arrange transfers between the anonymous keeper and insurance companies with an interest in the work, as previously detailed here.

The Costs of Elections, and Investigatiions

The figures haven't been finalized but it's estimated that the cost to taxpayers of the Mueller investigation into Trump-Russian collusion prior to the 2016 presidential election will be in the range of $32 million to $35 million. After all, the process took almost 2 years, making the expense roughly $1.5 million a month. 

An article in the San Diego Union-Tribune states that the Russian state media agency, Russia Today, spent as much as $247,000 on Twitter during the run-up to the election. Facebook admits that it sold about $100,000 in ads to a Russian "troll farm", starting as early as the summer of 2015.

According to an article in TechCrunch.com:

 Russian information troll farm the Internet Research Agency spent just 0.05 percent as much on Facebook ads as Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump’s campaigns combined in the run-up to the 2016 U.S. presidential election, yet still reached a massive audience. While there might have been other Russian disinformation groups, the IRA spent $46,000 on pre-election day Facebook ads compared to $81 million spent by Clinton and Trump together, discluding political action committees who could have spent even more than that on the campaigns’ behalf.

Saving Water With Plastic

The answer to the dearth of fresh water is plastic toilets. It's also the answer to the enormous expense of updating America's crumbling sub-terranean sewer infrastructure. Instead of digging up and replacing plugged and rusted pipe, simply abandon it and place a plastic toilet outside every home and business in the country. Of course, that will mean that further millions of gallons of fresh water will be available, perhaps flooding low-lying areas and filling basements. Just the same, much water will be saved and building owners won't be faced with the expense of sophisticated bathrooms. The money can be spent on special access features for the handicapped instead.

Big Bucks For Blue Cross Boss

The non-profit Michigan health insurer Blue Cross Blue Shield paid CEO Daniel Loepp a salary of $1.5 million in 2018, according to this article in the Detroit Free Press. While substantial compensation for someone that doesn't face a rising fastball with men on base in the course of his work day, performance incentives raised Mr. Loepp's income by another $16.2 million and he also received $1.4 million in payment for automobile transportation and life insurance. The total of checks written to Mr. Loepp, likely to be from an account made up of premiums paid by Michigan residents worried about contracting serious diseases, comes to $19.2 million for the year.

 

It's a little difficult to imagine what, exactly, Mr. Loepp, an employee, not an owner, can be doing to earn what amounts to $9600 per hour on a normal annual basis. After all, there's nothing particularly novel in the insurance business. It's not like inventing a new treatment for cancer. 

Magritte Painting Auctioned For £18,366,250.

Belgian artist Rene Magritte's 1964 painting "Le lieu commun" was auctioned at Christie's London "The Art of the Surreal" sale on the evening of February 27 for the equivalent of $24,266,958.80.

Three other Magrittes were sold during the evening.

 Le grande guerre

 L'homme au chapeau melon

Les fils de l'homme