.floatimg-left-hort { float:left; } .floatimg-left-caption-hort { float:left; margin-bottom:10px; width:300px; margin-right:10px; clear:left;} .floatimg-left-vert { float:left; margin-top:10px; margin-right:15px; width:200px;} .floatimg-left-caption-vert { float:left; margin-right:10px; margin-bottom:10px; font-size: 12px; width:200px;} .floatimg-right-hort { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 300px;} .floatimg-right-caption-hort { float:left; margin-right:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 300px; font-size: 12px; } .floatimg-right-vert { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 200px;} .floatimg-right-caption-vert { float:left; margin-right:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 200px; font-size: 12px; } .floatimgright-sidebar { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 200px; border-top-style: double; border-top-color: black; border-bottom-style: double; border-bottom-color: black;} .floatimgright-sidebar p { line-height: 115%; text-indent: 10px; } .floatimgright-sidebar h4 { font-variant:small-caps; } .pullquote { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 150px; background: url(http://www.dmbusinessdaily.com/DAILY/editorial/extras/closequote.gif) no-repeat bottom right !important ; line-height: 150%; font-size: 125%; border-top: 1px solid; border-bottom: 1px solid;} .floatvidleft { float:left; margin-bottom:10px; width:325px; margin-right:10px; clear:left;} .floatvidright { float:right; margin-bottom:10px; width:325px; margin-right:10px; clear:left;} Dear Mr. Berko:

Dear B.E.:

I think I know the guy; he used to be a turf accountant, looks like Newt Gingrich with a ponytail and has a smile that can melt the heart of Ebenezer Scrooge. But my friend Duncan Hines, who made his fortune in the baked beans business and is now an art and food connoisseur, is stone-ginger certain that (Your Guy) was born on the day that the United States had a conscience shortage.

Did you know that (Your Guy) will buy a piece of art, put down 50 percent of the purchase price and borrow the remaining 50 percent from a bank? Are you willing to sign loan documents in which the interest cost can exceed 18 percent, and on which you will pay a storage and insurance fee of 3 percent of per year? And did you know that you will be billed quarterly for these costs?

Did you know that Your Guy will take a 7 percent commission (up front) on the art purchases plus a 7 percent to 12 percent commission when the art is sold? I also suspect that Your Guy is in cahoots with several dealers who will give him cash under the table when the partnership purchases or sells a piece of art, though this is not in the prospectus.

And did you know that Your Guy has a 1999 felony conviction in Texas for a limited partnership scam to buy oil-producing properties? And did you know that Your Guy is a defendant in a Texas lawsuit wherein he allegedly snookered two banks in a large real estate loan? Of course you didn’t, because if you did, I wouldn’t be responding to your enthusiastic letter.

The art market makes no economic sense and contributes little to the economy that is worthy of mention except a supernumerary of sybarites. Values are purely subjective, nonsensical and often based upon a buyer’s knowledge that there’s a relationship between price and esteem. The more a buyer pays for a piece of art, the higher he will be held in esteem by the foofy, fawning, champagne and cocaine glitterati who are an integral part of this weird art circus.

Art becomes an ego thing. Andy Warhol’s silly “200 One Dollar Bills,” which is without artistic value, was originally bought in 1963 for $3,000. In 1982, it was purchased for $385,000, and last November some idiot who badly needed his limp ego patronized paid nearly $44 million for that abomination. I can’t imagine one valid economic reason why that “thing” fetched so much. Holy catfish, if Warhol were alive today, he would turn over in his grave. I know a guy who can reproduce Warhol’s “200 One Dollar Bills” so very nearly perfectly that not a soul at Sotheby’s could tell the difference. Does this make a reproduction worth $44 million? He can also duplicate a Chagall so well that not even Marc himself could tell which is the original.

One of Chagall’s paintings was thought to be on display at a prestigious museum in Europe. The stuffy museum folks were told it might be a reproduction when an identical painting was discovered in France. So these connoisseurs had their Chagall and the reproduction dissected under a microscope to discover that they owned the original. Does this make the reproduction worth millions, too?

The New York, San Francisco, London and Paris art world is full of debauched, dissipated dipsomaniacs whose drug-infested body parts aren’t worth a dime on the organ replacement market. Your Guy is part of this profligate crowd. Your Guy would steal the wax from his mother’s ears if he thought it could be sold at a profit.

Frankly, you’ll sooner find a rooster warming an egg than make a profit in the art market with Your Guy. Good, trusting mooks like you never make money in the art market; you are basically the necessary pawns in the game. The real money is made by the cabal of dealers and dilettantes who know that value is a function of taste. And they are also the people who define taste for dorks who fork over $44 million for 200 One Dollar Bills.

Please address your financial questions to Malcolm Berko, P.O. Box 8303, Largo, Fla. 33775 or e-mail him at mjberko@yahoo.com. © 2010 Creators.Com