Last week, Russia’s Vladimir Putin and Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan signed a number of agreements. One of these was Turkey’s signing onto the South Stream Pipeline. Oddly enough, the American press been silent on this serious reverse to U.S. efforts to bypass Russia as the main energy supplier of Central Asian gas and oil.

However, the U.S. press mentions daily something about the upcoming Afghan elections as if this was an important event. Elections are important only to people who believe in democracy. Some of the foreigners residing or fighting in Afghanistan may have democratic inclinations but they don’t vote. The situation in this unhappy country before, during and after the election will remain the same.

So what do we have? Important news are neglected, non-events go front page. It must be August, a month good for sunstroke in the Northern Hemisphere.

This week, the irreverent author and Asia Times commentator, Pepe Escobar is avoiding sunstroke by staying in the shade of the super-rich in Saint Tropez to give us a gleaming view of the practitioners of Jihad Bling Bling. (http://atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/KH14Aa01.html )

What? Me worry? Economic crisis? A perfectly chilled glass of blanc de blanc, some sea urchins served on deck of a mega yacht, discretely anchored offshore cannot be interrupted by news of the unwashed or unwashed news.

In short, I have discovered a niche market. Tomorrow I will open a news laundering service. What? Bummer! My assistant tells me it’s already being done.

Well, back to yachts.

In a bar in Cabo San Lucas, a retired yuppie winner of the dot com boom, told me of an interesting discovery he’d made a few days earlier.

In the same bar, he had met a man who invited him for a drink aboard his yacht. As it turned out the yacht was a 22-foot sailboat. The host did not know the yuppie owned a fifty-foot boat and extolled the virtues of his little tub, which he had sailed from Seattle. He had bought the boat at an auction and paid fifteen hundred dollars. The yuppie paid half a million for his and had sailed from San Francisco.

Same as the fifty footer, the little tub had bunks to sleep on, a galley to cook, a table to eat from and a toilet. What struck the yuppie, they sailed the same sea, saw the same sights, got the same pleasures at incredibly different costs.

If you feel billionaire envy, hire a rowboat, bring a baguette, cheese, olives and a bottle of wine. Be glad the billios are on their yachts, it leaves them with less time to screw up the world.